|
Blackbird Hill, Nebraska
August 11, 1804
We landed at the foot of the hill on which Black Bird, the late king of the Omahas, died four years ago, and four hundred of his nation with the Small pox was buried and went up and fixed a white flag bound with Blue white & read on the Grave & on the top of a Penical about 300 foot above the water of the river, from the top of this hill may be Seen the bends or meanderings of the river for 60 or 70 miles round.
--William Clark |
View from Blackbird Hill  On the Omaha Indian Reservation north of Decatur, Nebraska.Steve Lee photo he "mahar" were the Omaha, or U'mon'ha, Indians, who settled in present-day Nebraska sometime around 1700. They lived in earth lodges, hunted, and raised crops such as corn. Until struck by a smallpox epidemic in 1799-180, they were a secure and powerful force along the Missouri. During the early 1790s they resisted the incursions of French traders bound upriver for the Arikaras and Mandans. Their descendants now occupy the Omaha Reservation in northeast Nebraska, with headquarters in the town of Macy. The Omahas' annual "Dance of Thanksgiving" is the oldest "powwow" in the United States.The story of Blackbird's burial, sitting astride his horse, on a promontory from which his spirit could watch the river, is not true, say the Omaha people today. Blackbird had benefited from the friendship of white traders, and had gained power among his own people. He maintained his power by poisoning his enemies. Evidently it was the grateful traders who concocted the legend of his enshrinement. In any case, the view today is rather different from what Clark would have seen, owing to the impacts of agriculture and fire suppression, as well as the natural meanderings of the riverbed in the past 200 years.
Further reading
Alice C. Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, The Omaha Tribe. 2 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972), 82-83. --Joseph Mussulman, rev. 11/05
|
Home
