Mandan (Nueta)
A people
Background
All of the plains tribes came to the Missouri to barter for agricultural goods and products, which is why the Mandan are called the Marketplace of the Central Plains, the forerunner of the trading posts that came later to the area. While living at the Heart River the Mandan were divided into bands, among them Is'tope, those who tattooed themselves, Ma'nana'r, those who quarreled, and Nu'itadi, our people. The groups combined as the tribe was decimated with each smallpox epidemic. A French trader in 1738 counted at least a thousand houses across several Mandan villages. In 1850 there were three hundred and eighty-five Mandan living. Mandan is Nuu'etaa, and the Nation's language page gives a word of the day and a Nuu'etaa Pronunciation Guide covering vowels and consonants.
Visit and learn
Tribal lands have their own laws. Check the nation's site before you visit.
Parks on its homelands
Theodore Roosevelt National ParkThe Little Missouri River basin lay inside traditional Mandan bison hunting grounds. The badlands slopes were the technique: NPS says the steep terrain let hunters take bison without firing a shot, driving the herd over a drop-off. Source
Programs
Nuu'etaa word of the day
The Mandan side of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation's Culture and Language Department, publishing a new Mandan word each day and offering a pronunciation guide to the Nuu'etaa vowels and consonants, alongside the department's classes and its downloadable language resource library.
Sources
- https://www.nps.gov/thro/learn/historyculture/cultural-history.htm
- https://www.mhanation.com/history/
- https://www.mhanation.com/language/
Checked September 2026.