Arikara indians

Dear Journal,

On October 8, 1804, we made contact with the Arikaras, and stayed with the tribe for five days. Relations between the crew and the Arikaras were warm. Arikara men wore buffalo robes, leggings and mocassins, and many warriors wielded guns that they had acquired in trade. Women were clad in fringed antelope dresses.

The Arikaras were primarily farmers. Their major crops were corn, beans and squash, but they also grew tobacco, watermelon and pumpkins. Some years, when crops did not grow in sufficient numbers, the Arikaras supplemented their food supply by hunting buffalo. Farm fields were owned by family groups, and women did the farming. The women used two simple yet effective tools to do their work: digging sticks fashioned from the shoulder blades of buffalo or deer, and rakes made by fastening reeds to a long handle.

More than anything else, York -- my slave -- occupied the minds of the Indians. The Arikaras had never seen a black man. York played with the children, and told them he was a wild creature who had been captured and tamed by me. The adults were so astonished by his presence that they believed he had special spiritual power. Because of this and his impressive size, they nicknamed him Big Medicine.