The Indians of this region lived mainly from hunting buffalo and used leather for clothing and items of everyday life. Their cloaks made from buffalo skins, so-called buffalo robes, are very famous. The Berlin Museum of Ethnology has a valuable collection of buffalo robes which Prince Maximilian zu Wied brought back from his journey to the Missouri River between 1832 and 1834.

The two expeditionists, Prince Maximilian zu Wied and Karl Bodmer (far right)
meet Hidatsa Indians at Fort Clark on the upper Missouri in 1833