ARIKARA

'Arikara' (also Sahnish, Arikaree, Ree) refers to a group of Native Americans that speak a Caddoan language. They were a semi-nomadic group that lived on the plains of South Dakota for several hundred years. They lived in earth lodges primarily and tipis while traveling from their villages and were an agricultural society. Their primary crop was corn (or maize), and it was such an important aspect of their society that it was often referred to as "Mother Corn."
The Arikara moved from South Dakota into North Dakota, now on the Fort Berthold reservation.
Their culture was decimated by small pox in the late 1830s, and due to their reduced numbers, started to work closer to the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes who lived in the same area. Today the three tribes are still associated closely together and are known as the Three Affiliated Tribes.
During the Black Hills War, Arikaras served as scouts for Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer during the Little Bighorn Campaign.
Arikara is now spoken in North Dakota by a very few elders. Arikara is very close to the Pawnee language, but they are not mutually intelligible.

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See also

Bibliography

See also

★ Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation

★ Arikara War
The Arikara were among the first people to successfully move to the Dakota Missouri river area and utilize the bison as a food source. They did not live in tipis, execept in certain circumstances. They originated in what is now central Missouri, and were essentially a Woodlands culture. They were hunters of the lowland river fauna, but their ecomomy centered around hunting, gathering, fishing,and espicially horticulture. The archaeology of South Dakota reflects several peoples who attempted to settle and harvest the bison, but nobody stayed for any length of time. When they arrived in the Missouri river area in what is now South Dakota, around 1150 AD, the horse had not been introduced by the Spanish. The Arikara brought their economy with them, focusing on the riverbottoms for sustenance. The homes were semi-subterrianian, dug into the earth about four feet deep, with walls constucted of saplings placed along the perimeter, arched to meet at the center,and excavated earth used to create walls. The houses were warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
Using their Woodlands riverbottom economy, the Arikara established homes and villages from which they could look to the Plains and at the bison
Without the horse they became successful bison hunters. Working from their villages, they intercepted the herds. they hunted by several means: a triangular fence, a funnel where the herd or portions of it were herded into an ever smaller area where the animals were killed by bow or spear. The Arikara also drove the animals over jumps, panicing the herd to run over a cliff. They also set fire to the prairie grasses, creating a new crop of succulent shoots that could be detected by the bison for miles. Once the herd gathered, warriors in prairewolf skins would crawl among the herd and take an animal.

Bibliography

★ Campbell, Lyle. (1997). ''American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America''. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.

★ Mithun, Marianne. (1999). ''The languages of Native North America''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.