elizabeth fenn encounters at the heart of the world

Perhaps the most compelling portion of the book is Fenns recreation of Mandan cosmology and religious life, particularly the Okipa ceremony, an elaborate and intricate ritual performed every summer. Some of Fenns best work concerns the material and social life of the Mandans. And what a rich and vibrant culture it was. Fenn relies upon deep archival research and a felicitous prose style to bring this forgotten world to life, starting with the Mandans ancestral migrations from places south and east before their coalescence around the year 1400 in a fifty-mile stretch along the Missouri between the mouths of the Knife and Cannonball rivers. Review Quotes Encounters at the Heart of the World shows readers that there is much more to Mandan history than merely their suffering at the hands of Euroamerican epidemiology.

A riveting account of Mandan history, landscapes, and people, Fenns narrative is enriched and enlivened not only by science and research but by her own encounters at the heart of the world. The damage wrought by imported diseases like smallpox and the havoc caused by the arrival of horses and steamboats were tragic for the Mandans, yet, as Fenn makes clear, their sense of themselves as a people with distinctive traditions endured. Recent archaeological discoveries show how these Native American people thrived, and then how they collapsed. By 1500, more than twelve thousand Mandans were established on the northern Plains, and their commercial prowess, agricultural skills, and reputation for hospitality became famous. Her boldly original interpretation of these diverse research findings offers us a new perspective on early American history, a new interpretation of the American past. Fenn retrieves their history by piecing together important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science.

We know of them mostly because Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 with them, but why dont we know more? Who were they really? In this extraordinary book, Elizabeth A. Book Synopsis Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for History Encounters at the Heart of the World concerns the Mandan Indians, iconic Plains people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were for centuries at the center of the North American universe.

About the Book Discusses the Mandan Indians, iconic Plains people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were for centuries at the center of t the North American universe.

Elizabeth fenn encounters at the heart of the world