File:
<history> Citations Dedications <American
Archeology>
General Index Subject Index <Home>
|
HISTORICAL MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA [Contact ] Winchell. 1911. Aborigines of Minnesota. Page 74.
"Prior to the 18th Century, the earliest maps, along with related
accounts show the Mandan in the Mille Lacs ares" Swancer, Brent. 13 Oct 2017. "The Mysterious Tribe of Blue Eyed Native Americans. The first reports of what
would come to be known as the Mandan tribe began to trickle out from French
explorers in the region of the Missouri River in present-day North and South
Dakota in the early 1700s. These natives were said to have rather fair skin
and to have red or blonde hair and blue or grey eyes, and indeed especially
the women were purportedly so Nordic in appearance that if it were not for
their clothing they were said to be nearly indistinguishable from whites. In
1738, the French Canadian trader Sieur de la Verendrye made the first
official outside contact with the Mandan and described them as living in 9
villages at a tributary of the Missouri river called the Heart River, and
noted that they also exhibited customs that were decidedly more European than
the neighboring tribes. By 1784 the word had gotten
out on this mysterious tribe of blue-eyed Indians, and they were featured in
the media, with the August 24, 1784 edition of the Pennsylvania Packet and Daily
Advertiser proclaiming that a new tribe of white people had been discovered
and that they were “acquainted with the principles of the Christian religion”
and “extremely courteous and civilized.” Perhaps one of the more famous of
the explorers to come across the Mandan was none other than Lewis and Clark,
who visited the tribe in 1804 and described them as “half-white,” as well as
peaceful, civilized, courteous, and polite. They also noted that the tribe’s
numbers had dwindled significantly due to the frequent small pox epidemics
that terrorized them, as well as attacks against them by neighboring tribes,
namely the Assiniboine, Lakota, Arikara and the Sioux. Of course this all led to
intense speculation as to what the origins were of this bizarre tribe, and
one of the earliest ideas put forward was that they were the descendants of
pre-Columbian explorers to the New World. For instance there were many
legends from various regions of the present day United States of Welsh
speaking natives, perhaps descended from Welsh settlers coming to these shore
in the 12th century, in particular a Prince Madoc, who along with his
followers was said to have immigrated to America from Wales in about 1170. One explorer who believed
that the Mandan had European roots, perhaps even Welsh, was the frontiersman
and pictorial historian George Catlin, who spent several months with the
tribe in North Dakota, living amongst and drawing and painting them in 1832.
One of the things that first struck him about these mysterious people was
just how European they looked, describing that many of them were nearly white
and had light hair and blue eyes, and he also noticed that they had more
advanced techniques for manufacturing goods and dwellings, customs, traditions,
town layouts, and language vastly different from neighboring tribes. Caitlin would say of the Mandan: “They are a very interesting and pleasing people in their
personal appearance and manners, differing in many respects, both in looks
and customs, from all the other tribes I have seen. So forcibly have I been
struck with the peculiar ease and elegance of these people, together with
their diversity of complexions, the various colors of their hair and eyes;
the singularity of their language, and their peculiar and unaccountable
customs, that I am fully convinced that they have sprung from some other
origin than that of the other North American Tribes, or that they are an
amalgam of natives with some civilized race.” Even
some of the legends of the Mandan people themselves expressly mentioned that
they had been descended from a strange white man who had appeared to them
aboard a canoe in ancient times after an enormous flood had wiped out
everything in sight. They claimed that this stranger had taught them about
medicine and had influenced their religion, which oddly featured many of the
same beats as Christianity, such as a great flood, a virgin birth, and a
child born who could work magical miracles, among others. This was noticed by
other later expeditions as well, such as an 1833-34 expedition led by German
naturalist A.P. Maximilian, who felt that the similarities between
Christianity and the Mandan religion were too close to being mere
coincidence. Caitlin would write of this: “It would seem that these people must have had some proximity to
some part of the civilized world; such as missionaries or others have been
formerly among them, inculcating the Christian religion and the Mosaic
account of the Flood.” Another idea on the Mandan
origins is that they came from pre-Columbian visitations by Viking explorers.
The first official European to ever officially make contact with the Mandan
tribe, Sieur de la Verendrye, claimed that at the time he had found a strange
runestone with Nordic inscriptions on a riverside near the village. The stone
was sent to Jesuit Scholars in Quebec, who determined the writing on the
stone was “TARTARIAN”, a runic script similar to Futark . The stone was later sent to France to be
studied but it is unclear what happened to the “Verendrye Runestone” after
that. The idea of Vikings in the
New World before the days of Columbus has been talked about for some time,
with one prevalent and somewhat controversial theory having to do with Eric
Thorwaldsson, also more famously known as “The Red,” who established two
colonies on the coast of Greenland in 986. The story goes that Eric the Red
then abandoned these outposts when the wild, rugged land proved to be too
cold and forbidding, and made his way to North America along with the
colonists. The theory then claims that the King of Norway is then said to
have sent an expedition to the New World to find out what had happened to
them, and that this expedition made their way up the rivers to end up in the
Dakotas and other areas, after which they became stranded and then
assimilated into the native tribes, giving them their Nordic genes. However, there is very
little evidence to prove that Vikings ever actually reached North America.
The Verendrye Runestone vanished without a trace and then there is the hotly
debated Kensington Runestone, which was a giant slab covered in runes
allegedly found by Swedish immigrant Olof Ohman in Minnesota in 1898. In this
case the inscriptions claimed that the runes had been created by 14th century
Scandinavian explorers. Regardless of where the
Mandan really came from the fact is that we will probably never know for
sure. In 1838 the tribe was hit by a devastating smallpox epidemic, and
although this was a specter they had been haunted by for centuries, this time
it was absolutely catastrophic, wiping them out at such a rate that after
only a few months there were only an estimated 30 to 140 of them left. With
the Mandan teetering on the edge of extinction, enemy tribes swept in and
took them as slaves, after which they were assimilated and absorbed. Consequent intermarriage
and interbreeding meant that any unique genetic heritage they may have had
was quickly erased, and the last known full-blooded Mandan was a Mattie
Grinnell, who died in 1971. Since there are no more full-blooded Mandan left
and only an estimated 8 speakers of its language left today, it is difficult
to get a grip on their heritage, even with our advanced DNA testing techniques,
and their origins and history will likely forever remain shrouded in mystery,
leaving us to merely speculate and debate on it. It is somewhat sad that
this tribe disappeared before we were ever able to really comprehend who they
were. All we are left with is the tales and accounts from explorers, but
other than that their legacy has evaporated into the tides of history. They
are a vanished people who sowed bafflement and wonder, but ultimately left
numerous questions swirling about them, doomed to a limbo of superstition,
speculation, and rumor. Who were these people? Why did they look and act so
differently, and what was the meaning behind their strange ways? To the alien
explorers just starting to penetrate this wilderness at the time they may
have seemed to be baffling anomalies, and interestingly they still are. “The Great Oasis“ That
brings me to another theory bearing similarities ……”THE GREAT OASIS” 900-1100
AD This culture which primarily claimed
a territory ranging from Iowa, Nebraska South Dakota and south western
Minnesota has been studied by the Iowa state archeologist. The culture was
first identified by Lloyd Wilford (1945),
his excavations not only
revealed in southwestern Minnesota
an intense occupation with numerous pits, but also discovery of
squared houses with keyholed entrances (Anfinson 1997:216-217) see L.I.D.A.R image as possible example. Some sites illustrated long rectangular
structures built into a shallow pit about 18 inches deep. (When collapsed
would resemble a TUMULI) Within each
structure, a central fireplace and many cache pits were constructed. The pits were used for storage until
spoilage or contaminated by rodents, at which time they are filled in with
earth. When Archeologists excavated
the pits they found broken pottery, discarded stone and bone tools, as well
as animal and plant remains. These
sites are semi-permanent structures designed to be utilized during the winter
months. Investigations into the mound
builders 3500 B.C (Aborigines of Minnesota Winchell 1911 )
discovered the earthworks in the Ohio valley were recent and later then the
first sites in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin as indicated by the total
absence of signs of the elephant or the mastodon. These earlier sites seem to have some acquaintance with the
elephant, confirmed by petroglyphs of mammoth drawings. Ancient Norse
Exploration In America CLICK for details Paine, Myron. 2007. Frozen Trail to Merica: Talerman,
GaldePress, Lakeville, MN. Paine, Myron. 2008. Frozen Trail to Merica: Walking toMerica, Galde Press, Lakeville, MN. The Vikings in Greenland began to
arrive in America about 800 AD. The
word "Viking" means “Valley
Place” in the Norse Language. The name originates from about 800
AD, when the Norse occupied the valleys of England driving those who resisted
into the hills. A possible visit to North America
between 1019 & 1066 by Nordic (Viking) King Harald Sigurdsson
Hardråde has been proposed by some groups studying Viking explorations. They suggest that about 200 boats and 3000
Norsemen arrived with him. Some
founded teporary settlements along the east coast of Canada, while others
rowed through the Christian Sea
(now known as Hudson Bay), then
up the Nelson and Red Rivers over the Minnesota Tableland into the Mississippi River. Eventually Well documented in the scientific
literature, Sigurdsson and his men lost the battle with the English at Stratford Bridge. Sigurdsson himself took two arrows in the neck,
thus ending the Viking age. The
English preferred to use "Viking", with scorn because of their
ferocious behavior. |
