Early Maps Illustrating Double Ditch

Early Maps Illustrating Double Ditch. Double Ditch Indian Village State Historic Site. As early as 1804, this village was noted by explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark during their expedition through this area.. Captain Clark wrote in his journal entry of October 22, 1804: , passed 2 old villages at the mouth of a large Creek L.S, [Hunting Creek] and a Small Island at the head of which is a bad place, and old village on the S.S. [Double Ditch] and the upper of the 6 Villages the Mandans occupied about 25 years ago this village was entirely cut off by the Sioux and one of the others nearly, the Small Pox destroyed great numbers. , Hunting Creek today is known as Square Butte Creek, It enters the Missouri River from the west. , , In 1910, anthropologist Gilbert Wilson illustrated a map first drawn by Wounded Face, a Mandan, who consulted about map features with Goodbird, a Hidatsa. Considered a talented draftsman, Goodbird then resketched the map in more accurate proportion. Double Ditch is labeled as B (Looking's Village). , In 1906, Orin G. Libby, secretary of the State Historical Society of North Dakota, commissioned Sitting Rabbit, a Mandan, to paint a map of traditional Mandan and Hidatsa sites along the Missouri. On the Sitting Rabbit map below (middle right), "Yellow Bank Village" is Double Ditch. Additional ethnographic information recorded early in the 20th century indicates Double Ditch was also known to the Mandans as Yellow Earth Village.