The Crows

The Raven Nation

By Kristopher K. Townsend

In the list of names and descriptions of North American tribes that Lewis and Clark compiled at Fort Mandan, they called the people living along the Yellowstone River, “as usially Spelt and pronounc’d” by the English—and in Clark’s idiosyncratic spelling—”Ravin nation.” Clark wrote the “primitive” name phonetically as Arp-Sar-co-gah, and gave the nickname that “generally obtained among the Canadian Traders as “Cor beaus” (i.e., corbeaux, French for “crows” or “ravens”). But the people called themselves Absalookas, sometimes heard as Absarokas, or “Children of the Large-beaked Bird.” Various early white travelers transcribed or defined the name differently, but the Absalookas maintain it refers to the raven. Naturally, the Plains Sign Language gesture for them is the flapping the arms like wings.[1]Douglas R. Parks, Handbook of North American Indians: Plains Vol. 13, ed. Raymond J. DeMallie (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 2001), 715.

Starting in the late 1600s, perhaps earlier, the Crows began a gradual process of separation with the Hidatsas. The Mountain Crow and Awatixa Hidatsa share a common ancestry as do the River Crow with the Hidatsa proper.[2]Fred W. Voget, Handbook of North American Indians: Plains Vol. 13, 695. At the time of the expedition, the two nations maintained annual visits, and Toussaint Charbonneau and his wife, Sacagawea, would likely have known, and be known by, many Crow individuals. During the expedition, no one would see any Crow people, but those people certainly noticed the expedition passing through their lands.

While exploring the Yellowstone, the travelers did see signs of Crow. When horses starting disappearing during the night at Yellowstone Canoe Camp, unseen Crow thieves were suspected. Clark’s speech imploring the return of his horses never found its intended audience. In a final encounter, the remaining horses were stolen from Sgt. Nathaniel Pryor‘s small group who were charged with taking them to the Knife River Villages as currency in a bold diplomatic plan.

In the “Estimate of the Eastern Indians,” Clark explains the role the Crow played in trade between the Shoshones, who traded with the Spanish, and the Knife River Villages and Hidatsas, who traded with the North West and Hudson’s Bay companies:

These people are divided into four bands, called by themselves A-hâh’-âr-ro’-pit-no-pah, Noo’-ta, Pa-rees-car, and E-hârt’-sâr. They annually visit the Mandans, Minetares [Hidatsas], and Ahwahhaways [Iowas], to whom they barter horses, mules, leather lodges, and many articles of Indian apparel, for which they receive, in return, guns, ammunition, axes, kettles, awls, and other European manufactures. When they return to their country, they are in turn visited by the Paunch and Snake Indians, to whom they barter most of the articles they have obtained from the nations on the Missouri, for horses and mules, of which those nations have a greater abundance than themselves. They also obtain from the Snake Indians, bridle-bits and blankets, and some other articles which those Indians purchase from the Spaniards. The bridle-bits and blankets I have seen in the possession of the Mandans and Minetares.[3]Moulton, Journals, 3:428.

Today, the Crow have one federally recognized tribe, the Crow Tribe of Montana, and many of the people’s ways and language, including their horse culture, are relatively well-preserved.

 

Selected Pages and Encounters

Notes

Notes
1 Douglas R. Parks, Handbook of North American Indians: Plains Vol. 13, ed. Raymond J. DeMallie (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 2001), 715.
2 Fred W. Voget, Handbook of North American Indians: Plains Vol. 13, 695.
3 Moulton, Journals, 3:428.

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  • The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.