mónute (food)
In the fur trade of western North America, mónute—whether in its hunting or in its consumption—was often a way that diverse Native and non-Native communities cemented their ties to one another, and thus it played an important role in Middle Ground spaces. During Missouri River winters, mónute would grow scarce, as the buffalo herds spent these months in the water-rich Rocky Mountains to the west. Warriors like Mató-Tópe would sometimes be forced to mount far-ranging hunting parties, sometimes with fort personnel, as occurred in February 1833. The reappearance of the seasonal buffalo migrations near the Missouri River would presage the spring thaws, as well as the replenishment of meat in both Fort Clark and the Awatíkihu (Five Villages) through joint hunts.
Sharing mónute in the Awatíkihu had long been an expression of both the hospitality expected of its leaders and its enactment and enforcement of its calumet kinship relations. Decades before Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied and his party had arrived at Fort Clark, the Numak'aki leader Sheheke (White Coyote) of Mít uta hako'sh (First Village) had extended hospitality to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark with the following expression of fictive kinship: “If we eat you Shall eat, if we Starve you must Starve also.”[1]