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Secondary sourcePainting2 January 1907

The Three Hidatsa Villages in the Knife River Area

Sitting Rabbit · 2 January 1907

A 1907 drawing by Mandan artist Sitting Rabbit depicting the Hidatsa villages at Knife River, where Sacagawea lived as a young woman.

Depicts the Hidatsa villages at Knife River where Sacagawea lived before joining the Lewis and Clark expedition.

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Pen-and-ink style drawing of earth lodge villages along a river, with rectangular fenced corn fields, a ladder-like structure, paths, and a label reading 'The Five Knife River Villages' in the lower right. Small figures appear near the top right.
Sitting Rabbit, The Three Hidatsa Villages in the Knife River Area, 1907.

About this source

What it is

This drawing was made in 1907 by the Mandan artist Sitting Rabbit, based on information gathered from older tribal members. It shows the Hidatsa earth lodge villages along the Knife River, with cornfields, paths, and the Missouri River in the foreground, as imagined from oral memory decades after the period it depicts.

Why it matters

Knife River was the home of the Hidatsa community that held Sacagawea before the Lewis and Clark expedition. This image, created by a Native artist using tribal knowledge, offers a view of the villages from inside the community itself, rather than from outside observers.

Look closer

  • Why might Sitting Rabbit have relied on older community members' memories rather than his own firsthand observation?
  • What details in the drawing - fields, paths, structures - tell you about daily life in the villages?
  • How does a drawing made from oral memory differ from a map made by direct survey?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Sacajawea on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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