In the lab the volunteers continue to work with artifacts from On-A-Slant Village (32MO26), a Mandan earthlodge village site located at what is now Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. Recently, volunteer Diana came upon this large grooved maul while rebagging artifacts.

The largest grooved maul that I have seen (so far) in the North Dakota archaeology collections. SHSND AHP 83.442.71.1

Another view of the massive grooved maul from On-A-Slant Village (32MO26). SHSND AHP 83.442.71.1

Grooved mauls were so widely used in the past that they are often found throughout what is now North Dakota. They have been discovered by archaeologists in contexts belonging to every period of the state’s history. These tools are heavy-duty hammers. They can potentially be utilized for a variety of purposes—from cracking large bison bones to extracting marrow for cooking broth or making pemmican to driving posts or stakes into the ground.

The diameter of this specific maul is visibly bigger than most grooved mauls—the volunteers in the lab and I were all surprised when we saw it. The circumference of the central groove is 18 inches (45.72 cm), and it is even wider on either side of the groove. Despite its circumference, it isn’t too long at 7 7/8 inches (about 20 cm). But it is quite heavy and weighs 14.5 pounds (6.6 kg).

Grooved mauls do come in quite a variety of sizes. But we are not exactly sure why this one is so hefty. For comparison, a still large but more usual-sized example also from On-A-Slant Village (second from right in the photo below) weighs 6 pounds (2.8 kg).

Here are examples of grooved maul sizes ranging from unusually small (far left) to the extraordinarily large maul discussed in this blog (far right). The two mauls in the center are more typical sizes. SHSND AHP 10168, 83.442.71.11, 83.442.71.9, 83.442.71.1

Mauls are made by grinding or pecking a groove around an ovoid stone. The groove near the center is typically used for attaching the maul to a handle.

Two different examples of replica grooved mauls attached to handles. SHSND AHP Educational Collection

So far, this huge grooved maul has not been analyzed. And we don’t know exactly how it was used—although wielding it would be quite a workout! However, it almost certainly was used by someone since one end is slightly battered and worn.

A close-up of the end of the maul showing evidence of use—this end is battered and appears to be pocked. SHSND AHP 83.442.71.1

The State Historical Society of North Dakota started its collection in 1895. Over the past 126 years, the museum collection has acquired many artifacts with a unique and important North Dakota story. But every now and then I come across something that really makes me scratch my head. Here are a few that left me asking, “But why?”

1. Samurai armor

Samurai armor from Japan’s Bungo Province, 1775-1860. If you look closely under the nose (far left) you can see remnants of a hair mustache. Fearsome! SHSND 2015.59.1-10

What does a Japanese suit of armor have to do with North Dakota history? Not much. So why do we have it? The museum acquired the armor from Henry Horton of Bismarck in 1938. At that time, museums served as places where people who could not travel the world came to see rare and exotic things. Samurai armor is a prime example.

2. Poodle fur hat and scarf

This hat and scarf made of poodle fur are not nearly as cuddly as one would hope. SHSND 1982.139.2-3

This one needs no commentary. I think you will join me in asking, “Why?” In the spring of 1924 and 1925 Carrie Larson, a mother of five from Benson County, collected hair from her poodle and proceeded to wash, comb, card, spin, and knit it into a child’s hat and scarf. Below is a picture of the poodle.

Carrie’s son Otto Larson and their useful poodle. A very good dog.

3. A broken Thanksgiving turkey wishbone

I wonder if anyone recalls what they wished for? SHSND 2021.45.1

Museums sometimes have items that are called FICs or Found In Collections. These items have no paperwork, so we don’t know their history or who donated them. The oddest FIC I’ve seen so far is a broken turkey wishbone from 1921. Attached to it is a note that reads: “For Fraziers Turkey Nov. 24, 1921.” While trying to determine why someone would give a wishbone to the museum, I learned former North Dakota Gov. Lynn Frazier’s last year in office was 1921. Any connection between this wishbone and the Frazier’s Thanksgiving turkey is tenuous at best, but I found out some interesting tidbits about the former governor that I need you to know:

• He was a member of the Nonpartisan League (NPL), a political movement which spurred the creation of the state-owned Bank of North Dakota and the State Mill and Elevator.
• In 1921, he became the first U.S. governor removed from office by recall. The next successful gubernatorial recall wouldn’t be until 2003 when voters removed California Gov. Gray Davis from office.
• Frazier named his twin daughters Unie and Versie. Frazier was a graduate of the University of North Dakota and felt his children’s names were a good way to show his school spirit.

4. Hair art

Yes, that is hair. SHSND 11668

Hair art is pretty common in museum collections, but that doesn’t make it any less baffling to me. When I asked Assistant Registrar Elise Dukart why making art out of human hair was so popular during the Victorian period, she aptly responded, “Victorians loved weird, slow activities. They must have had so much time and so much hair.” Rosetta Carroll made this wreath out of her family’s hair in around 1890. Rosetta and her husband, Fred, farmed near Ryder. Although it seems bizarre today, hair art was once a popular craft often used to memorialize loved ones.

These days we are a bit more choosey about what artifacts are added to the museum collection. Our primary focus is to ensure donations fit the State Historical Society’s mission: “To identify, preserve, interpret, and promote the heritage of North Dakota and its people.” We also look for key factors like the item’s condition, whether the donor provided a history of the item, the donation’s similarity to other artifacts already in the collection, and our ability to properly care for it. Still, I am sure we will acquire things that will make future generations ask, “Why?” But then again, asking why is half the fun of exploring the past.

As a security officer, I have logged many miles patrolling the galleries at the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum. During these daily patrols, I challenge myself to focus on the depth of information selective items represent. Much like the title character of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, I believe it is only by journeying down historical rabbit holes and digging deeper into the past that I can comprehend its significance and contemporary reverberations.

Along the north wall of the State Museum’s Inspiration Gallery: Yesterday and Today, you will find a small picture of a Hunkpapa Lakota gentleman who was born around 1830. His anglicized name is Iron Horn. The story of Iron Horn and his siblings reflects the tragic choices forced on northern Plains people in the mid-to-late 19th century. Iron Horn’s family was divided over whether to accommodate Euro-American migratory pressure. Three of his brothers defied the U.S. government mandate that they retire to a reservation, joining up with Sitting Bull and fleeing to Canada after the Battle of the Greasy Grass. One of those brothers was Rain-in-the-Face; he would be mythologized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Revenge of Rain-in-the Face.” Iron Horn and two other brothers stayed on the Missouri River and became leaders in varying capacities on the Standing Rock Reservation. Ironically one of the Standing Rock brothers, Sgt. Charles Shavehead, was killed while on duty as a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) policeman during the arrest of Sitting Bull. Theirs was a family torn apart by the untenable choices they were forced to make.

The story of Iron Horn, pictured in 1872, and his siblings reflects the tragic choices forced on northern Plains people. SHSND SA B0299

Associated with Iron Horn is an awl, used by his wife Ina. It is easy to pass by the small display featuring Iron Horn, his wife, and her awl; I am sure many visitors to the State Museum do so. But for the analytical observer willing to invest time and a systemic approach to understanding the relationship among Iron Horn, the loss of traditional and religious values, and his wife’s awl, deeper revelations about our own existence and its impact on others may be discovered. This small exhibit kindled my interest and provided a conduit to further explore what might appear at first glance to be a negligible implement.

According to a journal article in Plains Anthropologist by Linea Sundstrom, the awl represented much more than a leather tool. As such, the transition from bone awls to using the metal type of awl housed in the Inspiration Gallery represented a significant shift in Lakota religious and ceremonial tradition. On the surface, this change was based on technological improvements. However, lost in the “technological advancement” was the cultural and religious significance tied to the bone awl.

For Lakota women, the bone awl was imperative to actualizing physical (womanhood), spiritual (visions), and pragmatic (production) aspirations. The act of sharpening bone awls created rock art, which was associated with female coming of age, played an important role in attaining visions, and ultimately created a useful tool for beadwork and other endeavors. The Iron Horn awl on exhibit in our museum was repurposed from “an old knife.” The adoption of metal technology, in effect, diminished the awl’s role as a transcendent cultural symbol for the Lakota and led to a significant loss of customs and religious heritage.

The transition from bone awls, left, to metal awls impacted the tool’s significance in Lakota religious and cultural life. This metal awl, right, was made by Iron Horn and used by his wife, Ina. SHSND 86.226.13798, 92.2.22, .24, .21, .25, 15600.62, 1982.285.31

This historical shift has often been explained in an ethnocentric manner by Euro-Americans. But by re-examining the broader cultural context behind such shifts, I have acquired a better understanding of the dynamic and multifaceted nature of historical discovery, as well as an appreciation for the awl’s importance to Native American women. Likewise, by understanding the fractured structure of Iron Horn’s clan, I gained insight into contemporary issues which impact both Native American communities and the U.S. political landscape.

Ultimately, I have found investigating historical rabbit holes can help bring about an enlightened understanding of lives lived. Exploring different cultures and perspectives of the past contributes to a shared contemporary understanding of who we are and how our various identities, in turn, shape our communities.

Guest Blogger: Keith Smith

Originally from Southern California, Keith Smith moved to Bismarck in 2017 to be closer to his grandkids, following significant stops in Phoenix, Arizona, and Logan, Utah. He became a security officer at the ND Heritage Center & State Museum in spring 2019 and is currently pursuing a master’s in U.S. History from Fort Hays State University. He has been married for 40 years and graduated from the University of Wyoming with a bachelor’s in social science.

Dakota the Dinomummy is returning! One of our most popular artifacts has been having a well-deserved rest and a bit of spa time. But in fall 2021 a thoroughly refreshed Dakota will return to the halls of the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum in Bismarck.

Dakota is a significant part of the region’s fossil record. Discovered in 1999 on a ranch near Marmarth in the extreme southwestern corner of the state, Dakota is an adolescent Edmontosaurus, one genus in a larger group of duck-billed dinosaurs called hadrosaurs. Dakota died in the swampy environment that was ancient North Dakota during the Late Cretaceous epoch, which lasted from about 100 to 66 million years ago. The carcass remained exposed long enough for the skin to dry, then the remains were buried in sedimentary material allowing for the preservation of some of the soft organs and skin. They have since become stone, but their distinctive mass and textures remain. The muscles and tendons are particularly recognizable in the tail section.

Stylized illustration of an Edmontosaurus.

Dakota’s former exhibit case in the main corridor of the State Museum was disassembled just prior to Thanksgiving 2019. I remember thinking at that time the massive ribcage looked like something that would have appeared on the Flintstones’ holiday table.

Dakota’s ribcage prior to returning to the paleontology lab.

After the wall components were removed, the fossil’s two huge stone sections were relocated to the paleontology lab in the basement, where the paleo staff began months of work to expose a larger portion of the fossil for scientific research. However, before the sections could be moved, their wooden frames had to be raised and blocked, and heavy-duty casters added to their undersides. That involved several hardy individuals shimmying under the suspended masses to attach the wheels. Then, once the wheels were in place, moving four tons of fossilized hadrosaur required both a forklift and staff member muscle.

As we moved the second section down the corridor, a little boy observed the action from his perch on a bench. He was wide-eyed. As we rumbled by him, I said, “It’s not every day a dinosaur passes by.”

North Dakota Geological Survey paleontologists Clint Boyd and Jeff Person, along with Chief Preparator Bryan Turnbow, get Dakota ready for its move.

On the move past the front entrance and mastodon skeleton.

While Dakota has been missed, its time away has been very productive. It was thoroughly scanned and a 3D model created. It has also undergone extensive preparation with the removal of more than 2,000 pounds of stone and plaster. Both the preparation and survey processes revealed many insights, especially regarding Dakota’s demise. Those new details remain proprietary pending peer review and publication. But stay tuned: More will be revealed in time.

Dakota’s return will include a new display case and interpretive content. Chief Preparator Bryan Turnbow along with a team of State Historical Society staff and paleontologists from the North Dakota Geological Survey worked closely with Taylor Studios in Illinois to fabricate Dakota’s new environment and update the interpretive text. The full fossil will not be on exhibit. However, extensive work on one of the arms will be showcased on a raised mount, and custom lighting will illuminate special features. New interpretive signage will accompany the display, with references and fresh discoveries that will help make Dakota more relevant and understandable to museum visitors.

A 3D model of Dakota’s skin will be included as part of the new installation.

One especially cool feature of the new installation will be a tactile component allowing visitors to touch a 3D model of Dakota’s skin. And much like the young visitor watching the huge dinosaur fossil rumbling down the hallway, for most of us, this will probably be the closest we come to encountering a “real” dinosaur.

My drive down U.S. Highway 83 runs straight and lumpy through green fields punctuated by the occasional small town anchored by grain elevators and church spires. It’s high summer, the day of the Accordion Jam Fest at the Welk Homestead State Historic Site just outside Strasburg, and I’m eager to see where the famed entertainer and bandleader spent his early years. Still relatively new to my job at the State Historical Society of North Dakota, I’ve made a pact to acquaint myself with as many state historic sites as possible before winter’s onset.

While the Welk Homestead is my ultimate destination, I’ve been told I can’t miss a stop at Keller’s Hardware Hank on Strasburg’s Main Street, where a “secret” door in the shop leads to a former hotel turned museum.

I’ve called ahead, and when I arrive co-owner Gary Keller wastes no time in giving me a rundown of the building’s evolution since his immigrant grandfather Valentine Keller bought the place in 1910. At the time, it was an implement shop, which sold windmills and horse-drawn farm equipment. By 1917, Valentine had ripped “the roof and front off,” added a story, and expanded the building into a hotel and restaurant, which opened in March of that year and offered “modern” amenities such as hot and cold running water, electric lights, and steam heat. For a quarter century, the hotel would serve as a way station for an array of colorful characters, including bootleggers, boxers, and even the odd bear.

An overhead sign in Keller’s Hardware Hank, left, points in the direction of a “secret” door located behind a wall of paint sample cards.

Yes, you heard that right.

As Gary explains: “There was a vaudeville act in town, and they had a trained bear. After the performance, they brought the bear into the hotel, took him down into the basement and chained him to a post. Dad could hear the bear’s chain tinkling on the concrete.”

Needless to say, his father, Valentine Keller Jr., who was spending the night in the small room behind the lobby desk, had a tough time falling asleep.

In the early 1940s, Valentine Jr. opened a hardware store on the ground floor, which has been in existence ever since, and the hotel shuttered shortly thereafter, never to reopen again. An uncle and his wife briefly occupied a couple of the former upstairs hotel rooms, and Gary remembers playing in their quarters as a child and thinking, “It would be wonderful to live up here … like living in a castle.”

While not exactly a secret (a sign hanging from the ceiling points in the direction of the “Keller Hotel”), accessing the door requires Gary to move a portable wall of paint sample cards. Gary and his brother Dick converted the upstairs into a museum in preparation for the 2002 Strasburg centenary. (If you want to see the museum, an appointment is advised.)

Once upstairs, visitors enter a time warp. Three of the 11 hotel rooms are preserved in their original state with the remaining rooms featuring a variety of period-appropriate reconstructions, including a barbershop and a bank lobby with fixtures from Strasburg’s very first bank. (Gary’s grandfather bought the fixtures after the bank went belly-up during the Depression.) Fittingly, there’s also a display on local musicians, including Mike Dosch, John Schwab, and Lawrence Welk. According to family lore, Welk is said to have played weddings at the hotel and to have been sweet on one of Gary’s aunts.

A preserved hotel room, left, and fixtures from Strasburg’s first bank in the upstairs museum.

The longstanding and tight-knit connections, which exist among the families of this German-Russian community, are evident throughout the tour. Mike Dosch, Gary tells me, is the great-uncle of his niece Kathy Dosch, who has popped upstairs during my tour to say hello. John Schwab’s brother Lawrence was married to Gary’s aunt, Regina Keller. John and Lawrence, who would die tragically in Room 11 during the 1918 Spanish flu, grew up in the Schwab sod house (John would also raise his family there), which is located about six miles northeast of town and open to the public. The widowed Regina would go on to marry another Schwab brother and live in the sod house for a time with him and her in-laws. Two of John Schwab’s sons would marry two sisters, who happened to be Lawrence Welk’s nieces. (In an interesting twist, these two sisters Evelyn and Edna Schwab would sell the Welk Homestead to the State Historical Society in 2015.)

By the way, had I seen the Schwab house? Kathy asks. I had not, and after lunch at the Blue Room bar, I set out past a “road closed” sign at the far end of Main Street (there is no paving from here on out), proceed around two curves, then continue straight until I come to a dilapidated stone house (straight out of a Hitchcock film). From there, I turn left at an intersection and begin the final three miles of the journey down a road buried deep among cornfields.

Despite Kathy’s excellent directions I manage to miss the plywood sign that shouts “Schwab Farm” and only see it after I give up and turn around. The sod house, now with white vinyl siding thanks to a 2010 facelift, is perched on a hill overlooking the road and was built in the late 1800s by the Schwab family, immigrants from the Odessa region of present-day Ukraine. Like the Welk Homestead, it is part of a “Prairie Legacy” Talking Trail, which explores German-Russian heritage across Emmons, Logan, and McIntosh counties. In addition to the sod house, the farm once included a summer kitchen, chicken coop, granary, and barn, but those outbuildings are long gone.

This little sod house, home to generations of Schwabs, offers a glimpse into a bygone era.

I remove the flathead screwdriver, which secures the front door, and step inside, moving tentatively through eerily still rooms filled with old family photographs, vintage furniture, and Catholic iconography. In the living room, an accordion sits on a stand next to a black-and-white television set. Several of John Schwab’s children were also talented musicians who played in a band called the Bubbling Quintet, his daughter Antonia Baumgartner will later tell me when I reach her by phone. Lawrence Welk, she adds, used to ride out to the farm and “ask dad to teach him certain things” on the accordion. Baumgartner, who spearheaded the sod house’s renovation in 1988, furnished the interior to reflect how it looked in the mid-20th century.

The Welk Homestead State Historic site details German-Russian farm life and Lawrence Welk’s early years.

With the late afternoon heat spiraling upward, I carefully replace the screwdriver in the latch, then circle back to the Welk Homestead, where Matt Hodek & the Dakota Dutchmen are about to take to a flatbed trailer stage parked along Baumgartner Lake. (Antonia’s mother was a Baumgartner who grew up near the Welk farm, and Antonia would also marry into the Baumgartner family.) While I wait, I get my North Dakota Passport stamped by a girl at the admissions desk and examine the tiny (by contemporary standards) rooms where Welk spent his childhood in a white farmhouse built of batsa bricks. There, I pick up a button accordion and clumsily attempt a few notes. I snap a picture with a cardboard cutout of the big man himself then head over to the granary, where information panels tell the story of the United States’ “Germans from Russia” and a video recounts Lawrence Welk’s life and career.

Matt Hodek & the Dakota Dutchmen perform at the Welk Homestead State Historic Site earlier this summer.

At last, the music starts. Couples get to their feet. I watch mesmerized as an elderly man in a beige jumpsuit and his prim partner in capris begin to polka, hopping and circling vigorously to the accordion beats. Clearly the heritage of Strasburg is very much alive, nurtured at our state historic site and by the people and communities that surround and sustain it. As I nosh on kuchen, the music’s hypnotic rhythm blissfully transports me–and it’s almost as if no time has passed at all.

The Welk Homestead State Historic Site near Strasburg is open Thursday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. through Sept. 5. On Aug. 28, it will host “Party with the Monarchs” from 1-3 p.m., which will include kite flying and butterfly-related crafts.

The State Historical Society of North Dakota’s Archaeology & Historic Preservation collections consist of over 12 million artifacts that document 13,500 years of human history representing more than 2,500 archaeological sites in North Dakota and the surrounding region. We have stone tools of big game hunters, gardening tools, grinding tools, historic artifacts, game tools, and much more. Among our game artifacts are ice gliders.

Stewart Culin ([1907] 1992), a major game scholar in the field of anthropology, divides Native American games into two groups: games of chance and games of dexterity. Games of chance include dice and other guessing games where the outcome depends on luck. On the other hand, games of dexterity such as a game of shooting a target or sliding a javelin require physical strength and skill. The second group also includes games like foot racing, hoop-and-pole, and ball games that require athletic agility and stamina.

Some of these Native American games were ceremonial in nature (Culin [1907] 1992). These include hunting and warfare games only played by men. Other games were played by men and women for fun and pleasure. Still other games aimed to train and educate children in activities like hunting and warfare, skills needed to be successful adults. The ice glider game was a game of skill and dexterity and was occasionally used for gambling (Nicholson et al. 2017: 121).

The ice glider game was played on a smooth course, usually of ice or snow, with the ice glider thrown into the air and onto the ice surface. Players took turns, and the objective of the game was to see who could throw an ice glider farthest. Most ethnographic accounts indicate boys or young men played the game. Ice gliders were usually made of a bone head with stick-and-feather tails, which assisted the flight of the finished object. Bison, cattle, and deer ribs were used to make ice gliders. While the forward end of the bone often had a blunt or a V-shaped point, its back end was cut square. Some ice gliders also have recognizable decorations. The motifs include geometric designs, crosshatching, incised lines, and other naturalistic and line designs (Majewski 1986).

Both archaeological and ethnographic evidence indicates the game was played by the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara and Dakota nations. The earliest presence of ice gliders at Arikara sites is dated to roughly A.D. 1750 (Nicholson et al. 2017: 123). Ice gliders have also been found at early historic Mandan and Hidatsa sites. The presence of ice gliders at a site may indicate a winter occupation and may provide some insight about the recreational activity of people in the distant past (Nicholson et al. 2017).

An ice glider on exhibit in the State Museum’s Innovation Gallery: Early Peoples. SHSND 162

Ice glider bone (no. 17), game basket (no. 16), and gaming pieces (nos. 18-20) from our exhibits in the Innovation Gallery. SHSND 2001.12.223, .199, .271, SHSND 10197, 9978, 1811, 10199, and 158.

Ice gliders and other Native American game artifacts are on display at the State Museum’s Innovation Gallery in Bismarck. In addition to those on exhibit, the Archaeology & Historic Preservation Department has nearly two hundred pieces of complete and partial ice glider artifacts in our collections from different sites including Bone Slider/Ice Glider, Like-A-Fishhook and/or Fort Berthold, Deapolis Village, Greenshield, and the Yanktonai Ice Glider. Of our ice glider artifacts, most come from the Bone Slider/Ice Glider site, which is a documented winter village in Oliver County. A few are decorated and others are pierced and/or decorated. The interpretation of the Bone Slider/Ice Glider site as a winter village is strengthened by Prince Maximilian's observation in May 1833 of a large camp of Yankton Sioux consisting of 300 tents in the neighborhood (Chomko and Wood 1973).

Examples of complete ice glider artifacts from the Bone Slider/Ice Glider site. AHP Accession Number 2001.12

These ice gliders from the Bone Slider/Ice Glider site are decorated with crosshatching and other incisions. AHP Accession Number 2001.12

References

Chomko, S.A., and W.R. Wood. 1973. “Linear Mounds in the Northeastern Plains.” Archaeology in Montana 14, no. 2: 1–19.

Culin, Stewart. (1907) 1992. Games of the North American Indians, Volume 2: Games of skill. Reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Majewski, Teresita. 1986. “Ice Gliders–Introduction.” In Ice Glider 320L110, edited by W. Raymond Wood, 104–8. Sioux Falls: South Dakota Archaeological Society.

Nicholson, B.A., David Meyer, Sylvia Nicholson, and Scott Hamilton. 2003.“The Function of Ice-gliders and Their Distribution in Time and Space Across the Northern Plains and Parklands.” Plains Anthropologist 48 (186): 121–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/2052546.2003.11949300.