04/01/2024
The Missouri River of the Northern Plains flows some 2,341 miles from the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitteroot Range in the Rocky Mountains. The Missouri follows an eastern path and then flows south to the Mississippi River.
The noted late Comanche historian Francis Joseph Attocknie talked about his nomadic Yamparika (Root Eater) band.
From an interview done in 1969, Joseph shared that his grandfather Attocknie (Dwelling That Sits Apart) spoke of the Missouri River and described the waterway of the Northern Great Plains. Joe voiced the following:
"Now the Root Eaters were living at the time I'm talking about, about Ten Bears. They were living mostly in the northern part of Comanche country. That is in Kansas and also Nebraska. They spent a lot of time along the Missouri River. Cause they uh -- that was one of their landmarks. The Missouri River which they referred to as the Yoo-Hoo Uh-Kweh. Which would mean Yoo-Hoo is might mean oil, oily river, Uh-Kweh. And they travel pretty far up the Missouri River because they were at that time strong enough to fairly free to travel the Missouri River." Joe added "And my grandfather Attocknie talk about the the Missouri River. And uh -- described it. They even described how small it was at it's source."
A beautiful landscape picture of the headwaters of the Missouri River in the Gallatin Valley of Montana. Before the arrival of the Corps of Discovery in 1805 by the American Captains Lewis and Clark, the area was a rich hunting ground for many tribes of the region. The meeting of three rivers named the Gallatin, Madison, and Jefferson make up the headwaters of the Missouri. Photograph courtesy of the Three Forks Chamber of Commerce, Three Forks, Montana.
Additional information from the Doris Duke Collection, Western History, The University of Oklahoma Libraries, Norman, Oklahoma and The Life of Ten Bears, Comanche Historical Narratives, Collected by Francis Joseph Attocknie.
