Mato-tope
Native American; Chief of the Mandan tribe
Mato-tope (modern Mandan orthography Mató-Tóope, “Four Bears”, from mató 'bear' and tóope 'four', also known as Ma-to-toh-pe, Máh-to-tóh-pa; c. 1784 – July 30, 1837) was the second chief of the Mandan tribe to be known as "Four Bears," a name he earned after charging the Assiniboine tribe during battle with the strength of four bears. Four Bears lived in the first half of the 19th century on the upper Missouri River in what is now North Dakota. Four Bears was a favorite subject of artists, painted by George Catlin and Karl Bodmer.
Early years
Four Bears grew up in an earth lodge in the Mandan village On-a-Slant Village. His father, Good Boy (or Handsome Child), was the village chief. Later the family lived in Mitutanka further north, founded about 1822, possibly by Good Boy.
The warrior
Around 1830 the trading post Fort Clark was built less than 600 ft. (150 m) south of Mitutanka. At that time, Four Bears was a brave warrior among his people, famous for killing a Cheyenne chief in hand-to-hand combat. Besides the Cheyenne, Four Bears fought the Sioux, the Arikara, and the Assiniboine and once he killed two Ojibwe women.
“Mato-tope” enters the record as native American; Chief of the Mandan tribe. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mato-tope, Native and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6787705. VIAF identifies the subject as 15658218. The Library of Congress control number is no2008054582. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1784, 1837, 1822 and 1830.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mato-tope” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.