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Collection Summary
Collection: 2019-P-162 - Leo D. Harris Photo Collection
Folder: 0001
Item: 00036
Title: Arthur Mandan and Fox Society women form a procession for the Four Bears Bridge dedication, Elbowoods (N.D.)
Date: 06/17/1934
Creator: Harris, Leo D.
Inscription/Marks: [handwritten in white on bottom of photograph] Elbowoods, North Dakota. Photographed by Leo D. Harris
Summary: Fox Society women form a procession for the Four Bears Bridge dedication. Arthur Mandan and the first two women carry U. S. flags. Behind them are other dignitaries from Fort Berthold who are participating in the dedication and opening of the bridge. [History] The Four Bears Bridge was originally constructed in 1934. The bridge replaced Verendrye Bridge, and spans the Missouri River on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The bridge was moved in 1955 due to the construction of the Garrison Dam and subsequent creation of Lake Sakakawea. A new Four Bears Bridge was constructed in 2005. Because the Mandan tribe lived on the south side of the river, the south end of the bridge was dedicated to the Mandan Chief Four Bears (Mato Tope). A two-story monument near the entrance of the bridge was dedicated to the Mandan chief. The Hidatsa lived on the north side of the river, and the north end of the bridge was dedicated to their Chief Four Bears, who was recognized as a diplomat and was instrumental in the signing of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. The treaty included transportation access through the reservation. The Chief was killed by the Sioux in the fall of 1861, while he was bathing in the river. __Mato-tope (also known as Ma-to-toh-pe or Four Bears, from mato "bear" and tope "four") (c. 1784[6] - July 30, 1837) was the second chief of the Mandan tribe to be known as "Four Bears," a name he earned after charging the Assiniboine tribe during battle with the strength of four bears. Four Bears lived in the first half of the 19th century on the upper Missouri River in what is now North Dakota. Four Bears was a favorite subject of artists, painted by George Catlin and Karl Bodmer. Four Bears or Mahto-Topa of the Mandan was born about 1800 to Good Boy. He grew up along the Missouri River at the mouth of the Knife River. Located today near Stanton, N.D. it was one of the largest farming and trade centers of the Northern Plains. His early years coincided with the emergence of the "white man" into the Upper Missouri River Region and during his childhood probably witnessed many visits from the French, Spanish and finally the Americans. The Mandan welcomed these new people into their homes as friends, and so it was Four Bears developed a friendship that lasted until his deathbed. Four Bears received his name from a battle against a war-party of Assiniboin. He stood his ground while the other Mandan fled and fought the Assiniboin so furiously that they retreated. The Assiniboin later declared that Four Bears had fought with strength and ferocity of four bears charging. As custom dictates Four Bears depicted his war exploits as paintings on his tipi and clothing. Two buffalo robes depicting these war stories are kept in European museums today. On one occasion Four Bears drew one of his exploits down on paper which recounts a battle with a Cheyenne chief of which he told the story to German naturalist and explorer, Prince Maximilian zu Wied: Mató-Tópe was, on that occasion, on foot, on a military expedition, with a few Mandans, when they encountered four Chayennes [sic], their most virulent foes, on horseback. The chief of the latter, seeing that their enemies were on foot, and that the combat would thereby be unequal, dismounted, and the two parties attacked each other. The two chiefs fired, missed, threw away their guns, and seized their naked weapons; the Chayenne, a tall, powerful man, drew his knife, while Mató-Tópe, who was lighter and more agile, took his battle-axe. The former attempted to stab Mató-Tópe, who laid hold of the blade of the knife, by which he, indeed, wounded his hand, but wrested the weapon from his enemy, and stabbed him with it, on which the Chayennes took to flight. Mató-Tópe's drawing of the scene... shows the guns which they had discharged and thrown aside, the blood flowing from the wounded hand of the Mandan chief .. and the wolf's tail at their heels - the Chayenne being distinguished by the fillet of otter skin on his forehead. Four Bears grew into a strong warrior and established himself as a leader among his people through the Dog Soldier and Half Shorn Societies. He rose to eminence and became second chief without inheriting any bundles of his parents other than a sacred shield and the rain-calling robe. He had a successful war record and did much fasting. That would have never have elevated him to more than a war leader, but the many feasts that he gave to which the older hereditary bundle-owners were invited gave him the necessary prestige. Four Bears had a sacred robe with a rainbow painted on it that was thought to possess the power to invoke rain and to give luck. He also augmented his prestige through participation in the Okipa Ceremony. Four Bear's gained further recognition in his second partaking of the Okipa Ceremony. After an attack by the Arikara on the Mandan village, Four Bear's brother, who was guarding the horses outside the village, was missing for several days. Four Bears was the first to the scene and found a lance still embedded in his brother's heart. He returned to the village with the weapon where it was recognized as the spear of Won-ga-tap. Four Bears walked through the village with the spear crying and proclaiming: "Let every Mandan (said he) be silent, and let no one sound the name of Mah-to-toh-pa—let no one ask for him, nor where he has gone, until you hear him sound the war-cry in front of the village, when he will enter it and show you the blood of Won-ga-tap. The blade of this lance shall drink the heart's blood of Won-ga-tap, or Mah-to-toh-pa mingles his shadow with that of his brother." Four Bears kept the lance with his brother's blood still on it and . Four years later, he prepared for battle by fasting for seven days and completing the Okipa ceremony. He also cut the tip of a finger off and offered it to the "People Above." In a vision he received, a raven came to him and told him who had killed his brother and how to go about getting revenge. Four Bears followed the raven's advice, he traveled 200 miles to the Arikara village and walked into Won-ga-tap's lodge while he and his slept, ate his food, smoked his pipe, and stabbed him with his own spear. He returned home successful. In the early 1830's the Mandan were visited by the artists George Catlin and Carl Bodmer, whom became close friends and admirers of Four Bears. The paintings that these artists did of Four Bears made him the best known Native American of the Upper Plains prior to the 1837 Small-pox epidemic that decimated about 87 percent of the Mandan Tribe. George Catlin Described Four Bear as "Free, generous, elegant and gentlemanly in his deportment-handsome, brave and valiant....... The most extraordinary man, perhaps, who lives at this day, in the atmosphere of Nature’s noblemen". According to Catlin's own account, Four Bears treated Catlin with much ceremony. Four Bears had treated him to a feast served six or seven of his wives and escorted him arm-in-arm through the village. (To read an online version of the account) Catlin was impressed by the fact that although Four Bears was only a sub-chief under the hereditary Chief, his prestige perhaps surpassed all others through his strength and eloquence. Four Bears became a casualty of this epidemic that arrived on the steamboat "St. Peter". Four Bears died on July 30, 1837. Catlin tells of his friend Four Bear's death as related to him from the trader Kipp. "This fine fellow sat in his lodge and watched every one of his family die about him (of the smallpox), his wives and his children...when he walked out, around the village, and wept over the final destruction of his tribe; his braves and warriors all laid low; when he came back to his lodge, where he covered his whole family with a number of robes, and wrapping another around himself, went out upon a hill at a little distance, where he laid for several days...resolved to starve himself to death. He remained there until the sixth day, when he had just strength enough to creep back to the village, when he entered the horrid gloom of his own wigwam, and laying his body alongside of the group of his family, drew his robe over him, and died on the ninth day... So have perished the friendly and hospitable Mandans" (Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, Vol. II, pp. 257-59, 1841). His descendants were the only survivors and successors eligible to become hereditary chiefs. His son Good Boy attained status as chief but soon died of the small-pox. Another son named Bad Gun later took over as a chief and cared for Four Bear's sacred bundles and tradition of this great Mandan Chief. SPEECH OF FOUR BEARS ON HIS DEATHBED: "My friend one and all [he is supposed to have said], listen to what I have to say-Ever since I can remember, I have loved the Whites, I have lived with them ever since I was a boy, and to the best of my knowledge, I have never wronged a White Man, on the contrary, I have always protected them from the insults of others, which they cannot deny. The 4 Bears never saw a White Man hungry, but what he gave him to eat, drink, and buffaloe skin to sleep on, in time of need. I was always ready to die for them, which they cannot deny. I have done everything that a red skin could do for them, and how have they repaid it! With ingratitude! I have never called a White Man a Dog, but today, I do Pronounce them to be a set of Black harted Dogs, they have deceived Me, them that I always considered as Brothers, has turned out to be My Worst enemies. I exhalt in, but to day I am Wounded, and by Whom, by those same White Dogs that I have always Considered, and treated as Brothers. I do not fear Death m,y friends. You Know it, but to die with my face rotten, that even the Wolves will shrink with horror at seeing Me, and say, to themselves, that is the 4 Bears the Friend of the Whites- Listen well what I have to say, as it will be the last time you hear Me. think of your Wives, Children, Brothers, Sisters, Friends, and in fact all that you hold dear, are all Dead, or Dying, with their daces all rotten, caused by those dogs the whites, think of all that My friends, and rise all togather and Not leave one of them alive. The 4 Bears will act his Part". [Meyer, Roy Willard., The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977., pp, 94 Sources: Bodmer, Karl. Karl Bodmer's America. Josslyn Art Museum & Uni. of Nebraska Press. 1984. Bowers, Alfred., Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization. Uni. of Chicago Press. Catlin, George, 1796-1872. Letters and notes on the manners, customs, and conditions of the North American Indians ; written during eight years' travel (1832-1839) amongst the wildest tribes of Indians in North America / New York : Dover Publications, [1973] Gallaghe, Marsha V., Four Bears. Omaha, Neb. : Joslyn Art Museum, (n.d.) Found at:http://www.joslyn.org/permcol/native/pages/fourbear.html Meyer, Roy Willard, 1925- The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri: The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. : Uni. of Nebraska Press, c1977. Taylor, Colin., The O-Kee-Pa and Four Bears: an insight into Mandan ethnology. London: The English Westerners' Society "Brand Book" Vol. 15, no. 3, Publication No. 188, 188, (April 1973)
Red ID: PH_I_149352 Image ID: 175628 Image Notes: 2019-P-162-00036

Collection: 2019-P-162 Digitized Images from Collection
Title: Leo D. Harris Photo Collection
Date: 1925-circa 1960

Summary: Images of people and events on the Fort Berthold Reservation including dedication of the Four Bears Bridge, the Four Bears monument and the monument to the Fort Laramie Tribal Council of 1851, as well as images of the men who repatriated the Water Buster Bundle.

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