Encounters at the heart of the world : a history of the Mandan people
"A book that radically changes our understanding of North America before and after the arrival of Europeans Encounters at the Heart of the World concerns the Mandan Indians, iconic Plains people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were for centuries at the center of the North American universe. We know of them mostly because Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 with them, but why don't we know more? Who were they really? In this extraordinary book, Elizabeth A. Fenn retrieves their history by piecing together important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science. Her boldly original interpretation of these diverse research findings offers us a new perspective on early American history, a new interpretation of the American past. By 1500, more than twelve thousand Mandans were established on the northern Plains, and their commercial prowess, agricultural skills, and reputation for hospitality became famous. Recent archaeological discoveries show how they thrived, and then how they collapsed. The damage wrought by imported diseases like smallpox and the havoc caused by the arrival of horses and steamboats were tragic for the Mandans, yet, as Fenn makes clear, their sense of themselves as a people with distinctive traditions endured. A riveting account of Mandan history, landscapes, and people, Fenn's narrative is enriched and enlivened not only by science and research but by her own encounters at the heart of the world"-- Provided by publisher
Print Book, English, 2014
First edition View all formats and editions
Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2014
History
xix, 456 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
9780809042395, 9780374535117, 0809042398, 0374535116
846545690
Discovering the heart of the world
Migrations: The making of the Mandan people
Contacts: Villages and newcomers
Earthwork: The substance of daily life
Connections: Sustained European contact begins
Inventions and reinventions
Customs: The spirits of daily life
Upheavals: Eighteenth-century transformations
Scourge: The smallpox of 1781
At the heart of many worlds
Convergences: Forces beyond the horizon
Hosts: The Mandans receive Lewis and Clark
Corn: The fuel of Plains commerce
New adversities
Sheheke: The metamorphosis of a chief
Reorientation: The United States and the Upper Missouri
Visitations: Rats, steamboats, and the Sioux
Decimation: "The smallpox has broke out."