bismarcktribune: Tribes are given back their homeland

11.6.14

Tribes are given back their homeland: [bismarcktribune] The Walker sisters purchased the buildings and land that shares a boundary line with the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site from Jim and Beverly Riedemann.

Riedemann, a cowman and auctioneer, said he was pleased to make a deal that restored a small piece of the Hidatsa ancestral grounds to those whose people had lived in earthlodges and made their gardens there so many years ago.

“It’s going to stay with them and not be developed up into a housing development,” Riedemann said.

He was among some 350 people who attended a ceremony held just outside his former residence, a nice house in view of the county courthouse, as the tribal members paraded in on horseback and foot, in colorful dress, to the sounds of singing and drumming, the air scented by smudged sage.