Details the traditional world of the Mandans. This book features overviews of how their households function, the makeup of their clan and moiety systems and kinship network, and a look at the Mandan life cycle, from birth and naming through adulthood, marriage, and death.

Alfred W. Bowers (1901-1990) was a professor of anthropology and is the author of Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization (Nebraska 1992). Gerard Baker, a Mandan-Hidatsa from the Fort Berthold Reservation, is the superintendent of the Lewis and Clark National Historical Trail and leader of the Corps of Discovery II, the Lewis and Clark bicentennial initiative sponsored by the National Park Service.