Mato-tope

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Mato-tope
Catlin Chief Four Bears.jpg
Mah-to-toh-pe by George Catlin
Bornc. 1784
Died(1837-07-30)July 30, 1837
OccupationChief of the Mandan tribe
Mato-tope holding a lance and wearing painted and quilled shirt: aquatint by Karl Bodmer from the book "Maximilian, Prince of Wied's Travels in the Interior of North America, during the years 1832-1834". The shirt is made of "bighorn leather". Karl Bodmer Travels in America (46).jpg
Mato-tope holding a lance and wearing painted and quilled shirt: aquatint by Karl Bodmer from the book "Maximilian, Prince of Wied’s Travels in the Interior of North America, during the years 1832–1834". The shirt is made of "bighorn leather".
Mato-Tope, Adorned with the insignia of his warlike deeds.: aquatint by Karl Bodmer from the book "Maximilian, Prince of Wied's Travels in the Interior of North America, during the years 1832-1834". The six sticks in his hair represent killing six men with a gun and the wooden knife represents he killed a Cheyenne chief with a knife. The split turkey feather is said to stand for an arrow wound. The hand on Four Bears' torso may indicate that he once seized an enemy for his comrades to kill. Karl Bodmer Travels in America (47).jpg
Mato-Tope, Adorned with the insignia of his warlike deeds.: aquatint by Karl Bodmer from the book "Maximilian, Prince of Wied’s Travels in the Interior of North America, during the years 1832–1834". The six sticks in his hair represent killing six men with a gun and the wooden knife represents he killed a Cheyenne chief with a knife. The split turkey feather is said to stand for an arrow wound. The hand on Four Bears' torso may indicate that he once seized an enemy for his comrades to kill.
Facsimile of the Robe of Mah-to-toh-pa - Mandan by George Catlin showing Mato-Tope victories Facsimile of the Robe of Mah-to-toh-pa - Mandan C16952 (cut).jpg
Facsimile of the Robe of Mah-to-toh-pa - Mandan by George Catlin showing Mato-Tope victories
Karl Bodmer facsimile of ledger art showing Four Bears (at left) in a duel with a Cheyenne chief. The hand wound of the knife entitled him to pose with a wooden knife, as seen on the pictures of Catlin and Bodmer. The realistic work of both artists inspired Four Bears to make this true-to-life drawing of his feat. Karl Bodmer Travels in America (55).jpg
Karl Bodmer facsimile of ledger art showing Four Bears (at left) in a duel with a Cheyenne chief. The hand wound of the knife entitled him to pose with a wooden knife, as seen on the pictures of Catlin and Bodmer. The realistic work of both artists inspired Four Bears to make this true-to-life drawing of his feat.

Mato-tope (also known as Ma-to-toh-pe or Four Bears, from mato "bear" and tope "four") (c. 1784 [6] - July 30, 1837) was the second chief of the Mandan tribe to be known as "Four Bears," a name he earned after charging the Assiniboine tribe during battle with the strength of four bears. Four Bears lived in the first half of the 19th century on the upper Missouri River in what is now North Dakota. Four Bears was a favorite subject of artists, painted by George Catlin and Karl Bodmer.

Contents

Early years

Four Bears grew up in an earth lodge in the Mandan village On-a-Slant Village. His father, Good Boy (or Handsome Child), [7] was the village chief. [8] Later the family lived in Mitutanka further north, founded about 1822, [9] possibly by Good Boy. [10]

The warrior

Around 1830 the trading post Fort Clark was built less than 600 ft. (150 m) south of Mitutanka. [11] At that time, Four Bears was a brave warrior among his people, famous for killing a Cheyenne chief in hand-to-hand combat. [12] Besides the Cheyenne, Four Bears fought the Sioux, the Arikara, and the Assiniboine and once he killed two Ojibway women. [13] The daring revenge upon the actual killer of his younger brother was still a topic among the Mandans in the early 1930s. Four Bears had learned the identity of the Arikara warrior, Bear Necklace, through fast and "self-torture" under an oak tree with a raven nest. [14]

Catlin secured a robe recounting Four Bears' deeds in 1832, now preserved in the United States National Museum. [15] Another robe of Four Bears collected by Catlin is on display at the Upper Musselshell Museum in Harlowton, Montana. [16]

The next to bring home a robe of Four Bears showing warrior exploits was Prince Maximilian zu Wied. This robe is in Linden Museum, Stuttgart, Germany. [17] [18] While other leading men were sturdy and tall, Maximilian described the ever-successful warrior Four Bears as a bit slim and only of average height. [19] Four Bears' good fortune on the warpath came in part from a sacred bundle containing a rainbow-decorated robe. [20]

The public figure

Four Bears had an important "People Above bundle", one of five among the Mandans. [21] Twice he sponsored the most fundamental ceremony of his tribe, the Okipa. [22] Belonging to the elite of Mitutanka, he lived in an earth lodge across from the ceremonial lodge, with its doorway out to the plaza. [23]

Four Bears was often painted by artist George Catlin; Catlin held Four Bears in very high regard, saying that he was a man of liberty, generosity and elegance. Catlin stated that he was one of the most extraordinary Indians he had ever known. [24]

Family

Mandan Chief Bad Gun, son of Mandan Chief Four Bears Mandan Chief Bad Gun (Rushing-After-The-Eagle).jpg
Mandan Chief Bad Gun, son of Mandan Chief Four Bears

Four Bears' wife was Brown Woman. [25] The couple had an unclear number of children. A daughter is known as Earth Woman. [26] When Maximilian, accompanied by Karl Bodmer, arrived at Fort Clark on November 13, 1833, Four Bears greeted them together "with his wife and a pretty little boy", The Male Bear. [27] This could be an early name for a boy born in 1829, later in life known as Bad Gun, or it may be a brother of his.

Bad Gun (or Rushing After The Eagle) lived on after the 1837 scourge. [28] Eventually he became a chief in the common Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara settlement Like a Fishhook Village, largely because of his outstanding father. [29]

[30]

Visiting the guests from Europe

Four Bears became friends with artist Karl Bodmer in 1833. [31] He spent time teaching Maximilian his own language and the very different Arikara tongue, which he spoke fluently. [32] He became chief in the year 1836.

The death of Four Bears

The 1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic wiped out most of Four Bears' tribe, leaving 27 (or by some accounts 100 to 150) survivors out of a former population of around 2,000. [33] He died on July 30, 1837, after suffering from smallpox, brought to his tribe by whites. "One of our best friend of the Village (The Four Bears) died to day, regretted by all who Knew him", wrote the manager of Fort Clark, Francis A. Chardon. [34] Before his own death, he lost his wife [35] and maybe some children to the disease. (However, during his study of the Hidatsa in the 1930s, Alfred W. Bowers learned that the Hidatsa Guts married the widow of Four Bears and looked after his son.) [36] As recorded in Four Bears' last speech to the Arikara and Hidatsa (two neighboring tribes) he denounced the white man, whom he had previously treated as a brother, for deliberately bringing the disease to his people. [37] He lamented that in death his scarred face would be so ugly even the wolves would turn away from him. [38] His exhortation to wage war on the whites was found with the journal of Chardon. [39] If the speech accurately "... represents his [Four Bears'] words is hard to say. Chardon ... could not have been present to hear it ...". [40] Many believed that he died of smallpox, but George Catlin claimed that he starved himself to death out of grief from the death of his family.

Smallpox wiped out more than 80 percent of the Mandan population in only a few months, and they were not the only tribe to suffer from the disease.

A descendant is Edward Lone Fight Chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation (Three Affiliated Tribes) from 1986 to 1990

Honoring Four Bears

Along with a Hidatsa chief of the same name, Four Bears is honored with Four Bears Bridge and Four Bears' Casino and Lodge.

A mountain in Glacier National Park is named after the chief, though spelled differently as Mahtotopa Mountain.

Related Research Articles

The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, also known as the Three Affiliated Tribes, is a Native American Nation resulting from the alliance of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara peoples, whose native lands ranged across the Missouri River basin extending from present day North Dakota through western Montana and Wyoming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arikara War</span>

The Arikara War was an armed conflict between the United States, their allies from the Sioux tribe and Arikara Native Americans that took place in the summer of 1823, along the Missouri River in present-day South Dakota. It was the first Indian war west of the Missouri fought by the U.S. Army and its only conflict ever with the Arikara. The war came as a response to an Arikara attack on trappers, called "the worst disaster in the history of the Western fur trade".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied</span> German ethnologist (1782-1867)

Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied was a German explorer, ethnologist and naturalist. He led a pioneering expedition to southeast Brazil between 1815 and 1817, from which the album Reise nach Brasilien, which first revealed to Europe real images of Brazilian Indians, was the ultimate result. It was translated into several languages and recognized as one of the greatest contributions to the knowledge of Brazil at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1832 he embarked on another expedition, this time to the United States, together with the Swiss painter Karl Bodmer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hidatsa</span> Native American ethnic group

The Hidatsa are a Siouan people. They are enrolled in the federally recognized Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Their language is related to that of the Crow, and they are sometimes considered a parent tribe to the modern Crow in Montana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arikara</span> Ethnic group

Arikara, also known as Sahnish, Arikaree, Ree, or Hundi, are a tribe of Native Americans in North Dakota. Today, they are enrolled with the Mandan and the Hidatsa as the federally recognized tribe known as the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.

Mandan is an extinct Siouan language of North Dakota in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mandan</span> Native American tribe of the Great Plains

The Mandan are a Native American tribe of the Great Plains who have lived for centuries primarily in what is now North Dakota. They are enrolled in the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation. About half of the Mandan still reside in the area of the reservation; the rest reside around the United States and in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Mandan</span> American frontier fort used by Lewis & Clark

Fort Mandan was the name of the encampment which the Lewis and Clark Expedition built for wintering over in 1804–1805. The encampment was located on the Missouri River approximately twelve miles (19 km) from the site of present-day Washburn, North Dakota, which developed later. The precise location is not known for certain. It is believed now to be under the water of the river. A replica of the fort has been constructed near the original site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Abraham Lincoln</span> North Dakota state park

Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park is a North Dakota state park located 7 miles (11 km) south of Mandan, North Dakota, United States. The park is home to the replica Mandan On-A-Slant Indian Village and reconstructed military buildings including the Custer House.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site</span> National Historic Site of the United States in North Dakota

The Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, which was established in 1974, preserves the historic and archaeological remnants of bands of Hidatsa, Northern Plains Indians, in North Dakota. This area was a major trading and agricultural area. Three villages were known to occupy the Knife area. In general, these three villages are known as Hidatsa villages. Broken down, the individual villages are Awatixa Xi'e, Awatixa and Big Hidatsa village. Awatixa Xi'e is believed to be the oldest village of the three. The Big Hidatsa village was established around 1600.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Berthold Indian Reservation</span> Indian reservation in the United States

The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation is a U.S. Indian reservation in western North Dakota that is home for the federally recognized Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, also known as the Three Affiliated Tribes. The reservation includes lands on both sides of the Missouri River. The tribal headquarters is in New Town, the 18th largest city in North Dakota.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Like-a-Fishhook Village</span> Former settlement in North Dakota, United States

Like-a-Fishhook Village was a Native American settlement next to Fort Berthold in North Dakota, United States, established by dissident bands of the Three Affiliated Tribes, the Mandan, Arikara and Hidatsa. Formed in 1845, it was also eventually inhabited by non-Indian traders, and became important in the trade between Natives and non-Natives in the region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earth lodge</span> Semi-subterranean building

An earth lodge is a semi-subterranean building covered partially or completely with earth, best known from the Native American cultures of the Great Plains and Eastern Woodlands. Most earth lodges are circular in construction with a dome-like roof, often with a central or slightly offset smoke hole at the apex of the dome. Earth lodges are well-known from the more-sedentary tribes of the Plains such as the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara, but they have also been identified archaeologically among sites of the Mississippian culture in the eastern United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Dakota Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Clark Trading Post State Historic Site</span> State historic site of North Dakota, United States

Fort Clark Trading Post State Historic Site was once the home to a Mandan and later an Arikara settlement. Over the course of its history it also had two factories. Today only archeological remains survive at the site located eight miles west of Washburn, North Dakota, United States.

The 1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic spanned 1836 through 1840 but reached its height after the spring of 1837, when an American Fur Company steamboat, the SS St. Peter, carried infected people and supplies up the Missouri River in the Midwestern United States. The disease spread rapidly to indigenous populations with no natural immunity, causing widespread illness and death across the Great Plains, especially in the Upper Missouri River watershed. More than 17,000 Indigenous people died along the Missouri River alone, with some bands becoming nearly extinct.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burial tree</span> Tree or simple structure used for supporting corpses

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The Great Plains Indian trading networks encountered by the first Europeans on the Great Plains were built on a number of trading centers acting as hubs in an advanced system of exchange over great distances. The primary centers were found at the villages of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara, with a surplus of agricultural produce that could be exchanged. Secondary centers were found at the villages of the Pawnee, Kansa, and Osage on the central plains, and at the Caddo villages on the southern plains. The Dakota rendezvous was an important annual trading fair among the Sioux. European demand for fur changed the relations of the plains, increased the occurrence of war, and displaced several Indian nations that were forced away by the Sioux coming from the east. On the northern plains, European trade lay in the hands of the Hudson's Bay Company, although most of the territory belonged to France, and later Spain. European trade on the central plains was controlled by French merchants, first from New Orleans, later from St. Louis. From the mid-1700s', the Comanche became an increasingly important military and commercial factor on the southern plains, forcing the Apaches into the mountains, and exchanging goods and spoils with the Southwestern trading networks hubs in New Mexico.

References

  1. ↑ Maximilian zu Wied, Prince: People of the First Man. Life Among the Plains Indians in Their Final Days of Glory. The Firsthand Account of Prince Maximilian's Expedition up the Missouri River, 1833-34. New York, 1976, p. 202.
  2. ↑ Maximilian zu Wied, Prince: People of the First Man. Life Among the Plains Indians in Their Final Days of Glory. The Firsthand Account of Prince Maximilian's Expedition up the Missouri River, 1833-34. New York, 1976, p. 192.
  3. ↑ Bowers, Alfred W.: Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization. Moscow, 1991, p. 73.
  4. ↑ Bowers, Alfred W.: Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization. Moscow, 1991, p. 74.
  5. ↑ Ewers, John C.: "Early White Influence Upon Plains Indian Painting". Indian Life on the Upper Missouri. Norman and London, 1988, pp. 98-109.
  6. ↑ Libby, Orin G.: Bad Gun (Rushing-After-The-Eagle). Collections of the State Historical Society of North Dakota, Vol. 2 (1908), pp. 465-470, p. 465.
  7. ↑ Ewers, John C.: "Early White Influence Upon Plains Indian Painting". Indian Life on the Upper Missouri. Norman and London, 1988, p. 103.
  8. ↑ Bowers, Alfred W.: Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization. Moscow, 1991, p. 34.
  9. ↑ Wood, Raymond W.: Integrating Ethnohistory and Archaeology at Fort Clark Historic Site, North Dakota. American Antiquity, Vol. 58, No. 3 (1993), pp. 544-559, p. 544.
  10. ↑ Libby, Orin G.: Bad Gun (Rushing-After-The-Eagle). Collections of the State Historical Society of North Dakota, Vol. 2 (1908), pp. 465-470, p. 465.
  11. ↑ Wood, Raymond W.: Integrating Ethnohistory and Archaeology at Fort Clark Historic Site, North Dakota. American Antiquity, Vol. 58, No. 3 (1993), pp. 544-559, p. 545.
  12. ↑ Ewers, John C.: "Early White Influence Upon Plains Indian Painting". Indian Life on the Upper Missouri. Norman and London, 1988, p. 105.
  13. ↑ Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 87.
  14. ↑ Bowers, Alfred W.: Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization. Moscow, 1991, pp. 70 and 166-167.
  15. ↑ McCune Collection
  16. ↑ Ewers, John C.: "Early White Influence Upon Plains Indian Painting". Indian Life on the Upper Missouri. Norman and London, 1988, pp. 104-105.
  17. ↑ Maximilian zu Wied, Prince: People of the First Man. Life Among the Plains Indians in Their Final Days of Glory. The Firsthand Account of Prince Maximilian's Expedition up the Missouri River, 1833-34. New York, 1976, p. 220.
  18. ↑ Bodmer
  19. ↑ Maximilian zu Wied, Prince: People of the First Man. Life Among the Plains Indians in Their Final Days of Glory. The Firsthand Account of Prince Maximilian's Expedition up the Missouri River, 1833-34. New York, 1976, p. 34.
  20. ↑ Bowers, Alfred W.: Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization. Moscow, 1991, p. 34, note 5.
  21. ↑ Bowers, Alfred W.: Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization. Moscow, 1991, p. 296.
  22. ↑ Bowers, Alfred W.: Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization. Moscow, 1991, p. 123.
  23. ↑ Wood, Raymond W.: Integrating Ethnohistory and Archaeology at Fort Clark Historic Site, North Dakota. American Antiquity, Vol. 58, No. 3 (1993), pp. 544-559, p. 551.
  24. ↑ Fronval, George (1985). Indian Signals and Sign Language. Bonanza Books. p. 75. ISBN   0-517-466120.
  25. ↑ Libby, Orin G.: Bad Gun (Rushing-After-The-Eagle). Collections of the State Historical Society of North Dakota, Vol. 2 (1908), pp. 465-470, p. 465.
  26. ↑ Chardon, F. A.: Chardon's Journal at Fort Clark, 1834-1839. (Edited by Annie Heloise Abel). Lincoln and London, 1997, p. 215, note 60.
  27. ↑ Maximilian zu Wied, Prince: People of the First Man. Life Among the Plains Indians in Their Final Days of Glory. The Firsthand Account of Prince Maximilian's Expedition up the Missouri River, 1833-34. New York, 1976, p. 177.
  28. ↑ Libby, Orin G.: Bad Gun (Rushing-After-The-Eagle). Collections of the State Historical Society of North Dakota, Vol. 2 (1908), pp. 465-470.
  29. ↑ Bowers, Alfred W.: Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization. Moscow, 1991, p. 34.
  30. ↑ The North Dakota Center for Distance Education. "Contemporary Tribal Leaders, 1968-Present", "The History and Culture of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Sahnish." Accessed August 23, 2018.
  31. ↑ Ewers, John C.: "Early White Influence Upon Plains Indian Painting". Indian Life on the Upper Missouri. Norman and London, 1988, pp. 98-109.
  32. ↑ Maximilian zu Wied, Prince: People of the First Man. Life Among the Plains Indians in Their Final Days of Glory. The Firsthand Account of Prince Maximilian's Expedition up the Missouri River, 1833-34. New York, 1976, p. 198.
  33. ↑ Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 97.
  34. ↑ Chardon, F. A.: Chardon's Journal at Fort Clark, 1834-1839. (Edited by Annie Heloise Abel). Lincoln and London, 1997, p. 124.
  35. ↑ Libby, Orin G.: Bad Gun (Rushing-After-The-Eagle). Collections of the State Historical Society of North Dakota, Vol. 2 (1908), p. 465.
  36. ↑ Bowers, Alfred W.: Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization. Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology. Bulletin 194. Washington, 1965, p. 237, note 29.
  37. ↑ Robert Blaisdell ed., Great Speeches by Native Americans, p. 116.
  38. ↑ Chardon, F. A.: Chardon's Journal at Fort Clark, 1834-1839. (Edited by Annie Heloise Abel). Lincoln and London, 1997, p. 124-125.
  39. ↑ Chardon, F. A.: Chardon's Journal at Fort Clark, 1834-1839. (Edited by Annie Heloise Abel). Lincoln and London, 1997, p. 316, note 486.
  40. ↑ Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 94.
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