Hidatsa

Dictionary: Hi·dat·sa (hē-dät'sä) pronunciation

n., pl., Hidatsa, or -sas. In both senses also called Gros Ventre.

1. A Native American people inhabiting an area along the Missouri River in western North Dakota.
2. A member of this people.
The Siouan language of this people.

[Hidatsa, people of the willows.]

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Hidatsa

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(click to enlarge)
Dancer of the Hidatsa Dog Society, aquatint by Karl Bodmer, 1834. (credit: Courtesy of the Rare Book Division, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations)

North American Plains Indian people living mainly on Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota, U.S. They speak a Siouan language. They were mistakenly identified as a group known to French trappers as Gros Ventres; as a result, the Hidatsa were sometimes called the Gros Ventres of the Missouri. Originally, the Hidatsa (whose name means "people of the willow") lived on the upper Missouri River in semipermanent villages. They raised corn, beans, and squash and hunted bison. Hidatsa social organization included age-graded military societies; there were also various clans based on maternal descent. The sun dance was the major religious ceremony. Together with the Mandan, with whom they had peaceful relations for more than 400 years, they exchanged traditional goods with European traders for guns, knives, and other items. In the mid-1800s disease and war with the Dakota (Sioux) sharply reduced their number. Together the Mandan, the Arikara, and the Hidatsa form the Three Affiliated Tribes. Hidatsa descendants numbered some 1,500 in the early 21st century.

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Columbia Encyclopedia: Hidatsa

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Hidatsa (hēdät'sä), Native North Americans, also known as the Minitari and the Gros Ventre. Their language belongs to the Siouan branch of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). After their separation from the Crow, with whom they were united before the historic period, they occupied several agricultural villages on the upper Missouri River in North Dakota and were in close alliance with the occupants of other villages, the Arikara and the Mandan. The Hidatsa villages, with circular earth lodges, were enclosed by an earthen wall. Among other Hidatsa traits were the cultivation of corn and an annual organized buffalo hunt. They had a complex social organization and elaborate ceremonies, including the sun dance. After the smallpox epidemic of 1837, they moved up the Missouri and established themselves close to the trading post of Fort Berthold. Together with the Arikara and Mandan, many Hidatsa reside on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. There were some 1,500 Hidatsa in the United States in 1990.

Bibliography

See A. W. Bowers, Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization (1965).

WordNet: Hidatsa

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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: a member of the Sioux people formerly inhabiting an area along the Missouri river in western North Dakota
Synonym: Gros Ventre

Meaning #2: a Siouan language spoken by the Hidatsa people
Synonym: Gros Ventre

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		Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
		Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more
		WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. Read more