Amahami

The Amahami, or Awaxawi, were one of the Hidatsa groups who lived beside the Missouri and Knife rivers. Their earthlodge villages stood among fields of maize, beans and squash, while hunting and trade connected the villagers with peoples across the northern Plains. Together with the Mandan, their neighbors, they made the upper Missouri villages important centers of exchange.

By the early nineteenth century the Awaxawi occupied a village on the Knife River near the villages of the Awatixa and Hidatsa proper. Lewis and Clark visited the area in 1804 and found communities whose trade reached well beyond the Missouri valley. Epidemics had already taken a heavy toll, and smallpox struck the upper Missouri villages again in 1837, causing devastating losses among their inhabitants.