I'm listening to an audio book and the author talks about the Corps of Discovery's interaction with the Mandan Indians who supposedly had light skin, blonde hair, blue eyes, and a language so similar to the Welsh that they could understand each other. Is this completely made up or what?
I'm listening to an audio book and the author talks about the Corps of Discovery's interaction with the Mandan Indians who supposedly had light skin, blonde hair, blue eyes,
The Corps of Discovery did not report this (though they did mention a Mandan child with mixed Native / Euro-American ancestry, likely due to a French parent), but stories of blue-eyed and blond-haired Mandan were quite popular in the 19th Century. The most prominent proponent of this was George Catlin, who was very enthusiastic about the idea that the Mandan were descended from the Welsh in the 1830s. Really, what Euro-Americans were reporting were people among the Mandan who had gray or white hair at young ages and gray eyes and perhaps a few individuals with mixed ancestry (the French had been interacting with the Mandan for nearly a century before the US established a notable presence in the area). Through ambiguous wording and exaggeration that became the blue-eyed, blonde-haired people of the Plains. The Blond Mandan: A Critical Review of an Old Problem is an old article, but it put the nail in the coffin of that myth.
a language so similar to the Welsh that they could understand each other
Caitlin was the big promoter of this idea, but he was widely off the mark. In this post I discussed the origins of the Welsh Indian myth and how Caitlin tied it specifically to the Mandan through their language. Caitlin's linguistic analysis was very wrong, and the Mandan language is now recognized as a Siouan language, albeit one that diverged fairly early from the others.
There's always room for discussion, but perhaps these previous topics will answer your inquiry.