The North American Journals of Prince Maximilian of Wied, Vol. 3: September 1833 - August 1834

A German aristocrat, Maximilian von Wied, describes his journey with the Swiss artist Charles Bodmer up the Missouri River in the Spring of 1833 and his return trip to St. Louis in early 1834, observing, recording and commenting on the natural world of the native people living along the Missouri River and their lifeways as they existed at the last instance before white settlement began in earnest, an early stage of which brought diseases devastating to the Indian populations there. This volume chiefly is devoted to the stay of Maximilian von Wied and his party among populations of the Mandan, Arikara, and Hidatasa (tribes) in the vicinity of present-day Mandan, North Dakota over the long winter of 1833-34.After a brief stay for a second time at Ft. Union near the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers in the course of the return voyage down the Missouri in the fall of 1833 after a prolonged and adventuresome stay near present Great Falls on the Missouri, Maximillian’s party floats down the Missouri on a specially constructed boat to a locale planned for overwintering, Ft. Clark near present Mandan, North Dakota. Maximilian uses the 5-month stay at Ft. Clark to render the daily lives of settled communities of the tribes overwintering there. The communities were situated in the riparian bottomlands of the river. The descriptive detail provided by Maximilian provides this essential information. Winter customs and domestic life of western Indians may never have been documented in significant detail previously, especially not in what this situation afforded, several tribes in fair proximity to each other. The footnotes indicate, for these observations and others, the paintings and drawings Bodmer made of them. Thus, access to the Bodmer art available from various books is quite complimentary to the rich detail of Maximilian’s writing. Maximilian’s own sketches are contained in the text throughout this volume and the other two volumes. This reviewer found nearly all of them to be rough and mundane at best.Indians are received almost nightly as visitors. There are references to these visitors recounting the major milestones in the history of their people, and mythology. These tales are reported in detail in chapters that follow. There are many asides about how untrustworthy the Indians are. There is great detail of the bargaining over the animals brought for sale by various Indians. Maximilian reports the sexual mores of the Indians including the existence of transsexuals. “Women are anything but prudish”, with multiple lovers. Infidelity is not punished as with the Blackfeet people who are attributed with the cutting off of a female adulterer’s nose as a typical punishment. He describes in detail various ceremonies he attended with his group, sometimes reached only by several-hour-long treks on foot along paths beside the Missouri River. Over the five-month stay near the various tribes he describes several episodes of low levels of food and a lack of meat. That the Indians continually save the party and the other whites running the fur trading outpost from starvation is reported casually, matter-of-factly.        The annoyance of Maximilian over encounters with Indians on a daily basis begins to come through over his stay. His takes on how presumptuous the Indians are, intruding in his personal living space and overstaying any acceptable interval of welcome, leave the impression of "you'd think they owned the place” in his thinking perhaps. Despite this, he remains a keen observer of ceremonies and customs including living conditions such as how earth lodges he entered were configured for food preparation, bedding or sleeping conditions and storage. Winter sleds and snowshoes are described in detail. After making an observation that Indians had a “child-like” “fascination” with colors, he expresses his own enthusiastic appreciation for the beauty of the colors they wore on the most coveted (by him) of their regalia, which they invariably refused to sell him. Apparently, his brand of fascination was adult by being motivated by being a collector or by scientific curation, whereas the Indian’s was sensual (that it might rather be intellectual and/or aesthetic is not supposed) and hence child-like.There are musings on a number of subjects derived from Maximilian’s observations during the Mandan stay. The value of dogs over horses as beasts of burden for Indians is related interestingly. In regards to the continued use of dogs as work animals despite the availability of horses, dogs persisted and functioned through prolonged periods of severe weather while being driven hard and withstood weeks without food, whereas horses succumbed comparatively sooner to these hardships. There are descriptions of the performances of touring dance groups. Despite numerous mentions by Maximilian of having details of tribal history or other local history related by Indian visitors, the reader is not told in footnotes that an entire chapter would be used to relate these in detail. A particularly murderous Arikara was described and reference to portraits of him are provided. “Not one of them can be trusted (not to kill) after the smallest insult.” Readers familiar with the widespread European custom of answering perceived insults with deadly duels may or may not have found some irony here.There are miscellaneous details of horticultural practices that interested this reviewer: for example, two feet of humus is used in gardens, and in ethnobotanical notes: the appearance and diversity of cultivars of corn (corn culture is detailed especially) and potato, that Indian Breadroot is used, and that cottonwood sapwood is sweetish and consumed. Bird species observed are reported on an almost daily basis. One footnote mentions that the passenger pigeon was very likely present in North Dakota at the time of Maximillian’s voyage, 1833-34. The editors perhaps didn’t know that Audubon saw this species at Ft. Union in 1843. Maximilian must have had a plan for the stay in “Mandan” beyond observing wildlife and native culture: theories of racial classification are tested by Maximilian: measuring facial angle is among the topics he devoted his time to. In the racist “scientifically-based”, view at the time, Maximilian cites a prominent racial theorist, Blumenbach, that the intellectual level of the Indian ranks just below the white man. He then goes on to state for his part that Indians are not inferior to the white man, referring to a body of knowledge that proves their mental capacities as adequate to support his finding. There is no specific reference to how his own observations might contribute to this conclusion. There is much detail from him on modes of personal adornment: jewelry, tattoos and detailed descriptions of typical clothing worn by men women and children, decoration of robes and the symbols on them. That tattooing is fashionable. Games and dances. The use of “castoreum” by the upper Missouri Indians as a kind of combined eau de toilette and hair pomade. What earth lodges consist of: size, materials, configuration inside, heating, storage, sleeping accommodations. A rather jumbled description of how pottery was made. Roles of each sex, raising children, marriage among the Mandan and neighboring tribes, Five months into the stay on the Missouri near present-day Bismarck, ND, Maximilian vents on the personal hygiene of the hosts, including the esteemed James Kipp and reiterates previous passing descriptions of the deplorable living conditions and lack of shelter, basically stating how fed-up he is with everything. The monotony and misery of the winter desolation at Ft. Clark, mixed with the privations-food and any comfort, fills several pages. The living quarters of the Maximilian party in the severely cold winter are subject to drafts due to poor construction of the dwellings, allowing the bitter cold to penetrate. Indians continue to visit almost daily, one said to stick to the party in their room "like a burr". In about mid – March 1834 the meat runs out. Corn becomes the staple, with little else. Details of the disgusting habits of the hosts and locals he observes: in the dining room, a toddler relieving himself on the floor, “snot-rocket” nose blowing while handling food; in general: public urination by the leader James Kipp, the utter lack of a privy of any kind. From that point onward until leaving to go downriver a few weeks later, the entries become briefer and briefer. This seems to be due to increasing sickness, that was perhaps leading to death, of Maximilian. The fort’s cook suspected scurvy. Indian children provided Maximilian with the first wild onions of spring which drastically improved his health. How and whether Indians avoided scurvy was not discussed, even in the footnotes. Upon arrival at Ft. Pierre in present-day South Dakota on the final outbound voyage, Maximilian reports that due to the lack of bison all winter, dog meat was sole source of “fresh food”. For their stop at Ft. Pierre, their hosts obtained dog meat for $12 per dog, since it was by the end of the winter season scarce and thus expensive. Maximilian described the black (and so “like mutton”) dog meat stew served at the feast as “delicious”, despite misgivings about consuming man’s best friend.Throughout the narrative, Maximilian describes the personalities of eminent and other interesting Indians he met and/or Charles Bodmer painted. The Bodmer paintings are the complimentary and the comparatively greater enduring glory resulting from the Maximilian expedition, but none are included in the volumes. The final chapters are on his travels through Indiana, Ohio and New York. These final episodes of are not without interest.

I bought the 2 day shipping and this one arrived in 4 days and the other 2 books will arrive in 9 days! I dealt with customer service and Stephanny was super awesome and helpful, thus the 5 star rating. S*** happens and she worked her tail off to make it right.....thank you!!

Beautiful book with Maximilian'a first hand accounts. His descriptions of his experiences are extremely detailed. A valuable text if you are interested in a great reference about the native American peoples before they were decimated by disease and war. Particularly the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes in this volume. Without this reference much information about these tribes would remain lost.

Not being fluent in German, this is a great way to enjoy an early expedition through not only my state, but adjoining areas.