Note 12 — {238} CHAPTER II {XII}

The tribe here mentioned belonged to the Siouan family, and its numbers were estimated by Lewis and Clark at two thousand five hundred. Their chief village was situated on Knife River, North Dakota. Minitaree means "to cross water;" Grosventres is French for "Big Bellies." The proper name of this tribe is Hidatsa, which distinguishes it from an unrelated tribe farther west, to which both of the former appellations are sometimes applied—generally with the addition "of the Prairie;" the Hidatsa being known as Grosventres (or Minitaree) "of the Missouri." Their numbers were thinned by an epidemic in 1837, and in 1845 they removed some sixty miles farther up the Missouri, where they were joined by the Mandan, and later (1862) by the Arikara. About four hundred and fifty Hidatsa now live on the Fort Berthold Reservation, in North Dakota.—Ed.