Yvonne Fox, Arikara
Decimation of the Arikara, Hidatsa, and Mandan
TOMV 2004

After the last small pox, uh, epidemic, uh, when we were up at lake, like a fishing village, there was, I think, uh, in the census that we found, that there was like 380 Arikaras left.  There was 189, uh, Hidatsa, and there was 23 Mandans.  That was it.  That was all that was left after the last epidemic.  And the epidemics were just…uh, they just…we had no resistance to it.   And then once they got going in a village, they just destroyed almost the whole the village.  

So within that, uh, when they destroyed people in that short a time, they – people were the keepers, the keepers of the knowledge of the ceremonies and of different things, and how to do things and all of that – so we lost a lot of it like that, you know, in real quick epidemics that came through.  And so we did have to get together and band together for protection from marauding tribes and…