Rodeo honors family histories
By Jerry W. Kram
The Driver family has a long history in rodeo going back a century or more. The family is also descended from the Xoshgha band of Hidatsa, who abandoned the reservation in the 1870s to live independently near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers for more than two decades.
That twin heritage came together Friday as the Driver Family Rodeo was renamed the Xoshgha Days Rodeo and held at the New Town Rodeo Grounds. The rodeo was put on by Marvin Driver and his brother Delvin Driver Sr. explained the history behind the event.
“Back in the late 1930s, my dad Jim Driver was a stock contractor,” Delvin said. “He went in with the city of Van Hook and formed a rodeo association. My dad had the horses. Those years in the 30s and all of the 40s there were a lot of Indian rodeo cowboys – Guy Fox, Phillip Baker, the Grinnells, and Joe Black Bear, there were a lot of them.”
The Three Affiliated Tribes, like many other tribal nations, were horse people, Driver said, and so were attracted to and excelled in the sport of rodeo.
“The reason for that is because a lot of our elders had horse medicine,” Delvin said. “So the horse you can say is sacred to the native people. My family goes way back with the horses. My grandpa had horse medicine, and we were involved in the ceremonies and prayers. So (the family) has tried to carry on and take care of the horses.”
The Driver family decided they would combine their passion for rodeo with the growing awareness of how their ancestors preserved a great deal of Hidatsa heritage. In the 1870s, the Mandans and Hidatsa were settled at Like-a-Fishhook Village on the newly established Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. Chief Crow Flies High led a group of Hidatsa who dislike the restrictions of the reservation to establish a new village near Fort Buford, and the Missouri-Yellowstone confluence.
