Like-a-Fishhook Village

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.

The numbers of the dissident Mandan in the region had been reduced to approximately 125; the population of the Hidatsa was also affected, though not as severely.

The site of Like-a-Fishhook Village was lost when the construction of Garrison Dam flooded the area to create Lake Sakakawea in 1954.

[10] The village founders prepared for building round, dome shaped earth lodges with an inner frame of wood during the autumn.

[18] The medicine lodge was usually detectable by its size and flat façade,[19] but a visitor described the one in Like-a-Fishhook Village as being "round".

[25] Occupied by the better part of the Mandan and the Hidatsa, Like-a-Fishhook Village held more people than any of the nearest white towns.

Henry A. Boller, a young fur trader, noted how the panes of glass in Four Bears' residence broke one night.

Suffering severe losses, the Arikara fled across the river and enlarged Like-a-Fishhook Village with a new, northern district.

Assisting Surgeon Washington Matthews reports the lodge bordering an open space, which was more or less in form of a square.

Every winter the people moved to temporary quarters in the river bottomland,[34] which were better sheltered against chilly storms.

[35] " ... the Sioux came against our village in the winter time and stole our corn and burned down my father's lodge", remembered Buffalo Bird Woman.

[37] In 1864, Like-a-Fishhook Village got new neighbors with the arrival of armed forces at the former trading post Fort Berthold II.

[39] It was the new center of military power in the Department of Dakota's Middle District, although it lacked the capacity to stop the Sioux's raiding.

[42] Like-a-Fishhook Village was now 20 years old and a burying ground with scaffolds to the dead, called open-air tombs,[43] lay behind it.

[44] However, the Arikara buried their dead in the ground (as some Hidatsa families also preferred),[45] and the custom was increasingly adopted by the two other tribes.

The Hidatsa rebels Bobtail Bull, Crow Flies High and their followers left and built new log cabins and earth lodges near the military post Fort Buford.

His orders from General Phil Sheridan said "The Rees [Arikara] and Mandans should be protected same as white settlers".

A blacksmith, a doctor and the Indian Agent lived in Fort Berthold Agency a mile and a half away along with other newcomers.

George Catlin - The Last Race, Mandan O-kee-pa Ceremony - Google Art Project. The village Indians on the Upper Missouri lived in towns of earth lodges
Big-Hidatsa. Aerial view of the old Hidatsa village named Big Hidatsa at Knife River. Each depression shows the site of an earth lodge. Lack of timber and attacks by the Sioux forced the Hidatsa to build a new village at Like a Fishhook Bend.
Winter village of the Manitaries (Hidatsa) in Dakota Territory, 1833 - NARA - 530977. An earth lodge in a winter village was small and only used a few months a year. Some times the village was swept away by the Missouri in the spring rise.
Traders store Ft. Berthold. (Native and Euro-Americans at the trading post at Fort Berthold Agency.), by Haynes, F. Jay (Frank Jay), 1853–1921. Henry A. Boller reported that the most common purchases were coffee, sugar, tea, candy and dried fruit.
Arikara, Hidatsa and Mandan 1851 treaty territory. (Area 529, 620 and 621 south of the Missouri)
Arikara, Hidatsa and Mandan Indian territory, 1851. Like-a-Fishhook Village, Fort Berthold I and II and military post Fort Buford, North Dakota. The village was outside the treaty territory.
Fort Buford. The two Hidatsa "rebels", Bobtail Bull and Crow Flies High, made a new Hidatsa village not far from the military post Fort Buford.
Hidatsa Chief and rebel Crow Flies High