Old Bear: Mandan Medicine Man

Abstract

OLD BEAR (MAH-TO-HE-HAH) was a Mandan medicine man—according to the nineteenth-century painter George Catlin, the most important medicine man of his tribe. Catlin believed that the Mandan were a “dying race” and he wanted to use his paintings to preserve as much as he could of their culture.1 Catlin portrayed Old Bear with his body painted in various colors, with medicine pipes adorned with eagle feathers in his hands and fox tails attached to his heels.2 The Mandan Indians lived at the mouth of the Knife River—a tributary of the Missouri River—near present-day Bismarck, North Dakota. One translation of the word “Mandan” is “Those Who Dwell by the Water.”3 The Mandan were unlike many other Plains Indian tribes in that they were not nomadic hunters, but instead lived in permanent villages made up of large, round earth lodges approximately 50 feet high and 40 to 60 feet in diameter. A sacred cedar post, surrounded by an open plaza, marked the center of each village and served as the focal point of religious and public activities. At one end of the plaza stood the tribe's medicine or ceremonial lodge—the most important building in the village.4,5 Mah-to-he-hah, Old Bear, A Medicine Man. Painting by George Catlin, 1832. Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC. The Mandan villages were located at the junction of several major trade routes, putting the Mandan in contact with both native and non-native groups from as early as the early 1700s. Consequently, they had access to some of the most valued trade items of the time, including buffalo hides, obsidian, copper, shells, and guns. The Mandan themselves were purveyors of important trade goods, such as their surplus crops of squash, pumpkin, corn, sunflowers, and beans, as well as high quality local flint used for stone tools found all over the North American continent. In general, the Mandan were accommodating and peaceful in their interactions with non-native peoples, as demonstrated by their willingness to take in and feed the entire Lewis and Clark Expedition in the winter of 1804 in exchange for a steady stream of trade goods.6,7 When Catlin met Old Bear in 1832, he was surrounded by students whom he was instructing in the mysteries of the material medica—herbal remedies—and ceremonial practices. At first Old Bear refused to have his portrait painted but then acquiesced and, when it was finally finished, was delighted with the results. Catlin, no doubt, had paid careful attention to the details of Old Bear's ceremonial attire, which he painted with meticulous accuracy. The painter later claimed that Old Bear would lie for hours in front of his picture, gazing at it intensely, and spoke highly to others about Catlin's talents.2 The medicine men were able to treat the normal ills of the tribe, but were often powerless against the new diseases introduced by white settlers. In the early 1780s, for example, a smallpox epidemic drastically reduced the Mandan population from about 3600 to approximately 1250.8 Their fate worsened in 1837—a mere five years after Catlin's visit—when yet another smallpox outbreak swept through their villages, reducing their numbers to approximately 150. Although the Mandan have lived with the Hidatsa and Arikara as the “Three Affiliated Tribes” on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota since 1934, their numbers have never fully recovered.5