Relating to the Land

Calvin Grinnell
Mandan-Hidatsa

Lewis and Clark reckoned the world in a linear fashion. In other words they wanted maps where everything was neat and squared off but of course subsequent cartographers delineated the lands in that way. But among our people we have a record of 1808, where I think it was Bears Arm, he goes up and down the Missouri and names the sites according to what happened along the way. For example the Thunder Butte was where the origin of the Low Cap clan was and that's indicated on the map, and that's a location. But that's how he delineated the river as a series of stories and, you know, that's how they related to the land.