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In 1886 a small group of Hidatsa Indian people left their earth lodges in Like-a-Fishhook Village on the Fort Berthold Reservation in western North Dakota. Pushed by U.S. government policies and pulled by new opportunities, they moved up the Missouri River and built homes on the reservation at an isolated spot they called Independence. About 20 years later, Gilbert L. Wilson, and anthropologist with an insatiable interest and an a tireless pencil, went to Independence to record information about traditional Hidatsa life. There three members of one family - Buffalo Bird Woman, her brother Wolf Chief, and her son Goodbird - agreed to tell him their stories. This book is based on the memories of Buffalo Bird Woman's family shared with Wilson and on the cultural artifacts that they sold him. It is a powerful and personal description of one family's journey from a traditional, clan-oriented society to the industrialized, individualistic world of 20th-century America. Their stories speak for the thousands of other Indian families whose experiences were never recorded. Buffalo Bird Woman, born about 1839 in the earth lodge of a highly respected Hidatsa family, grew up learning the crafts that earned status for her in the village. She was a dignified and conservative woman, and although she used many tools brought by the whites she did not always approve of the other changes imposed upon her people. "I do not think that the new way is so good as the old," she said. Wolf Chief, a handsome and ambitious man, received the same traditional upbringing. The son of a prominent leader, he was expected to accumulate spiritual power and social prestige. He did this in the Hidatsa way - through vision questing, warfare, and giveaways. But when he also took advantage of the new ways to success offered by the whites, he ran afoul of both government representatives and other Hidatsa people. He was troubled by their criticisms, he said, "but I want to be strong and go forward." Goodbird, born in 1869, also grew up in an earth lodge - but he spent his days at a desk in a frame schoolhouse. He constantly balanced new ways with old, learning to hunt buffalo and to raise cattle, praying to the Christian God and going on several vision quests. Eventually he became a Congregational minister. "I think God made all people to help each other," he said. The memories of Buffalo Bird Woman's family reveal how individual Hidatsa people coped with radical change without surrendering to it. Although the Hidatsa accepted many tools, political institutions, and religious practices of the white industrial world, they used them all according to Hidatsa custom. In doing so, they found their way to a new kind of independence. Through the words of Buffalo Bird Woman and her family, Carolyn Gilman and Mary Jane Schneider explore the material culture, spirituality, and adaptations of the Hidatsa in a time of tremendous change. The story is told with more than 500 photographs, artifacts, and artworks loaned by several major museums and brought together for the first time in an exhibition at the Minnesota Historical Society. In a separate section of this volume, essayists W. Raymond Wood, Gerard Baker, Jeffery R. Hanson, and Alan R. Woolworth discuss Hidatsa origins and religion, the tribe's natural environment, and the work of Gilbert Wilson and his brother Frederick. - Dust jacket.