Winter Village of the Minatarees

Building Fort Mandan

New Year's Celebration

Reporting to the President

Mandan Buffalo Calling Ceremony

Mandan Buffalo Calling Ceremony

This description of the Americans’ attendance at a Red Stick or Buffalo Calling ceremony during their winter with the Mandans appeared in the first history of the expedition. Unable to comprehend its larger meaning, the explorers at the time had simply recorded what they saw. Nine years later, Nicholas Biddle, the Philadelphia scholar who had been charged with producing the official report of the expedition, called the event “ludicrous.” Out of modesty, he shifted to Latin when describing the ceremony’s sexual aspects.