Amahami (ama ‘land’, khami ‘broken’: mountainous country). A former distinct Siouan tribe, long since incorporated with the Hidatsa; also the name of their Tillage. Along with the Hidasta they claimed to have formerly constituted one tribe with the Crows. Their language, however, indicated closest affinity with the Hidatsa, differing but slightly from it, although they occupied a separate village and long maintained separate tribal organization. They were recognized as a distinct tribe by Lewis and Clark in 1804, but had practically lost their identity 30 years later. In Lewis and Clark s time their village was at the mouth of Knife r., N. Dak., and was one of three, the other two being Hidatsa, which for many years stood on the banks of that stream. Their strength was estimated at 50 warriors. After the epidemic; of 1837 all or the greater part of the survivors joined the Hidatsa and were merged with that tribe. Lewis and Clark state that they had been a numerous and prosperous agricultural tribe which once divided the upper Missouri valley, w. of the Dakota group, with the Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa, the remains of the old towns of these four tribes being visible on every prairie terrace along the river for 600 miles. The remnants of all four were found by Matthews (Ethnog. Hidatsa, 13, 1877) at Fort Berthold, numbering fewer than 2,500.
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Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Frederick Webb Hodge, 1906
