Good Furred Robe

Good Furred Robe is the culture hero of the Mandan corn tradition. In the origin account recorded by Alfred Bowers, the Corn People came up from their home beneath the earth led by their chief Good Furred Robe, who was Corn Medicine and alone held the right to teach the people how to raise corn; he guided them northward along the Missouri to the Heart River, where they joined the Buffalo People and the country became the meeting place of all the Mandan. He instituted the corn ceremonies, among the most valued of early Mandan rites, and organized the Goose Women's Society, whose dances at the coming and going of the waterfowl served the corn goddess Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies. He owned a robe which, sprinkled with water, would cause rain to come, and the office of corn priest descended from him into the twentieth century — Scattered Corn, who assisted the ethnographers of Mandan agriculture, was the daughter of the last Mandan corn priest. As late as 1948 the Mandan corn bundle was said to contain the skulls of Good Furred Robe and his brothers.

Domains

• corn and garden crops
• rain making
• ceremony and ritual

Powers

• to teach the people how to raise corn
• to bring rain when water was sprinkled on his robe
• to organize the Goose Society of the women

Relations

• sibling: Cornhusk EarringsIn the corn origin tradition Good Furred Robe, chief of the Corn People, had a brother named Cornhusk Earrings who came up from beneath the earth with him.Alfred W. Bowers, Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950. (secondary)
• sibling: Head for RattleHis younger brother, called No Hair on Him or Head for Rattle after the gourds, likewise came up from beneath the earth among the Corn People.Alfred W. Bowers, Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950. (secondary)
• subordinate to: Old-Woman-Who-Never-DiesAs the first corn priest Good Furred Robe organized the Goose Society, whose rites at the spring arrival and autumn departure of the waterfowl were addressed to Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, the goddess who makes the corn grow and whom the corn rites serve.Alfred W. Bowers, Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950. (secondary)

Sources

• Good Furred Robe is the Mandan corn culture hero and first corn priest who led the Corn People up from beneath the earth to the Heart River, taught the raising of corn, owned the rain-bringing Sacred Robe, founded the corn ceremonies and the women's Goose Society, and whose skull was said to be kept in the corn bundle.: Alfred W. Bowers, Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950. (secondary); Elizabeth A. Fenn, Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People, New York: Hill and Wang, 2014. (secondary); Martha Warren Beckwith, Mandan-Hidatsa Myths and Ceremonies (Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, Vol. 32), New York: J. J. Augustin for the American Folklore Society, 1938. (secondary)