Archaeology and Early History

People have lived on the Rainy Buttes for over 10,000 years. Traces of the first peoples to walk on the Rainy Buttes is seen in the stone tools and points found here that date from the Paleo Indian period, a age that covers the time span of between 8,000-11,500 years Before Present (B.P.). An Eden point, with an age range of 8-9,000 years B.P., was found in a field near the buttes. In 1995, an archaeology survey working at the Knife River Flint Quarries near Dunn Center found a Folsom point (9,500-11,500 B.P.) made from a dark brown, glassy rock called Rainy Butte Silicified Sediment, a stone which is known only to be found in the area around the buttes. It’s very likely that whoever used that point had visited the buttes or traded with someone who had, establishing a link between the Rainy Buttes and the Knife River Flint Quarries. Future studies at the buttes hope to discover more of the links between the buttes and the lifeways of these ancient hunters and gatherers. One intriguing example of a possible connection is shown by the discovery of a Mammoth tooth in a gravel pit a short distance north of the buttes.

Discovery of more recent use of the butte occurred in 1982 when a Field School under the direction of Dr. Larry Loendorf of the University of North Dakota conducted archaeological survey of selected parts of the buttes. Surface survey of East Rainy revealed the presence of a large number of tipi rings on the benches on the north and east sides. A large assortment of tipi rings also cover the south side of West Rainy with evidence of ancient campfires in the center of some. Test pits dug on East Rainy revealed evidence on butchering operations on bones from a wide range of animals including bison, bear, elk, deer, antelope, wolf and coyote. Radiocarbon dates give dates of 570-250 B.P. while pottery discovered show a style consistent with the Scattered Village Phase of earthlodge peoples who lived on the Missouri from 1400-1450 A.D. These findings confirm a long term utilization of the buttes by native peoples.

Ethnographically there are several accounts linking Native Americans with the butte, showing other tribes have used the buttes for hunting and camping. In Robert M. Utley’s book, The Lance and the Shield, he recounts an oral history which tells that in the spring of 1859, “…the Hunkpapas camped on the upper Cannonball River, near the base of two wooded promontories they called Rainy Buttes, because it always seemed to rain when they were there. The people had broken camp and were moving out to the north when a crowd of some fifty yipping Crows poured over a ridge and charged toward them” (pg. 24) In the fight that followed, Sitting

Bull lost his father Jumping Bull. Other accounts list Chanta Peta (a Dakota word) creek, south of the Rainy’s as part of the traditional hunting ground of Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull’s name also appears in the earliest written account we have of the butte. The description of the Rainy Buttes comes from the journal of Charles Galpin on June 9th and 10th, 1868. Galpin was accompanying Fr. Pierre J. DeSmet, the famous Belgian missionary, on his peace mission to negotiate with Sitting Bull and the other Sioux who were living on the Little Big Horn in Montana. Galpin made a trip from their camp on the Cannonball to visit a unidentified Native-American camp on the Rainy Buttes and he wrote in his journal that he inscribed his name on a sandstone boulder there. That his signature has never been found is only one of the unsolved mysteries of the buttes.

Four years earlier, the buttes witnessed the passage of two large groups who were participants in a frontier drama. The Fisk Expedition, with 200 men and women, 80 wagons and 500 cattle passed the Rainy Buttes on their way to the gold fields in Idaho. Their account states that after leaving the Cannonball River near where New England now stands they had to make dry camp that night. A day and a half later they were attacked by a large band of Dakota while crossing Deep Creek and put under siege at what came to be called Fort Dilts, named so in honor of the scout who died in the battle. The Dakota were part of the group that had been at the Battle of Killdeer Mountains where they had lost the majority of their food supplies. It is only after twenty days of battle that they were rescued by a troop of cavalry of 900 men from Fort Rice, the army post at the mouth of the Cannonball, who rode hard past the buttes on their way to Fort Dilts.

Before the Dakota came to this area the Mandan and Hidatsas held the Rainy Buttes as a very sacred place for fasting and for a number of ceremonies. Rather than call it Rainy Butte, they call it ‘Rainy House’ and in addition had several names for the Buttes also calling it the ‘House where the Elk come from’ and the ‘House where the Eagles come from’. One account states that in the ‘time before man’ animals were much larger and the buttes were the fasting area for the Black Bear who came here to trap eagles. The story goes that originally the three buttes were connected and a giant eagle lived deep inside. One day the eagle came out and captured a cub of the giant Black Bear and took it back inside. A male bear came to search for the cub and then took a sinew rope and used it to rescue the cub. In digging the cub out it removed all the dirt between the buttes leaving only “Old Baldy” where the house of the Eagles is located and that is the reason that the East and West Rainy Buttes are now separated. Evidence of eagle trapping appears on the west end of East Rainy. We also know that the buttes are the site for burials, many of which have been destroyed by vandals or the curious. Recent legislation recognizes the rights and sacredness of these burials and they are now protected by the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and violators are subject to Federal fines and jail