Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People

by Elizabeth A. Fenn

Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for History

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 these Native American people 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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Native American, American History, Anthropology, Indigenous, Native Americans

480 pages, Paperback

First published March 11, 2014

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

“In August 1779, two thousand miles south of the Heart River villages, a pestilential eruption created havoc in the Spanish colonial capital of Mexico City. The plague was smallpox, which by early 1780 had killed eighteen thousand residents. Then it was gone – not really gone, but gone elsewhere. ‘Smallpox is a disease with seven-league boots,’ the environmental historian Alfred Crosby has written. The malady travels well. Indeed, the pox travels best during its incubation period – a span of ten, twelve, even fourteen days during which the virus multiples silently inside an infected individual, with no visible sign of what is to come. The disease is not communicable during this period – a relief to be sure. Beyond this, however, what matters is that the person feels fine and moves about, sometimes covering a great deal of ground before the symptoms emerge, at which point the disease is contagious and the plague spreads, infecting new carriers and starting the cycle over again…”
- Elizabeth A. Fenn, Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People

When we think of the great American Indian tribes of the western plains, the Mandan probably do not spring readily to mind. They were not famed horsemen. They did not follow the buffalo. They were not particularly renowned as ferocious warriors. They lack the name recognition of the Lakota and the Comanche, and have been mostly bypassed by Hollywood.

Unlike the more illustrious horse cultures that surrounded them, the Mandan built cities, tended crops, and engaged in trade. They also helped Lewis & Clark on their journey, and were immortalized by the paintings of George Catlin. For centuries they reigned as a central hub of North American life.

In Encounters at the Heart of the World, Elizabeth Fenn retrieves the history of this iconic tribe, from its first beginnings to the height of its prosperity, and from its near-death experience due to smallpox to its survival into the twenty-first century.

***

There is a lot of wonderful substantive material in Encounters at the Heart of the World, yet the most fascinating thing about the book is its structure. It is not your typical, third-person history, but a hybrid of sorts, interspersing bits of memoir and travelogue amid the more standard objective elements. It is also nonlinear, eschewing chronology in favor of a mosaic approach. More specifically, it feels like Fenn wrote her entire story, and then dropped it on the ground from a great height, where it shattered into hundreds of pieces, which she then rearranged without regard to timeline or theme.

Encounters at the Heart of the World comes highly lauded, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015. Despite its garlands, one’s ultimate response rests on accepting Fenn’s storytelling methods. Frankly, I’m not sure it always worked for me, and it sometimes felt like all the hopping around was meant to obscure the fact that there is not enough hard evidence to create a traditional A to Z narrative. At its worst, Fenn’s strategy can feel scattershot and arbitrary. At its best, though, it definitely creates a vibe. When I accepted this, things moved along quite well.

***

Though Encounters at the Heart of the World is far from systematic, it draws on a number of disciplines, including archaeology and anthropology, climatology, and epidemiology. This is necessary, for Mandan history stretches far into the past, long before documentary evidence. In other words, in piecing things together, Fenn cannot rely on journals, diaries, reports, or witness statements. Rather, she has to gather what clues exist, and then fit them into a puzzle that is missing the box.

To her credit, Fenn has done a lot of work, which she shares with copious annotated endnotes, and numerous footnotes complete with citations.

***

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the drunk-in-a-time-machine nature of the proceedings, certain parts of Encounters at the Heart of the World worked better for me than others. For example, Fenn includes interesting discussions on topics such as the construction of the Mandan’s earthen lodges, the growing of corn, the necessity of buffalo dung fires on treeless prairies, and the voracious nature of brown rats, which wreaked havoc on Mandan food supplies.

Really, there’s not a lot here that’s uninteresting, but the idiosyncratic placement of topics sometimes detracts from the presentation.

***

One of the major storylines in Encounters at the Heart of the World is Mandan interactions with Europeans and – later – the westward-pushing United States. First contact actually proved mutually beneficial, as the Mandan found themselves nicely positioned for trade from both the north and south. This brought them horses, firearms, and durable tools.

Unfortunately, it also brought disease, and Fenn devotes a lot of space to lethal smallpox outbreaks in 1781 and 1837. These epidemics caused massive population loss, as well as incalculable psychological damage. This decimation, combined with assaults by the Lakota, ended the Mandan heyday.

***

Books on Native Americans usually focus on the tragical aspects. There is obviously a good reason for this. American Indians suffered catastrophic losses – in terms of life, land, and culture – due to continental imperialism in the nineteenth century. However, this also tends to be reductive, narrowing the Indian experience to their own destruction, and nothing more. It defines tribes negatively, by their defeats, as though nothing more about them is worthy of study.

The Mandan – like just about every other American Indian tribe – suffered due to westward expansion and settlement, depleted food sources and sickness. This is true even though their agony was caused by chiefly by disease, rather than warfare. Nevertheless, while this is part of the Mandan experience, Fenn ensures that it is not all of it.

Throughout Encounters at the Heart of the World, we learn about the tribe today, and the effort to maintain its myths, traditions, and identity. For example, Fenn writes movingly about participating in an elaborate ritual called the Okipa, meant to ensure the well-being of the tribe, reenact Mandan history, and teach the virtue of self-sacrifice for the good of all. Whatever shortcomings I perceived in its organization, this is a worthy tale of endurance, persistence, and resilience in the face of implacable forces and a drastically altered world, and shows the Mandan to be far more than the sum of their losses.

[Reid Holkesvik · Rating 5 out of 5]

I live in South Dakota and my uncle grew up in Bismarck ND and did amateur archaeology there at Mandan sites. I never really new what the story of the Mandans was, who they were, how they came to help Lewis and Clark, and how they pretty much disappeared from history within a few decades. This book takes a mountain, well, a large hill, of scattered historical documents and sources and has turned it into clear narrative which tells what happened. Along the way we meet successful and clever Mandans, Europeans a long way from home either for trade (which always made sense to the Mandans) or just to see and document in words and pictures a fascinating and rapidly changing world. How things changed, what caused that change, from shifting trade patterns to measles, whooping cough and smallpox to Norway rats. Advantages of raiding nomadic tribes like the Lakota, who, for example, didn't have to worry about rats because they had no food stores, are shown without a political or moral agenda. For the most part, this is not a story of good versus evil, noble savage versus corrupting whites, but it explains in a convincing way why things changed so quickly after centuries of relative stability. I learned a lot, and highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about this time.

[Manray9 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth Fenn's book was worthy of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize. She succeeded by combining an appreciation for Mandan culture and an intriguing inter-weaving of her modern-day experiences in North Dakota with archival research and first-hand accounts from those who interacted with the Mandans during their days of prominence and prosperity.

Fenn earned Five Stars from me. Any reader with an interest in the culture and history of an important Native American tribe should read Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Encounters at the Heart of the World is a detailed history of the Mandan people from the Missouri river valley area of North Dakota. This is a tribe that was once a large, thriving people that over time was nearly decimated. They battled natural elements, disease and rodents brought by European traders, and battled area tribes, losing 90% or so of their population. Today they are remembered and their descendants have begun to reignite the customs and ceremonies once celebrated by the Mandan people.

Very interesting look into a tribe that I had not previously heard (or remembered) of. Fenn does an excellent job of providing details about everyday life and the issues the Mandan faced.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books where you understand why it won a prize.

Odds are you've heard of the Mandan people, even if you are not aware of them. Lewis and Clark met them; it's where Sacajawea and her husband joined the group.


Wein's book is a, as she calls it, a mosaic. It is not a linear history, but more of a cultural history. It's fascinating and the parts about the Native Americans and disease are particularly hard to read. The book is not only about the interactions between various Native American groups but also about first encounters. If you have read the works of Mann, check this out.

[Julia Hendon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An impressive feat of research and writing that makes the most of a scattered and diverse set of sources to produce a fascinating history of the Mandan people through the early 1800s. Renowned throughout the Missouri River watershed as traders and farmers, host to Lewis and Clark, and willing to extend cordial relations to all comers as long as they kept the peace, the Mandan were powerful players in the complex social framework of the region. Fenn emphasizes how they saw themselves as at the center of their world, not on a remote frontier as perceived by the French. British, and Americans. She works hard to bring out the Mandan perspective as they tried to come to terms with the changing world around them.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Packed full of information, to the point that it is probably of little interest to the general reader. Still, a valuable window into the lives of the western Indians. Perhaps this could be read in conjunction with the much more engaging Empire of the Summer Moon, about the very different but partially contemporaneous Comanches.

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book and Fenn's research is amazing. The writing (or perhaps jus the subject matter) can be uneven at times, and the ending seems a bit rushed. -- but with the smallpox epidemic I can see why. Worthy of its Pulitzer Prize

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Encounters in the Heart of the New World covers the known history of the Mandan tribe from first European contact until the mid 19th century. The Mandan lived in villages comprised of impressive earth lodges in present day North Dakota along tributaries of the upper Missouri. They are believed to be distantly related to the Sioux tribes or at least the roots of their language suggest so.

Tragically the Mandan people were decimated by 1837 (from a population of several thousand to only 100 people) due to drought and an outbreak of smallpox. Their population had been
dwindling but the tragic events of 1837 were the coup de grace. Since so few Mandan survived most of the known history is from journals of fur trappers, many explorers such as David Thompson and Lewis and Clark and George Catlin the Indian ethnographer.

The Mandan were traders. Although they had their share of conflicts with the Arikara there were no battles with the U.S. military. The region was not even settled by Europeans until many decades after the Mandan population and their tragic decline.

I would consider this book to be good scholarship but a dry read. Very few personal stories are told since the emphasis is on the Mandan tribe and to a lesser extent the Arikara and Hidatsa. The author made very little effort to describe the natural landscape or the flora and fauna of the region other than to relay instances of the very cold winters and the notable droughts that occurred. This lack of description is a pet peeve of mine with some history books. When describing a people I want to understand their surrounding environment and how they interacted with it and at a minimum be able to visualize it.

I visited the Knife River National Historic Site in 2017. I found the exhibits on the Mandan and Hidatsa at the visitors center and the ranger talks to be more informative than this book. With that said, this book did methodically cover the chronology of the Mandan in this 200 years of recorded history and does contribute to the cannon of Native American history.

[Zachary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deserving winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a model for how to write Indian history. The Mandans were most known for interacting with the Lewis and Clark expedition, and Fenn sets out to tell a longer history of these people who were nearly annihilated by disease in 1837. Since there are so few written sources on the Mandans before the nineteenth century, Fenn writes a history during a time people had previously classified as prehistory. I liked how Fenn is transparent about the archive she uses for this book. For example, she takes the reader through the few European documents that mention the Mandans, the anthropological conclusions about Mandan society, or oral histories...each of which have limitations/problems; all the while explaining what can and cannot be said or reasonably concluded. Fundamentally, Encounters at the Heart of the World is one of the best examples the "New Indian History" that emerged in the 1970s which employs anthropology to write history in the absence of written sources.

A very quick summary of the content of the book is that Mandans lived along the Missouri River and were a sedentary agricultural people situated at the vortex of Plains trade routes. Arrival of fur traders in the 1700s and European goods upset power dynamics in the region and the Mandans, like other Native groups, fought to position themselves to control this trade. The arrival of the horse during this time ultimately put them at disadvantage to their Comanche/Apache rivals.

This is a great book to teach/learn about some common themes in Indian history. Namely, how groups like the Mandans trouble general assumptions we apply to entire regions (e.g. not all Plains Indians depended on the horse), and how Native American history before European contact is dynamic like any other people--as seen through Mandans' shifting survival and political strategies over time.

[Kate Belt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yes, it won the 2015 Pulitzer for history and it paints a valuable anthropological picture of the Mandans, but it was much too long and included too much detail in the chronological telling. Using a thematic approach would have made the book much more readable.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

History is clearly written by the victors, and this lesson was clear even before this book was written - for how many of us had heard of the Mandans this great native tribe that was the engine of agriculture and commerce at the centre of North America? We know of the Sioux, Apache, Blackfoot and Crow - largely through many "Westerns" (movies) - but because the Mandan were largely farmers and traders, and their lives was not "sexy", they never make it to the "big screen" and hence into our imaginations.

That said, Elizabeth Fenn brillantly weaves the remaining threads of Mandan history to tell a story of the great culture that played a Central role in North America's history. I was impressed with their society and the way they bought and sold everything from physical goods to know-how and intellectual property. They were big time capitalists!

Fenn's work is clearly worth of the awards it is now receiving.

Finally and as a portent to all of us, the Mandans were great, but ultimately overcome by "Guns, germs and steel" to quote the title of Jared Diamond's great book. Neigbouring tribes with horses and Western weapons put pressure on their lifestyle, germs (Smallpox, Wooping cough, Cholera and pests (rats) ultimately wiped out 90% of their people, and ultimately the steel of the West caused their anihilation.

This book is a tragic story and an important lesson for us all. Our civilization is strong, but unless we can adapt to a changing world include climate challenges and clashes of civilizations, we too will be in trouble.

[Roger · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave this book three stars because I did learn some things about the Mandan, but overall I found the book too Eurocentric and a weak attempt at truly understanding the Mandan. It was a book about the Mandan culture through a European lens of diseases and epidemics and needed more of a Native American view. There was too much focus on the author’s background of writing about smallpox epidemics in America and it carried over far too much in this book. Overall the book lacked continuity and needed more focus on the oral history of the Mandan (if it exists). I think that if the reader has a background in Native American cultures this book will add pieces to ones knowledge, but if you don't have this background try another book because you will be frustrated (if you want to understand the Mandan culture.)

[Porter Broyles · Rating 2 out of 5]

My review is of the audiobook.

I did not like the narration of this book at all.

The narrator seemed to be speed reading the book. I had to slow the book down to 80% of normal speed to get the narrator to speak at a normal pace.

Unfortunately, this created other problems with the audiobook.

It was untenuable. I unfortunately, I don't think I'll get the physical version of this book. It was probably a decent book, but the narration was bad!

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having lived in rural Kansas, I like reading books about the plains Indians. This book was about the Mandans who lived in South Dakota, and their rituals were very similar to other tribes of the midwest. Fenn gives a good description of the history of the Mandans, and their tragic demise with the encroachment of the white race.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth A. Fenn's Encounters at the Heart of the World shines a light on the Mandan nations. Largely remembered, if at all, as bit players in Lewis and Clark's Western expedition, they've received curiously little coverage from historians compared to other peoples like the Sioux, Cheyenne and Comanche. Fenn meticulously reconstructs their history and culture as much as the relatively limited resources (archaeological findings, interviews and oral histories from Mandan leaders and historians) allows: she shows that they were, in fact, a powerful and cohesive Native culture that positioned itself as a focal point in the Dakotas, where they served as overseers of farming, hunting and regional trade. What, then, happened to them? Fenn shows that the Mandans were decimated over time by largely indirect spillover from European and American colonization: a smallpox epidemic from Mexico ravaged them in the 1780s, while Sioux, Cheyenne and Arinaka (who adopted a more mobile, "nomadic" lifestyle after incorporating horses and firearms from white traders) inflicted heavy casualties on the Mandan through warfare. By the time Lewis and Clark arrived they were already a shadow of what they'd once been; within a few decades after that, the Mandan had been destroyed by further plagues and so marginalized by events that they were subjugated by white Americans with little bloodshed. The only knock against Fenn's book is that she annoyingly places herself and her research efforts in the narrative at times, a tendency in popular history that never fails to annoy me; but this is a minor irritant in what's otherwise a rich, insightful book.

[Keith Lehman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars for the author's writing, but also for the experiences and story of the Mandan people.

[Rishi Garg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Other than acknowledging what was clearly a painstaking research undertaking to document the daily lives and history of the Mandan tribe, I am not sure what the Pulitzer committee sought to recognize here. Perhaps the book is heralded as a model of classical anthropology wherein mundane articles of daily life are counted and similarly mundane rituals are documented. I find the modern history much more compelling - the comprehensive history of the Comanches offered by S.W. Gwynn through the context of their interactions with Texas settles; or the storytelling of Brian Fagan who breathed life into our ancient ancestors in "Cro-Magnon".

This history provided opportunities for such compelling storytelling, such as the matter of the Tribe leaders being invited to the White House during the Jefferson Administration. More of that anecdotal style would have enhanced the read (e.g., Tony Horwitz in "A Voyage Long and Strange"). Otherwise, Ms. Fenn relied on the journals of Lewis & Clark who stayed with the Mandans on their journey west, and which, in a way, undermined her attempt to tell their story organically.

Of my three biggest criticisms, two are both perhaps besides the point. First, there is little to nothing about the history that makes it a story uniquely about the Mandans, as in almost every case, each statement about them is also attached to the Arikaras and Hidatsas. Second, Ms. Fenn's insertion of herself into the history is problematic. She indicates a bicycle trip used to conduct her research but does nothing with that premise - such that it simply disappears from the story. In addition, as previously noted, the value of knowing (facetiously-paraphrased") the number of baskets, stones, or other products gathered by the Mandans, based on original sources of excavation was lost on me.

Third, the Mandans are still with us. The book is written as if they collapsed thousands of years ago and all we can glean is from rudimentary fossils and transcripts. But their history continues today and the lack of any interaction with them to personalize or humanize the narrative was uncomfortable.

The art of storytelling is important to a well-received history; a skill that was missing in this book.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a handful of more current books on Native American history this summer, and this was a particularly good one. I needed to catch up. It turns out that, after I did my exams and while I was writing my dissertation, people kept writing books! Now there are all these new books and I need to catch up. Yikes! Slow down, people. Too many books!
I decided to teach my summer course with one of the other books I read (Great Crossings), though I could have used this one too. It doesn't fit neatly into one particular era though...it would need to be an introductory book. Something to set the tone for the course. This kind of fits with the "Explaining American History Through One People" mini-genre of recent history books. Think Hamalainen, with Comanche Empire and Lakota America. Fenn does a great job demonstrating the centrality of the Mandan. It's funny, even though my whole deal is borderlands, I had sort of fallen into the trap of thinking of this North Dakota community as a peripheral people, without really thinking about how they were kind of the bridge between the Mississippian/Spanish/French/US powers on the Mississippi, and the British trade routes coming down from Hudson's Bay. And a bridge between Rocky Mountain people and the Sioux/Great Lakes people. Crossroads of North America, basically. If you want to teach a continental history from the middle, or a northern borderlands history, this would be a great study to start with.

[Maggie Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Believe it or not, this is another book that is overfilled with footnotes. Still, it was fantastic research on the Mandans,Hidatsas, Arikaras, Yankton Sioux, and a little bit on the Crees, Blackfeet, Crow and a few others. I learned a great deal about the northern end of the Louisiana Purchase, its history before French "ownership", and the eventual acquisition by the US. You just have to read it. It's not hard to read, and I'd be writing another book just based on my description. :) Elizabeth did it much better than I!

[Tim Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

A usually engaging history of the Mandan people, who were significant in the Lewis & Clark expedition, but otherwise forgotten. A full picture appears of the triumphs and travails of the Mandans, from their status as the center of Indian trade in the upper plains, to their ongoing battles with the Lakota Sioux, to their initial friendliness to whites, and their virtual destruction (upwards of 90% died) due to small pox. I could have used fewer travelogues about the author's personal visits to the various Mandan sites -- these didn't add a whole lot to the story.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting and deeply sad bit of history and some impressive research, though I was put off by the structure--almost every page is a new section--and the author's insertion of her somewhat dull travels. (Example: in one two-page section she bikes down a road, and at the end somebody tells her she passed a bison jump without realizing it. She thinks about going back, but doesn't.) I'm surprised this won a Pulitzer, but then again I'm not qualified to judge what academic contribution it may have made.

[Diogenes Grief · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my e-book Oyster version, the story itself ends at the 60% mark. There are 195 digital pages of end notes. Remarkable. A superb work of true scholarship. Little wonder Dr. Fenn earned a Pulitzer this year (2015).

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read about the Mandan people in a book about Lewis and Clark and I wanted to learn more about them. Fenn's engrossing book fit the bill perfectly for me. It's well-structured, meticulously researched, written in an accessible and lively style, lavishly illustrated, and very informative.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written. Extremely interesting.

[Dakota Goodhouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

In March 2014, Dr. Elizabeth Fenn’s seminal work on the history and culture of the Mandan Indians Encounters At The Heart Of The World: A History Of The Mandan People was published. The following year her work won the Pulitzer Prize for History.

Fenn is a historian. Naturally, she meticulously researched the primary resource documents like journals and maps. She isn’t an archaeologist or a geologist, and she’d be the first to tell you, but she immersed herself in the surveys, visited many of the sites first-hand, and then constructed a narrative of her experience of North Dakota making her research a little more personalized with exposition of the modern landscape, and produced an amazing piece of history that is easy to read and follow.

Fenn makes the argument that the Mandan religious practice called the Okipa marks the ascendancy of Mandan identity which reaches back to when the Mandan lived on the north bank of the Cannonball River, near present-day Cannonball, ND. The Okipa, which means “To Make Alike,” is a pageant that recalls prominent myth-history figures and a sundance. This event was central to the identity of the Mandan people. It also began at the Big Village Village, the north bank of the Cannonball River.

By placing the foundation of the Mandan identity at a site that was recorded by the Mandan artist and historian Sitting Rabbit this moves the record of Mandan occupation from Heart River in the 1400’s to the Cannonball River in the 1200’s. This shifts the institutional argument from basing Mandan identity on pottery shards to one based on evidence of religious practices.

This argument could not have come at a more opportune time. The following year Energy Transfer contracted with two archaeological firms (one out of California, the other in Colorado) to conduct a Class III archaeological survey for the then proposed Dakota Access Pipeline. The DAPL report was a massive three volume report that followed a standard form of fill in the space and featured several topographical maps along the DAPL corridor. That report did not draw on any of the historical or archaeological resources that Fenn did.

In the age of tribal self-determination, Encounters is not without some criticism from descendants of the Mandan people, namely, that this history was written for public consumption. The Mandan people have endured the SHSND’s definition of material evidence in support of their occupational history. Since 2015, the Mandan have had to grapple with this new interpretation of their origins.
The strength of the Mandan argument as to their origins predating the Cannonball River occupational history lies in the Sitting Rabbit Map of the Missouri River. This map was produced at the request of Orin Libby, former Secretary of the SHSND, in 1905. Fenn directly mentions Sitting Rabbit’s work twice and his map only once; both mentions share images of his work. There is no mention of the Mandan occupational history of their ancient ancestral homelands south of Cannonball. The Sitting Rabbit map even recalls names of Mandan villages and sacred sites south of Cannonball. One might begin to understand the Mandan criticism of Fenn’s work.

In chapter 6, Upheavals: Eighteenth Century Transformations, regarding horses Fenn says, “There is no known description of the Mandan’s first glimpse of a horse. But accounts from other people are suggestive,” and that Pierre LaVerendrye, “makes it clear that by 1738-39, when he first visited them, the Mantannes already knew about horses. They had seen the animals among the Arikara and Pawnees, and they had probably seen them among trading peoples too,” (Fenn, 2015; 134). But there is a description of the Mandan’s first contact with horses, it just doesn’t come from the Mandan, but from the Cheyenne. Further, Fred Schneider, principle investigator of an archaeological survey conducted over two summers at the turn of 2000 at the On-A-Slant Mandan Indian Village SHS in Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, recovered horse remains from the midden mounds and dated those remains based on other surrounding evidence to circa 1700.

There is a finality of Fenn’s narrative in her epilogue. In the way that most historians writing about indigenous histories do, the story of their subjects conclude with the aftermath of some great event (ex. Dee Brown does this with his Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee). Fenn winds down her narrative following the last major smallpox epidemic that struck the Mandan in the 1830s, but she also does something unexpected: Fenn leaps past the post-reservation eras of boarding schools, church, the Great Depression, WWII, and self-determination to the revival of the Okipa ceremony among the Mandan.

Fenn informs readers of the latest Okipa maker, Cedric Red Feather. She also writes, “A hundred and twenty-two years have passed since the last-known Okipa.” The Mandan keep their traditions close to heart, many of their ceremonies quietly conducted in seclusion. People participate by invitation only. Fenn could not know that the Okipa was still in practice even after such practices were outlawed.

Red Feather had a vision and became an Okipa maker. He opened his Okipa to the world and invited many non-native singers and dancers. About half of his Okipa were native, many were not Mandan descendants. Fenn describes Red Feather’s Okipa experience. It is necessary to include this story and event. The history of the Mandan begins with the Okipa. Fenn’s narrative ends with the continuation of that story and practice. She defied Mandan social convention that none should speak, draw, or inform others outside of the Okipa of that ceremony. Fenn even includes a photo of Red Feather in modern attire. This is necessary because so many people believe the Mandan are gone.

Fenn’s Encounters is an authentic work. Her bibliography is extensive. She didn’t write this in a vacuum thousands of miles away. Fenn invested several years researching and visiting the places she writes, befriending Mandan people too. The only thing that could make this great work even greater would be a Mandan geography in the Mandan language.

Encounters has a place on this reader’s shelf within easy reach. Before the ND State archaeologist retired a copy was on his shelf too. If only he read it and discovered that the Mandan did not just build a village on the north bank at the mouth of the Cannonball River, but they also lived there, had their Okipa there, and died there. He might not have insisted that “there’s nothing there.”

[Kelli Chizmadia · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5, i had to read it for school. it got a little dry, but again wasn’t that invested into it. really cool they were able to pull all that history out though, and it’s a well put together book.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was most impressed with Elizabeth Fenn's straightforward, objective telling of this history. In every category, from spiritual to militarial to cultural, Fenn treated the views and actions with respect and told them unbiasedly. I rarely felt she was inputting her own opinion/view into the matter, and that is how a historical author should write. I want to know what happened, not how you view what happened. After giving some statement, she did not follow it up with a comma and then a short snide or supercillious remark (as many authors are wont to do). This was the facet of Encounters at the Heart of the World that I was most pleased about.

Also, I believe Elizabeth did a wonderful job piecing together the history of the Mandan people. It must have been a difficult task as the primary sources are scant, hard to come by, and difficult to interpret. Add to that that when sources do exist from a trader or explorer they have a nasty habit of exaggerating, ommitting, or glossing over many of the details. Thus, it was good work on Fenn's part to vet and piece together the sources.

The demise of the Mandan people was in many ways sudden and of course very sad. They had been a mainstay of the upper Missouri region for hundreds of years until they were ultimately conquered by, not by another tribe, not by invading Europeans, they were not even driven out of their homelands by the encroaching spread of America, but they were conquered by disease, namely smallpox. They survived one epidemic of smallpox in 1781, which while it killed many Mandans, they were able to recuperate and regain strength. Over the next 40 years they were beset by other new and foreign diseases such as whooping cough and cholera. But then in the early 1830s they were hit by another wave of smallpox which killed an estimated 7/8ths of the Mandan people. It was a shockingly swift and heartbreaking decimation of the Mandans. In just one year they were reduced to a shadow of their former self, no longer large enough to even occupy their own villages but rather they had to ally themselves with the Arikaras and live in a village with them.

On last note, it was fun to read this book as the homeland of the Mandan people is almost literally in my backyard. It was neat to read about places close by and familar to me in North Dakota.

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

SOOO interesting. I am convinced that not many of us know or understand the history of American Indians before European arrival. The story of the Mandans was completely fascinating.... so much I did not know: the Mandans were the corn agriculturists and they traded for most of their meat from the nomad tribes that were the hunters. Serious and planned trading! I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the trading among American Indians! We tend to not use our recognized leadership and business adjectives (trustworthy, determined, creative, influential, charismatic, successful, bullish) for the American Indian...but they could have actually taught the Europeans about trading and the nuances of 'making the deal.' Also, the northern plains Indians regularly traded for items from the southwest...again, the trading was extensive.

Of course, I knew about the effects of European diseases, but I did not realize the effect of the rat that came with the steamboats; rats "obliterated the horticultural bounty that had created stability for the Mandans for centuries."

The effect of European traders on the established Indian patterns that had existed for centuries was profound...especially the negative aspects of competition it engendered. One effect was vastly more warring among the tribes.

Also, the steam engine severely changed life for the Mandans because the traders could easily by-pass their villages and move on to the US established trading forts. And, the ships brought new diseases, cholera and smallpox. Everything was forever changed.

This book keeps just the right pace to take the reader through the complete transition from the successful centuries of the Mandan people to domination by the Europeans. Fenn, the author, is a great writer!

[Sherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a loss it is to the world that the Mandan were brought so low. They were a great people. It makes me glad to know that present-day Mandans carry on the traditions to the best of their ability. This book made me cry.