"Miniwashitu" or "The Cause of the Breaking Up of the Ice in the Missouri River in Springtime"

Short lil post as I kind of drove myself crazy earlier in the week trying to find a good story tying to Walpurgisnacht or Beltane. No luck. Instead, I came across an article from Atlus Obscura on an old legend of North Dakota, the Miniwashitu. This then led me on a little bit of a hunt to find the source originally referenced in the article and now here we are. So, we’re shifting from spring to summer but this is a little bit of writing about the arrival of spring on the Missouri River. The Miniwashitu was considered a terrifying herald of the spring by the Madan people as it would make a “terrific roaring sound” as it swam up the Missouri River using its tremendous body and backbone, “notched and jagged like an enormous saw”, to break through the ice. To see it in the night, at a distance, was to see “a redness shining like the redness of fire”; to see it in full daylight was to be driven insane by the sight.

I hope you enjoy this quick read. Next week will more than make up for the brevity, be warned.

Melvin Randolph Gilmore (March 11, 1868 – July 25, 1940) was an American anthropologist and ethnobotanist known for his works on Native American anthropological manuscripts and the books Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region (1919) and Indian Lore and Indian Gardens (1930). Gilmore served as the Curator of Ethnology at the University of Michigan’s Museum of Anthropology as well as founding the University’s Ethnobotanical Laboratory in 1930 which focused on studying the botany of Indigenous groups in the Great Plains. "The Cause of the Breaking Up of the Ice in the Missouri River in Springtime" was included in Gilmore’s 1921 book, Prairie Smoke: A Collection of Lore of the Prairies.

It is said that in the long ago, there was a mysterious being within the stream of the Missouri River. It was seldom seen by human beings, and was most dreadful to see. It is said that sometimes it was seen within the water in the middle of the stream, causing a redness shining like the redness of fire as it passed up the stream against the current with a terrific roaring sound.

And they say that if this dreadful being was seen by anyone in the daytime anyone who thus saw it soon after became crazy and continued restless and writhing as though in pain until he was relieved by death. And it is said that one time not a very great many years ago this frightful being was seen by a man, and he told how it appeared. He said that it was of strange form and covered all over with hair like a buffalo, but red in color; that it had only one eye in the middle of its forehead, and above that a single horn. Its backbone stood out notched and jagged like an enormous saw. As soon as the man beheld the awful sight everything became dark to him, he said. He was just able to reach home, but he lost his reason and soon after that he died.

It is said this mysterious “Miniwashitu” (water monster) still lives in the Missouri River, and that in springtime, as it moves up-stream against the current it breaks up the ice of the river. This water monster was held in awe and dread by the people.