[5] During the fur-trade era (roughly 1750–1840), the size and location of Dakota encampments like the one at Inyan Ceyaka varied according to a yearly cycle.
Men hunted and trapped fur-bearing animals, while women retrieved food stores they had cached during the summer.
Forty meters from the lodge area was a community dump where the villagers discarded plant and animal remains, ash, and other trash.
[6] Documentary and archaeological research suggests that the village included a dance area—a smooth, dry semi-circle surrounded by a low earthen embankment.
Mazomani ("Walking Iron"), a spokesman of the Wahpeton in the early nineteenth century, was a well-known leader of the Medicine Lodge.
His leadership of the lodge, coupled with archaeological evidence, suggests that medicine dances were held at Inyan Ceyaka during the summer.
[3] The first known person of European descent to visit Inyan Ceyaka was Jean-Baptiste Faribault, though he may have been preceded by trader Archibald John Campbell.
[3] In the 1830s, the Wahpeton leaders Wanaksante ("Rebounding Iron") and Kinyan ("Red Eagle"), along with Mazomani, met with indian agent Lawrence Taliaferro.
They expressed interest in practicing more intensive agriculture at the summer village site and asked for seeds, plows, and the construction of a corn mill.