Zo
Lz
ties
ti

tiv

a

ee
ty
Ye

Ls

i

ty
GH:

ete eA

yy

Z

a aa a,

ie

ioe,

are

ed er

ee

Spat ERE EPA S TORENT ERG eT

pert

Bears Arm, 1933.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
BULLETIN 194

HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL
ORGANIZATION

By ALFRED W. BOWERS

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1965

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C., 20402 - Price $3.25

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION,
Bureau or American ETHNOLOGY,
Washington, D.C., September 30, 1963.
Str: I have the honor to transmit herewith a manuscript entitled
“Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization,” by Alfred W. Bowers,
and to recommend that it be published as a bulletin of the Bureau of
American Ethnology.
Very respectfully yours,
Frank H. H. Roverrs, Jr.,
Director.
Dr. Leonard CARMICHAEL,
Secretary, Smithsonian Institution.
II

i inp AY

PREFACE

During the spring of 1932, the late Dr. Fay-Cooper Cole invited me
into his office at the University of Chicago to examine a project
which the late Dr. George L. Collie, curator of the Logan Museum of
Beloit College, had formulated to investigate the archeology of the
historic Hidatsa sites near the Knife River in North Dakota; the
investigation was planned to include interviews with the older Hidatsa
men and women concerning an interpretation of their ancient way of
life. When the depression deepened, the Logan Museum was unable
to finance these researches. Since our preliminary investigations had
indicated that there were only a few well-informed old Hidatsas living
who were familiar with their aboriginal culture, Dr. Cole suggested
that I work with them for at least 1 year and investigate every as-
pect of their former culture before they passed away. Hidatsa arche-
ology could be done later. In the meantime, under the influence of
Dr. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and Dr. Robert Redfield, my own prin-
cipal interests had shifted away from archeology.

Dr. Cole secured a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for 1
year’s investigation of Hidatsa culture. During the depression, ex-
penses were less than we had calculated and after 9 months in the
field I was able to handle the Hidatsa language without the services
of an interpreter; therefore it was possible for me to remain at Fort
Berthold Reservation for 15 months. Jt was our understanding that
a request would be made for additional funds to report the findings,
but since funds were not available in 1933 I obtained employment
with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where I worked for several
years. However, as time passed, it became evident that I was losing
my understanding of the Hidatsa language; in the period 1939-46
Dr. Cole sent me additional funds to engage interpreters to translate
passages that were no longer intelligible to me and to recheck some of
my field data.

From July 1932 to September 1933 I lived at Elbowoods, N. Dak.,
where Mr. and Mrs. Hal O. Simons, who were employees of the Gov-
ernment as Farm Agent and Postmistress respectively, provided me
with living quarters. Off-reservation I made my home with Mr. and
Mrs. George A. Boomer, of Oakdale, whom I had known for many
years. I look back with warm memories to the time I spent in their
homes.

III

IV PREFACE

However competent informants may be, it takes good interpreters
to bring out the information one seeks. Tom Smith, my first and
oldest interpreter, had worked with me in assembling the data I used
for my Mandan study. He had attended school at Hampton, Va., as
a young man, but had returned home to hunt buffaloes and participate
in the ancient ways. He had done much of the preliminary work in
acquainting the older Hidatsas with the nature of the study to be made
and had assisted me in preparing a preliminary census of lodge
eroups as of 1870-72, even before the Hidatsa study was undertaken.
Without his help I could not have secured the data I received from a
few of the more conservative non-Christian Indians. When I came to
Elbowoods in 1932 he had already written me that his health was not
good. I found him too ill to work for me, but he did give me much
assistance in selecting good informants and he talked to them of my
work when he saw them. He died about 2 months after this study
was begun. He had told me that Sam Newman would be an excellent
interpreter if I could get along with him. Mr. Newman was without
question the most competent interpreter I ever used. He had had
extensive experience interpreting for various Government officials.
Although he was with me most of the time for 9 months, I cannot say
that I came to know him well. He never discussed his family or
neighborhood matters with me. He always came on time, even
though the winter of 1932-33 was a severe one, with deep snow. He
would come to my informant’s home, take off his heavy wraps, sit at
his place at the table, and, without commenting on any of the events
of the day, say, ‘‘Will you read me the last paragraph, please, so I can
collect my wits?”

I used James Baker as interpreter during the late winter while I
worked in the Independence district of the Fort Berthold Reservation
and lived in his home. Jim, as he was known by everyone, made no
claim of competence as an interpreter, his only experience being
with White stockmen of the district who came to call on non-English-
speaking Indians about ranching problems. He was warm and friend-
ly, and we became close friends and kept track of each other as long
as he lived. Whereas Sam Newman’s facial expression never changed
throughout the day and one would have never been able to anticipate
humorous or serious matters coming up in translation, Jim was con-
tinually responding to the informant. One moment he would say to
me on the side, ‘‘Get ready to shed tears” or ‘‘You are going to get a
laugh out of this” or ‘Hold onto your hat.”’ Sam Newman’s precise
manners and lack of response to emotional scenes was always bringing
informants up short of tears. This was not so with either Tom
Smith or James Baker. Informants freely expressed their emotions
to them, laughing at the obviously humorous events of their lives and

PREFACE Vv

weeping on recalling the death of their loved ones in war or epidemics.
These were my interpreters, all of whom have long since died.

My informants, too, have long since passed away, Crows Heart
being the last to die, about 13 years ago. Joe Ward, the younger son
of Hairy Coat (see pl. 2) who had come from Awatixa village on the
Knife River, was the first to die. In fact, the data he supplied I re-
corded while making the Mandan study during odd periods when no
Mandan informant was immediately available. He would have been
an easier informant than his brother, Bird-Lying-Down, as he was an
elder in one of the Christian churches at the time of his death. His
death made my work much more difficult, for, even at that late time,
some informants were reluctant to discuss the details of their various
ceremonial bundles and lore.

Bears Arm (frontispiece) was a brilliant man with a tremendous
memory for detail, but, more important to me, he had given much
prior thought to the interrelationships of the various aspects of Hidatsa
culture. His home was near the Elbowoods Agency, and people from
the most distant ends of the Fort Berthold Reservation found a hearty
invitation to come in and spend the night with him. Sometimes these
old people would stay up all night telling of past events. He told
me, when I first discussed with him the matter of serving as an in-
formant, that he had long recognized how the younger people were
losing interest in the old ways and that the old people visiting at his
place were glad to find one who wanted to know everything about
the Hidatsa ways and history. J was very fortunate to find a man
of Bears Arm’s understanding with whom to shape the design of this
study. His father, Old-Woman-Crawling, was born at Awaxawi vil-
lage and his mother, Many Growths, was from Awatixa village. I
addressed Bears Arm as ‘father’ and he addressed me as “‘son.”’

Wolf Chief was an old hand at dealing with anthropologists, for
he had been an informant for Dr. Gilbert L. Wilson, Dr. Robert H.
Lowie, and Edward S. Curtis. He lived at Independence and I had
come to know him beforehand as he claimed me as a fellow clansman
of the Prairie Chickens. Unlike Bears Arm, who was a man of great
dignity, Wolf Chief was easygoing and inclined to laughter. He
had a tremendous memory for details, but he was not the great syn-
thesizer Bears Arm was. He died during the spring of 1933 while
this field study was being made but after I had completed my work
with him. Thinking he would not live much longer, he had asked
me, if I were around when he died, to come to his funeral and shed
a tear on his grave, which I did.

My experience with Four Dancers, of the Speckled Eagle clan, whom
I addressed as ‘older brother,’’ was somewhat different from my
relationships with the others. He was the only male descendant of

vI PREFACE

the Earthnaming bundle owners from whom I could secure data
concerning the Earthnaming ceremony for Poor Wolf, having no sons,
had not given his daughter, Mrs. White Duck, a coherent picture of
this important ceremony. When I drove up to Four Dancers’ home
he was quite surprised when I addressed him in the Hidatsa language
and told him why I was there. We talked a while and then he
said, laughing, ‘“‘You talk just like an Awaxawi.”’ All my associations
with him were without the aid of an interpreter. Even at this late
date, after nearly a century of living together, the older people still
had slight dialectic differences which they associated with the various
original community groups. I took down everything he said in
Hidatsa text and we got along very well together. He gave me much
valuable data on the Earthnaming and related ceremonies that the
other informants were unable to provide. I learned from him much
about the internal stresses that so often got out of hand and led to
the disruption of communities, such as had occurred when the Crow-
Flies-High group, with Four Dancers’ father as ceremonial leader,
had moved out of Fishhook Village to Fort Buford when he was a
small boy.

The weakness of this study is in part due to the few convenient
and outstanding female informants near my headquarters. I relied
entirely on Mrs. Good Bear—she addressed me as “‘grandfather’’—for
information on those ceremonies in which she had participated with
her husband. Most of the information on the Sun Dance came from
her. She also contributed much material on lodge groups with
which she was familiar, both Mandan and Hidatsa. I relied on Mrs.
White Duck—I called her ‘father’s sister’ and she called me ‘‘son’”’—
for an understanding of the woman’s role in Hidatsa community
life. She told me very early in my study with her that she thought
the woman’s role in warfare was as important for the success of the
expedition as those who were away to war, and that the success or
failure of a war party depended as much on what women at home did
while the warriors were out as on what their male relatives looking
for their enemies did. I learned much from her, and what I have
written of the woman’s role is largely her contribution.

I did not use Crows Heart very much during the initial study
except for those ceremonies that were clearly of Hidatsa origin, since
he came from a mixed Mandan-—Hidatsa household. However, during
the summer of 1947 I spent several weeks with him recording his
autobiography, and I did draw heavily from these notes for an inter-
pretation of many aspects of Hidatsa culture. He was the first of
my informants to apply their kinship terminology to me, calling
me “younger brother.”

PREFACE Vil

Without the help of these older Hidatsa informants, this study
could not have been made. All of them were born about 1850-60
and were adults at the time of the Custer massacre. They had
been participants in their ancient ceremonies. They were the
last survivors sufficiently informed to provide an accurate picture of
their former culture. Other weaknesses in this study are due to my
own shortcomings; I never observed the culture I was studying.
When such a wealth of information is at hand, it is not always easy
to extract the most pertinent patterns of a culture for analysis or to
see life as the informants did without actually living it.

I have had much assistance from many people. I am deeply
indebted to the late Dr. George L. Collie of the Logan Museum, Be-
loit College, for starting me off into the field of Plains researches.
The late Dr. Fay-Cooper Cole followed my progress in the field and
guided me skillfully toward the attainment of my objectives in the
Hidatsa studies. Dr. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown guided me toward an
understanding of the synchronic approach to the study of society as
a system, which was essentially the image of the Hidatsa that Bears
Arm was always describing for me. Dr. Radecliffe-Brown would have
been greatly impressed with Bears Arm. Nor had I gone far in
my field investigations before I discovered that theoretically, under
the Hidatsa kinship system, an individual might stand in several
different relationships to another. At first I was inclined to believe
that there were errors in my recording or that informants were con-
fused. I drew these matters to the attention of the late Dr. Robert
Redfield. He called for examples and was able to demonstrate to
me that, in fact, individuals could stand in a number of different
relationships, each social situation determining the relationship that
would prevail.

In January 1947, I went to Chicago to prepare manuscripts from
my field notes on the social and ceremonial organization of the Man-
dan and Hidatsa and Great Plains archeology under the direction
of Dr. Cole. When he retired from the faculty of the University
of Chicago, the supervision of these researches went to Dr. Fred
Eggan with whom I worked until July 1, 1949, when I joined the
faculty of the University of Idaho. Iam deeply grateful to Dr. Eggan
for his assistance. During my first years on the University of Idaho
faculty, it was difficult, because of my heavy teaching load and large
classes, to devote much time to this report. Three years ago my
teaching load was reduced by one-fourth so that I could devote time
to the preparation of this report and other researches in the Plains
which the University of Idaho had sponsored.

Dr. Robert L. Stephenson, chief of the Missouri Basin Project,
River Basin Surveys, Smithsonian Institution, suggested the incorpo-

VIII PREFACE

ration of various old maps of the Hidatsa sites near the Knife River
that had been made by personnel of the North Dakota Historical
Society many years ago, and Russell Reid, superintendent of the
Society, furnished me with these maps. Dr. Stephenson provided a
reconstruction of Rock Village of the Awatixa (pl. 1), made by Don
Hartle for the River Basin Surveys. James Macduff, of the Geology
Department, University of Idaho, processed the village maps of the
Knife River sites for publication. All the other maps and drawings
were prepared by Dale Ludick, of the Geography Department of the
University of Idaho. Leo D. Harris made the photographic studies
of Bears Arm (frontispiece) and of Drags Wolf and Foolish Bear
(pl. 12). The turtle effigy (pl. 6) was photographed by Russell Reid
for Logan Museum of Beloit College. All other original photographs
were taken by the author. It is a privilege to express my thanks to
all these people and many others who have helped me in one way or
another in the preparation of this book.

Finally, I must express to my wife, Gladys Monson Bowers, my
deep appreciation for her great help in typing rough and revised copies
of my extensive field notes on Hidatsa mythology and traditions as
well as the final manuscript. We have worked together as a team
during the entire period this report was in preparation.

ALFRED W. Bowers,
February 1962 Unwersity of Idaho

* * * * * * *
NOTE

The variation in the spelling of ‘““Awaxrnawita” and “Itisuku” in
the text and in the charts arises from dialectic or individual differences
in pronunciation. The final vowel ‘u,” “a,” or even ‘‘k’’? comes out
short and unaccented cn the ends of compound words and to the
listener may sound like wu as in “up,” a as in “‘anon,” or B as in “met.”’

CONTENTS

iP TSENG Der a eset he a8 mala ee ai afl ae ale aa aa i enn ee ee le ah
TU FEO O HO EAT) gc nk egy a a Pal pm we i Cy Pe a a ad ee Ae pa area aa ie
EMS HOTICALsAT GT CULt Tall toate k: OT cua Cl ms a ee ee ee
IGAtsoSOCIaL OFGanizavlONle = 22 so seen 2 ee a ee
Village and tribal organization and activities______._.___._._____---_--

© OUT cis ee eee ea I eg Re RR Eg ae

SSUES UIST eee See Ea Ne de ee
Intentribalivisitsteen se see as tees Soe ee ey eel
SUMAN Tannin ence ee eg EI Be A ee ee)
NEES PERCE 77S Rn NO, See a Oe ae ee ee eee ee
STU A CHOISY choi, pes eee ONG SE Reariee eee alee ee ea Res ee oe ee

Clan membership and afhiliahions. 0.22.2. 244s" 320-85...
Clan iduvies ang responsibilities. — 622 2 ooo ep ee _

Eni Gatsaymoley7CON GCE bee a oe ee ee a
sheskansiniissys term ie ee ee ee eet neh ele ae ee
Komsihiprextension 2 4s. seas aed iy wtogst fps, Mey te i ee ele De
Kans ni pp be avi OT see ayers ee ee seh Sch ee at Ee onl aie Lge

J EAU RES' Oy KG) Capa a SI Tae OS ee 8 Oe ne a ee ee eee
Binghvan denamin ps as 2 ber a Lege ee ees ee, ey
Training and ceremonial participation_.__......-.-.-.--------
Miarriacerand whesnouselnolds =o = ae ee eee ee eee
Miaturibysandroldiaces= = se8 fnew e see Sa ile ee ee
astalinesstandideathe 2. seen eee = ee ee er ee
*Pherace=cradeis vSten ess ele pee ee pa ey Soe See we
IMEEM SISO CIE TES es RUN tye Ae Ne apse SNE Uae Is 0) coe yc el he pas
BLOG ch amimer ingen tyes tl eye NS nt are

GIG EHO RES OCIE tiyel ee eee cee os ees fe ee

UMP wOOdisocicivase = eee soe as ooo eee ee SaaS
HMalf-Shayedubeadisocietyans = sea ae eee eee eee

Black Wout. pogetye sa ee te Se

DOCS OCIEbIES eee = rae ee ae ee creas ees em Wa ES

SVU IES oye 2) 1 ee Rees lates x olor ke ELE AM NR Oi 9S PRC as er
Wemien Ss societies: 0s.) ies hee ess Easier ae eh
RUB OCIeh yas 5 UE hat ee eA Loe oh Ae

IBGE TES OCLC LY tees Sa et eee ee ae ee AR ee a ih ee oe Oe a
KEOOSEISOCIE type or cee hoe ees a eae a ed a

White! Buiale Cow isotiety.04 222 ee eh eee
Characteristics of the Hidatsa age-grade structure____---------
WWisteh arcies 5 raises ke Bel mee ee ya Ve De AR Pe 1G ll

x CONTENTS

Hidatsa social organization—Continued

Warfare—Continued PAGE
AEST Pea eee SEERA Ae ee bak dase ARRAS AG eee 219
OfTerininGimacrare: 252 eee! se Es 5 Soh ke 223
Peter ve miparr are 658852 oe 7 ey ee 275
amma palism ccc. 2 ee eee ee Oe oe 277
TANT SEE gS 7A 60) 01a: Rca aa tne Saleen Rn he PAs aie HN ace dk 278

Hidatsa ceremonial organizations = ses ee a ae ee ee eee 282

The individual and the supernatural.......=.---.-=--..-2ei-.2n28 282

rBhenlecendarysperiodiet #78 2 2 See eA = ye 297
inpiMOrenoGkekYy Gib Se SUS. Se ee ee ee ee 297
BHeteu VAITOWS: Oly oh =.) —* — 52 Wt rn Sa eee a eae eee 303

idebeatinerceremomy ao see oe ae eee een eet enor een ee ee ea 308

Woman Above and Holy Women ceremonies______________-__-_-_-- 323

Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies and related ceremonies______________- 333

Grzzly Bearieecremony: 2: 22222254 el sane foe 2650 5a ee 348

ALbunderceremoOnies 2487 243 Yeu bee 5 eee cee ere ee eee 358
aie AEE Ec? = mies ee Wi ee vee Nie aOR a APE en Teen cee re 363
MissGuta Iver: 22 see <b ee es sae he es Oe CES oe ee ee 371
Creeklrrs> 2 5ess coke o Sete el ete See Ee eee eee 380
Apyinetheab Ota: 2): + Shee. Set Pato ae et er oe rs 389

Well eerenioniéges* atta ss2 soe see ns =) le eo ee eee 392
SEREUTISE IV him ek ah be Sh Soe Eve me cas mae eam te ee ee 394
SUPT Feteg ae (211 Seals ap ek ae cl ea vt ah lope tah ip ert Llanelli karnateny fh 3 410
AVG NYOMI re <b oe ye eRe eres eNO she eee ec one fof eee 430

Buitsto: Callino ceremonies: 2222s s223ee! ee tee eee eee 433
BaTGhWAmMin gas = Ste tee 8 ee ete ts ates 2 8 = RE ee ee 433
iimifating Dull: 4 s1e sins oes ee sse ss 2 eo eee ee 438
PEALOMO OTrale: er hs Ne Ceres Seed ls i eS ee ee 446
PAM pe Rea ShiCk S22 Ua = ss kennel ae Seat ee eee 451
iBaftalomNeckbone 222.562 ee ser ae Ss am ee tae ee ee ee 463

Clan*humdle ceremonies 22 oe Se eae A et Se a ee ee 467
Waterbuster clan ‘bundie).> “#255 23 2S ye ee eee 467
Hennfeclam bundles so yer. 4 och ot ee ee) AES Wb eee oe eee 473
Sarinnirsyney ees # aos Be ee te Mes Seen rene See cee eee eee 474

Hidatsa cultural position in the Northern Plains__-..._._-------------- 476
i bloga phy ss (2.2 a0 te eee SER eee ee eee = ae Oe ee eee ee 490

ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATES
(All plates follow p. 494)

Frontispiece. Bears Arm.

its
. Hairy Coat’s earth lodge near Shell Creek.

. Pehriska-Ruhpa (Two Crows) in the costume of the Dog Band.
. Buffalo (Bull) Dance of the Mandan.

CONA AP wWt

rt
fo)

Reconstruction of Rock Village.

Wolf Chief and wife.

. Turtle effigy near Price, N. Dak.

Roadmaker, of Awaxawi village.

. Scalp Dance of the Manitaries (Hidatsa).

The seven enemy warriors.

. Buffalo skulls of a bundle owner.

11. Winter village of the Manitaries (Hidatsa).
12. Drags Wolf and Foolish Bear with Waterbuster clan bundle.
TEXT FIGURES
PAGE
PetPets parts ob the:saered arrow... 21005. 62 see eee Sk 292
2. Plan of the Naxpiks lodge (Sun Dance) and offerings to the Naxpiks
Uri eee ite ers 22,8 BNO eke aie de hat mas ee ace Sea ee 313
3. Ceremony to the Sun, Moon, and Woman Above------------------ 324
4, Ceremonial appointments for Woman Above ceremony - - ----------- 325
Be iagram.of Bear ceremonialilodge.<-_2_ 5.2.4.8 5 = 354
6. Lodge arrangements for Sunset Wolf ceremony - ------~------------ 420
7. Plan of the last dance of the Sunset Wolf ceremony ---------------- 428
8. Floor plan of the Imitating Buffalo ceremony--_-------------------- 444
Si ianear bile WUMmalOCOMel = 2.522 esse week Oe ence ae 450
10° Pamted Red Stick ceremony, plan onez--.~-_-— ">=" -__ = -- 458
11: Painted Red Stick ceremony, plan two_-__._-.-.-.+--------------- 459
12) lan’ of cagle villages'in the sky 2-20 ==22222- So ese oes -see e 468
MAPS
iPolamtsermdadatsn lane eet os eee ek ee ee toe 12
2. Man of Rock Village. 2-255 3 4 00.. j2225—0 2524-5 ee ate see ae= 13
3. Hidatsa village site 35 on north bank of the Knife River__---------- 18
4. Old Awatixa village at the mouth of the Knife River--------------- 19
5. New Awatixa village at the mouth of the Knife River-------------- 20

XII ILLUSTRATIONS
CHARTS

PAGE
1. Bidates kinship system; ego=male......... 22s e eset 82
2. Hidates kinship'system; ego—female.__.....-.-=.--.-+-.--<.--ne 83
3: Hidatiaaainabrelntives> e20—male_._. - en 84
4, Hidatsa affinal relatives; ego—female__________________-_______-_- 85
Oy Bathers linckoe>epo—male. 2. 86
6. Mothers Imacuse; epe— male... s-22- 4 ep oot kenge 87
7. Mosher’s lineage siero—females 22 oo nh eee 88
S. Pather’s lineare sepo=female — a3 te kt ee eee 89
9. Mother’s father’s lineage; ego=male or female__________________-_- 89
10. Relationships between Bears Arm and Walks______________________ 96
11. Relationships between Bears Arm and Yellow Coat___..._._______- 98
12. Relationships between Old-Woman-Crawling and Bear Woman__--_-_- 100
13. Relationships between Old-White-Man and Lead Woman___________ 102
14, Wolf ceremonics in. Pour Beara line... ee ee 416

HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL
ORGANIZATION

By Aurrep W. BowErs

INTRODUCTION

Anthropologists are usually silent with respect to their field methods
and their manner of handling research data in the final preparation
of reports. When the researcher lives with the people he is investi-
gating and writes about a way of life that he is able to observe, one
may presume that most of what he records is the result of personal
observations supplemented by direct inquiry. When I studied the
Hidatsa Indians in 1932 and 1933, and for short periods thereafter,
little of their ancient way of life remained, and a description of what
I saw then would have told me little of the ancient culture that I
was endeavoring to reconstruct.

The Hidatsa of the Fort Berthold Reservation provided an excel-
lent laboratory for the employment of the ‘‘creatively historical
method” so commonly used by those of us who have directed re-
searches in the Great Plains area. At the time I undertook this
study, the older Hidatsa men and women had lived much as their
grandparents had when the first fur traders and explorers visited
them at their ancient villages downstream on both banks of the
Knife River. This was the last chance anthropologists would ever
have to get first-hand information from those who had lived by the
ancient culture.

Much had already been written about the Hidatsa. Some of this
information was very good; much of it omitted material we should
have about these important agricultural communities. They had
been variously known as Big Bellies, Gros Ventres, Khart-sah, Min-
netarees, Minnetarees of the Willows, Wandering Minnetarees,
Minataries, Minitaries, Mahaha, Maxaxa, Awatixa, Amahami, Awax-
awi, Ahnahaway, Gens-di-foulers, Mirokac (collectively with the
River Crow), and by other names. This array of proper names for
various segments of the total population told us little of their original
community social organization. The first extensive study to employ
the name “Hidatsa” as a tribal designation was written by Wash-

1

2 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

ington Matthews (1877), assistant surgeon of the United States Army,
while stationed at Fort Stevenson near Fishhook Village. Since
that time, all students of the culture have identified them as Hidatsa,
and other proper names have tended to drop out of the literature
except in Government reports.

All the informants for this study were born within 10 years after
the abandonment of their old villages near the mouth of Knife River.
Their parents all were adults before Fishhook Village was built in
1845, and they had referred to three contemporary settlements which
they identified as Hidatsa, Awatixa, and Awaxawi, these three and
no more. The three ancient villages were remembered by my in-
formants, for it was the custom of many families to return to these
sites and to point out to the younger people the depressions of lodges
where certain relatives had lived, their graves, or earth rings on the
prairies where various ceremonies such as the Naxpiks or Wolf cere-
monies were held. Wolf Chief, Crows Heart, and Bears Arm pointed
out many of these features to me, identified even earlier sites in the
Sanger vicinity, and explained many things that might have other-
wise gone unrecognized.

As this study progressed, it was evident that some cultural dif-
ferences existed between villages and that there should be some
consistent way of identifying these former separate and independent
communities. The tribal name ‘Hidatsa’? was generally in use by
this time, although it had been employed by the people themselves
only to identify the inhabitants of the largest village community
situated on the north bank of Knife River. I decided to continue
the use of the term ‘‘Hidatsa’”’ when speaking of the entire population
or when referring to customs and practices that appeared to be common
to all three communities. I have identified the people of the middle
village as ‘‘Awatixa,” the name by which they were designated by
the others. The small group, somewhat more diverse in dialect and
culture, I have designated as ‘‘Awaxawi.’”’ Unlike their near neigh-
bors, the Mandan, they had no tribal name until given one by early
traders. Since many situations arose during the preparation of this
manuscript when it was necessary to distinguish the community
group known as ‘‘Hidatsa’”’ from the other communities, I have
employed the term ‘‘Hidatsa-proper’”’ when referring to them.

This study of the Hidatsa actually began several years prior to
the field studies of 1932 and 1933 when, as a graduate student in
anthropology at the University of Chicago and graduate assistant
for the Logan Museum of Beloit College, I collected much archeo-
logical data from ancient earth-lodge sites along the Missouri. Al-
though the ancient sites of the Hidatsa at, and downstream from,
the mouth of the Knife River have never been extensively studied

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION =

by archeologists, surface features of these sites are still clearly dis-
tinguishable, and river cutting frequently exposes large sections of
some of these sites and their associated artifacts. Extensive digging
by local artifact hunters at the old village of the Awatixa north of
Stanton, N. Dak., has opened up deep cross sections of stratified
refuse with the lower levels, producing many pottery types identical
to those found at the oldest traditional sites of the Hidatsa in the
Sanger area but not characteristic of the contemporaneous modern
sites. Perhaps the strongest evidence in the archeology of the region
indicative that the Hidatsa groups when first reaching the Missouri
were culturally more unlike the Mandan than in later years, as men-
tioned in both Mandan and Hidatsa traditions, is the fact that the
late prehistoric and historic archeological inventories of the two tribes
are essentially identical. Researches in Hidatsa social organization
and ceremonialism point to similar intertribal cultural borrowing even
within the memory of informants or of their parents.

Rarely does the researcher in an Indian tribe have available so
rich a source of archeological, historical, and anthropological infor-
mation when undertaking a detailed analysis of a small segment of
the total culture of a people as was the case with the Hidatsa. We
can trace their group movements through the earliest historic accounts
and the statements of qualified informants from data they secured
from grandparents who saw the first White traders to reach their
villages. We can compare their prehistoric culture, as revealed by
their traditional village sites, with that of their immediate neighbors,
the Mandan, and even with their more remote neighbors, the Arikara.

The literature on the Hidatsa is extensive, even though the early
fur traders, explorers, and others tended to view them as the ‘‘poor
relatives” of the Mandan, giving us rather extensive accounts of
the life of the latter and sketchy accounts of the former. Among
the first contributors to our knowledge of the Hidatsa were Boller,
Kurz, Lewis and Clark, Charles Mackenzie, Maximilian, Palliser,
Thompson, and others (see Bibliography). In the middle of the
past century, studies by Hayden, Matthews, Morgan, and School-
craft appeared. During the first quarter of this century, various
aspects of Hidatsa culture were studied by a generation of trained
researchers, among whom were Beckwith, Curtis, Densmore, Hyde,
Lowie, Pepper, Will, and Wilson. All of them contributed important
information on some aspect of Hidatsa culture and provided back-
ground data for this study.

The primary purpose of the present study was to reconstruct the
aboriginal culture of the Hidatsa as it would have been observed
about 1836, prior to the last major smallpox epidemic. It would
have employed the synchronic approach to the understanding of the

4 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Hidatsa at a moment in time. However, as the study progressed
and as I became aware that my informants all recognized marked
changes in their way of life from that of their grandparents, I decided
to deviate from that plan wherever there was pertinent and authentic
knowledge of historic cultural changes. My employment of the
diachronic approach was especially applicable to particular aspects
of their culture such as the age-grade system. In other areas of their
culture, such as their kinship system, there was little evidence of
cultural change.

Extensive use has been made of the voluminous source material on
the Hidatsa. I have tried to combine all that has been written about
them with my personal observations of their ancient sites and culture
and what information I was able to glean from native informants.
My aim has been to produce a study of the personal and intimate
relationships of individuals and organized groups living together
within a complexly integrated social-ceremonial system that was
undergoing significant cultural enrichment under the influence of
their agricultural neighbors until terminated by the heavy losses
suffered during the smallpox epidemic of 1837 and the destructive
influences of subsequent White encroachments upon their community
and ancient wildlife resources.

The Hidatsa were not a homogeneous people. The knowledge
of one was not that of another, save as exists between individuals
as to sex and age, so characteristic of very primitive hunters and
gatherers. The Hidatsa had a firm economy based on hunting and
primitive hoe gardening. There was much specialization; one could
have learned this from the literature.

My first problem was to select informants who possessed special
knowledge. I had become acquainted with most of them beforehand
while making the Mandan study with the help of Tom Smith, who
was in their age-group and knew each of them well. We had antic-
ipated difficulty in getting informants to reveal certain religious lore,
and it was necessary, in some instances, to assure the informant
that what he told us would not be revealed in his lifetime so that
we would not be interfering in the orderly transfer of this knowledge
to Indian purchasers. This rule was never broken. When what we
recorded of a religious nature was not repeated by us, or informants
learned that we never talked about what they told us should be treated
secretly, confidence between us grew. When resistance was met in
securing sacred lore and the informant was otherwise well informed,
we would work with him on routine social patterns and try again.
Usually, after getting acquainted with each other, the informant
would slowly edge into the sacred area of his experiences and submit
to detailed inquiry. Eventually there was not an informant that

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 9)

I could not have interviewed on any aspect of their culture; any
gaps in our knowledge of Hidatsa social and ceremonial life are of
my own oversight.

From my experiences with the Mandan, I decided to investigate
household and kinship ties first and then relate sacred bundles and
rites to households and lineages. The Government census and tribal
roles for 1870 and 1880 were obtained in advance, studied, and par-
tially memorized. Without revealing this fact to my informants,
I then made up my own census as of about 1872, using Bears Arm,
Mrs. White Duck, and Mrs. Good Bear as informants. This was the
only instance in which I used several informants simultaneously.
This census by households was taken by securing, first of all, the
names and relationships of the occupants of the three informants’
own households and then moving to those households to which they
had been related or where they visited most. These three inform-
ants finally came to a number of households about which little was
known, and information on them was secured from other informants.
On the basis of the principal occupants of these household groups,
extensive genealogies were then made extending family lines back
to the three contemporary villages at the mouth of Knife River,
Rock Village, and a fifth community area near Square Buttes of
which my informants knew little. Residence at Scattered Village
(Awatixa) on the north bank of the Heart River at Mandan, N. Dak.,
was not borne out by these genealogies. However, the data on
household groupings is in essential agreement with the Government
records when one takes into account the fact that the small log cabin
was introduced at this time—what the Government counted as two
or more households (lodges set side by side, perhaps joined by a
hallway) my Indian informants counted as a single household.

The next step was to establish the clan membership of all indi-
viduals reported, the approximate age of each person, village of
birth, and all known tribal and personal sacred bundles and rites in
which the individual had held ownership and special roles. Most
of this was known in a general way, at least, through ritual obser-
vations or by word of mouth. Nevertheless, inquiries with other
informants brought out further information about certain lesser
known bundles, especially those of a personal nature.

Understanding the social position of mixed families, where the
husband and wife were of different tribes (primarily Crow, Mandan,
Arikara, and Assiniboin) was more difficult. In one instance, the
husband would be a Mandan and in another, a Hidatsa, but no
rule of residence seemed to apply. It was finally established that mixed
households should be classified as Hidatsa only in those instances
in which they participated primarily in Hidatsa activities. I had

710-195—65——_2

6 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

had some misgivings as to whether it would be possible to relate
lineages and household groups to the three former villages at Knife
River, but I found that informants were more certain of the old
village ties than of actual clan membership. I had to rely on moiety
membership for some individuals whose precise clan membership
was not known.

The genealogies were further extended as the study progressed
and additional informants were used. Constant reference was made
to them throughout the field study period. They provided me with
precise information on the inheritance of sacred bundles, bundle
complexes, and rights—often at variance with the ideal patterns—
and indicated that certain ceremonies or age-grade societies were
found only at certain villages. Differences in village clan systems
were also determined by these genealogical records. They were
especially valuable in ascertainmg changing trends in intervillage
marriage between clans while living in the old villages and intra-
village marriages after the survivors united at Fishhook Village.
It was further established that intervillage marriage and marriage
with the Mandan or other tribes was virtually nonexistent prior
to the building of Fishhook Village in 1845 and common with the
Mandan, but rarely with the Arikara, after that date. With this
information at hand it was possible to view in brief outline most of
the important sacred bundle systems even before investigating the
details of the associated rituals.

At the time this study was made, there were many more old Hidatsa
men and women than were interviewed. Some, whose parents had not
been important leaders and who were not from households owning
important bundle rites, were not used in the investigation. Access-
ability in the reservation was also an important factor. Where
several shared unique information, I tended to go into great detail
with one informant and merely recheck with another. Informants
were both Christian and non-Christian, the latter tending to be more
conservative in divulging sacred lore but equally cooperative in
routine matters. Even the Christian Indians were not entirely
unrestrained in divulging knowledge of their parents’ sacred rites.
They would speak freely of general matters concerning these bundles;
but would sometimes wait for a while before relating the sacred myths
and usually did not like to have pictures taken of the sacred bundles.
There was a common reluctance to sing any of the sacred songs.
Mrs. Good Bear, for instance, was a devout Roman Catholic who
attended Mass regularly and who spoke freely with me concerning
her deceased husband’s and her role in the Naxpikr (Sun Dance)
ceremony. She knew all the songs used, but could not be prevailed
upon to sing them or repeat the words of the songs. Wolf Chief,

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 7

a Congregationalist, told how he had been in several close brushes
with lightning after he allowed Gilbert L. Wilson to take the Water-
buster (Thunder) clan bundle to New York City, and had been afraid
of lightning ever since.

I discovered that all informants were unwilling to talk in the
presence of visitors, regardless of the subjects being studied. In
former times it was considered bad taste to enter uninvited when
one was telling stories or giving certain information to another and
the only trouble encountered was with young men not familiar with
this custom.

The kinship charts were prepared primarily from the combined
genealogical data of all my informants. At this time (1932) there
were no important variations in the terminology and categories
with the exception of those of the father’s father’s sister and daughter-
in-law. Some claimed the former was a “grandmother” while others
thought she would be a closer relative by some other extension of
the kinship system. Daughter-in-law terminology also differed
between villages. It was found that many factors of social partic-
ipation affected the relationships between individuals and extended
the system to include nonrelatives, age-grade associates, ceremonial
participation, adoption of children and ceremonial adoptions by both
men and women, and equation of Hidatsa with Mandan clans. All
these produced systems of interaction between individuals in which
two people often stood in several relationships to each other. This
was not mentioned specifically by informants and came out in the
study of various customs.

All of my informants had had previous experience with anthro-
pologists and claimed that no two of us worked the same way. I
heard several criticisms of us, chiefly that we either tried to answer
our own questions or that informants were cut off by saying that
what was being told was not important. I tried to avoid doing
either, for I had a year to make this study and I was as interested
in what my informants thought about their cultural values as in
what they did. Each informant was encouraged to digress when
one social pattern reminded him of something else, or when his
excursions into another area seemed to produce noteworthy cultural
data. Since the Hidatsa explain much in their culture by means
of formal myths, they were encouraged to relate the myths as they
had learned them. Lest continuity be broken, I usually avoided
interrupting informants and held back my questions until a narrative
had been completed.

I followed few fixed rules in getting at the data, and these were
subject to change whenever the situation warranted. I frequently
requestioned an informant months later on obscure points. The old

8 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

people generally knew who would be the best informed in certain areas
of their culture. Wherever possible, I relied heavily on direct infor-
mation from the informant’s parents or a relative who had lived in the
same household. One who had bought ceremonial rights or had paid
a person for specific information was considered to be a better in-
formant than one who had not done these things. Information from
an individual who had served as understudy to a ceremonial leader in
performing a ceremony was highly rated as was that from one who had
been a ceremonial ‘‘father’” when another was buying ceremonial
rights and bundles. I discovered that mere participation in a cere-
mony as a young man added little information that one could not have
acquired as an eyewitness to the event. At all times I have had
before me notes on the source and the conditions under which the
informants gained their information and have tried to weigh this in
my analyses.

From the beginning of the field study, I recognized that the Hidatsa
learned much by means of sacred and secular myths and that the
symbols and ritual acts performed could best be understood in terms
of the instructions in these myths. So I always took them down in
essentially the form in which they were related to me, making allow-
ance for some alteration both in form and meaning inevitable in trans-
lations. After I acquired some understanding of the Hidatsa language,
they were recorded in native text without an interpreter and translated
later. These myths often revealed interrelationships, native attitudes,
and values not otherwise apparent.

Their mythology and traditions as recorded provide an important
body of original source material on Hidatsa literary style and form,
but in too great detail to be used unedited in this study. They appear
in this report in summary form, expressing what I thought were the
important points the speaker was trying to communicate.

The various sections dealing with Hidatsa ceremonial organization
were arranged, in part, chronologically according to native traditions
at the time of their adoption in mythological times. This chrono-
logical order was broken, however, beginning with ‘‘The Thunder
Ceremonies,” in order to treat groups of related rites as complexes.
Some of the rites of the complex—the Thunder ceremonies, the Wolf
ceremonies, or the Buffalo Calling ceremonies—are believed to go
back nearly to the beginning of time. Other related rites were adopted
from time to time thereafter. Because the informed Hidatsa believed
these rites were interrelated, I arranged them in this way.

Finally, I have tried to present a detailed account of the social and
ceremonial life of the Hidatsa in the image they had of their way of
life. To do this, I have frequently resorted to the same sources of
information a young Hidatsa man or woman would have—sacred and

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 9

traditional myths—and have presented them herein as a summary of
the myth. In other sections of this study I have presented brief
segments of personal histories, believing that a correct presentation
of the social and ceremonial organization of these people should be
meaningful to those who worked so long with me when it was being
recorded.

HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL BACKGROUND

The first reference in the literature to the Hidatsa as an independent
tribal group was made by Thompson (1916, pp. 209-242), who visited
the villages of this tribe and of the Mandan in 1797. Prior to that
time, owing to the similarities between the cultures, tribal differences
apparently were not recognized by the early White traders; all these
earth lodge village groups living upstream from the Heart River were
known as Mandan, from the name given by the Assiniboin to the
more numerous and sedentary tribe. The Mandan, prior to the 1782
smallpox epidemic, must have greatly outnumbered the population
of the three Hidatsa villages. The latter, however, were not recog-
nized as separate tribal and linguistic groups until White traders had
come to live in the villages and had actually learned the native lan-
guages. When Thompson visited the five village groups of Hidatsas
and Mandans, his information was obtained from traders who had
married into the tribes and were living in the villages.

In 1738, La Vérendrye (1927, pp. 290-360) visited earth lodge
village groups on the Missouri downstream from the traditional village
sites of this tribe believed, on the basis of archeological findings, to
have been occupied at this time. Although there is no reference in
La Vérendrye’s account to visiting groups other than the ‘“Man-
tanees,” he may have seen the Awaxawi group of Hidatsa who were
then more closely associated with the upstream Mandan village
groups.

Mackintosh, in 1773, reported that the Mandan were living on
both banks of the Missouri with from 9 to 13 villages and many
thousands of warriors (Schoolcraft, 1851, vol. 3, p. 253). However,
no reference is made to other tribal earth lodge groups. His estima-
tion of the Mandan population is obviously excessive and it is to be
presumed, on the basis of traditional and archeological evidence, that
some Hidatsa village groups, particularly the Awatixa and Awaxawi,
were also included in these figures.

Although the M. Bellen map of 1755 was the first to show the
location of the Mandan villages, indicating that the Mandan and
Arikara were separated by a stretch of about 300 miles on the Missouri
River, no reference is made to the Hidatsa in relation to these other
earth-lodge groups (Winchell, 1911, p. 47). The Laurie and Whittle
map (1782) enumerates and locates a number of tribes heretofore not

10

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION fal

reported (ibid., p. 56). It resembles Bellen’s map in that the Mantons
River still was not recognized to be a section of the Missouri. The
Mandan lived along the Mantons River, which flowed to the southeast.
Their nearest neighbors were the Nadouasis who had left the head-
waters of the Mississippi, crossed the Red River, and were living
below the Mandan villages. Immediately to the west of the Mandan
villages were the Snake Indians; the Assiniboin were to the north.
The Arikara were to the southeast along the Missouri River, and the
Tetons occupied the prairie region between Lake Traverse and the
Missouri River.

During the entire period of recorded history, beginning with Thomp-
son in 1797 and continuing to 1845, the Hidatsa recognized three
independent but closely related village groups whose relative size
remained unchanged. Of these groups, the Hidatsa were the most
numerous and exceeded the other two in total numbers. The
Awatixa were intermediate in size, while the Awaxawi have never
exceeded 20 earth lodge household groups in historic times. Thomp-
son (1916, pp. 235-236) visited these groups when they were in their
winter villages and gave the following figures for households by
village groups: (1) Awatixa, 31 earth lodges and 7 tipis; (2) Hidatsa,
82 earth lodges; (3) Awaxawi and Mandan, 52 earth lodges (15
Awaxawi and 37 Mandan); (4) Mandan, 40 earth lodges; and (5)
Mandan, 113 earth lodges. For 190 Mandan lodges he estimated
the population to be 1,520 and for the Hidatsa (Fall Indians) 128
lodges and 7 tipis he gave a population of 1,330.?

Even as early as 1797 two contradictory accounts of the history of
the Hidatsa were recognized by Thompson; that they were formerly
agriculturalists living at the headwaters of the Red River, and that
they were nomadic and came from the north to settle near the Mandan,
where they adopted agriculture and fixed villages. The same con-
tradictions appear regularly in subsequent accounts, and similar
information was given to me by Hidatsa informants when this study
was made.

LeRaye, in 1802, identified two village groups of Hidatsa; the
Hidatsa-proper occupying the large village (site 35) on the north
bank of the Knife River and the Hidatsa group, better known by the
natives as the Awatixa, immediately opposite on the south bank
(site 33). The Awaxawi, whom he called Gens-di-foulers, had an
independent village (site 32) 3 miles below the Awatixa (LeRaye,
1908, p. 169). He estimated the population of the two Hidatsa

1 Bellen probably errs in placing the Arikara so far downstream. There is much archeological evidence
that several Arikara village groups were at this time upstream from Pierre, S. Dak., in a region not well
known to explorers.

3 Identification of these village groups was by my native informants.

[Bull. 194

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

12

(‘IMexeMy ue sem OLIV Seog osned0q ‘oANeIIeU oy} UI U2AIZ yey} 02 AT

~asfoord unojuod Jou ssop deur sry) ul poyeorpur wore oy, “Wiy siveg Aq uMeIq]) “spur| esjeplpy jo syiwiy—] avy

e vLOMva HLNOS a Sie VNVLNOW
= = psi SS =2 1
= a. .) Fe-
$0|D}jng ANAL Be Sy CaS
244 PUD |MO palyoeds ) AMOLINYaL NVONVW ~ye ening
}O awoy pud sabuig ayy NS rca, (se (| pnqesoy
—SUIDJUNOW Ja—api|iy yrs NEF
Spud] DS}DPIH jo S}iwiq = ¥: t es Sys i
‘ e—< = Ale aying

Auowaseag Buiwouy4ung ZEX 1 POH ojoyyng

sy{fg esasapnbs=- :
rng = : 7 DePPIIIA psjpp
aying Ba al A ee
ayisoddo f= Nene bie (344Ng 9@Uu07)
SSS ipo WB asing 4no
| o recA sawog ojDjjng
seying—~ Mie = + (SIN J9OPIIIN) ~ 2
uaq boq PK. _ eying sabuig ~& des
ae ee . Was
| -_ ff GE (gel ene de
| Saye ee ane male Oe eae
| aying Bubuis yuna cS an ~~ ‘4 a
| eying Buibuig ~ f eS ‘Ta
: HDAH AIT F ayn iS
| $}D]4 aS009 BUIBUIS Fost ng Buibuis
| pe ae Pree a y Sn eye ‘
a Ge aes 30 : ayUM
| wee A aS i
sulDjunow os a >
aypany | eZ x
VLONVG HLYON ve
VQVNVO

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 13

—_
Ee aa

¢g Rock Village
SN

—>

;
Kok

h
{
.)
<S eee
Q
5

©
| | @)
c= =o Ste; si
S$
SS) no
aps

Zs
\ VILLAGE SITE
NW %@ SECT. 27 T.147 R86
SCALE

| INGH:100 FT.
| GONTOUR INTERVAL 5 FT.

io Oa

SURVEYED 7-10-08
BY STOUT

FISH
STEINBREUCK
Map 2.—Map of Rock Village. (Courtesy North Dakota Historical Society.)

villages to be 600 warriors and 2,500 inhabitants. It is of significance
for a reconstruction of Crow—Hidatsa group relations to note that,
on the basis of information obtained from the various Crow bands,
the Ehart-sah (Hidatsa) were still considered to be a Crow band
although the two other Hidatsa village groups, the Awatixa and
Awaxawi, were not so considered.

14 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Lewis and Clark (1804-05) wintered near the Mandan and Hidatsa
villages. They also grouped together two Hidatsa village groups,
the Hidatsa and the Awatixa (sites 35 and 33) as a separate tribe to
distinguish them from the Awaxawi. Concerning the earth lodge
villages at this point they wrote:

The villages near which we are established are five in number, and are the
residence of three distinct nations: the Mandans, the Ahnahaways [Awaxawil],
and the Minnetarees [Hidatsa and Awatixa].

On the same side of the river, and at a distance of 4 miles from the lower Mandan
village, is another called Mahaha [The Mandan name for the Awaxawi]. It is
situated on a high plain at the mouth of Knife river, and is the residence of the
Ahnahaways . . . [They] formerly resided on the Missouri, about 30 miles below
where they now live. The Assiniboins and Sioux forced them to a spot 5 miles
higher, where the greatest part of them were put to death, and the rest emigrated
to their present situation, in order to obtain an asylum near the Minnetarees
. . . their whole force is about 50 men.

On the south side of the same Knife river, half a mile above the Mahaha and
in the same open plain with it, is a village of Minnetarees surnamed Metaharta 4
who are about 150 men in number. On the opposite side of Knife river, and one
and a half miles above this village, is a second of Minnetarees, who may be
considered as the proper Minnetaree nation [Hidatsa]. It is situated in a beauti-
ful low plain, and contains 450 warriors.

. .. The Mandans say that this people came out of the water to the east
and settled near them in their former establishment in nine villages; . . . The
Minnetarees proper assert, on the contrary, that they grew where they now live...
They also say that the ... Minnetarees of the Willows,5 whose language
with very little variation is their own, came many years ago from the plains and
settled near them. Perhaps the two traditions may be reconciled by the natural
presumption that these Minnetarees [Hidatsa] were the tribes known to the
Mandans below, and that they ascended the river for the purpose of rejoining
the Minnetaree proper.

The inhabitants of these five villages, all of which are within the distance of
6 miles, live in harmony with one another. The Ahnahaways understand in
part the language of the Minnetarees. The dialect of the Mandans differs widely
from both; but their long residence together has insensibly blended their manners,
and occasioned some approximation in language, particularly as to objects of
daily occurrence and obvious to the senses. [Lewis, 1893, pp. 196—200.]

Although Lewis and Clark’s analysis of the history of Hidatsa village
groups is somewhat confusing, many of these conflicting traditions can
be resolved by examining the Hidatsa not as a tribe but as independent
village groups. Both the LeRaye and Lewis and Clark accounts agree
in designating the Awaxawi, although dialectically related to the
others, as somewhat removed culturally. Lewis and Clark further

3 Village group names in brackets are my interpretations.

4The Mandan name for Awatixa meaning ‘Scattered Village.’”” Another Mandan equivalent is
“mitoxtr”’ which is the name by which the Mandan also speak of the village on the present site of the city
of Mandan, N. Dak.

5 So far as we know this name was applied only to the Hidatsa, never to the Awatixa or Awaxawi. Note
that the Awatixa at this time recognized dialectic differences with the Hidatsa and that the Mandan tradition
of a Hidatsa migration to the Missouri as nonagriculturalists is denied by the Awatixa as applying to them.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 15

indicate that the Hidatsa (Minnetarees of the Willows) and Awatixa
(Minnetarees-proper of Metaharta) have had independent histories.
The former, as a nomadic group, came recently to the Missouri from
the northern plains to Heart River where they became known to the
Mandan before taking up residence north of Knife River. The Awa-
tixa claimed long residence on the Missouri as an agricultural group.
This distinction between nomadic (Hidatsa) and sedentary (Awatixa)
Hidatsa groups must have loomed prominently in their minds, for
they distinguished these two groups when they wrote:

. . . As Captain Clark was about leaving the village, two of their chiefs returned
from a mission to the Grosventres [Hidatsa] or wandering Minnetarees. These
people were camped about ten miles above, and while there one of the Ahnahaways
[Awaxawi] had stolen a Minnetaree girl. [Ibid., pp. 219-220.]

It appears that Lewis and Clark were aware of differences between
the two principal Hidatsa village groups, the Hidatsa-proper and the
Awatixa, since they refer to the group living on the north bank of the
Missouri as the Minnetarees (Hidatsa), and those on the south bank
(Awatixa) as the Minnetarees, surnamed Metaharta. Inasmuch as
the names employed to designate these village groups are of Mandan
origin, it would be well to examine Mandan interpretations of them.
According to my Mandan informants, the word ‘‘ Minnetaree’”’ referred
only to the nomadic ethnic group which arrived at the Mandan villages
near Heart River from the northeast in late prehistoric times. Having
tasted the Mandan corn, which they learned to cultivate during a
short residence there, they were advised by the Mandan leaders in
these words:

It would be better if you went upstream and built your own village, for our cus-
toms are somewhat different from yours. Not knowing each other’s ways the
young men might have differences and there would be wars. Do not go too far
away for people who live far apart are like strangers and wars break out between
them. Travel north only until you cannot see the smoke from our lodges and there
build your village. Then we will be close enough to be friends and not far enough
away to be enemies. [Crows Heart.]

Once this group became established on the Missouri near the mouth
of Knife River, a separation occurred to produce the Hidatsa who
adopted agriculture and built Hidatsa village 35 on the north bank of
the Knife River. The remainder removed farther upstream and be-
came the Kixa’ica’ or ‘Those Who Quarreled Over the Paunch,’ the
present Hidatsa name for the River Crow. According to Mandan
interpretations, neither the Awatixa nor the Awaxawi was in-
volved in this more recent migration, both being older agricultural
groups on the Missouri. The Mandan relate the Awatixa to the west-
ern Crow from whom they are said to have separated by mutual con-
sent while living on the Missouri between the mouths of the Knife
and Heart Rivers. They viewed this early separation as a gradual one

16 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

due to their long western migrations out onto the Plains. Eventually
the western ones moved permanently into the upper Little Missouri
River region to take up hunting. The smaller group remained on
friendly terms with the Mandan living in the Painted Woods region
intermediate to the Knife and Heart Rivers where they practiced
agriculture. This seems to be a reasonable interpretation, for the
Mandans who supplied much of the data recorded by Lewis and Clark
in 1804 were aware of the different cultural histories of the three
Hidatsa village groups and the Crow.

Concerning the Awaxawi, if we are to rely on traditions and
interpretations of Mandan and Awaxawi informants, we must conclude
that they represent an independent village group who arrived on the
Missouri after the Awatixa and Mountain Crow and prior to the
Hidatsa—River Crow; that they were agriculturalists prior to their
arrival on the Missouri as indicated by the Thompson account; and
that they were, owing to their small numbers, closely associated for
defense with either the Mandan or the more sedentary Awatixa during
the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries. The archeological record
of their traditional villages on the Missouri River further strengthens
native beliefs of the relative periods of the occupation along the Mis-
souri by these three village groups and the Mandan.

In 1806, Alexander Henry recognized the Saultier (Awaxawi) to be
an independent tribe, writing:

These people are an entirely different tribe from the Big Bellies and Mandanes;®
their language resembles that of the latter more than that of the former, but is
not the same.? Their long intercourse with those people has tended to this
similarity of language, and from proximity they have acquired the manners and
customs of the other nations, though they continue to live by themselves. They
have the reputation of a brave and warlike people. They formerly sustained a
three-years’ war with the Big Bellies notwithstanding the latter were then ten
times their number.’ They held out with the greatest resolution and disdained
to submit till the others, finding it impossible to reduce them, unless by extermina-
tion, proposed to make peace. Since then they have lived in amity. They are
stationary, like their neighbors, the Mandanes, with whom they have always
been at peace, and have acquired more of their customs and manners than those
of the Big Bellies, who continue to view them with an envious eye. [Henry,
1897, pp. 343-344.]

Henry estimated the size of the villages to be: Awaxawi, 40 lodges;
Awatixa, 60 lodges; Hidatsa, 130 lodges. These are unquestionably
overestimations, since lodge outlines at these villages show Hidatsa
site 35 to have 83 earth lodges, Awatixa site 33 to have 49 earth

6 Hidatsa and Awatixa village groups at this time lived in the same two villages as reported by Lewis and
Clark previously.

7 Henry errs. It was a Hidatsa-Crow dialect.

8 Traditionally this was with the Hidatsa, not the Awatixa, and was brought about by the unwillingness
of the Hidatsa to permit settlement on the Missouri upstream from the mouth of the Knife River in tradi-
tional Hidatsa hunting territory.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 17

lodges, and Awaxawi site 32 to have approximately 20 lodges. The
exact number at the latter site is not definitely known, since the site
has been partially destroyed.

Bradbury (1904, vol. 5, p. 162) also distinguished the Awaxawi as
a separate tribe from the other two Hidatsa village groups of which
he said “It is stated by Mr. Lewis that the two villages or bands can
raise six hundred warriors but the number at this time is probably
much less.” It was at this time, according to traditions largely sub-
stantiated by recent tree ring studies, that one group under Strong
Jaw moved out of the Hidatsa village to build on the Little Missouri
near the mouth of Cherry Creek (Will, 1946). Concerning the
Awaxawi, Bradbury (1904, p. 163) wrote that—

In our way to the Mandans we passed through the small village belonging to
the Ahwahhaways, consisting of not more than eighteen or twenty lodges. This
nation can scarcely muster fifty warriors, and yet they carry on an offensive war
against the Snake and Flathead Indians.

Catlin in 1832 did not recognize the Awaxawi as a separate tribe,
writing:

The Minitarees (people of the willows) are a small tribe of about 1,500 souls,
residing in three villages of earth-covered lodges, on the banks of Knife river; a
small stream, so called, meandering through a beautiful and extensive prairie,
and uniting its water with the Missouri. ([Catlin, 1841, vol. 1, p. 185.]

Catlin identified Awatixa village on the south bank as the principal
village; it consisted of 40 to 50 earth-covered lodges (see map 5).

Maximilian (1906, pp. 230-231) in 1833 reported that the Hidatsa
groups were in the same villages as when Charboneau came to the
Missouri in 1797. These were sites 35, 33, and 32. However, 6 or 7
years prior to 1797 it would appear that the Awatixa and Awaxawi
were not living at the mouth of Knife River, for Maximilian describes
an attack by the Sioux on Hidatsa village (site 35). These two
incidents provide a minimum date for the final union of the three
Hidatsa village groups at the mouth of Knife River where they
remained in close associations until 1837 when they scattered to
escape a second smallpox epidemic. The Maximilian account would
indicate that immediately after the smallpox epidemic of 1782, the
Awatixa were in Rock Village (site 53) upstream from the mouth of
Knife River, the Hidatsa were at the mouth of Knife River in village
site 35, and the Awaxawi were downstream near the Mandan of the
Hensler-Sanger region where ruins of their villages were described by
Lewis and Clark in 1804. This date for the occupation of Rock
Village would agree with Curtis’ (1907 a, p. 131) account.

Bears Arm, one of the principal informants for this study, stated
that his mother, Many Growths, was born at Awatixa site 33. Imme-
diately after the smallpox epidemic of 1782, the Awatixa abandoned

18 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

N

O
2
Oo Of
1G.

O C5 Hidatsa Village
Knife River
sw 4 OF SEG. 21, TOWN. 145
RANGE 84

SCALE
| INGH: 105.6 FT.

Map 3,—Hidatsa village site 35 on the north bank of the Knife River. (Courtesy North
Dakota Historical Society.)

their old village 34 and removed to Rock Village, where Bears Arm’s
maternal grandmother was born. According to Bears Arm, the village
group which we know as Hidatsa comprised both an agricultural and
nomadic population prior to 1782. The ratio of nomads to agricul-
turalists varied from season to season. Their principal headquarters
was on the north bank of Knife River (site 35) from which they ranged

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 19

upstream along the Missouri, the tributary regions to the west, and
the Mouse River and Devils Lake regions to the northeast.

The Awatixa at this time, he stated, were agricultural and lived
much like the Mandan who placed great emphasis on agriculture.
They had lived at site 34 for a long time, at first with the Mandan
and Awaxawi living downstream to the Heart River and beyond, the
Crow to the west, and the other Hidatsa—River Crow group to the
northeast and upstream as nomads. The Awatixa were then the most

Old Awatixa Village

SE% SECT.33 TOWN.I45 RANGE 84

Cs

SCALE
1 INCH TO 115.75 FEET

Map 4,—Old Awatixa village at the mouth of the Knife River. (Courtesy North Dakota
Historical Society.)

20 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

N

New Awatixa Village
NE /, OF SECT. 33 TOWN, 145 RANGE 84

SCALE
1INCH TO 90.66 FEET

Map 5.—New Awatixa village at the mouth of the Knife River. (Courtesy North Dakota
Historical Society.)

northern agriculturalists along the Missouri River. Concerning the
Awaxawi, where his father was born, Bears Arm stated that this group
was opce more numerous and lived to the east as agriculturalists on
the streams of that region and later at Devils Lake. There the
Hidatsa—River Crow (called Miro’kac prior to the separation) found
them and concluded that they were related since their languages were
mutually intelligible. Reaching the Missouri, the Awaxawi lived in
the Painted Woods region around the Square Buttes where they
remained on friendly terms with the Mandan of that and the Heart
River region, and the Awatixa of site 34 on Knife River. Prior to
the epidemic of 1782, the enemies of the earth-lodge groups, particu-
larly the Sioux, were not numerous. The Arikara were more numerous
and aggressive at that time and carried on constant warfare against

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 21

their upstream neighbors. There were fewer Assiniboin and they
rarely wintered on the Missouri River upstream from the earth lodge
villages at and below Knife River. The Hidatsa and River Crow
hunted on that stretch of the Missouri between the Knife and Yellow-
stone Rivers and were numerous enough to withstand the Assiniboin.

It was during this time that the Awaxawi moved upstream and at-
tempted to build a permanent village above Knife River only to be
driven out by the Hidatsa. War broke out between them and was
continued for 3 years during which time the Awaxawi moved down-
stream near Fort Yates and built a village near the friendlier Cheyenne.
This conflict with the Hidatsa and temporary residence below the
Mandan traditionally is prior to 1782, according to Bears Arm, as the
Awaxawi were in the Painted Woods region during the first smallpox
epidemic.

Awatixa traditions provide little information on their early history
and migrations, for they claim to have always occupied positions on
the Missouri, principally around and upstream from Painted Woods
(Washburn, N. Dak.). They have no traditions of permanent resi-
dence elsewhere. It was in this area that they believe the clans and
all of the rites relating to the Sacred Arrows originated. From all
information provided by traveler accounts, Mandan informants, and
Awatixa traditions, it appears that this group lived in that area for
at least three centuries. They claiméd to be the descendants of an orig-
inal population which came down from the sky to Charred Body Creek
situated a few miles below the present town of Washburn. Their
traditional history is chiefly an account of the cultural development
of tribal ceremonies pertaining to this village site, the sites of the
Hensler-Sanger region, and site 34 at the mouth of the Knife River.
References to legendary incidents occurring elsewhere are exceedingly
rare. They speak of moving downstream to the north bank of the
Heart River while still a part of the Crow (Mountain or Western Crow)
where certain incidents occurred prior to the removal of the latter to
the western Plains in company with a few Mandan families. They
claim Rock Village above the Knife River was built after the epidemic
of 1782 when the Hidatsa consisted of both nomadic and agricultural
groups. They also mention in the Waterbuster bundle myth, a tem-
porary village built farther upstream and below Shell Creek. This
site is said to have been built prior to the arrival of the Hidatsa—Crow.
Nor are the Awatixa unique in claiming exclusive cultural development
in one area along the Missouri River, having first been created there
by culture heroes who brought the original ‘‘parents”’ of the tribe down
from the sky; some Mandans have a similar legend to account for the
original creation of the earth and the human population of the region
at the mouth of the Heart River.

710-195-653

22 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

According to both Awatixa and Mandan traditions, once the original
populations were established, other related groups moved to the region
and joined them. There is much archeological evidence in the earth
lodge sites of the area to support the general outlines of tribal histories
as given by native informants. Will (1946) has dated certain sites of
the Heart River region as representing an early agricultural popula-
tion at the Huff site. On the basis of changes of frequencies of pot-
tery types, I have shown that a continuous cultural development
occurred in that region even predating the Huff site (dated as 1485-
1543) and continuing to the historic period (Bowers, MS.). Typo-
logical differences exist between these earlier traditional Mandan sites
and those believed by both tribes to have been occupied by the various
Hidatsa village groups. On the oldest identified horizons, the Mandan
sites show many middle Mississippi cultural traits. The Hidatsa
show stronger Woodland influences. Mandan pottery had a high
frequency of plain or polished (body) wares while Hidatsa pottery had
a high frequency of check-stamping and cord-roughening. These
differences were less pronounced in the historical period sites. Man-
dan village sites show fixed lodge arrangements with an open circle or
ceremonial area within the village, a specialized ceremonial lodge with
structural features of the older rectangular lodges, and the common
use of bastions. The Hidatsa never preserved a fixed ceremonial area
within the village, nor is there reference to lodge orientation within
the camp area. Even in historic times, the Hidatsa had no cere-
monial or tribal lodge for their ceremonies. Nor do those Hidatsa
sites known to have been occupied prior to the smallpox epidemic of
1782 show well-defined fortifications, although the Mandan were
building strongly fortified villages before A.D. 1500.

Trade sherds appearing in Mandan sites after 1550 indicate that
the first Hidatsa groups, probably the Awatixa and their closest
Mountain Crow relatives, reached the Missouri about that time or a
little later. Awatixa pottery and culture in general were influenced
by the Mandan far more than were Mandan cultural traits influenced
by the Awatixa, indicating that the first contacts were made by an
Awatixa invading group fewer in number than the contemporary
Mandan. That contacts were not entirely broken between the various
Hidatsa—Crow groups is indicated by the close similarity in their
languages. If we assume a distribution of Hidatsa—Crow groups in
accord with their traditions (from the Red River and its western tri-
butaries westward in the headwaters region of the Sheyenne and James
Rivers, the Turtle Mountains, the southern loop of the Mouse River
and onto the Missouri upstream from Washburn, N. Dak., thence
westward onto the Little Missouri to its headwaters and the Yellow-
stone River to the Powder River), we have an area which reveals ma-

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 93

terials of unusual uniformity. ‘Temporary campsites found along the
rivers reveal pottery complexes characteristic of this older Hidatsa
earth lodge culture on the Missouri. Temporary nonagricultural
sites are found east and west of the Missouri; permanent sites are
found on the lower section of the Sheyenne River where it empties
into the Red River and again in the Devils Lake region where evi-
dences of agriculture are indicated. It appears that only in the cen-
tral portion along the Missouri, around Devils Lake, and in the lower
Sheyenne River region, was agriculture regularly practiced by the
Awatixa and Awaxawi. Evidences of occasional agriculture upstream
from the mouth of the Knife River is indicated by numerous small
storage pits, scapula hoes, and charred corncobs. The corncobs
could have been brought in by trade, but it is unlikely that scapula
hoes and storage pits would have been used unless some agriculture
was practiced. The archeological evidence indicates that agriculture
was not important upstream from the Knife River until historic times,
but earlier attempts at farming are indicated by numerous temporary
sites in that region.

The late prehistoric and protohistoric locations of the village
groups comprising the Hidatsa tribe are pretty well defined by
traders and native accounts which can be authenticated by arche-
ological record. The Awaxawi were intermediate in position on the
Missouri to the Mandan and Awatixa, living in the Painted Woods
region as agriculturalists. The Awatixa, though formerly most
intimately associated with the other agricultural groups, the Man-
dan and Awaxawi, rather than with the nomadic Hidatsa—Crow
groups, were by this time in closer associations with the Hidatsa who
occupied the north bank of the Knife River and the area upstream
from that point. The final separation of the Hidatsa and the River
Crow traditionally occurred during this period after a quarrel over
the disposal of a buffalo’s paunch. The archeological record up-
stream along the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, however, would
indicate that this Hidatsa—Crow population was composed of numer-
ous bands which gradually moved apart as some members took over
agriculture while others remained on the Plains permanently as
hunters.

It would appear that even the Hidatsa-proper did not make the
decision to settle in earth lodge villages quickly but, rather, were
indifferent to agriculture for quite a while. The smallpox epidemic
of 1782 and the westward movement of the Assiniboin and Sioux
changed the picture on the Missouri; it was the sedentary peoples
who suffered most from smallpox. The more nomadic Hidatsa were
compelled to make a decision between reuniting with the River Crow
or moving in with their linguistically closer relatives living near the

24 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Knife River. It was during this period, 1782-1800, and as a result
of some serious losses at the hands of the Sioux, that the three Hidatsa
and the nine or more Mandan village groups reorganized for mutual
defense. In 1790 a large force of Sioux attacked the Hidatsa; be-
cause of the distance between the villages, the Awatixa at Rock
Village and the Awaxawi, who had survived an attack on them and the
Nuptadi Mandan, were unable to provide assistance. Nevertheless,
by 1796 the Mandan groups had all moved out of the Heart River
region and had consolidated their position in a limited area immedi-
ately below the Knife River Hidatsa villages.

Close intervillage and intertribal cooperation developed. One
group of Arikara, who previously had had close ties with the Awigaxa
Mandan near the Grand River, moved north at this time and settled
nearby at the Greenshield site opposite Washburn. They did not
get along well with the other Mandan and Hidatsa groups and were
soon driven out. The Awaxawi had abandoned their village near
Square Buttes after the epidemic of 1782 to live in one of the Mandan
villages. However, once the earth lodge population was concentrated
near the Knife River, they moved into a village of their own (site 32)
situated between the Mandan and Hidatsa. There they continued
to live as an independent village group until after the epidemic of 1837.
They then abandoned their own village organization and united with
the Awatixa.

The Hidatsa, Awatixa, and Awaxawi occupied the same village sites
between 1795 and 1837 although the Hidatsa-proper had some diffi-
culty in integrating their population. Quarrels occasionally broke
out, one resulting in the building of Cherry Creek Village on the Little
Missouri River. These close contacts, between slightly different cul-
tural groups of Hidatsas and Mandans endeavoring to preserve their
independent village systems, resulted in the breakdown of cultural
differences through intergroup borrowing and intermarriage. Never-
theless, something of the cultural differences between these groups is
still preserved in native interpretations and traditions. The assimila-
tion process of the Hidatsa groups was rapid after 1782.

With the heavy losses suffered from smallpox in 1837, a second
period of reorganization followed. Many living at Hidatsa village
considered rejoining the River Crow. In fact, many did move there
permanently. Other Hidatsas from this village moved upstream when
the epidemic broke out and built an earth lodge village near the mouth
of the upper Knife River which they occupied until 1845. The
Awaxawi and Awatixa remained on the Knife near the Mandan until
1845, when, in company with the Nuitadi Mandan, they undertook
the building of Fishhook Village where they were rejoined by many
Hidatsa households. The problem of resolving several traditions was

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 25

not an easy one. None of the groups composing the population of
Fishhook was sufficiently numerous to survive in an independent
village. Were it not for the pressures of nomadic enemies, the rem-
nants of each village would have lived alone. Those Hidatsa who
were unwilling to continue as agriculturalists at Fishhook moved west
and united permanently with the River Crow.

In the chapters that follow, through field investigations and inter-
views with many Hidatsa informants, I have examined the cultures of
the three original village groups, recorded cultural differences where
it was possible to do so, indicated something of the cultural elements
common to the three groups, and have traced out in some detail
those cultural processes and native concepts of the history or ‘‘road’’
by which the Hidatsa groups achieved the cultural status they knew
when Fishhook Village was abandoned for the move onto the reserva~
tion. The Hidatsa still (1932) think strongly in terms of these orig-
inal village groups.

HIDATSA SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

VILLAGE AND TRIBAL ORGANIZATION AND ACTIVITIES

The Hidatsa employed the term “chief” to designate anyone who,
by virtue of his authority at any particular moment was recognized
as leader of a group of people, whether a segment of the village group,
a village group, or the entire population of the three villages and such
other organized groups as might be residing with the Hidatsa at that
particular time. Leadership was graded in much the same manner
as was the male and female population comprising the age-grade
system. The Hidatsa had, in 1932, a rather clear understanding of
the character of the tribal leadership prior to the epidemic of 1837
when the population lived in three independent villages. According
to my informants, these villages had had no tribal council until after
the epidemic of the 1780’s, as the villages were widely scattered along
the Missouri and its tributaries and contacts were not numerous.
At that time, the Awaxawi were below the Knife River near Square
Buttes, and the Awatixa were in their old village on the south bank
of the Knife River where they had lived for a very long time. The
Hidatsa-proper comprised a loose association of closely related bands
that ranged northward along the Missouri and Lower Yellowstone,
the Little Missouri, Mouse River, Turtle Mountains, and even the
Devils Lake region. Occasionally the wandering Hidatsa groups
would all move back to the north bank of the Knife River to plant
corn but, just as often, they remained on the prairies during the
summer, hunting buffaloes. These northern Hidatsa bands collec-
tively greatly exceeded the Awatixa and Awaxawi in numbers and
consistently resisted their efforts to move above the Knife River.
Each Hidatsa band was under the leadership of a strong chief who
had considerable prestige with his group. The Awatixa, who had
a traditional history of long residence in earth lodge villages on the
Missouri, had a more complex village system of chieftainships based
on hereditary bundles and offices, ‘“‘ward’’ leadership to supplement
and reinforce tribal chiefs, and clan inheritance of rights and privileges.
The ceremonial aspects of their village life were organized around a

26

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 27

village or peace chief and the war activities around an outstanding
war leader. The Awaxawi, although sedentary like the Awatixa,
lacked clan inheritance rights and privileges. ‘The ceremonial and
peace functions at Awaxawi were vested in the Earthnaming bundle
owner while the war activities were organized around the strongest
war leader.

The smallpox epidemic of the 1780’s greatly reduced the tribal
population, and the subsequent westward movement of the Assiniboin
caused the Hidatsa and Awatixa village groups to attempt a union.
At this time the Awatixa built Rock Village upstream from the Knife
River. The effort was unsuccessful because of conflicting bundle
rights and the jealousy of the chiefs. After a few years, those who
desired to remain agriculturalists returned to the Knife River. The
Awaxawi left Painted Woods and built 2 miles below the mouth of
Knife River, the Awatixa were situated on the south bank of the Knife,
and those Hidatsa who chose to ally with the other two village groups
settled on the north bank. A few Hidatsa families joined the Crow,
and others followed them, a few families at a time, until after 1845.
Except for the short residence at Rock Village, this was traditionally
the first time that the Hidatsa village groups had lived within a few
miles of one another. This was done to offer better opportunities for
mutual defense and still retain the original village groups. The Hid-
atsa lived in about 130 lodge or household groups, the Awatixa in
approximately 50 household groups, and the Awaxawi in about 20
household groups.

COUNCILS

For mutual defense against common enemies, around 1797 or 1798,
the three villages established a tribal council composed of the most
distinguished war leaders of each village. Council membership has
been reported by my informants as totaling 10, with the head chiefs of
Hidatsa and Awatixa as additional members, and as 12 in number by
Curtis (1907 a, vol. 4, p. 182). Their duties were concerned only with
general matters concerning warfare and the mutual assistance of the
villages. They made peace with neighboring villages and discouraged
efforts of the enemy to make alliances with one village to the exclusion
of the others. This tribal council was first established before 1800
and continued until the three village groups united to build Fishhook
Village in 1845.

When the smallpox epidemic broke out in 1837, the council was
composed of the following men (according to Bears Arm who secured

28 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

this information from his father, Old-Woman-Crawling, who came
from Awaxawi):

Hidatsa Village Clan membership
Wielf,Obisi = 214422 baleeu eee she Three-clan moiety
Pwo. Bag bie 2S. 2 oo ee Waterbuster
Gives-Away-his-Arrows_------------- Prairie Chicken
Bloody ese 5. 42k eee ees Awaxenawita
Rumsey hee se bles Je Eee oe ee Waterbuster

Awatiza Village
Blackens-his-Moceasins -___---------- Waterbuster
Young-White-Bear _-__-__------------ Maxoxati
Stixpup minetiosrecsiie seat Sate Knife
A Ray fo 1 EET HR, Sa Sage RS cae Ts ee ee Maxoxati

Awazawi Village
er ee 9 | aaa yt ote ety Serna Rk apr Awaxenawita
Roeadmaker 21. G5. os UL EVE siete iss Waterbuster

This tribal council was composed of persons whose names commonly
appear in the journals of travelers and traders of that period. The
village representatives of the tribal council were outstanding individ-
uals, respected primarily for their good judgment and military ac-
complishments, who were members of their respective village councils
from which they received their authority. When a member died or
lost prestige, as in the instance of One-eyed Antelope who stole a
woman and killed her husband when he returned from warfare to
claim her, the position was not filled until the next year at the time of
the summer buffalo hunt and the Naxpiks ceremony. There were no
regular meetings of the council. If one of the members had something
to discuss with the others, he would have a feast prepared and the
matter was discussed at that time. On other occasions, as when a
pipe bearer arrived for the purpose of arranging a peace treaty or the
peaceful admission of his band for trading, the council met to deter-
mine the attitude of the people. The council frequently would refuse
to discuss matters with young men of an enemy tribe, knowing that
such an arrangement did not carry the authority of the band leaders.
It appears that the council also had an earlier understanding with the
Mandan, for in his journals of 1806, Alexander Henry wrote of a
party of Arikara that had arrived at the nearby Mandan villages to
arrange a treaty:

About 30 Big Bellies soon arrived on horseback, at full speed; they brought an
interpreter with them. This party consisted of some of the principal war chiefs,
and other great men, who did not appear well pleased, but looked on the Pawnees
with disdain. After some private consultation they desired the Pawnees to
return immediately to their own villages and to inform their great war chief,
Red Tail, that if he sincerely wished for peace he must come in person, and then

they would settle matters, as they were determined to have nothing to do with a
private party of young men. [Henry, 1897, p. 335.]

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 29

When it was not possible to arrive at a unanimous decision, the
council would endeavor to influence the minority group or a decision
was postponed for a later date. Because of the numerical superiority
of the Hidatsa-proper the other two villages frequently gave in,
particularly in matters concerned with the protection of the villages.
This led early travelers to refer to the domination of the other two
villages by the Hidatsa-proper. This was probably only partly true
for either village group could have moved away and settled at any time
provided they did not establish a permanent earth lodge village up-
stream from the Hidatsa-proper. In matters for the common good,
the council was an effective organization. There was no tendency to
include Mandan representatives in the council even though the two
Mandan village groups lived only a few miles below the Awaxawi.
Instead, the two tribes maintained independent councils which met
jointly from time to time to discuss common problems. Each tribe
defended the villages of the other tribe from attack and peace treaties
were not entered into by one tribe unless the other was included.
With one exception, that of the Nuptadi who did not go upstream
when the other Mandan accompanied the Hidatsa groups in 1845 to
build Fishhook, preferring an alliance with the nearby Arikara, this
rule was followed until the people went onto the Fort Berthold
Reservation.

This federation of Hidatsa villages served a useful function in
breaking down the borders between village territorial grounds, thus
eliminating one longstanding cause of intratribal friction. In 1750,
the Awaxawi controlled the river region opposite the present town of
Washburn and hunted on the flats and along the small streams in that
region, the Awatixa controlled the Knife River valley westward to-
ward the Killdeer Mountains, and the Hidatsa claimed the region
along the Missouri upstream from the mouth of the Knife River.
When the three village groups settled on the Knife, however, separate
village hunting grounds were no longer recognized. Each group
hunted on the others’ territories or hunting parties were comprised of
household groups from each of the villages. Nevertheless, the
Hidatsa-proper felt a prior claim to the region upstream from the
Knife and consistently refused to permit the Awatixa, the Awaxawi,
or the Mandan to build earth lodge summer villages above them on
the Missouri. In 1845, because the wood had been largely consumed
at the Knife River, the Hidatsa-proper contemplated moving up-
stream to the Lower Yellowstone to join the River Crow. The
Awatixa, under Four Bears and Missouri, preferred to move to Fish-
hook Bend and there build a permanent village. The former raised
no objection to a village at that point since they contemplated moving
still farther upstream. In the spring, however, when a trading post

30 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

was established at that point, the Hidatsa-proper also decided to
settle there. The upstream position in relation to the other groups
of the Hidatsa was never relinquished. An attempt at this time to
establish a separate Hidatsa-proper village near the present town of
Sanish, N. Dak., failed due to the greater strength of the Assiniboin.
For a number of years after the three Hidatsa village groups united at
Fishhook, each former village group continued to occupy a separate
winter village; in each instance we find the Hidatsa-proper occupying
the upstream position. The Hidatsa-proper did not contribute to the
organization of the original “‘building” ceremonies at the time Fish-
hook Village was built in 1845, these rites being largely performed by
the leaders of Awatixa, Awaxawi, and the Nuitadi Mandan, but their
strength was not great enough to survive alone as an independent
village group. Cultural differences between villages caused endless
friction; the Awatixa and Awaxawi were more conservative than the
Hidatsa-proper in the preservation of longstanding organized rites,
and the latter placed greater emphasis on individual vision experi-
ences. When an opportunity arose to settle near a Government fort
at Fort Buford shortly after 1870, many Hidatsa who had earlier
failed in maintaining a summer village near Sanish, again moved
upstream to live. It is this group that now occupies the upstream
end of the Fort Berthold Reservation around Shell Creek.

The stability of the original three Hidatsa groups is indicated by
the traditions and mythologies identified with these groups, the
archeological evidence of long residence in recognized village sites,
and the persistence of the original groups in maintaining and pre-
serving their identity in the face of forced union for mutual defense
against common enemies. One cannot say that they were primarily
economic groups, for if that were so, after the epidemic of the 1780’s
the Awatixa and Awaxawi collectively were not as numerous as either
village group had been before the epidemic. It appears to me from
native accounts, that the reluctance to unite was due to different
cultural histories, differences in ceremonial and social organization,
a strong sense of village solidarity, and the unwillingness of recognized
leaders to share their hard-earned positions with others of comparable
status.

Some of the cultural differences can still be identified from an
analysis of bundle rites and the traditional knowledge of the older
Hidatsas. Since the Awatixa have contributed much to the cere-
monial rites at the building of the last important village, the Fishhook
Village, some of the basic cultural characteristics of that group will
be indicated first. This Hidatsa group had traditions of long resi-
dence on the Missouri; in fact, this group claims to have settled the
earth from a village in the sky which distinguishes them from the

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 31

other two groups which claim a common kinship by virtue of a com-
mon origin from the underworld. In spite of their traditional origin
from the sky, the oldest culture-bearing levels in the Awatixa sites
show features which are characteristic of the other Hidatsa sites on
the Missouri as well as to the east and southeast of the region. The
Awatixa culturally occupied a position intermediate to the other two
Hidatsa groups on one hand and the Mandan on the other. The
basic Hidatsa—Awaxawi inheritance pattern of sacred rites and objects
was from father to son; the Mandan practiced clan inheritance of
bundles, particularly ancient tribal bundles. The Awatixa had a
dual system; that is, most bundles were inherited through a “‘father-to-
son” relationship but a number of other important bundles were owned
by the clan and transmitted to another member when one holding the
bundle died. The Waterbuster and Knife clan bundles were owned
collectively by the clan members of Awatixa village. While living at
the Knife River, and after the other two bands had built villages
nearby, those of the same clan in the other villages at first claimed no
rights in the clan bundles; it was not until the three Hidatsa groups
united at Fishhook in 1845 that clan rights extended to the other
groups. The Shell Robe belonging to the Prairie Chicken clan of
Awatixa was actually kept by the Mandan during the last century.
Nevertheless, rights in the bundle were claimed by all Mandans of
the Prairie Chicken clan regardless of the village they lived in, and by
the Awatixa. More recently, after uniting at the mouth of the
Knife River, rights were extended to include persons of the Prairie
Chicken clan at Awaxawi and Hidatsa. The Awatixa, according to
traditions, brought the Sun Dance (Naxpikr) down from the sky
and taught the rites to the other Hidatsa groups. They shared with
the Mandan the custom of arranging skull circles near the scaffolds
for the dead as shrines to the Sun Doing bundles and transporting
back to the villages skulls of those who had died or had been killed
when away from home. This custom was not generally practiced by
the other Hidatsa groups. They did not establish ‘‘mourners’ camps”’
as did the Hidatsa and Awaxawi, rationalizing this practice by the
other two groups on the basis of a quarrel—not a part of their cultural
history—which occurred prior to the separation of the Hidatsa-proper
and River Crow.

Awatixa village organization differed slightly from that of the other
Hidatsa groups in the absence of an Earthnaming bundle with rites
defining village hunting territory. It was claimed that the highest
ranking leadership was vested in the holders of the Knife clan bundle
(Three-clan moiety) and the Waterbuster clan bundle (Four-clan
moiety): Stirrup and Blackens-his-Moccasins, respectively, just prior
to 1837. The village had no open circle or lodge arrangement other

32 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

than the close grouping of lodges according to nearness of kin. The
village was, however, divided into four ‘‘wards,”’ each under the super-
natural protection of a prominent man selected for his part in the
ceremonies conducted for the gods of the direction which he repre-
sented. These four men, known as ‘‘protectors of the people,” were
esteemed ceremonial leaders and occupied a status position equal with
that of the two village chiefs and other select members of the village
council distinguished either for their knowledge of sacred lore or for
distinction in warfare. Although the dual chieftainship of the Man-
dan and the other Hidatsa groups prevailed, the distinction between
war and village chiefs was less evident due to the greater prestige of
the Waterbuster and Knife clan bundles. The entire population was
organized by the age-grading of both men and women. The Black
Mouths served as police and enforced the regulations of the council
composed of older men.

The Hidatsa-proper and Awaxawi village organizations differed from
that of the Awatixain many ways. Both groups traditionally arrived
rather recently on the Missouri. Since that time the Awaxawi were
in intimate and continuous contacts with the Mandan, particularly
those at Painted Woods. According to traditions, the Awaxawi came
to the Missouri as a small agricultural group and settled in the Painted
Woods region. They represent the most diverse dialectic group and
were believed by Lewis and Clark to be a distinct tribe (Lewis, 1893,
p. 196). During their short residence on the Missouri, they have been
on friendly terms with the Mandan with whom they cooperated in the
performance of tribal rites and, before reaching the Missouri, with
village groups of agricultural Cheyennes near the headwaters of the
Red River. In spite of dialectic differences and their greater emphasis
on agriculture, they more closely resemble the Hidatsa-proper cul-
turally than either the Mandan or Awatixa. Hidatsa and Awaxawi
clans apparently did not own ceremonial bundles; °® all inheritance was
from ‘‘father” to ‘‘son.”? Authority was vested in a council of head
men who had attained eminence by the performance of rites or suc-
cesses in warfare. The top leadership of the council was represented
by the owner of the Earthnaming bundle, who organized the rites
relating to the various buffalo-calling ceremonies which defined village
hunting territorial rights, and the principal war leader. Thus the
socioceremonial and the war-making activities of the village were
symbolically separate as represented by two head men. ‘Tradition-
ally, the top leaders of the ceremonial activities are said to have held
precedence over the war leaders. In recent years, due to the increased
war activities of the tribe in its struggle for survival, the war leader

® One exception—the notched sticks for the Tying-the-Pots ceremony.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 33

took precedence and the owner of the Earthnaming bundle was his
representative in the village. As at Awatixa, special leaders were
selected when the occasion arose: directing the summer hunt, manag-
ing the winter camp, or traveling beyond the summer village. Villages
were divided into four “‘wards” with a bundle owner, whose gods were
of the direction selected, serving as “protector of the people.’”’ The
Black Mouths were subordinate to the council of older men and policed
the village.

The village council was of indefinite size, since elevation to mem-
bership was based on personal achievements and public acclaim.
Although it was composed chiefly of those who had passed the Black
Mouths in age, it was essentially a group of mature men. Since the
Black Mouths must be kept informed of council decisions, they
usually met together whenever any matters of great importance were
being discussed. It was the privilege of each person to speak, but
one’s prestige was based chiefly on age and accomplishments; those
with mediocre records carried little influence. If a young man with
a good record presumed to influence the older men, they would
usually say to him:

You are young; you have a good record. Do not assume responsibilities of
this kind too soon. If you seek to influence us, it may be that you are not ready.
Then you might ‘‘kick the stone.’’ There is plenty of time. When you are
older and have demonstrated your ability in other things, the people will want
you to be their leader. In the meanwhile, be kind to the old and the very young;
be industrious and generous. Do not ask to be our leader. If you do all the
things that a chief must do, the people will ask you to help when they think you
are ready.

The high respect for age indicated by the attitude of individuals
toward their older brothers and fathers, an organized age-group to the
next higher one, and the buying of sacred bundles from older people,
is expressed in the attitude of the people toward the council. Nor-
mally, one’s position and prestige in the council was slowly attained.
One who had distinguished himself in a chiefly way frequently did not
attend meetings until he was called in to render an opinion or to
assist in solving some difficult problem. Since to act as a group, all
sub-groups and households should have a voice in decisions, important
matters were frequently discussed for quite a time in order that all
households might have an opportunity to express an opinion. In the
organization of the council the “crier’’ or announcer held an honored
role comparable to that of ‘First Creator” in the ceremonies. He
announced meeting dates and the purpose of the meeting so that each
household could be adequately informed of the matters for discussion.

It was the privilege of each household to send an older person to
express opinions. In the event that a number of related households
opposed the proposition, measures were taken to win their approval

34 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Buil. 194

or the matter was dropped. We find, for example, instances of peace
emissaries being received by the council but acceptance being delayed
until those households which had recently lost members in warfare
against the tribe had indicated their willingness to accept the peace
offerings. The council could not accept the peace plans if a household
refused to approve. Usually, families were given horses and other
goods in considerable quantities as symbols of respect to the dead
members of the households, at which time objections were withdrawn.
Although on the surface these gifts may appear to outsiders as bribes,
to these people the offering of gifts was a symbol of respect. If the
returned leader of an unsuccessful war expedition did not fast long
enough or inflict personal torture sufficient to console the families of
those killed, the council frequently was thwarted in its efforts to win
their approval of the matters under discussion. In the face of
continued resistance by the households, the council was unable to
function. Even as peace negotiations could not be completed except
with the approval of the interested households, neither could the
village function as a unit in other matters. Thus, at best, the council
was only as strong as the bond which held households together. The
council could not prevent households from withdrawing from the
village whenever they wished to establish independent villages.
Through the police, however, it could enforce rules of behavior as
long as the household groups remained in the village.

The attitude of a dissatisfied group obviously took a different form
when enemies pressed them from all sides. On the other hand, a
group could lose prestige by making unreasonable demands. In-
formants will say that decisions were always unanimous and that de-
cisions were not made until a solution was reached that was acceptable
to all. Nevertheless, we have a number of council decisions which
were not unanimous and can observe the reactions that followed.
Since conditions of warfare were difficult during the winter due to
deep snows and the ease of tracking the enemy, pressures of enemy
groups were not as great. Under these conditions, the village group
was frequently unable to agree on a common winter camping area and
small segments of the population would break away against the better
judgment of the older and more experienced leaders. The council
could not exert physical force to drive them back into the group but
they could throw the weight of tradition against them by publicly
invoking the gods sending the winter buffalo to send them no buffaloes.
Cherry Necklace was selected by a majority of the combined Hidatsa,
Awatixa, and Awaxawi during the autumn of 1862 as “leader of the
winter camp” but was opposed by some households because he had
already served in that capacity a few years earlier during which time
members of these households died. These deaths were blamed on

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 35

their leader since he was held accountable for any deaths or accidents
occurring during the winter. Cherry Necklace could have reinstated
himself in their esteem by ‘‘sacrificing”’ for the dead, that is, making
offerings of goods and fasting a short time away from the village, but
he chose instead to disregard the matter. Now he was chosen again
by the other households because there had actually been many buffaloes
in the vicinity of his camp all winter but some families chose to oppose
him on the grounds that he had brought them bad luck intentionally
as proved by his disregard for their deceased relatives. Thus a stale-
mate developed and no compromise could be reached. They went
into two winter camps: one under Cherry Necklace and the majority
of the population together with the police organization, and the other
a few miles nearer the summer village. Rumor reached the un-
organized camp that their relatives were concerned for the safety of
this small group and that Cherry Necklace had pointed his pipe to
the north and invoked the gods of that direction to send the people
back by sending the buffaloes only to his camp where the long estab-
lished buffalo calling rites were being performed. Soon rumors also
reached the little camp that Cherry Necklace had also pointed his
pipe to the south and directed the Sioux to attack the undefended
camp to bring them back. When the buffaloes came south to Cherry
Necklace’s camp but did not continue southward to the other camp
and scouts discovered strange human tracks in the woods near the
little camp, relatives went to the little camp and begged them to join
them for mutual defense and offered them goods to show their respect,
treating them as mourners.

From the foregoing accounts, we have seen that prior to 1837,
each village group had its own council and police force and operated
pretty much as an independent group with prescribed territory on
the Missouri for permanent summer villages and separate hunting
territory. The traditions indicate that the territory controlled was
sharply reduced during the latter part of the 18th century due to
epidemics and an intensification of warfare when neighboring groups
received firearms and moved westward into territory formerly con-
trolled by these and the Mandan village groups. With the reduction
of controlled territory, and the resettlement of the three village groups
near the mouth of Knife River, a tribal council was established for
effective cooperation between village groups, its membership con-
sisting of some 12 members of high status. This system was not
of long existence, beginning shortly after the 1782 smallpox epidemic
and ending with the union of the three village groups to build Fishhook
Village in 1845.

Various writers have written of the first building of Fishhook
Village but the particular rites employed on this occasion have signifi-

36 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

cance only when analyzed in the light of the former village systems
of the three Hidatsa and one Mandan group that comprised the
original population at the time of its founding. Each of these
village groups had suffered severe smallpox losses 8 years before
and the intervening period was one of general disorganization. No
doubt the original village groups would have remained independent
and separate villages had the pressure of enemy groups slackened,
for we have seen that although the Awaxawi numbered only 18 or
20 households prior to the epidemic, they had shown no inclination
to assimilate with any of the other village groups. During this
period of social disorganization, the Hidatsa and Mandan village
groups accepted the Arikara ‘© as equal partners because of common
enemies, the Sioux. The three Hidatsa groups and the Nuitadi
Mandan chose to move out of the Knife River region because wood
was getting scarce. One Mandan village group, the Nuptadi, pre-
ferred to maintain an independent village near the Arikara rather
than join with the Hidatsa. The Nuptadi Mandan group had many
kinship bonds with the principal Yankton bands under Medicine
Bear, a Sioux chief, whose mother was a Nuptadi Mandan taken
prisoner when the Sioux sacked and burned the village near Painted
Woods during the 1780’s. She was a small girl at the time and was
reared by the Sioux, later marrying a Sioux. Her son distinguished
himself and became head chief of one large band of Yankton. It
was said that he always had a compassion for the Nuptadi Mandan
and liked to visit them because he had so many relatives in that
village. Other Mandans taken prisoner at the same time and adopted
by the Sioux likewise claimed kinship with this Mandan group which
remained back at the Knife River when the Fishhook Village was
built.

The smallpox epidemic of 1837 had cut deeply into the earth lodge
population on the Upper Missouri; even a majority of the original
tribal council died at that time. Of the three Hidatsa village groups,
the Awaxawi and Awatixa suffered the heaviest losses; this was due
to the nearness of their villages to the Mandan where the epidemic
first broke out. At this time, the Hidatsa-proper were on one of
their periodic upstream migrations and were dispersed into several
bands. The period 1837-45 was one of indecision; the Awatixa
and Awaxawi were so few in numbers that they were obliged to seek
assistance of the Mandan and Arikara for protection from the Sioux.
The Hidatsa-proper, in part, lived in a strongly-fortified village north
of the present town of Sanish while others moved westward and joined
with the River Crow from whom they had separated when they

10 The Arikara were themselves the remnants of a large number of independent village groups.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION of

adopted agriculture and settled at the Knife River. The Awatixa,
with a long history of life in earth lodge villages, chose to remain
agriculturalists as did the Awaxawi who were few in number and
unable to maintain an independent village organization. The
Nuitadi Mandan, finding conditions intolerable with the Arikara,
who had moved in on them after the smallpox epidemic, indicated a
preference for the Awatixa and Awaxawi near whom they had lived
for a long time and with whom some households were related through
marriage.

The Awatixa, Awaxawi, and Nuitadi Mandan then organized a
council headed by Four Bears, son of Two Tails of the original council,
who was at that time the most distinguished war leader. He was
entrusted with the physical defense of the people, and Missouri
was selected to organize the ceremonies of establishing the new vil-
lage which was to be built upstream from the mouth of Knife River
but below the Hidatsa-proper. Although the selection of the site
is clothed in traditions, the Like-a-Fishhook Bend was an ideal site
for defense. The role of the supernatural in determining where to
build is indicated by the complete absence of references to the many
advantages of the site for the summer village. It was on a low bend
overlooking the Missouri with the river at the edge of the village,
steep banks on three sides, an abundance of timber growing in the
valley and reaching up to the edges of the village on two sides, suitable
soil for gardens in the timber, and a broad, flat, grassed prairie with
an unimpaired view which extended back from the unprotected side
of the village where horses could be better protected while grazing.

During the period 1837 to 1845 the Hidatsa were unable to operate
as a tribal unit. The more sedentary Awatixa and Awaxawi pre-
ferred to continue the old cultural pattern based on agriculture.
The Hidatsa-proper, with a short traditional history of agriculture
on the Missouri after separating from the River Crow with whom
they had still maintained close contacts on the Missouri above Knife
River, preferred to accept an invitation to rejoin the Crow. When
the final decision was made and the site of the new village had been
selected, the Hidatsa-proper were ready to move upstream in the
spring and separate permanently from their more agricultural rela-
tives. Some Awatixa and Awaxawi families, however, decided to
abandon agriculture and move upstream, while several Hidatsa-
proper families moved downstream to continue agriculture.

Boller (1868, p. 242) gives essentially the same account of the
events leading up to the building of Fishhook Village. He wrote:

. . At last they determined to seek the Crows and unite with them again.
They deserted their village, abandoned their corn-fields, left the bones of those

710-195—65——_4

38 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

once loved and lost, and severing all old ties, crossed to the east shore of the
Missouri, and started on their pilgrimage.

It was in the fall when they arrived at the site of the present village. The
Four-Bears thought it would be a good place to winter in, . . . . When spring
came, the Fur Company’s steamboat arrived, and at the urgent solicitation of
the Indians, a trader was left with a few goods.

The squaws cut and dragged timber for a fort; the Gros Ventres gave up their
idea of rejoining the Crows,. .. .

Although the original Hidatsa village group broke up at this time
they took little part in the village-building ceremonies. The top
chieftainship was patterned after the former Awatixa village system
in which the Waterbuster clan owner was village chief and Missouri
was selected to manage the ceremonies of laying out the village and
designating the ward leaders or ‘“‘protectors of the people.” The war
chief was likewise selected from this village group, Four Bears being
selected for that position.

The top leadership in 1845 when the village was built was as
follows:

Head Chiefs—Missouri River from Awatixa, village chief and
keeper of the Waterbuster clan bundle; Four Bears from Awatixa,
war chief and owner of rights in Daybreak and Sunset Wolf ceremonial
bundles; and Big Hand from Awaxawi, First Creator impersonator
and announcer for the chiefs.

Protectors of the People—Big Cloud (Fat Fox) from Awaxawi,
Thunder bundle and protector of the east direction; Bear-Looks-Out
from Awaxawi, Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies bundle and protector
of the south direction; Bobtail Bull from Awatixa, Thunder bundle
and protector of the west direction; Bad Horn from Hidatsa, Bear
bundle and protector of the north direction; and Big Hand from
Awaxawi, village announcer.

This group was entrusted with the supernatural protection of the
village. Four Bears, the war chief, took no part in the ritual organiza-
tion of the village other than outlining the limits of the area on which
lodges were to be built. In deference to the wishes of the Mandan
families, they Jaid out an open-circle area within the village near the
riverbank on the southwest section of the village which was reserved
for their ceremonies, sacred cedar, and ceremonial lodge. The
Mandan were organized independently by the Okipa members under
the direction of Big Turtle and Flying Eagle. The Mandan did not
have enough households to complete the open circle and others also
selected lodge sites there.

From the time of its first construction, the village life was a com-
promise of several village systems. A distinct ceremonial center with
Jodge orientation had never before been reserved in Hidatsa villages
farther downstream, according to native traditions. This is borne

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 39

out by archeological evidence in the three villages at the Knife, Fort
Clark Station, Bagnall, Gaines, Mile Post 128, Upper Sanger, and
other traditional sites, although the surface evidence at Upper
Hidatsa site 35 suggests a small area not occupied by lodges. The
still distinguishable large open circle described by Kurz (1937),
Boller (1868), and Matthews (1877) at Fishhook Village, suggests the
village arrangement of a dozen or more Mandan sites found between
the mouth of the Knife and Cannonball Rivers, some of which were
occupied as early as the 15th century. The open-circle area had
never been considered a sacred phenomenon by the Hidatsa as it was
by the Mandan; even today there is no religious taboo against
describing it although the writer sometimes encountered this in his
work with the Mandan. Nevertheless, it was a convenient place to
assemble on social and ceremonial occasions. Although the Hidatsa
never performed tribal rites at the sacred cedar, as did the Mandan
on all ceremonial occasions, the Mandan ceremonial lodge situated
adjacent to the open circle to the north and facing the sacred cedar
became increasingly popular with the Hidatsa. Because of its great
size, the performance of ritualistic feasts formerly held in any large
earth lodge were often held in this lodge.

The council continued to be the principal policy-making body.
Any chief could call a council meeting merely by preparing a feast
for its members. The village was occupied only during the summer
period while the gardens were being cared for; the population would
leave in late fall for the eagle-trapping camps and winter villages
when the danger of massed attacks against them lessened. At first
the population tended to retain its identity according to the four
original village groups from which it was derived. The council was
selected from the population at large without regard to original
village origin, the only qualifications being that one was in the age-
group above that of Black Mouths and had distinguished himself
in warfare or had participated in recognized ceremonial and social
activities. Until the Nuptadi Mandan joined the earlier population
at Fishhook, one large Black Mouth society functioned to preserve
order until the population went into winter camps. The society
then broke up into separate camp segments based on their original
village ties.

Unless enemies were numerous, it was customary even as late as
the 1860’s for the Hidatsa to go into three separate winter camps
and the Mandan into a fourth some distance away. In some in-
stances the camps were many miles apart, at other times only a few
hundred yards apart; nevertheless this breaking up into separate
camps, however close they were, was a device for expressing each
group’s feeling of ‘separateness.’ There were intergroup gambling

40 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

contests for adults and games of skill for the children, but in the sum-
mer village the population was intermixed so that an outsider would
scarcely have been able to detect the existence of different social
groupings.

Under the direction of the council, the village was fortified. <A
large bell was obtained and rung each day by a Black Mouth to
announce that the gates were open for the horses to go to pasture.
The bell was again rung in the evening to announce that the gates
were soon to be closed and that the people should come in from their
work. Once the gate was closed, all sections of the village were
guarded to keep out intruders, and only those who could be identified
were admitted. Unauthorized war parties were forbidden to go
out and the rewards of their successful expeditions were depreciated.

LEADERS
War

It was in this atmosphere that Fishhook was first built and ad-
ministered until the last Mandan village group and the Arikara
settled at the village after 1860. Prior to that time, the people at
Fishhook were largely at the mercy of the Assiniboin and Sioux
whose war parties against the Arikara and Nuptadi Mandan living
below the Knife were harbored and fed both going and coming and
the group felt obliged to tolerate them—even though it was common
for a young man to be sent out on the sly to warn the people down-
stream. During this time several large-scale attacks were made on
the village, each of which was driven off under the skillful leadership
of Four Bears who is today still considered one of their most dis-
tinguished war chiefs. The role of the village or religious leaders
has been largely obscured by the numerous exploits and the bravery
of this military leader. His prestige was so great that all respected
him as the savior of the village. Before his death in 1861, he had
convinced the Nuptadi Mandan and the Arikara that their position
would be more secure if they came to Fishhook to make their per-
manent home away from the Yanktons who greatly outnumbered
them and were determined to extend their range northward from the
Heart River to include the large Painted Woods bottoms admirably
suited for winter camps.

The role of the council has been largely obscured by the social
stature of this Hidatsa leader, but numerous incidents reflect the
influence of the bundle owners expressed in the objective acts of the
war chief. At the time the Arikara were invited to move north and
join the other earth lodge people at Fishhook, they chose to build
instead on the opposite bank in two separate villages and with that
end in view “planted” their medicines there. That is, they had

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 41

covered certain tribal bundles, indicating that the villages should
be erected at that spot. The Hidatsa-Mandan council sent word
across with Four Bears that the Arikara should move across and
build with the others but they told this delegation that they had
put their medicines in the ground at that place and planned to build
there. Then the bundle owners entrusted with the rites of the
“protection of the people” selected Wooden Bowl to take the pipe
to the Arikara and ask them to come but they still refused to accept
the pipe. Standing before them, Wooden Bowl raised his pipe so
all could see, saying, ‘‘My medicine is the bear who lives above.
These people have refused to take the pipe so I ask you, my god, to
send them across in four days.”’

Wooden Bowl returned and told the people how he had invoked
his god, the bear, to compel the Arikara to comply with the orders
sent across by Four Bears and his council. In a few days a large
party of Sioux came and camped beside the Arikara. They got
along very well for a few days and then a quarrel broke out between
an Arikara and a Sioux in which both tribes became involved. The
Mandan and Hidatsa crossed to the aid of the Arikara even though
they had ‘‘called down the gods” on them with the result that the
Sioux were driven off. Then the Arikara crossed and joined the
Hidatsa and Mandan where they remained until the reservation was
established.

On another occasion, the Hidatsa were informed in 1851 that they
should send representatives to Fort Laramie for the purpose of entering
into a treaty with the Government concerning tribal territory.
Again we find the real authority asserting itself in the persons of
those bundle owners possessing supernatural powers. Among these
were the two Earthnaming bundle owners whose rites were concerned
with certain hills and other landmarks believed to be the homes of
various supernatural beings, foremost of which were those believed
to be connected with the increase of the buffalo herds. When the
delegation was selected with Four Bears as leader, Guts and Poor
Wolf instructed him relative to tribal territorial claims based on
the area traditionally associated with their bundle rites. It was on
the basis of this information that the delegation entered into a treaty
with the Government.

A chief was considered great if he could command the respect
of the village for a long time. The principal war chief’s position
and reputation varied according to residence. He was essentially
a summer chief and connected with the summer village life during
which time warfare was actively conducted. Although he would
still be an important person during the winter period, when warfare
was usually discontinued, the winter chief or leader of the winter

42 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

camp took precedence over all other males. Unlike the winter chief,
who was appointed annually and rarely succeeded himself, the prin-
cipal war chief continued as long as he retained the good will and
respect of the entire community. When dissatisfaction developed,
the tactful chief invited in those who expressed opposition to him
in an effort to dissipate conflict, showed other evidences of generosity
and good will, or suggested that others take over his work. He was
still an important member of the council. In any event, when the
principal war chief grew old he tactfully relinquished his position to
a younger man who had passed Black Mouth age.

When Missouri River grew old and his Waterbuster clan or Skull
bundle was relinquished to Small Ankles, the latter never attained
the eminence of the former owner. The top ceremonial leadership
reverted to the system formerly in practice at Hidatsa and Awaxawi
where the principal role was delegated to the owner of the Earth-
naming bundle. Since, with the union of the Hidatsa-proper and
Awaxawi, two bundles were in existence, complications developed.
Guts, who came from Hidatsa village, was a much older man than
Poor Wolf, the bundle owner from Awaxawi, and should have held
seniority, but he had the reputation of bringing bad luck to all war
parties he accompanied. None would follow him as war leader
and the warriors tried to keep him from accompanying them. In
time, people thought that he had committed some errors when buying
the bundle and his prestige was very low indeed, however hard he
tried to win successes in warfare. Poor Wolf, the other bundle owner,
although a younger man, had some military successes. He was
always kind to the old and the poor, and had bought rights in this and
several other bundles. He was active in many additional ceremonies
and showed great interest in the people’s welfare. He was selected
as principal village chief after he had shown good judgment while
serving as one of the leaders of the Black Mouthor policesociety. With
the death of Four Bears and the selection of Crows Paunch as war
chief, Poor Wolf became the village chief over the objections of the
younger men still in the Black Mouth society. Guts then relinquished
his rights in the Earthnaming bundle to his son, Bobtail Bull, of the
younger set who had a good reputation in every way and none of the
bad luck that had plagued his father. Bobtail Bull was very popular
with his own age-grade group and was a recognized leader of the
younger “set”? as Poor Wolf was of the next older age-group. As
holder of the Earthnaming bundle of the former Hidatsa village on the
Knife, he was held in high respect by those formerly belonging to that
village. By tribal custom when all other things were equal, prece-
dence was given to age. Poor Wolf rightfully occupied a position
superior to Bobtail Bull, who was some 10 years younger, but each

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 43

had an Earthnaming bundle although from two different villages on
the Knife River. This was a new situation, for in the old villages
there was only one bundle to a village and it could not be subdivided.

Opposition to Poor Wolf and Crows Paunch came largely from the
former Hidatsa village group with short traditional permanent
villages, for this group was traditionally more like the Crow with
fewer formal ceremonies. The Awatixa and Awaxawi had placed
great emphasis on the formal ceremonies of long traditional existence
as the basis for societal welfare and indicated that, with the exception
of Bobtail Bull, the others had not made outstanding contributions
to the ceremonial life of the village. The younger men replied that
this was true but that they had done individual fasting and had more
scalps, war honors, and stolen horses than those who were always
hanging around the village begging goods of their relatives to pay for
the ceremonies. It was in this atmosphere that the people lived
during the latter part of the 1860’s. Under other circumstances,
one group would have broken away until the differences had been
reconciled but this was impossible at the time because of the pressure
from the Sioux.

During this time the conservative element centered its attack on
Crow-Flies-High whose relations with Bobtail Bull were essentially
that of a war chief to the village chief except that this relationship
did not have universal approval. Crow-Flies-High’s parents had died
during the smallpox epidemic of 1837 and he was reared by women
of his clan. His father was the owner of an Old-Woman-Who-Never-
Dies bundle which was “put away” when he died. While fasting as a
young man, Crow-Flies-High dreamed of the bundle which was
interpreted as a supernatural instruction to perform the rites and
take up his father’s ceremonial rights with the tribe. Instead, he
made up a personal bundle of those articles seen in his dream and
otherwise disregarded tribal practices of “taking up the father’s
gods.”’ Thus, the old “holy” men got neither a big feast nor fine goods
and Crow-Flies-High received neither promises of success in warfare
and everything that he undertook nor the promise that he would
some day become a chief. Still, he was very successful whenever he
went out to war whether under someone else or as his own leader.
The older men said that his luck would surely give out, but it never
did. Fearing that he would lead the young men to their deaths, the
old men would advise the young warriors not to go out with Crow-
Flies-High; but they would sneak out and return with war honors.
All this was very disturbing, for Crow-Flies-High and his friend
Bobtail Bull were both members and leaders of the Black Mouthsociety
as well.

44 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

To reinforce their positions, Crows Paunch and Poor Wolf selected
from the council four men older than themselves to serve as ‘‘pro-
tectors of the people’ according to ancient custom, but many of
the younger group ridiculed these four men, calling them, “protectors
of our chiefs who are no good.”’ About this time, the Government
established Fort Buford near the mouth of the Yellowstone and
younger men from the village served as scouts. Trouble broke out
at the village when the Government rations were being distributed;
some younger men accused Crows Paunch and Poor Wolf of showing
favorites and retaining too large a share for their own families. Fights
broke out, but Bobtail Bull quickly asserted himself as leader of the
opposition and urged moderation. He promised that if his supporters
would take no drastic steps or resort to fighting, he would serve as
their peace chief, take them upstream, and ask the Government for
permission to build a village near the fort. Since there were many
buffaloes farther west and the young men could get positions as scouts,
he felt that the people would be happier there. The next day his
followers commenced packing and left the village shortly thereafter.
Some Mandans discovered that they too had not been treated fairly
by their chiefs in the distribution of goods and decided to go along
also. At this time, the Mandan had two sets of head men: those
representing the Nuitadi Mandan who came to Fishhook in 1845
when the village was first built, and those of the Nuptadi Mandan
who arrived in the early 1860’s. Flying Eagle, the chief of the
Nuitadi Mandan, also decided to go upstream, for the people no
longer recognized his authority and talked about him when he was
not present, saying that he was selfish. A few Mandan families went
with him.

The character of this conflict expresses numerous situations which
would have taken a different form in former times. In the first
place, it was wrong for younger men to question the authority of the
older men, irrespective of their relative ceremonial and military
achievements. This questioning of authority led to the fast break-
down of the age-grade structure. A drift away from the organized
and formal public rites was indicated by the willingness of young men
to go to war with one who had not obtained his full military authority
in the customary way. Although the practice of seeking personal
supernatural guidance was characteristic of the Crow and numerous
other adjacent tribes, the Hidatsa had gone one step further and had
made supernatural quests a prerequisite for entrance into the formal
bundle rites having group recognition and participation. A final
point was the length of the feud and the unwillingness of either group
to take the customary steps to separation into a separate camp, either
permanently or until the differences had been corrected, knowing that

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 45

should the smaller group move away and suffer severely from enemy
attacks, their leaders would lose face and those who followed them
would be ridiculed by their relatives who had wisely taken no part
in the separation.

In this instance, the separation ‘‘worked.’’ The group had the
protection of the U.S. Government. Buffaloes were numerous, so the
people lived well. In fact, there was an upstream migration of
individual families to join the group, which was an affront to the
leadership at Fishhook. More than that, the four “protectors of the
people” named did not prove to be wise selections; Sitting Elk murdered
Edge-of-Rock in a drunken brawl. This disposed of two members of
the group: Edge-of-Rock, who was dead, and Sitting Elk, who was
banished and taken in by the U.S. Army stationed at Fort Stevenson.
Of the other two members, Knife, the Long Arm impersonator of the
Naxpikg ceremony, moved to Fort Buford and joined the Bobtail
Bull group; Cherries-in-Mouth had family troubles and with no wives
to provide big feasts for his friends was no longer able to entertain
and people no longer sought his advice.

This was the situation at the time that the Government was taking
over the social and economic life of the Hidatsa. The two groups
visited back and forth and assisted each other in the performance of
ceremonies. There was no thought of intergroup warfare and neither
group defended those who got into trouble at home. The relationship
between villages was essentially the same as existed a century earlier
while living in the three villages on the Knife River. There was a
general drift away from the formal public ceremonies at Fort Buford
while the other group continued about as before. In time, Crow-
Flies-High as military leader assumed the principal role as had Four
Bears a number of years earlier; Bobtail Bull, as village or peace
chief was not so frequently mentioned. At the present time, the
descendants of this group live largely in the Shell Creek section of the
reservation and are spoken of as the Crow-Flies-High band. They
still consider themselves to be a separate group which had its origin
several centuries earlier when they separated from the River Crow to
occupy the river section north of the mouth of the Knife River.

SUMMER Camp

The accounts given above have been devoted to the three original
village groups, the Hidatsa, the Awatixa, and the Awaxawi. These
were the summer village groups which were formerly further sub-
divided into winter groups until the pressure of enemies and reduced
numbers caused further integration so that the summer and village
populations were composed of the same households. The social,
ceremonial, and economic life of the summer village was more complex

46 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

than that of the winter camps, even in later years when the population
of each summer village occupied the same winter camp. Summer was
a period of intensive activity for the women and many of the older
men in the gardens, planting and caring for the growing crops of corn,
beans, squash, and sunflowers. There were corn scaffolds to build
or repair, former seasons’ crops to be restored, cache pits to be built,
and many other duties relating to the production, curing, and storing
of the crops. This was the period of small hunting expeditions into
the adjacent areas and one large communal summer hunting expedi-
tion organized so as not to interfere with the caring for the gardens.

Summer was also the period of greatest war activity. When the
last snows were thawing, the rivers were clear of ice, the horses had
regained their strength, and the men talked of warfare; even those too
old or too young to participate actively talked about it. Those
intending to go out cried and fasted on the prairie, offered feasts to
the older men for assurances of successes and advice, and looked to
their riding equipment and ceremonial bundles as plans were formu-
lated to leave the villages in search of their enemies. Simultaneously,
enemy groups moved from their wintering grounds to the summer
ranges while their young men made similar plans to raid the Hidatsa
and other earth lodge villages. Although the Hidatsa emphasized
warfare and encouraged the young men to carry on continuous warfare
against their enemies, and all males hoped to show publicly symbols
of their military accomplishments, it was necessary for the village at
times to restrict military activities so that enough able-bodied men
were always at hand to defend the aged, the women, and the children
from attacks on the village. In these situations the role of the top
leadership, the council, and the dual chiefs armed with the authority
of public opinion, becomes evident; a war leader asked to remain in
the village when many parties were out was acclaimed as highly as
those who had returned with military honors. Since the protection
of the village was primarily the duty of the Black Mouth society, the
status of that group which effectively protected the village from
attacks was greatly enhanced; its members automatically became
members of the council when relinquishing their society to the pre-
ceding age-group. Not only must the village be defended from
attack but the women must be protected while working in their
gardens or getting wood. All these activities required close integra-
tion of the entire population.

This was the period of greatest ceremonial activities. All of the
corn, snake, and rain rites were performed at that time; likewise the
Naxpikre (Sun Dance) and Wolf rites were held during the hottest
part of the summer. The Hidatsa liked a well-performed ceremony
but, by virtue of the inheritance pattern, there were frequently more

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 47

ceremonies promised than it was possible to perform adequately.
In these situations, the older men could postpone the performance of
a particular rite until the succeeding year simply by informing the
pledger that ‘‘since you have pledged the ceremony, it is the same as
though you had gone through with it.””’ The postponement had the
sanction of the group and the authority of the council was never
questioned. Informants say that to question the authority of the
council would have brought bad luck which was just what the pledger
was endeavoring to avoid by pledging the ceremony. Village esti-
mations of young men’s bravery and fortitude were made largely on
the basis of observations of the older men at the important summer
ceremonies. When the population occupied the three villages at the
Knife River, there was a large measure of competition between
youths of different villages to outdo each other in the endurance of
pain and the old people would encourage this competition by telling
their young men that they should be brave and not show any signs
of fear in the presence of their people from the other villages or of
enemy groups who might be present.

The summer camps were situated on grassed terraces above wooded
bottoms and out of the reach of floods. The construction and mainte-
nance of these villages was a greater task than was necessitated by
the winter villages. The large summer earth lodges, large drying
scaffolds, and the storage pits all demanded a great deal of labor.
During later years there were fortifications to build and maintain.
In time, fuel became a problem and it was necessary to rely more on
driftwood or trees and branches cut from timber farther upstream
and floated down to the villages. Nevertheless, the stability of,
and the long residence in, these summer villages is indicated by native
traditions substantiated by travelers’ accounts, the depth of refuse
accumulation, and the concentration of lodges on their village sites
at the Knife River and downstream along the Missouri to the vicinity
of Square Buttes.

INTERTRIBAL VISITS

Both intratribal and intertribal contacts were most numerous during
the period of summer village occupation. Visits were both economic
(alien groups came to trade for garden products) and social in char-
acter. At this time it was necessary to watch the hotheads to prevent
quarrels, and to protect the village should trouble threaten. The
Black Mouths met continuously during the visiting period, forbade
young men to leave on war expeditions lest the village be left defense-
less, and frequently recalled parties outside the village when word
was received that an alien group was approaching. There were
also continuous contacts with other Hidatsa village groups and the

48 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Mandan. In later years such visits were deemed a necessity in the
winter camps also, occasioned by the proximity of enemy winter
camps attracted by nearby trading posts.

The Hidatsa visited alien groups a great deal, even those groups
against whom they conducted intermittent warfare. There were
numerous friendships between individual Hidatsas and members of
alien bands who customarily came to the villages to trade for corn.
In return, a prominent Hidatsa would pledge a return visit at some
future date at a rendezvous out on the prairies. As far as I know,
these small group visiting trips were only to those bands which
came regularly to the villages to trade. A Hidatsa would select
as a “son” a prominent member of the visiting band, usually the
leader of the band, and announce that he would come to visit some-
time during the summer. In the interim both “father” and ‘son’
would prepare the goods and paraphernalia necessary for the adoption
ceremonies. ‘The father would first prepare, or have prepared by
some member of the Adoption Pipe fraternity, the principal ceremonial
object; a wooden pipestem decorated with redheaded woodpecker
scalps, eagle feathers, and horsetail hair hanging as a scalp. He
would also secure a good buffalo horse, complete sets of clothing
for the son and family, and other fine presents such as robes, guns,
and bows and arrows. In the accumulation of the necessary things,
he received assistance from his own and related households, and
from the members of his own clan and age-grade groups.

When the time came for the adoption rites to be given, frequently
a large part of the village indicated a desire to go along for the purpose
of trading corn for robes, horses, and other things. The father in
the adoption rites became the leader of the party since it was his
ceremony. If a large number of families were involved, including
small children, and the trip would take them through enemy territory,
the party was organized in essentially the same manner as the summer
buffalo hunt. Since the party was burdened with sacks of corn and
other garden products, they traveled slowly. The leader was re-
sponsible for the safety of his party and invariably employed those
Black Mouths in the party to assist in the policing of the group.
If the leader was especially popular and the group represented most
of the village population, the Black Mouths accompanied them
as the recognized police force while the defense of the village was
left to those left behind and the men of an adjacent village.

One adopting a son of an alien group endeavored to make a good
display of wealth, and his relatives would feel obliged to go along
and assist him in his efforts lest the enemy groups think little of
the Hidatsa. If a man had little following and the others thought
that his trip was unwise, it was usually canceled on the advice of

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 49

the older men and the rites were held when the alien group came
to the village. Nevertheless, trips, sometimes involving a large
percentage of the village population, went far out onto the prairies
even as far as the Black Hills and Powder River, traveling as an
organized group and through territory occupied by unfriendly groups
to reach the band where the adoption was to be made. To command
the confidence of a large party, the leader must have distinguished
himself on former occasions. To lead a party far from home on one
of these combined adoption and trading expeditions added greatly
to one’s reputation. Frequently, the top leadership of the summer
village and other adjacent Hidatsa or Mandan villages went along
on these trips but their social position at the moment was inferior
to the one who had organized the party and they were subject to
the same rules as the others. The leader surrounded himself during
the trip with the other distinguished men of the tribe; they met at
his lodge to eat, smoke, and discuss the affairs of the day. In all
matters of procedure, however, he was the final authority, for he
was responsible for the safety of the most distinguished chiefs as
well as the women and children.

Arriving at the enemy camp, he set up a separate camp in a circle,
policed the camp lest the young men get into quarrels, and directed
the negotiations with the alien group. The people looked to him
for instructions through his announcer as on the summer hunt. Rigid
discipline was necessary to avoid quarrels or, if quarrels broke out,
immediate steps had to be taken to settle them before they got out
of control. Although the rules of hospitality prescribed that one
who had entered the camp or village and had been fed and sheltered
was to be protected, young men sometimes did not observe these
rules. For that reason, the police authority was important in keeping
one’s own group from committing an unfriendly act which would
involve the safety of the entire party. One who had wide “‘relation-
ships” with alien groups and could bring them to the villages to
trade for corn enjoyed a high prestige. Leadership of trading parties
provided one of the avenues by which Hidatsa chieftainship was
developed.

Sometimes, however, smaller groups of related households traveled
out from the villages for the purpose of visiting “friends” in neigh-
boring tribes. Although small groups did not go far from the villages,
care had to be taken against attack by an enemy war party. In-
stances of the attack and extinction of these small parties must have
been rare indeed, for informants could recall few traditional examples.
These small visiting groups were never as elaborately organized as
the summer camp. The character of the organization was determined
by the size of the party and the likelihood of being attacked. If the

50 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

party was merely a group of individuals accepting invitations to
come visiting, usually the most distinguished war leader was selected
or the people accepted his leadership without the formality of a
selection. More often, however, these visits were for a specific pur-
pose; to invite the alien group to come to trade, to observe ceremonies,
to partake in the winter hunts, or to instruct the Hidatsa in some
ceremony or dance which appealed to them. Although the group
lacked the formal organization and specialization of duties so charac-
teristic of the summer camp, the essential features were there: a
leader was appointed or one assumed that position by virtue of his
personality and prior experiences; the older men were consulted when
crises arose; and younger men served as scouts. The principal
difference was the absence of an organized police group. Being
better able to travel unobserved, the party avoided battle by seeking
cover, and prohibiting noises and fires whenever, in the opinion of
the leader and the older men, the situation warranted. One wonders
why, in view of the teachings of the older men when the youth of the
village were seeking supernatural guardians, these measures were
taken. Evidently, the Hidatsa were practical about these religious
matters.
Summer Hunt

One of the most important activities of the summer camp was the
summer buffalo hunt which, invariably, affected the entire tribe.
These hunts were not tribal activities in the manner of the Plains
nomadic groups, who assembled as a unit during the summer for the
large buffalo hunts and tribal Sun Dance activities, but rather a
village activity in which all except the old participated. Jt was a
recognized unit of the total social and economic activities of the
village and seems to have been a custom of long standing. After
the corn had reached knee-height, and the fixed summer rites such
as the Naxpikr and Wolf Ceremonies had been performed, there was
a slack period of about a month before the time came to harvest the
crops. ‘The summer hunt was designed to come at this time. In
former times, it was often customary to go out 100-200 miles from
the village to cure meat and hides, leaving behind an older woman
of each household, the small children, and enough older men to defend
the village from burning. In later years, with reduced numbers and
villages closely built for mutual defense, groups cooperated for the
defense of the villages and older people. Either the older people
would move to one village, or they would keep in close touch with
each other, or one village would not go out until the others had
returned.

The older men planned the summer hunt several months in advance
from reports of war parties and others who had been out from the

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 51

villages to learn the disposition of enemy camps as well as the location
of the herds. From this information they determined the region
where the hunt would be held. The principal problem was that of
transporting the cured meat and hides.

The summer herds generally were largest to the southwest of Knife
River between the Killdeer Mountains and the Black Hills, but the
problem of transportation overland was greater than when the hunt
was held upstream from the summer villages, for then the hides
could be used for boats and the cured meat could be floated down to
the villages. If the reports indicated an abundance of buffaloes
adjacent to the Missouri or its larger tributaries, the Hidatsa preferred
to go in that direction. However, the buffaloes usually—especially
after a severe winter—left the river valleys, which had been stripped
of all grass, to summer on the higher lands away from the principal
streams.

Some time before the village group was to leave on the hunt, the
council of older men selected a hunt leader. Although all men aspired
to be selected as leader once, many never received that distinction
chiefly because there were too many eligible for the honor. The
selection was made on the basis of one’s personal record; he should
first of all be one who had been a successful ‘leader of the hunters” on
a former summer hunt, have the buffalo represented in his sacred
bundle, and have the confidence of the group. This leadership was
an outlet for those who had not been previously afforded the distinc-
tion of serving as leader of the whole group. As arule, former winter
camp leaders were not selected or, if they were considered, they usually
declined in favor of one who had not as yet been so recognized. The
principal war leader was rarely selected and his role was a subordinate
one during the period of the hunt.

The council considered different men until one could be selected
with unanimous agreement of the group. Rarely did a minority
group hold out, for it was believed that when the people quarreled
over the selection of the leader, bad luck would surely follow. The
fear of responsibility for prolonged debate was sufficient to quickly
break down most opposition. As soon as the leader was selected, the
council’s announcer called the name of the leader and the time of
departure. Although the council delegated authority to direct the
group, the wise leader solicited the assistance of the council as repre-
sentatives of the various households in order that he could keep in
close contact with his group, learn their difficulties of travel, and
know of their wishes. Once the leader was selected, and before the
party left for the hunt, his lodge became headquarters for the council.
The old men would drop in through the day to eat and discuss details
of the contemplated hunt. Some would tell of a household with no

52 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

horses or riding gear, of others whose men had all been killed in a
recent battle, and of the little problems of preparation for the trip.
A good leader was one who could organize the group to travel without
laggards. So he would send word by his announcer to those with a
surplus of horses to lend assistance here and there or a word of criti-
cism to another household that was not providing adequately for
some of its members. But many of these details were more tactfully
handled by dropping a hint to the council member most closely
related to the distressed household.

Since the gardens were so important to the Hidatsa, the summer
hunt was not scheduled to leave until the corn was knee high. When
the date for the hunt was announced, the women looked to their
gardens, completing the hilling of the plants and pulling the last
weeds; the men repaired their riding equipment and checked their
weapons. But the sharp dichotomy of work was not as apparent
as during normal times. Men did many duties otherwise reserved
for the women. They would assist in the gardens, spread out the
tipis for inspection and last-minute repairs, and attend to last-
minute matters so that the household would be ready to move out
of the village when the signal was given. Everyone worked hard
to get ready, for the summer hunt was a happy event in Hidatsa
life. It was an opportunity for the younger boys and girls to travel
and see new things. Riding horseback together in groups, boys
were often mounted three or four to a horse. They ran races, sang
songs, and galloped back and forth from the front to the back of the
line.

The older boys and young men would dress up and watch for op-
portunities to talk to their girls whose mothers were otherwise en-
gaged in caring for the household’s equipment. But this flirting was
often a front to conceal their inner feelings about the torture ordeals
that would be expected of them once the group was out in the buffalo
country. Many had already pledged to draw buffalo heads or to be
suspended from some cliff while on the summer hunt; others knew
that their “older brothers’ would bring up the matter once they
had reached the hunting grounds.

The welfare of the whole group was the leader’s responsibility, but
the council was always invited to assist him. The leader’s position
was at the head of the line with his announcer who rode back and
forth informing the people from time to time of matters affecting the
whole group. The Black Mouths policed the party, driving stragglers
back, assisting the laggards or those encountering difficulties of travel
and looking after the general welfare of the group. The leader called
upon men younger than the Black Mouths to serve as scouts, riding
ahead and watching from the hills for evidences of enemies or of

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 53

buffalo herds. Each group of scouts under a leader selected by the
summer hunt leader was assigned an area to cover; these groups were
changed from time to time so that their horses were not tired ex-
cessively. Often these scouts were 40 miles or more in advance of
the main party. As the group moved along, the leader designated
the evening camping places for several days in advance. These
sites were selected because of water, fuel, and ease of defense; a level
flat adjacent to a stream usually was selected because it provided
protection from the creek bank on one side and water for themselves
and their animals in case of attack. Since they frequently went to
the same general area to hunt each year, certain named camps were
used.

The camp circle was always used. The leader’s household set up
two tipis, one for the leader and his council and the other for his
household, at the head of the line. Those at the back end swung
in a circle so that the household at the rear of the line placed its tipi
to the left of the leader’s council lodge. The Black Mouths moved
back and forth to see that the tipis were spaced properly to complete
the circle and yet leave sufficient room to bring in the horses. When
the tipis were set up, rawhide ropes were strung between each tipi
forming a corral into which the horses were driven for the night.
While the tipis were being set up, the horses were freed of their burdens
and taken to pasture by the younger men below the status of Black
Mouths. While some young men kept the horses together so they
would not stray, others rode out to serve as scouts in guarding the
eroup against surprise by enemy horse-raiding parties. Before dark,
the horses were brought into the enclosure and guarded during the
night. Special attention was given to the horse guard while the
Black Mouths kept scouts out in all directions near the camp to fore-
stall sudden attacks on the party. Young men were permitted—
in fact, they were encouraged—to go out to hunt small game such as
antelope, deer, and elk or even to surround a small herd of buffaloes.
Except for small quantities of dried corn and corn balls, no other
food was taken on the summer hunt; the party relied on the game
brought to camp each day by the scouts and small hunting parties
sent out whenever animals were discovered at hand. They moved
along leisurely from one camping spot to the next, stopping to permit
the women to dig wild turnips or to pick Juneberries and choke-
cherries whenever the quantity of these foods warranted the delay.

As the party approached the customary hunting grounds, they
stopped from time to time to permit those having sacred bundle rites
relating to certain buttes and sacred spots to make appropriate
offerings for the replenishment of the herds or for a distinguished
individual to pray at some traditional fasting spot where he had

710-195—65—_5

54 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

formerly received supernatural experiences. When the buffalo ap-
peared in great numbers, the leader, with the advice of the council
and the information supplied him by the scouts, selected the camp-
ing place where the hunt would be held. The camp was always
placed near good water, either a large spring or a creek, and a supply
of wood from which to construct the drying frames.

The final organization of the hunt was not completed until the camp
had been set up. Then the leader of the summer hunt selected the
‘Jeader of the hunters’? whose duty it was to organize the surround
and direct the rites of taking the buffaloes. In the selection of this
man, the camp leader always named a person of a younger age-grade
group, one who had formerly shown skill in hunting buffaloes and had
the right to pray to them. Generally, the one selected had just
recently obtained or had made the pledge to obtain his sacred bundle.
Thus he was given an opportunity to test the bundle’s supernatural
powers. Except for the camp leader, who always remained in camp,
and those Black Mouths who were selected to protect the party, all
other males were given definite assignments. The younger boys
herded the horses while the old men assisted by hauling poles into
camp and setting up the drying frames. Young men acted as scouts
watching from the hills to prevent attack. All men not otherwise
assigned were expected to assist in the surround.

The surround was a group activity and anyone hunting alone
was severely punished by the Black Mouths. The ‘leader of the
hunters” planned the attack and arranged the riders. Before the
hunters made the attack, all dismounted and stood around their
leader while he prayed to his bundle for good luck and to the buffaloes,
who were given a small offering placed on a buffalo skull or a stick,
asking them not to send him bad luck or to gore the hunters. In
return for good luck, a feast was promised the buffaloes at a later date.
Without the rites, it was believed that the buffaloes would break up
into small groups and run out between the hunters. All manners of
misfortunes are said to have befallen those who did not fast properly
or who, in other ways, violated the rules relating to the buffalo rites.
When the hunters had good luck and everything went well, the “leader
of the hunters” was acclaimed as a future leader of the village. On
other occasions, when their horses stepped into badger or gopher
holes, or the buffaloes were difficult to handle, people talked of his bad
luck and sought to explain it in terms of improper fasting or ritual
performances. The leader would then ask to be relieved of his re-
sponsibility to his hunters, and would ask the camp leader to select
another to complete the surround.

As soon as the surround was completed, word went back to the
camp for the people to come out and help with the butchering. At

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 55

first the women would come out to assist, but, in time, as the supply
of meat reaching the camp grew, the women would stay in camp
curing the meat and hides while men with packhorses would butcher
and transport the meat and hides to camp. Meat and hides were
taken to a number of convenient parts of the camp and piled in heaps.
There was no particular attempt at supplying one’s own household;
coming in with meat, one would look across the camp circle and select
a collecting point where the pile was low and there unload his meat.
Old men and women alike assisted as their strength permitted, if
doing no more than standing nearby to keep the dogs away. Old
men who never assisted in getting wood or poles for the summer
village would work enthusiastically hauling poles for additional drying
frames. From time to time, if the meat was not taken from the
piles for curing fast enough, the camp leader would go around the
circle and urge the people to work faster. Until the meat was taken
from the communal piles for curing on household scaffolds, it remained
group property and could be taken by anyone able to cure it. Due
to the division of male labor at this time, many households would
have no hunters and butchers out, but in the manner of distribution
of the meat and hides, all shared according to their ability to dry and
store the meat. Nor was the capacity of the households to care for
the meat and hides equal. Some households would have four or more
middle-aged women of good health and wide experience in caring for
meat, while others might have only one woman who was in ill health
or was burdened with several small children. Under normal condi-
tions, the women of a household would often fill all drying space
quickly. While their meat dried, they would assist their less fortunate
clanswomen or brothers’ wives. The tribal rule that ‘‘the clan looks
after its own” certainly applied to these situations. There was a
great deal of mutual assistance between related households on these
occasions.

Evenings were spent in dancing and feasting. For many young
men, however, once the first large kill was made, it was a period of
fasting for supernatural instructions. In these camps, self-torture
took two forms: (1) dragging of buffalo heads through the camp by
means of thongs in the skin and flesh; and (2) suspension from cliffs
or trees. The Hidatsa, like the Mandan, thought of the various
supernatural beings as having homes near the summer villages or in
hills and other places on the prairies. Believing that it was easy to
get supernatural guidance from the buffaloes, many sought visions
during the summer hunt. Generally, a number of young men were
fasting on hills or dragging skulls through the camp at the same time.
These personal vision quests and brief.stops for an individual to make
a personal offering when passing a butte or other spot were the prin-

56 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

cipal religious expressions while on these summer hunts. In no
instances were any of the important village ceremonies performed.

By contrast with the nomadic tribes, this period was not one for
reorganizing the tribal structure, selecting new chiefs, joining military
societies, or any of the other group activities. For the Hidatsa, the
summer hunt was primarily an economic activity. Even the leader-
ship of the summer hunt was in hands other than either the summer
village or winter camps. Its internal organization and economic
aspects show close similarity to the nomadic groups in that the camp
was organized around a recognized leader and a police authority and
that the camp circle was employed. But the top leadership differed
from that of the nomads. The leader was selected for a specific time,
that is, from the time the group left the summer earth lodge village
until it returned about a month later; the nomadic leadership was,
except in a few cases, for no specific period. ‘The summer war chief
and village or peace chief seemingly had no greater authority than
any other distinguished person and was restricted by the same rules
as were Other people. For the nomadic groups, there was a leisureli-
ness that the Hidatsa could not enjoy since the hunt must be com-
pleted in time to harvest the crop.

As soon as the party returned to the village, the summer camp
leader’s duties terminated and the established village leaders took
over. Thesummer buffalo hunt thus was one of the outlets for leader-
ship to which all aspired as a mark of public esteem.

WIntTER Camp

After the return from the summer hunt, and the completion of the
harvest, the group disbanded to form winter camps. These were
in sharp contrast to the few but permanent summer villages to which
they returned each spring. According to traditions, prior to the
appearance of the strong Siouan bands and the Assiniboin, the
summer villages were unfortified and the population was widely
scattered over a broad site situated to exploit adjacent corn grounds.
This is certainly true, for only in the ruins of the later sites do we
find evidences of fortifications and ditches. In traditional sites such
as Fort Clark Station and the settlements at Sanger, lodges were
widely scattered over broad river terraces. The pressure of enemy
groups also produced changes in the winter village structure. In
contrast to the summer village sites, which are still easily identified
by deep refuse and lodge pits, winter camp sites are exceedingly
difficult to find even when taken to the actual locations by older
informants who lived there. These were temporary sites located
in the heavy timber for protection from the storms. The wood
was used for lodges, fuel, and feed for the horses. The site was

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 57

selected solely on the basis of the wood supply and observations that
the buffalo sought shelter there during the colder months. The
lodges were neither large nor carefully constructed, and the eagle-
trapping lodge was of common use. In the fall, after the garden
products had been stored away, the population of any of the summer
villages would disperse into several groups to seek shelter on the
Missouri or one of its tributaries. ‘There, under the leadership of an
eagle-trapping bundle owner, eagles and other large birds were
caught until ice began to form along the edges of the streams. If
the crops were poor, they usually remained in the eagle-trapping
camp until spring, depending on the hunt, and returning in the spring
by bullboat, floating down their lodge goods, dried meat, and hides.
Not uncommonly, while the Crow were on the Little Missouri and
Lower Yellowstone and before enemies became too numerous, these
winter hunting parties would go overland to the Little Missouri
nearly to its source to trap eagles and hunt until spring and return
to the summer villages by water, using the larger hides for boat covers
to float the party and the goods. ‘There was a revival of this practice
after the railroads went through and the Sioux were put on reserva-
tions, but the distances traveled were not as great as formerly.
The winter camp organization was much simpler than that of the
summer village. The top leadership was vested in a ‘winter camp
chief’ selected by the council, and his authority was only for the
period out of the summer village. According to tradition, the winter
camp system was based on that of the eagle-trapping camps; one
leader functioned with full authority and responsibility for the wel-
fare of the group. His duties were to supervise and organize the
camp for the duration of the winter until they returned in the spring.
He selected the winter campsite with the advice of the council, deter-
mined the time for moving, and generally supervised the group very
closely. He set the time for the winter ceremonies, regulated camp
activities during sanctioned rites and fasting for the winter buffalo-
calling ceremonies, and placed restrictions on family movements be-
yond the camp whenever the enemy was about or when the herds
were observed to be moving toward the river bottoms. The winter
camp leader was held responsible for any misfortunes that befell mem-
bers of the party, even such trivial matters as accidental broken limbs.
Once having suffered misfortune, a household preferred to avoid going
out with the same leader unless he compensated the unfortunate ones
with gifts of one sort or another. The same responsibility rested with
one leading the winter camp in later years even when the total village
population was in a single camp. Every ambitious male aspired to
be winter chief at least once in his lifetime although men usually
refused to serve more than twice. His authority and responsibility

58 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

were great. He received credit for all enemies killed during the
winter, but he was likewise held responsible for any killed by the
enemy even though it was not customary for the winter camp chief
to engage in active warfare except when the village was attacked.

About the year 1863, Cherries-in-Mouth was winter camp leader.
He had fasted much and had been given credit, as war leader, for five
Sioux killed a few years earlier in a winter battle at Saddle Buttes.
During this battle Red Leaf had been shot through the lungs but had
recovered. In 1863, however, Red Leaf overexerted himself while
hunting, and the old wound opened causing him to bleed to death.
This was considered equivalent to losing a man in warfare and the
death went against Cherries-in-Mouth’s record.

The winter camp leader was selected by the council on the basis of
his military record, interest in public matters, participation in village
and tribal rites, generosity and kindness to the old, good judgment,
and personality. Ownership of winter buffalo-calling rites and good
standing with the various households were of importance, for the
leader must have the confidence of the people. He could direct the
buffalo-calling rites personally, or he might cooperate with others
having a good reputation in “bringing the buffaloes.”” Likewise, he
must have the good will of the households or the population would
be likely to break up into smaller camps. Since much good will was
obtained by generosity, selfish persons or those with an unhappy
home were disregarded. Humility when selected was a prime virtue
as the leader was expected, by custom, to express his own incompe-
tence without the assistance of his sacred bundles and the advice and
assistance of the older men. ‘The leader’s lodge became a meeting
place for the village dignitaries to eat and sleep while discussing
matters for the good of the group. The leader selected his own an-
nouncer, a clansman, usually an older and distinguished individual
who had acted as assistant in many ceremonies. There were few
rules, but those that were made were enforced by the Black Mouths.
It was customary for the summer village leaders to rest from their
summer duties and to relinquish their responsibilities to the newly
selected leaders.

Nowhere in the Hidatsa culture do we find clear-cut distinctions
between military aspects and village or peace functions—war chiefs
performed numerous rites and village chiefs often went on military
expeditions—but winter camp leadership was more clearly indicated
as an extension of the role of peace or village chief to the winter camp,
for this was a period of little military activity.

The Hidatsa relied heavily on the winter buffalo migrations onto

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 59

the river bottoms both for their primary source of food during the
winter months, and for a surplus to carry them through the spring
months when they were engaged in agricultural pursuits. Frequently
the winter herds did not come onto the river bottoms, especially
when the season was mild. Then the winter camp suffered. Whether
the winter was mild or not, the rites to the winter herds began with
the winter solstice and continued until either the herds appeared or
the population divided into smaller hunting groups to seek other
game such as deer and elk in the undisturbed wooded areas. They
did not normally rely heavily on the garden products for winter
subsistence. Some corn and other garden products were taken to the
winter camp to vary the diet, and periodic trips were made to the
summer village to open caches for additional garden products, but the
Hidatsa endeavored to save their produce for use while at the summer
village.

The winter leader never relied solely on the supernatural powers
of his own sacred bundles. He would pray frequently to his gods to
send good luck and the herds, but his principal duty was to organize
and regulate the winter rites. Ambitious younger men who had
recently received visions would go to the winter leader for interpreta-
tions of their dreams. A good leader was one who could stimulate
interest in winter fasting, for it was to his credit to have many young
men out in the forests or on the hills fasting during cold stormy
weather when the “calling the buffaloes’’ rites were being celebrated.
If the fasters succeeded in bringing the buffaloes, that is, if the buffalo
herds began arriving while one was fasting or shortly thereafter,
particularly if the herds appeared on the day indicated in the dream,
fasters were praised by the people without in any way detracting from
the reputation of the winter camp’s leader. From native accounts
recorded when making this study, we find numerous instances of
young men first coming to the attention of the people as potential
tribal leaders as a result of their successful fasts during the winter
camp period.

Winter fasting followed two distinct patterns; fasting for personal
vision instructions, and fasting for the specific purpose of bringing
the winter herds. The former affected but few people, chiefly the
household of the faster, and generally went unobserved by the
population at large unless the personal torture was so severe that his
clan relatives or age-grade society members were obliged to intervene.
In the latter instances, the entire population was affected. It had
the sanction of the winter camp leader and those working with him
in the management of the camp, and restrictions of one sort or another

60 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

were invariably imposed on the whole population while the fast was
on. Commonly, when one with recognized supernatural powers
volunteered to fast at a distance from the camp, fires were extinguished,
all loud noises were prohibited, and hunters were forbidden to leave
camp. ‘The entire population fasted while men and women alike
addressed prayers to their sacred objects. When the sun set, the
faster returned to the camp and the fires were rekindled. Fasting
continued daily for 4 days, after which, if no buffaloes appeared, the
faster terminated his fast by either promising the herds in a stated
time or offering some excuse for his failure. The women’s White-
Buffalo-Cow society also fasted daily during the coldest days, with
the camp organized in the manner described above.

The first approach of the winter herds toward the river bottoms was
the signal for increased ritualistic action to “keep them coming.”
The camp was strictly policed to prevent premature hunting. Wood
cutting was prohibited, and fires were extinguished if they were up-
wind of the approaching herds. Scouts kept watch of the progress of
the herds and reported regularly to the camp leader. The individual
households which had sacred bundles including buffalo skulls made
offerings of food and calicoes to each bundle, while households having
no such bundles made similar offerings to those of closely related
households. During the approach of the herds, the Black Mouths
were on constant guard to see that no person hunted prematurely;
there are traditions that on some occasions the police killed individuals
disobeying their orders. In the memory of the oldest Hidatsa,
however, there were few intentional violations of the orders; hence the
punishment was less severe. In any event, the Black Mouths had
the authority, fortified by public opinion, to take such measures as
they deemed necessary to enforce the “no hunting” orders of the winter
chief. According to informants, the buffalo herds were easily startled
when they first reached the wooded bottoms from the prairies—in
fact, whenever a herd first moved to a new pasture—and it was
necessary to leave them undisturbed for a few days to graze and get
settled in their new environment, or. they were likely to move on.
During this time, Wolf Chief said that it was very hard indeed to
restrain one’s self, particularly when the children were crying from
hunger and cold. The people stayed within doors and could often see
the buffaloes walking between the lodges or hooking at dogs that had
not been securely tied. When the time came to kill, even in later
years, restrictions on the use of firearms were enforced. These
restrictions placed the young men unskilled with bows and arrows
at a disadvantage. After two or three large surrounds had been

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 61

completed and enough meat had been secured for the winter needs
(and the meat-curing capacity of the women had been reached),
all restrictions were removed and those who desired additional meat
went out in small parties and hunted whenever they wished. With
the arrival of the winter herds, the ritualistic activities diminished.
Those who had pledged summer ceremonies used the period for
exceptional efforts to obtain large quantities of meat and robes. The
pledgers hunted continuously and the women cured meat and tanned
robes with the assistance of their female relatives. The people would
say that the pledger’s prayers for a good living for his people were
being answered when, during his period of preparation, the winter
herds were unusually large. ‘The gods he was buying had sent the
buffaloes,’ they would say.

The winter camp leader’s responsibilities ended with the return to
the summer village. When enemies were far away, the families
leisurely returned to the summer camp in small groups of related
households, assisting each other with the loads and the care of the
children. If, however, signs of enemy war parties had been reported
or there were other reasons for believing that an attack might be made,
the group moved as an organized party with the leader to the front
and the Black Mouths in charge to see that none dropped out of line.
Should a household encounter difficulty in traveling at the pace set
by the leader or the loads fell from the horses, others gave immediate
assistance so that all were adequately protected. Each individual
killed or wounded represented a mark against the leader’s record.
Therefore, the good leader was careful to maintain discipline and to
prohibit individual and disorganized breaking of camp unless danger
of attack was very remote. He lacked authority to prevent segments
of the group from leaving the main party, establishing temporary
hunting camps out in the hills, and following the buffaloes moving out
from the river valleys with the first general thaws. He was not,
however, responsible for the safety of these small hunting parties
once they had fallen out of line.

These spring hunting camps were not without leadership. The
principal purpose of these side trips was to obtain an additional
supply of fresh meat. The older men met and selected from their
number one who had formerly enjoyed good luck while making the
“surround” and who had bundle rights which included the sacred
buffalo skull. The organization of the camp was essentially the same
as for the larger summer buffalo hunt. These hunts were known as
“in-between”? hunts as they were conducted after the winter camp
had broken up and before the summer village was reoccupied. Guards

62 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

were placed around the camp but the Black Mouths no longer func-
tioned as an organized group except when the entire winter encamp-
ment moved out-onto the hills as a group. Instead, the leader selected
various younger men who served without regard to age-grade affilia-
tions. The old people today identify the thousands of boulder outlines
on the prairies adjacent to the river valleys as former tipi outlines of
these “in-between” camps occupied in the late winter and early spring
as precaut ons against sudden flooding of the river bottoms. From
all available evidence it appears that with the arrival of the Sioux
and Assiniboin, the “in-between” hunting camps were less common
and that when brief expeditions were made onto the adjacent prairies,
greater emphasis was placed on organization for defense.

As the groups moved back into the summer village, the summer
chieftains assumed command, and the winter camp leader became
merely a distinguished member of the council of older men. If the
population at large was well cared for, had no suffering or deaths, the
winter camp leader was highly acclaimed. If there had been an
unusually large number of buffaloes nearby, the people would say that
not in years had there been so many buffaloes, and would recount the
fine winter they spent. ‘They would show their esteem after returning
to the summer camp by preparing feasts from the garden products
which had been sparingly used during the winter, and invite the
winter camp leader and his family. Other households perhaps, were
not so successful: one member of the household had died or had had
an accident; their horses had been taken sick and died or had strayed
away to be captured by raiding parties; their best buffalo horse may
have broken a leg or been gored by a buffalo. All these and other
misfortunes went against the winter leader’s record. They would tell
their friends of their misfortunes and criticize the leader behind his
back even though he had been their best friend before going into the
winter camp.

Custom provided numerous measures for restoring good will and
the wise leader was certain to take quick action. If the discontent
arose from the killing of a member of the household by a known enemy,
the leader would often organize a retaliatory war party or designate
one to go out and take the scalp of the particular enemy or one of
his near relatives. This type of war honor, going out for a specific
person, particularly if unaccompanied far from the village, was of the
very highest. In recent years, the Hidatsa had a wide acquaintance
with enemy groups and frequently the person killing a Hidatsa was
known in the village. When the individual or war party returned
successfully, the scalp was taken to a sister of the one mourned. She
carried the scalp during the war dances and sang the praises of the
one who had returned victorious. No longer did the household

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 63

criticize their winter leader; in fact, they would be the first to nominate
him as winter leader for the succeeding year.

Frequently, however, one did not take such positive action. Hear-
ing that a war party was going out, the former winter leader might
make offerings of gifts and recite a prayer for the success of the party.
If the expedition was successful, out of gratitude to the former winter
camp leader who had assisted them ritualistically, he received the
scalp which was taken to the mourners, especially the sister or mother,
and carried in the dances. Then the matter was forgotten. For
minor misfortunes such as the natural death of a relative, feasts and
presents were sufficient to establish a feeling of good will between
them. Then the people would say, “Think nothing of it; one can’t
live forever.’”’ Wolf Chief tells of a little boy who told the winter
chief that their winter chief was no good because his bow string kept
breaking, and the winter chief had a new bow made with a stronger
string; after that the boy had no trouble with his bow. When the
parents heard of the incident they scolded the boy, for they con-
sidered it impudent for a child to speak of an elder in that manner.

SUMMARY

The Hidatsa used the term “chief” very broadly to designate
anyone who was at the time in a position of leadership and authority.
Every important situation required leadership. We have shown above
that there was a feeling of clan leadership in matters concerning the
clan; that each age-grade as an organized group had its complement
of officers; and finally that responsible leaders were recognized in the
genera! administration of the summer and winter villages. These by
no means exhaust the list of organized groups recognized by these
people. These units varied in size from the community to small
economic groups, such as fish trapping, and from permanent groups
to those of short and temporary existence.

The wide selection of leaders and the numerous opportunities to
“lead” are consistent with their concepts of supernatural powers and
the promises of the tribal ceremonial leaders when young men orga-
nized and planned their lives. On every important occasion, when a
young man distinguished himself in warfare, personal torture, or
ritualistic purchases, the leaders assured him that his ultimate goal
should be that of ‘leader of the people.”

Because “supernatural power was measurable,” it increased by
the performance of certain rites and other practices and, in like
measure, was exhausted in combating the daily risks. As the in-
dividual assumed greater responsibilities within the group, these
powers were exhausted at a greater rate. An individual, therefore,
should not remain in authority too long and no man aspired to

64. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

continuous leadership. In applying this concept to group leader-
ship, we find constant changing of top leadership as the situations of
life changed.

The opportunities to lead enumerated above indicate only a few
group situations, but they represent the largest groups for which
leadership was provided. In this category should be included the
organization of the village for the purpose of corralling buffaloes near
the village. Since this activity had important ceremonial aspects
and was a part of a group of related rites, it is analyzed under “Hidatsa
Ceremonial Organization” (pp. 282-476).

Tur Cuan AND Moiety SysTEM

The clan—a named matrilineal group—was an important feature
of Hidatsa social, economic, and ceremonial life. At birth, the
child became a member of his mother’s clan or, if the mother was
clanless because she had belonged to a different tribe, the child assumed
the clan of the other children of the household. In spite of the
traditional late arrival of the Hidatsa-proper and the Awaxawi on
the Missouri River, the clan names as now employed are concerned
with incidents or events occurring along the Missouri River and in
no instance reflect incidents or events relating to their former resi-
dences to the east or northeast. The traditions and mythology
indicate that two different clan systems were once in vogue: (1) the
13-clan system of the Awatixa; and (2) the 7-clan system of the
Awaxawi and Hidatsa-proper.

ORIGINS

Reference to the Awatixa system of 13 clans is found in the myths
of the Sacred Arrows which relate that when this group came down
from above to inhabit the earth, their culture hero, Charred Body,
selected 13 household groups to represent the 13 parts of the sacred
arrow. Each household group established a matrilineal lineage;
marriage within the household was prohibited. Since the population
of this mythological village was small, people were able to remember
their relatives. Because of the rich land Charred Body had found
below at Painted Woods, with its extensive wooded bottoms for
agriculture and the large herds of buffaloes on the adjacent prairies,
the population increased rapidly and broke up into 13 small local
groups of related kin. At that time the groups were exogamous and
lived near each other for protection from certain local evil spirits who
resented the occupation of the area by Charred Body’s people.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 65

During mythological times, these groups were named for incidents
involving them. Of the 13 original groups, 8 received names which
still designate existing clans. Of the other five lineages, nothing
is remembered, and it is assumed by the Hidatsa that these groups
died out or united with other named groups.

The Hidatsa-proper and the Awaxawi informants claim never to
have had more than seven clans. Genealogies of the three Hidatsa
groups indicate that the eighth clan, the Xura, was found only at
Awatixa. They also claim short residence on the Missouri, coming to
this river as large village groups without clans. It is to be presumed
that they had matrilineal lineages, in view of the method whereby
clans were introduced into the village population; when a clan name
was adopted from some incident involving a group of males, the name
was extended to include the mothers, sisters, and sisters’ children. In
this manner, according to mythology, every person in the tribe in time
became a member of a named clan. This system of extending clan
membership obviously is acceptable to the Hidatsa, for they show that
whenever a considerable number of female prisoners were taken, in a
few years all were incorporated into the clan system by the same
methods as nonclan Hidatsa were integrated when the clan system
was adopted.

Native concepts of clan origin are of two kinds: (1) the origin of the
clan from a single female of a household group coming down from the
sky with Charred Body; and (2) a local group accustomed to living
together. We shall see that numerous bundles were inherited by
clans of the former group but less characteristically by those of the latter.

The clan names with two exceptions are nontotemic and refer
to incidents involving a few people. The Mazozati clan receives
its name from mazozxi, which refers to the dry dust that formed
from the decaying of the earth lodge rafters and dropped down
continuously, and ati meaning ‘lodge.”” The M#tsiroku clan means
literally “knife people” and refers to an instance of wife-purchase
with a stone knife. The Apukawiku clan receives its name from
apuka meaning cap or article of clothing worn above the eyes to shade
them from the sun and wiku meaning “low.’’ The clan name was
derived from the supernatural experiences of Packs Antelope with
the Thunderbirds and the Grandfather snake of the Missouri who
killed by means of lightning which flashed from his eyes. When he
returned from his exploits with the supernatural, he shaded his eyes
to protect the people. The three clans listed above are grouped
together and are known today as the Three-clan Moiety.

66 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

The Prairie Chicken clan was believed to have once been a separate
village group. The name was derived from the fact that members
of this group were noisy like the prairie chickens. In another myth,
the Prairie Chicken clan began from the custom of a war party
to camp at night in the bushes, the berries of which were eaten by the
prairie chickens. The Awazzenawita clan derives its name from the
childhood custom of building tiny villages with wet clay. Later
the people saw hills upstream and nearly opposite the present city
of Williston, N. Dak., that reminded them of the work of small
children. The people camped there three times; hence the name
Awazenawita taken from awazz meaning ‘hill sliding down’ and
naut meaning ‘three.’ The Miripdti clan derives its name from a
quarrel that occurred in the village. The Miripdti separated and
built near the village of the Xura, who, at that time, had a separate
village. Water was brought from the river and stored in bladders
for use in case of a prolonged attack. One man became angered
because of the cowardice of his people and cut up the waterbag
hanging in his lodge; after this the group was known as Miripatihe
from miri meaning ‘water’ and pati meaning ‘to break open.’ The
Xura clan, which in recent years has functioned as a named lineage
in the Waterbuster or Miripdti clan, is believed to have been a
separate village at one time. The name is derived from the noise
of the cicada. The village, except for one woman and her baby daughter,
disappeared mysteriously during the night. The survivors moved to
the village of the Waterbusters of Awatixa and formed a friendship
with that group.

The Jtistiku clan received its name from the custom of being out
to the front of the war party along the edges of the hills overlooking
the Missouri. Once a group of young men called on Old-Woman-Who-
Never-Dies at her lodge near the Red Buttes and she promised them
success in warfare. When they returned to their homes, they called
themselves Jtisiku.

In addition to the eight clans listed above, there were a few members
of the Speckled Eagle clan in the tribe. According to tradition, this
clan was of Mandan origin although many members can no longer
trace their lineages back to any particular Mandan village group.
They lived principally at Awaxawi village. According to the Mandan,
however, the Awaxawi Speckled Eagles were people who moved to
Awaxawi at the time of the destruction of Nuptadi shortly after
1780. Like the Mandan Speckled Eagle clan, they have been assimi-
lating with the Prairie Chicken clan in recent years and marriage with
the Prairie Chicken clan is now generally disapproved.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 67

CLAN MEMBERSHIP AND AFFILIATIONS

A census by informants of the Mandan and Hidatsa living at Fish-
hook Village in 1872—subsequent to the removal of the Crow-Flies-
High band—showed the following population by clans: !

In Hidatsa In Mandan

Hidatsa clans: households howseholds
VSO x SGI) ae Be ERLE lei ine. CPS eer Pele ate 62 12
DEGanb sy (Guy Wropmsyt a) £40 ye kes Eel RS a Ee a De es © 35 14
Law<eap;(Apukawiku)icl + o-3s2 ecb. S42 14 0
Prainiereniekens ers fis fe ee ts 62 5
AW AXEON awit ersten ere kira Mel hes eo ae ol 44 21
Waterbusters (Miripati).........--.----_- 62 12
eT ies So SO EAE R RS 5 TSS oh CEASE AAR A i A et 1 10
RIst ee een baie ee SL 16 4

Mandan clans:

Aintree oh as Wego = eRe Se gee net Ean Gey 9 Os AM an a 1 29
mIGSRTYUIS Renta cee ap Ree ime cy ae kde aS 43 93
IPTAITICC HICK CDs mn oe ane ee) eer ae a 10 60
SPECKIen explGs oe soee Tee aCe ote a 9 10

Other tribes:

Aricearee 2 a8 ue. sy ulenha Uae SP, 2m 3 29
BIReKIOOL I 2a aus oe eee ee le ene 0 2
OO Ws ah ge ee el sy MEAL og CE yy Re T, 4 2

While the Mandan and Hidatsa seemed in general agreement as to
whether a mixed household was Mandan or Hidatsa, no definite rule
could be made. Although children generally claimed to belong to
the mother’s tribe, there were numerous exceptions to the rule as
in the case of Bad Gun, one of the Mandan chiefs, whose mother
was a Hidatsa and whose wife was also. ‘Tribal affiliation seemed
to be based even more on the individual’s participation in social and
ceremonial functions. In other similar situations a man and the
household would have been classified by the informants as Hidatsa.
The extent of Hidatsa-Mandan intermarriage prior to 1872 is indicated
by the figures for households. These figures do not include one
faction of the Hidatsa who moved away about this time and were
accompanied by a few Mandans. We see that there were 296
Hidatsas living in recognized Hidatsa households while an additional
63 belonging to Mandan clans lived in the same households as did
3 Arikaras, and 4 Crows who were brought there by marriage. In
addition, there were 81 persons belonging to Hidatsa clans who were
living in recognized Mandan households housing 192 persons of
Mandan clans. More than 80 percent of this intermixture of Mandans
and Hidatsas occurred after 1850.

11 These figures do not include those individuals of alien groups who have been adopted and assumed
clan affiliation.

68 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

The Three-clan moiety was composed of the Maxoxati, Knife, and
Low Cap clans. Although differing greatly in relative size, each was
of equal status in the moiety. In recent years it has become common
practice to identify oneself as “three clan,” and in some instances
the actual clan membership is not now known. The other moiety
is spoken of as the “‘Four-clan moiety” although it actually comprises
five clans, excluding the Speckled Eagle which is of Mandan origin.
The clans of this moiety are grouped into phratries of linked clans.
One phratry is composed of the Prairie Chicken-Awaxrnawita clans. In
mythological times, so the people say, the Prairie Chickens would kill
and scalp people of the other clans. They lived in a separate village
near Expansion and above the mouth of the Knife River. The people
of the AwaxEnawita clan went to the people of Prairie Chicken
village and said, “It is not right for us to fight, for we speak the same
language.”’ Then the Prairie Chicken people “united” into a friend-
ship band with the AwaxrEnawita people. When no other relationship
was known, persons of the two clans treated each other as distant
clansmen. Nevertheless, marriages between the two clans were
common. The close ties of the Waterbuster, Xura, and Itisuku clans
are indicated by the mythologies. When the Xura village group
moved away and disappeared, one household joined the Waterbusters
of Awatixa village and is now largely incorporated into that clan
as anamed lineage. The union of the Waterbusters into related clans
is of long standing, according to the mythology, and stems from the
belief that at one time a minor group of Waterbusters, who later were
identified as Itisuku, went on the warpath together. The tables
show that this phratry was largely exogomous. This is consistent
with native beliefs that the Prairie Chicken and Awaxrnawita inter-
married more frequently than the Waterbuster-Itisuku.

Table 1 was prepared from genealogies of the Hidatsa and Mandan
living at Fishhook Village in 1872 and was compiled from the informa-
tion supplied me by about 15 informants. Table 1 enumerates
marriages which were of some permanence and does not include brief
elopements. These marriages were, in general, those that occurred
between 1825 and 1885. Approximately 80 percent of the marriages
occurred after 1855 while the Mandan and Hidatsa were living at
Fishhook Village. Figures for the Mandan are included in the table
to indicate the extent of intertribal marriage.

Table 1 shows that of 128 marriages within the Hidatsa tribe, 7
were within the clan. According to custom, it was considered im-
proper for one to marry a person of the same clan, but the instances
of marriage with one of the father’s clan are equally rare. This is in
sharp contrast with data from the Mandan genealogies which show
a frequency of nearly 25 percent. Table 1 shows 59 marriages with

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 69

TABLE 1.—Mandan and Hidatsa intermarriage by clans

Hidatsa Three-clan Hidatsa Four-clan moiety Mandan Mandan
moiety moiety I moiety II
Clan Wi

Met-| Apu- | Prai- | Awa- Prai- | Speck-

Maxo-| sir- ka- rie | xEna-| Miri- |} Xura| Iti- | Waxi-| Tami-| rie led

xati oku | wiku |chick-| wita | pati suku | kena | sik |chick-| eagle

en en
Maxoxati__-__- 3 6 3 8 8 13 1 - 2 7 1 -
Mistsiroki 2227 |221- 2.2 2 1 5 7 9 1 2 - 5 9 3
Anukawikis. jo 22202}. 2 - 1 - - - 2 - 1 - -
Prainiechickent |Peess | Es eae ee - 16 16 3 5 1 2 3 2
PAW SIN Wilton ee fee 1 8 - 5 1 6 2 1
WEG bu loyal; 2 aed a As NR 2 a PE PE Ee gre 1 - 1 - 4 1 3
Une ate se si nen lo an nae|eebeaeu|seeeseo|- ceseee pe Ge 5 - - - - - 1
GEES Upp Eee 08 SS BES i PSR RES 2 hal ee a SSE a) A Pe) ered 8 - - 1 - 3
AYE RT 3 Fc el SN FS WS es Pa |b ee Ml |e es rade INE ine (ple Se) - 7 7 2
eEipmn i Sie Hee OE ee TG Ee een Pe 8 a) 01 2 Bere Oe ae ee ee 4 20 2
Prainechicken: | cers sem Ate. ke| |e Sree Does pas Rr ar eee a ie ee 2 6
Speeklondveaclen| Mas ae Ree yep) See SLs Sa OAT SS all a Pep eile Bog TILE ES lec me id (EA Ag tt -
TABLE 2.—Mandan and Hidatsa intermarriage by moieties

Moieties Hidatsa Hidatsa Mandan Mandan

Three-clan | Four-clan | moiety I | moiety II
HMudatsa-three-clan o8iys Me ars 15 57 15 13
idatsagiour-claime ee 3 sede ee Ee ee a 57 56 3 31
Mis Clament@le tyeleges sae ae yee a waste Snes 15 13 iil 31
Mandananorety Hill oh Moa deo, Gise 13 31 31 8

Mandans, or the equivalent of approximately 1 out of 3 marriages.
During the same period, Mandans married with Hidatsas in the ratio
of 59 to 50.

In theory, moieties were not exogamous. Thisisin sharp contrast with
the Mandan who claim that prior to the smallpox epidemics, moieties
were exogamous. Table 2 shows the same marriages when grouped ac-
cording to moiety. It shows that of the 128 Hidatsa marriages, 57
were between opposite moieties while 70 were within the same moiety.
Moiety exogamy was most generally observed by people of the Three-
clan moiety with only 15 exceptions. The figures for the Mandan
seem to verify native traditions of former moiety exogamy; 31 mar-
riages were between opposite moieties while 19 were within the
moiety. The figures indicate that in cases of intertribal marriages,
even for the Mandan, there was no tendency to select mates of the
opposite moiety.

At the present time the Mandan clans are equated with certain
Hidatsa clans. The Mandan Waxikena equals the Hidatsa Maxoxati;
the Tamisik equals the Knife; the Mandan Prairie Chicken equals
the Hidatsa Prairie Chicken; the Mandan Speckled Eagle equals the
Hidatsa Speckled Eagle. As stated above, those of the Hidatsa
Speckled Eagle clan claim to be descendants of Mandans who moved

710-195—65—-—-6

70 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

to Awaxawi village after the first smallpox epidemic. According to
traditions, the equivalence of the Mandan Prairie Chicken clan was
originally with the Prairie Chickens of Awatixa village, who owned a
Sacred Robe bundle in common. It was customary for these people
to meet whenever the ceremony was being performed. Inclusion of
the Prairie Chicken members of Hidatsa and Awaxawi villages in
these rites did not occur until after the three Hidatsa villages united
for mutual defense after 1837, at which time all Prairie Chicken mem-
bers, irrespective of village origin, met when the rites were being per-
formed and were entitled to receive goods and honors. Marriage
within the clan was then no longer considered proper. The equating
of the other clans occurred within the memory of the older people
living in 1932 when this study was made. When they were young,
opinion was divided; some thought that it was proper for persons of
the Knife clan to marry Mandans of the Tamisik, since the couple
was of different tribes, but others disapproved. The same views
prevailed for the Waxikrna and Maxoxati clans. By 1880, when
such marriages occurred, disapproval was general.

Equating of clans was extended to include the moieties as well.
Except for the Awatixa, who claim to have once had a 13-clan system
which at this time seems forgotten, there was a marked difference in
the number of Mandan and Hidatsa clans. The Hidatsa Three-clan
moiety was equated with the Mandan Waxikrena-Tamisik moiety
founded by Lone Man and comprised the survivors of the Six-clan
moiety; the Hidatsa Four-clan moiety became equated with the
Mandan Seven-clan moiety founded by Clay-on-Face of which only
two clans, the Prairie Chicken and Speckled Eagle, survive.

The Hidatsa clan names have remained unchanged during the entire
period of recorded history. This is in sharp contrast with the Crow
among whom names were changing during the memory of old in-
formants. With the exception of the Prairie Chicken and Xura
clans, Hidatsa names were nontotemic and more closely resemble the
Crow than the Mandan who had, in one moiety, Prairie Chicken,
Speckled Eagle, Bear, Badger, Red-Hill-People (snake), Crow, and
Bunch-of-Wood People. In spite of their traditional late separation
from the Crow, none of the names of Crow clans show similarity to
those of the Hidatsa nor do the Hidatsa have traditions of clan re-
lationships to specific Crow clans. Those Hidatsa who have had
intimate contacts with the Crow during the period of readjustment
subsequent to the smallpox epidemic of 1837, when many Hidatsa
lived temporarily with the Crow, are aware of the presence of clans
among the Crow but in no instance do they equate the clans of the
two tribes. Those Crow who settled with the Hidatsa soon affiliated

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 71

with a Hidatsa clan group. Such has also been the case with persons
of other tribes settling at the villages.

The role of the Hidatsa clan, with a few exceptions, is essentially the
same as that of the Mandan. It is composed of a named group of
relatives tracing their origin back to separate households of Charred
Body’s village and to names subsequently given to the group during
their residence on the Missouri River. The clan is an outstanding
feature of Hidatsa social organization but it has its economic and
ritualistic aspects as well. It extended kinship relationships to the
limit of the village and the tribe, not to discount a more recent ex-
tension by means of ‘‘clan equating” to include the Mandan as well.
Based on a “‘sibling”’ relationship between clan members, one classified
as “brothers” and ‘‘sisters’’ those of one’s clan. By the same prin-
ciple, the persons of the father’s clan were “fathers” or ‘father’s
sisters.”” ‘These were the most important kinship extensions, since
they comprised an individual’s important relatives.

CLAN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The clan was responsible for the care of its own members. These
obligations were expressed in many ways. Old people and orphans
were cared for and often taken into the households of clan members.
When the wife died, the man generally left the household to live in
one where the females were of his clan. One would go preferably to
the sister’s or sister’s daughter’s household; otherwise he would take
up residence with any member of his clan with whom he was well
acquainted. From the number of instances of change in residence of
old men whose wives had died and the attitude of those providing
care for them, I feel that they were welcomed through a sense of obliga-
tion. These old men were respected and welcomed members of the
household and played an important role in informing the younger
people of tribal lore and traditions. Since those attaining prominence
in the tribe were required to display considerable knowledge of tribal
traditions and mythology, particularly those defining proper conduct,
these old men sold their stories and received goods, horses, and honors,
in proportion to their knowledge in these matters.

It was the duty of the clan to assume responsibility for the care of
orphans. The Hidatsa interpret an orphan to be one whose father
and his brothers, mother and her sisters, married sisters, and able-
bodied maternal grandmothers were dead. Then the clan took over
and provided a home. The number of such cases was quite large
after 1800 owing to epidemics and enemy attacks on small hunting
parties of both sexes. It is interesting to observe that some of the
most distinguished Hidatsa of the 19th century were left orphans in
1837 by the inroads of smallpox. Occasionally a childless couple

72 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

received permission of the clan to adopt one of a different clan. These
children invariably joined the clan of the female caring for them.

The clan was responsible for the behavior of its members. It was
the duty of older persons of the clan to instruct and supervise the
children as they grew up. At first this responsibility was assumed by
the “older brothers” of the household: one’s own older brothers; the
mother’s brothers and the mother’s sisters’ older sons; the maternal
grandmother’s brothers; or any other males residing in the lodge and
classified as “older brother.’’ Also included were the females of the
lineage residing in the same lodge. As a child grew up and moved
more freely about the village, it was the right as well as the duty of
an older person of the clan to step in and correct any child who violated
village rules and customs, and to lend assistance on various occasions.
Discipline usually took the form of a mild reminder of misdeeds. In
more extreme offenses—hitting smaller children or girls, playing in
lodges containing certain sacred bundles, destroying property, at-
tempting rape, or stealing—any older clan member conveniently at
hand could step in and inflict punishment by beating or ducking the
offender in the river.

It was the duty of the clan not only to discipline its own members
but also to protect them from the attacks of others. When a mature
person violated tribal custom and caused people to talk of his mis-
deeds, the whole clan was shamed. People would say that the clan
had been negligent in its duties or he would have behaved properly.
Often some woman would neglect her gardens and steal from others’
gardens. People in the village would talk of strange tracks seen in
their gardens and of stalks from which corn had been stripped.
Watching late at night, someone would see a woman or sometimes
several women leave a certain lodge and go toward the gardens.
Knowing that the women of that household had been neglecting
their garden or had failed to plant a crop that year, the observer
would conclude that these women were out stealing. A thief’s clan
would usually attempt to break up the stealing without the assistance
of the injured parties, lest the Black Mouths be called upon to investi-
gate the affair. Each sex tended to discipline clan members of its
own sex. Women of the clan would lie in wait to catch her. Seizing
her they would throw her down and beat her with sticks, straps, and
even hoe handles until she confessed her errors and promised never
to steal even so much as the smallest and most worthless thing again.
If she fought back, the punishment was likely to be extremely severe.
When she promised to forego stealing in the future, she was taken to
the lodges of her clan members and given food, clothing, and sometimes
even horses. Once the stealing was stopped, it was considered im-
proper for people of other clans to discuss the matter lest the same

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 73

misdeeds be committed by members of their own clan. Had the
stealing continued, it would have been the right of others to demand
payment of any member of the thief’s clan. Probably more important
for the peace of the village, this practice of punishing a clan member
kept conflicts localized and confined within a segment of the total
village group and limited the duties of the organized village police
to matters involving the population at large.

One’s clansmen played an important role in directing and super-
vising the fasting of its younger members. When a number of young
clansmen had reached the age of 12 to 14, older people of the clan would
say that it was now time for them to take fasting seriously. Several
related households would discuss the matter and decide to send the
boys to some secluded spot under the direction of an older clansman
where they would be supervised and instructed in fasting. A fasting
shelter would be erected where the director could eat and smoke and
those who wished to could sleep. Each faster would select a spot on
the side of a clay bank, beside a pile of rocks, or near a bush too small
to offer shade or protection from the hot sun, where he would stand
during the day and far into the night. He was taught how to cry to
the gods for successful dreams; afterward he would be recommended
for a chance to join some war leader to secure from the enemy that
which the holy ones had promised him in the dream. During the
time the boys fasted, the leader observed their behavior and watched
to see that food or water was not being taken on the sly. Those who
pursued extreme measures to induce good dreams were publicly praised
in the village and were told that they would surely live good lives.

The clan further assisted its young men by encouraging fasting and
participation in all ceremonies providing opportunities for public
fasting. The most popular rites in this class were the Naxpikr
(Sun Dance) and the Wolf ceremonies which emphasized warfare.
The clan furnished goods and horses for a younger member to give
during the ceremony to certain ‘fathers’’ and others in exchange for
customary services relating to the acquisition of supernatural powers.
When the young clansman endured unusual suffering during the
ceremony, the clan would voice its approval and bring goods to the
ceremony in such quantities as to embarrass the other clans whose
members had endured less suffering or had shown fear during the
torture feature.

The clan protected its members from outside attack, whether by a
member of the village or by an outsider, and resented infringement by
another in the disciplining of a member. Because of these important
functions of the clan, the father’s role as a disciplinary officer was
exceedingly unimportant. Had the father scolded his son or hit him,
he would have been severely criticized by both his son’s and his own

74. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

clan. When a clansman’s wife was stolen, the whole clan felt injured
and would assist the one whose wife had been stolen by demanding
payment collectively from the aggressor’s relatives and clans. Since
some of the aggressor’s relatives usually had advance information that
an elopement was contemplated, it was customary for them to take
goods and horses to the injured man even before he discovered his
loss and had enlisted the assistance of his clan; otherwise they were
permitted to kill the aggressor’s horse and cut up his property.

The clan revenged the murder of a member by killing the offender
and demanding goods of his clansmen as indemnity. There is no
recorded instance of murder by one of a different clan in recent years
so it was not possible to study a case history of manslaughter. When
a person killed another of the same clan, restitution was between
households. Since the clan as an organized group could not extract
indemnity from itself, the matter was allowed to drop if the murderer
escaped from the village. During the last century there have been
at least three murders committed within the clan by males while
intoxicated. In two cases the murderer was aided by his household
in making his escape while his household and closer clan relatives
made restitution to the dead man’s household. The third case was
committed during a drunken brawl after the Agency was established
and was handled by the North Dakota courts. In former times, mur-
der was of such great importance that the Black Mouths took charge
immediately to see that matters did not get out of hand, otherwise
a portion of the population was likely to break away and establish
an independent village. In former times when the Hidatsa occupied
three villages, since each village had essentially the same clan repre-
sentation, murderers escaping from one village were not secure in
another one because of the presence there of the murdered one’s
clansmen. Generally they would escape to the Crow but frequently
the Mandan or Arikara would harbor them. At first those of Hidatsa
village who had committed crimes against persons of the Prairie
Chicken and Speckled Eagle clans were prohibited refuge with the
Mandan, where these clans were also represented. Because of the
numerous marriages between the Mandan and the Hidatsa villages of
Awaxawi and Awatixa, it was never considered safe for men of these
villages to seek refuge with the Mandan. After the Mandan moved
north to the region of the Hidatsa villages near Knife River, refuge
with the Mandan was less common due to the equating of the Mandan
and Hidatsa clans and intermarriage between these village groups.
One-eyed, a chief of the Hidatsa, is said to be the last from Hidatsa
village to seek temporary refuge with the Mandan with whom he
lived for a short time after killing a clansman whose wife he coveted.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION roe

Clan cooperation was expressed in many ways. In addition to
assisting and caring for the old and the orphans, women who were ill
and could not do their work were assisted in caring for their households
and gardens. One might even be brought into the lodge of clanswomen
and nursed back to health; Goods and horses were contributed when
a clansman performed a ceremony. Men of the same clan gave up
their wives for an unmarried clansman or one whose wife was in
advanced pregnancy when a ceremony was being performed, in order
to enhance the prestige of the clan. When a clansman was killed in
warfare and his clan brothers did nothing about it, people of the other
clans would accuse them of being cowards. The highest honor was
shown one who had organized his fasting so as afterward to avenge
the death of a clan brother. In every instance, the clansmen brought
out goods and property for the victory dances when one of its number
had returned successfully from war.

At death, both the person’s own and the father’s clan had important
duties. Generally, the members of the father’s clan who officiated
were selected in advance, sometimes years beforehand. It was the
duty of the clan to provide goods, horses, and food for the funeral rites
as payment for the official mourners who comprised the adults of the
father’s clan. Not uncommonly one who was believed dying would
call in the close relatives of the father’s clan, either men or women,
who would paint and dress the dying person even before death oc-
curred. ‘The clan members would begin bringing in the property and
displaying it on lines within the lodge where those caring for the sick
person and friends coming in for a last visit could observe them. It
was believed that a lavish display of goods expressed the generosity
and solidarity of the clan. The sick person was happy in the belief
that in the spirit world he could boast of the goods that had been
disposed of when he was sent away. The clan had no other role when
death of a member occurred. Individuals of the father’s clan were in
charge of the last rites. A dying person called in those who were to be
present to perform the funeral rites, otherwise the family would make
the selection. They would say to the people selected, “‘We want you
to bring the robe; your son (or daughter) is ill and about to leave you.”

Those selected talked to the ‘“‘son” or “daughter,” telling him not
to be afraid; that all people must die sometime; that they would see
their people in the spirit village and to greet them. Some dying
persons had many messages to carry to relatives in the spirit world.
The Hidatsa preferred to be dressed and painted when death occurred,
so, not uncommonly, a person would be painted and dressed several
times before death occurred. Brave men wounded in battle, knowing
they were dying, often asked to be painted so that they could dance
before the people to show their bravery. The people of the father’s

76 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

clan would sing the victory songs and praise their “‘son”’ while his
own clansmen wept at the thought of losing one of their members.
In such circumstances the ‘‘blood father’ occupied an intermediate
situation. He would weep with his son’s clansmen, cut his hair, and
inflict physical pain on himself as did the females of the son’s family
and clan. The degree of self-torture was usually in direct proportion
to the son’s bravery and whether the father would be left sonless.
A man grieved loudest and longest for an only son.

The final rites were held at the grave or scaffold where the body was
taken by persons of the father’s clan and either placed on a scaffold
or interred, according to the wishes of the deceased or his nearest
clansmen. ‘Those officiating, people of the father’s clan, and visitors,
were given the goods collected by the clan for its deceased member.
According to tradition, the Hidatsa more frequently buried their
dead outside of the village than did the Awaxawi or Awatixa. In
this respect, the latter groups more closely followed the later Mandan
practice of placing the dead on scaffolds. The archeology of the three
Knife River villages supports this native belief; individual burial pits
and mounds are exceedingly numerous adjacent to Hidatsa village
although exceedingly rare at the other villages.

The father’s clan had other important duties in addition to officiating
during the death and funeral of a son. They generally named their
“sons” and “daughters” and frequently, in the case of children dying
young, the same person giving the name was selected to “bring the
robe” when the child died. Informal feasts were also given to the
people of the father’s clan from time to time. Everyone was expected
to give feasts. Those who had a surplus of food and property were
expected to share it from time to time with the elderly, but more
particularly with the people of the father’s clan. One looked to
the people of the father’s clan for formal instruction in fasting and
rituals and paid for that service. With few exceptions, organized
ceremonies likewise passed from one man to another standing in the
relationship of ‘‘son.’’ The father and the people of the father’s clan
were respected relatives; they took little part in the routine training of
their “sons” and ‘‘daughters.” In ritualistic training, however,
they assumed a dominant role, for, at birth, a “son” or “daughter”
received a name taken from these ritualistic possessions believed to
afford supernatural protection. All through life the people of the
father’s clan offered prayers and sold sacred objects and rites to the
“sons” and “daughters”; and in death they disposed of the body with
appropriate rites to send the spirit away. On some occasions, special
rites were performed years after the death of a “son” or “daughter”
who had died away from the village, at the time when the skull was
brought back and placed at a skull shrine.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION ray |

The clan, particularly a large one, played an important role in
uniting households and integrating the village population, and it
brought together many households for common efforts. Thus we find
that the amount of goods required for the purchase or performance of
a ceremony was far in excess of one person’s ability to acquire. Cere-
monial demands, in general, were not difficult burdens for one belong-
ing to a large clan since all people of the clan were obliged to assist to
avoid censure from the other clans and to save face. Only in the case
of small clans was the burden heavy; this may explain the tendency of
the small clans, such as the Xura and Itisuku, to affiliate with larger
ones. The obligations of the clan in elevating a person to chieftain-
ship were so numerous that a small clan was at a distinct disadvantage.

Not only did the clan play an important role in the integration of
household groups comprising the villages but it united households with
those of other villages. The degree of cooperation between persons
of the same clan but of different villages was largely a matter of dis-
tance. According to the opinion of informants, well supported by
archeological evidence, the villages were quite widely separated when
the population was large and their enemies were not so numerous.
The villages were largely endogamous due to matrilocal residence
which kept the women tied to the households of their mothers.
Males were reluctant to move from their mothers’ villages where they
had all of their closest social and ceremonial ties. We can assume
that, because of the similarity of clan names and groupings, the clan
system as we know it today was established long before 1796 when the
three village groups occupying sites within 3 or 4 miles of each other
at the mouth of Knife River were visited by early travelers. In rela-
tions between villages, the clan was the principal integrating force.
Visitors from adjacent villages were housed with clansmen and fre-
quently assisted and participated in the ceremonial activities of fellow
clansmen. Although there were minor dialectic and other cultural
differences which distinguished villages, a common clan system played
an important role in holding the tribal population together and avoid-
ing intervillage warfare.

By 1825, and after a quarter of a century of intimate contacts with
the Mandan, refuge there was no longer offered to those who had
murdered a tribesman. This is undoubtedly due to the equating of
Mandan and Hidatsa clans prior to that period. At this point it is
interesting to note that even though the Crow-Flies-High band of
Hidatsa separated from the Fishhook Village about 1872 under condi-
tions approaching civil war and established a separate village of their
own, those who got into trouble at either village were not accepted by
the other because of the strength of the clan ties. Neither Big Wind,
who committed manslaughter at Fort Buford, nor Sitting Elk, who

78 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

committed the same offense at Fishhook and under similar circum-
stances—killing a clansman while intoxicated—dared flee to a Hidatsa
village. Big Wind fled to the Crows and Sitting Elk fled to Fort
Stevenson and asked protection of the U.S. Army. It is interesting to
observe, and it is important for this study to note, that the custom of
village groups to break up whenever irreconcilable internal conflicts
arose did not weaken authority of the clan.

HIDATSA MOIETY CONCEPT

In contrast with the Mandan, the Hidatsa moiety concept was of
less social and economic importance. In this respect the Hidatsa
seem to have occupied a position intermediate between the Mandan,
who had a highly developed moiety concept, and the Crow where the
moiety was unknown. Nowhere in the Hidatsa ceremonialism does
one find moiety seating of fasters or participants as practiced by the
Mandan in their important summer Okipa ceremony. We find the
Hidatsa fasters in their important summer Naxpiks and the Sunset
Wolf ceremonies sitting around the periphery of the sacred lodge
without regard to moiety. Hidatsa fasters, when participating in
the Okipa ceremony, would sit by moieties and, so far as possible, by
equated clans. Although the Hidatsa relate the myth of the creation
of the earth by two heroes working on different sides of the Missouri
River, they obviously borrowed the myth from the Mandan in very
recent times. Their ceremonies in no way celebrate the event nor
are the culture heroes represented in the rites identified with clan or
moiety as did the Mandan; nor does one find culture heroes responsible
for the establishment and naming of moieties as with the Mandan.
The concept of the moiety is highly developed and permeates the
entire Mandan ceremonial structure and one would conclude from
their traditions that the clans came later than the moiety. Refer-
ences to Hidatsa symbolic representation of the moiety is limited to
the Eagle Trapping and related ceremonies which, in every respect,
show greater similarities to the comparable Mandan rites than any
other common ceremonies. In fact, the similarities in the rites and
mythological interpretations were so great that in a former paper
(Bowers, 1950, pp. 206-254) I treated this aspect of their cultures
together, the differences between the two tribes being no greater than
between different bundle lines of the same tribe. I interpret this
similarity of Eagle Trapping rites, techniques, and beliefs as pointing
to recent diffusion from the Mandan. This similarity seems also to
substantiate Hidatsa traditions of an eastern origin from a wooded
region not suited for eagle trapping by the techniques in vogue on the
Plains. If we eliminate those moiety concepts associated with eagle
trapping and related economic activities, little or nothing of the moiety

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 79

concept remains. We find the Hidatsa dividing the buffaloes taken
from corrals by moieties but the rituals of corralling buffaloes are
associated with the eagle trapping bundles and, more particularly, the
sacred snares of that bundle.

One finds reference to moiety division of eagle trapping sites with
the Missouri River serving as the dividing line between moieties, but
a survey of site locations recalled by the older people shows no such
division (ibid., p. 213). I found that informants unacquainted with
the eagle trapping rites had no knowledge of territorial moieties.
Lowie (1917, p. 21) speaks of moiety eagle trapping grounds on which
other trappers could not trespass. Case histories show that these
are basically clan grounds—linked-clans and moiety ties applied only
when no clansman used the site—at least so far as ownership and use
were concerned in the 19th century. A new trapping site was the
property of the man who erected the lodge and supervised the selec-
tion and excavation of the trapping pits. So long as he lived, the
site was his own to use or to lend. When he died, the site became the
preferential property of the clan and not of his son who inherited the
bundle rites. Here we have two rules of inheritance in conflict with
each other, namely, clan inheritance of trapping sites and father-son
inheritance of bundles. The Mandan, with a highly developed system
of clan inheritance of property and bundles, provided for simultaneous
transfer of both the site and the sacred bundle to a younger clansman.

Lowie (ibid.) refers to moiety division in council and mentions the
greater number of chiefs in the Four-clan moiety. Chieftainship
seems to have been unaffected by moiety affiliation; instead, it was a
mark of individual stature based on personal accomplishments.
Moreover, there were more people in the Four-clan moiety, my count
showing 237 individuals in the Four-clan moiety and 185 in the
Three-clan moiety. In addition to sitting and debating issues by
moiety in early treaty discussions and other business dealings with
the U.S. Government, each moiety had a spokesman; one who was
held in high regard by the tribe. In the division of Government
allotments, goods were divided into two equal parts and the members
of each moiety took from their pile. The same rules applied when
dividing corralled game.

The moiety defined relationships when clan relationships did not
apply. When parents were of different clans of the same moiety, one
occasionally hears reference to honors shown the opposite moiety,
honors usually limited to those of the father’s clan. Case histories
show a greater tendency of the Mandan, in the same situation, to
offer presents to all clans except that of the mother. My case his-
tories show that rarely did an Hidatsa ask one of the opposite moiety

80 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

to cut the flesh and insert the thongs for fasting; this was the special
duty of one’s father’s clansmen, irrespective of his moiety affiliation.

In the light of recent data obtained from the Mandan, I believe
that the Hidatsa moiety concept developed recently from a clan
system similar to that of the Crow after their settlement on the
Missouri. It was not exogamous nor were there traditions of former
marriage exogamy. ‘The Mandan, on the other hand, had traditions
of moiety exogamy and the table shown indicated even during the
last century a greater tendency toward moiety exogamy than for the
Hidatsa.

Tue KinsHip SYSTEM

Not only the daily social and economic life but much of Hidatsa
ceremonial life as well was patterned by the kinship system. Kinship
was based on socially recognized genealogical relationships which
extended to the limits of the tribal group. For many individuals, the
culture heroes were also included in the kinship structure. Alien popu-
lations likewise were included in the kinship groups in instances where

TaBLE 3.—Hidatsa kinship terms }

Number 2 Term 3 Meaning Symbol Used by
Lene as 0 en Mio inet S62 a eae 2 eee 2 m.s., W.S
ds Be tb ee RD (apna. 2 Ua hhnere. nso se eee 1 ems a Sk m.8., W.S
Seen eel aie OO Tes ap Olderibrother= 2324" OB 23.2 22s m.s.

7 oe nl ype See Younger brother ____---- YORE oe ea M.s., W.S.
Ha einige peas Ahh awit... - - Older sisteras 2-2 ae OSil 3-4 m.s.
Geno ts. Le ttalisus ick Younger sister... -- 252.28 PY Siders A77 m.s.
Le ORS Lie egal oe Older brother: 4-225 OB +46 23 W.s.
ro aia Futesiol et 5 2 Menta Te oe Sia Oldersisters 2 ee Osteen ears W.S.
Le eee eee Spe Youriger sisters! 26 754 NiSie 44 W.s.
|) ee ea LS ES Grandmother 2... 1. # Gis 22 re m.S., W-S.
Li ip gee ee arutdga___-- Grandfather. . 2-3-2 32. Gio asso m.8., W.8.
Be iyo irish. .--.-- SOIC gs pe Bite wernt CAR Ey RE ee ‘Sees eee ae m.8., W.S
AE ease Seta a Tid si oe Wap bers ee ee 1D Re eas m.8., W-S.
EAE ee Mee TEOOUeS Oe Pathers sister oe at 1 ik m.s., W.S
PE NON. iawapisd....| -Grandchild.. 22. -4...% GoW ace ae m.8., W.8
YG Nog Wo a Ane Si Wii eee ets ee et oe Wieeae omer
ay (Aa ae Eo a a lg 6 RY Dk Hagsband 20 SE 26 ot ae hs La She 22
a Sy crs OR hee ae Sister’s husband; wife’s | Sil___----- m.s.
brother.
TG Bs itigu_...--- Sante wifectia 422 Us" cats DinLaw-_---] m.s., W.s.
7A Ue ae ey ore TOS, NSE Daughter’s husband __-_-_- SinLaw-_---| m.s., w.s.
A Ua eee aie 1 saa a Brovners wile 2.22. 222s BW ae m.s.
PP AEN a) aie Cy ay NER Brother’s wife; hus- BW=HSi__]} w.s.
band’s sister.
Dole, A Oi itutdga__-_- Wife’s mother_s_o2 2 22- MinLaw----
yd UR a eae itaitaga_-_-_-- Wife's fathers. 22. 22s _- FinLaw----
LS ae peep a asikist= 2222 Husband’s brother; sis- HB=SiH _ _| w.s.
ter’s husband.
7d ai preareae trakuu_———- (Pole os ae ALE GD See S| neers. a m.S., W.S.

lwasuin wp; i asi init; a asainanon; £ ase in met.
2 The numbers correspond to the various kinship charts.
8 The symbols correspond to the various kinship charts.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 81

contacts were numerous and continuous. The accompanying charts
summarize the important features of the Hidatsa kinship system.
Charts 1 and 2 illustrate by means of conventional diagrams the kin-
ship terms used by a male ego and by a female ego. The system
can be conveniently described by an analysis of its terminological
structure, the behavior of reciprocals, and the life cycle of the indi-
vidual. For convenience in analysis, English terms will frequently
be employed, but these terms should be understood in reference to
native meanings which are determined by the applications and the
social behavior involved.

The Hidatsa kinship system is of the ‘classificatory”’ type in that
collateral and lineal relatives are classed together. The father’s
brothers are classed with the father, and the mother’s sisters with the
mother, while separate terms are employed for the mother’s brother
and the father’s sister. Grandparents are distinguished according to
sex, and grandparent terms are extended to their siblings of the same
sex. ‘The maternal grandmother’s brother is an “older” or “younger
brother” (twku or istku, m.s.); the maternal grandfather’s sister is a
“orandmother’’ except in those instances where the maternal grand-
father and the father are of the same clan when she is classed as
“father’s sister’; the paternal grandmother’s brother is a ‘father’
and the paternal grandfather’s sister is sometimes a “grandmother.”
In the parent’s generation there is a separate term for the “father’s
sister,’’ and her husband is classified as a “grandfather.”’ There is no
separate term for the ‘‘mother’s brother.’”’ Instead, he is classified
with ego’s brothers, being either “older brother” or “younger brother’’
depending on whether he is older or younger than ego. The mother’s
brother’s wife, woman speaking, is classified with her brother’s wife
and her husband’s sister as “sister-in-law” (itu’). A man classifies
the ‘‘mother’s brother’s wife” (%uku) with his brothers’ wives and his
wife’s sisters.

In ego’s generation, siblings are distinguished according to age
and sex, while parallel cousins are treated as siblings. A female
uses the term itdru and a male the term tuku for an older brother;
both employ isiku to designate a younger brother. A female employs
the term iru for an older sister and itéku for a younger sister; the
children of sisters are designated as sons and daughters. A male
designates “older sisters’ as itawiu and “younger sisters’ as itakisu,
their female lineal descendants likewise being classified as ‘“‘older
sisters” and “younger sisters’ depending on their age.

12 The kinship system is still in operation (1933) among the older people so that it is possible to get a rather
detailed account of the terminology and most of the social usages.

82 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

ow

an

02
°
od
an on
"
Om
J.
"
O®
ow
aaa
qo
em.
qo

ant

[Bull.

Cuart 1.—Hidatsa kinship system; ego= male.

194

83

Bowers]

HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION

él
V

oom

SI
O

Int

SI SI
vo

Sl
Vv

‘a[euray =a fusaysAs diysury esjeply]—'7 LuvHD

O2 Si cl cl Gi 6f Gl cl
v=o Vv Oo \y ES (0) re) Vv
(ey | ro} A | | 6I £l
V=0 \W/ = {0} oO

| v
063 JE
Oo V

cI

anv

dtv

84

BUREAU

re) © qo

OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

Ego

ai
"
ON
Oo
da
i
om
On
oN it
ant a
" * Zi
+ On "
aq = 0
aq
i
rolls)
qo i

16

fe)

15 20

[Bull. 194

Cuart 3.—Hidatsa affinal relatives ego=male.

Bowers} HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 85

Oo”

Cuart 4.—Hidatsa affinal relatives ;ego= female.

110-195—65——_7

86 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Cross-cousins are differentiated from parallel cousins; the children
of a “father’s sister” being ‘father’ and ‘father’s sister,’’ while the
children of ‘“‘mother’s brothers” are ‘‘sons” and ‘‘daughters.’”’ Jn the
children’s generation, a female classifies her brother’s and her sister’s
sons and daughters with her own sons and daughters. A male classi-
fies his brother’s son and daughter with his own while the sister’s
children are “older sister,” ‘‘younger sister,” ‘‘older brother,” and
“younger brother.” In the grandchild generation, children of sons
and daughters are “grandchildren,” sons of ‘‘older brother” and
“younger brother” are ‘sons’ and ‘daughters’? while children of
“older sister’ and ‘‘younger sister,’’ male speaking, are ‘‘older brother,”
“younger brother,” “older sister,” and ‘‘younger sister.”

This conventional analysis does not throw much light on the
nature of the Hidatsa kinship system. Obviously, the system is
not organized on any principle of ‘‘generation” except for lineal rela-
tives. A clue to the basis of organization is indicated in the grouping
of descendants of the ‘father’s sister’? and “mother’s brother,” by
individuals of either sex of the “‘sister’s” descendants by a male, and
by the rule of matrilineal descent.

Charts 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 illustrate the Hidatsa kinship system by

ce)
GF \GM Fe M

4 =0o IN wee N= © fo} m/s
GF FS F M 0B =BW OSi SiH
YB YSi

Cuart 5.—Father’s lineage; ego= male.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 87

A= 0 A=0 A oO

af Ae a

h\ Ee A=-0O A ‘oO

F M OB BW Sy D

| aie oe Oe

A=o0o A A=o0 A ce)

SiH, OSi Ego OB , BW S D
YSi es ale

= oO [s\ 3. (6) A e)
a ie i ae
4A=o0o =o A re)
SiH YSi YB BW S D

Cuart 6.—Mother’s lineage; ego= male.

means of lineage diagrams and indicate that the form of grouping is
a ‘‘vertical’”’ one based on matrilineal descent, rather than a “horizon-
tal’ one based on bilateral descent. In ego’s father’s lineage all the
women are “grandmothers” or ‘father’s sisters” and all the men are
‘“fathers.”” All men marrying women of the father’s lineage are
“orandfathers” regardless of their age and all wives of “‘fathers’’ are
“mothers”; sons of “fathers,” regardless of their ages, are ‘older
brother” and ‘‘younger brother” and their wives are ‘‘sisters-in-law”’
(juku), male speaking; (itt), woman speaking. Daughters of all
“fathers” are ‘older sister’ and ‘‘younger sister” and their husbands
are brothers-in-law (irdti for male ego and isikist for woman speaking).
For male ego, all females of the father’s matrilineal lineage classified
as Uuku are potential wives in the event of the death of a ‘‘brother.”’
For female ego, all males of the father’s matrilineal lineage classified
as isikist are potential husbands in the event of the death of a ‘‘sister,”’

In ego’s own lineage, the mother’s matrilineal lineage, we find a

88 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

A=o0 Lh =O fa fo)
a OB , BW S OD
A= 0 A= 0 A @)
(a M OB BW Ss D
YB
A=0 re) A=0 A

2)
=
<O
a
9
<O
> moO
La]
=
LY
Ee)

HO

A=0 =o
SinLow, D S Dinlaw

So

4 = 0 4 =o
SinLaw Gch Gch Dinlaw

Cuart 7.—Mother’s lineage; ego= female.

greater differentiation of relatives. These are ego’s closest relatives
and, since descent is matrilineal, the position of a female ego is con-
ceptually somewhat different from that of a male. The female
relatives of a male ego are differentiated as ‘‘grandmother,”’ “‘mother,”’
“older sister,’ and “younger sister’; for a female ego the female
relatives are “grandmother,” ‘‘mother,” ‘older sister,” ‘younger
sister,’ “daughter,” and “grandchild.” A man’s male relatives of
the lineage are “older brother’ and ‘‘younger brother.” A woman
makes greater differentiation of male members of the mother’s lineage;
males of her own or preceding generations are differentiated on the
basis of age as ‘older brother” or ‘“‘younger brother’’; those of the
first descending generation are “‘sons’’; those of the second and suc-
ceeding generations are ‘“grandchildren.’”’ Husbands of females of
the lineage are classified as “grandfather,” ‘father,’’ and ‘“‘brother-
in-law’? by males of the lineage whereas females of the lineage classify
males married to females of the lineage as “grandfather,” ‘father,’
“‘brother-in-law,’”’ and “‘son-in-law.’’ All females married to men of
the lineage are classified as “sisters-in-law” (éiuku) by males of the
lineage. Women, on the other hand, distinguish two groups of

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 89

A=0 A=0 4= 0 o=A
GF FS FM OB BW OSi SiH
Y8 YSi
Cuart 8.—Father’s lineage; ego= female.
A=0 A=0
rps GF GM
A=0O Azo
am ‘i tag
A=0 A=0 A °
GF | GM GF GM OB M
YB |
A=0 4=0 A o
GF | GM GF GM Ego
A =10 Azo
GF GM GF GM

Cuart 9.—Mother’s father’s lineage; ego= male or female.

90 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

“sisters-in-law’’: the spouse of an “‘older brother’ is an ‘‘older female
in-law’; the spouse of a ‘“‘younger brother” is a “younger female
in-law.” The “younger female in-law’ classification is extended to
include spouses of “‘sons” and “grandchildren.”

A male ego and a female ego also classify the children of male
members of the lineage somewhat differently. A male ego classifies
the children of male members of the mother’s lineage only on the
basis of sex as “‘sons’” and ‘‘daughters” irrespective of their age and
generation. A female ego makes the same distinction for children
of her own and previous generations but children of males of succeed-
ing generations are classified as “grandchildren” irrespective of sex.

All men of the mother’s father’s lineage are called ‘grandfather’
regardless of age and generation, and all women of the same lineage
are called “grandmother” or ‘father’s sister” by both male and female.
Men and women of the father’s father’s lineage are not usually recog-
nized; instead, they are classified in relationship to other kin with
closer kinship ties to the mother’s matrilineal lineage. The grouping
of the father’s father’s brothers with the paternal grandfather, whereas
informants generally were uncertain of the classification of the paternal
grandfather’s sister, can be better explained by the practice of equating
siblings of the same sex.

The lineage diagrams are the basis of the Hidatsa kinship system.
They indicate the grouping of kin, determine the applications of
kinship terms, and regulate the behavior and social relations of every
Hidatsa within the village group.

KINSHIP EXTENSION

The extent to which the Hidatsa recognized kinship is important
both from a comparative standpoint and also from that of social
integration of the village group and the relations of the villages to
each other and to neighboring alien social groups. The Hidatsa have
numerous methods of extending the scope of the kinship system which
result in the general belief that all people of the village and the neigh-
boring Hidatsa villages were in some way related to each other.
Actually, by the extension of the kinship categories to comprise the
entire village and tribal group, an individual generally stood in two
or more relationships to all persons not of the immediate related
households.

In addition to the socially recognized genealogical relatives men-
tioned in the preceding charts, a person was believed to be a blood
relative to everybody in his own clan even though this relationship
could not actually be traced. A person was similarly related to all
members of his “linked” clans and moiety. Since, with two excep-
tions, the same clans existed in the other Hidatsa villages and were

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 91

equated with the Mandan clan system, further groups of relatives
were established that cut across village, tribal, and linguistic lines.
A person was related to everybody of the father’s clan, “linked”
clan, and moiety; this relationship also extended to the other Hidatsa
villages and to the Mandan. There is no evidence of similar exten-
sions to include the Crow clans. Kinship was additionally extended
to include the mother’s father’s clan which was conceptually inde-
pendent of the father’s clan except in instances where the father and
mother’s father were of the same clan and lineage. Such instances
were rare, the higher frequency of merging of the two lineages by
the Mandan being due to the clan inheritance of tribal bundles
associated with female inheritance of the lodge and matrilocal
residence.

“Adoption” rites were of common occurrence. All men of dis-
tinction, and some women as well, adopted “sons” from clans and
lineages not otherwise closely related, thereby establishing closer
relationships with new sets of relatives. Moreover, ‘adoption’
ceremonies with persons of different Hidatsa villages and of different
tribes established kinship relations beyond the village unit to which
the individual belonged. A ‘“‘peace’’ chief was expected to perform
many of these adoption ceremonies to cement the village with other
nearby village and band units, thus encouraging intergroup visiting
and trading.

The Hidatsa highly respected those of the village who had wide
“relationships” with alien bands. As far as it is possible to determine,
all council leaders had established, by means of the adoption ceremony,
“father-son” or ‘friend-friend” relationships with a number of
distinguished men of other tribes. Even the children established
“friend-friend” relationships with individuals of the same age and
sex by the formal exchange of clothing and presents. Although
women occasionally adopted ‘‘sons” or “daughters,” their relation-
ships usually were based on ‘“father-son’’ relationships existing be-
tween males of their households. Thus, if a woman’s brother adopted
a “son” she became his “father’s sister’; if her husband did the
adopting, she became “‘mother.”” Nevertheless, the culture provided
many extentions of “kinship” reaching beyond the limits of the
tribe and materially affecting intertribe activities and behavior.

From observed cases of cultural borrowing between tribes in
historic times, we find that these intertribal kinship groups have been
the principal avenue of cultural transmissions. Unfortunately, the
number of observed cases is not sufficiently large to determine
whether this was the sole avenue of cultural borrowing. About 1870,
a band of Santee Sioux from Devils Lake introduced the Grass Dance
to the Hidatsa who bought the right to perform the dance. According

92 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

to the Hidatsa purchase pattern, if the sellers were treated as “fathers’’
then the sale was outright, as in the instance of the age-grade transfers.
The Hidatsa therefore treated the Santee Sioux as ‘friends’; a
relationship that existed between groups of individuals of the same
age or that prevailed when one earth lodge group transmitted a
society dance to another earth lodge group not having the society.
The same year that the Grass Dance was bought by the Hidatsa
and a few Mandans, visiting Crows watched them dance and invited
them to visit the Crow for the purpose of selling the right to dance.
Before selling to the Crow, officers of the Hidatsa Crazy Dog Society
sold them the right to use certain emblems of that society for the
dances—even before the dance rights were sold to the Crow the same
year. When the visiting Crow invited the Hidatsa to return the
visit and bring the Grass Dance to them, the matter of sale was
discussed. ‘The Hidatsa were unwilling to sell in the sense of re-
linquishing their rights, which would have happened had a “‘father-—
son” relationship been established. The Crows, therefore, agreed
to a “friend-friend” relationship so that the Hidatsa could transmit
the right and the information while still holding their own rights.
Then each member of the society selected a friend to whom he supplied
a duplicate set of the society equipment. Another instance of cul-
tural borrowing between the Assiniboin and the Hidatsa is evidenced
in the case of the Horse Ceremony. Before the rites were transmitted
to individual Hidatsas, a “father-son” relationship had existed for
some time; then on the initiative of the Assiniboin ‘father’ the rights
to doctor horses and to perform the ceremonies were sold. In the
two instances of sale to Holding Eagle and to Big Black, the cultural
borrowing (buying in this instance) was through the medium of an
existing intertribal kinship relationship.

Marriage resulted in the acquisition of an additional set of relatives
and altered the previously established classification of relatives.
Marriage between persons of the same clan regardless of village
residence and between close blood relatives was disapproved of.
During the last century, the members of the Mandan Prairie Chicken
clan have come to be viewed as “related” to the Hidatsa Prairie
Chicken clan and marriage between Prairie Chicken members has
been universally disapproved. Also in recent years, the Xura clan
has been reduced to a lineage of the Waterbuster clan and marriages
between the two are discouraged. It has not been considered proper
for the Speckled Eagle clan to marry with the Prairie Chicken clan
although a few have done so. Other than these restrictions, there
were no clan limitations to marriage and there is no evidence that the
moiety in any way regulated marriage. An additional set of relation-
ships through marriage with persons of other tribes, particularly the

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 93

Crow, Sioux, Assiniboin, and Chippewa, commonly occurred. Visit-
ing between related people of the Hidatsa villages and groups of
relatives of other tribes was of common occurrence.

In the event of the separation of a couple with children and the
subsequent remarriage of the wife, an additional set of relatives was
acquired. The wife would no longer recognize her former husband’s
relatives based on marriage but would classify them according to the
various categories employed previous to their marriage. The former
husband would do likewise with the woman’s relatives. The children
would recognize the stepfather’s relatives as though they were their
own father’s as long as the stepfather performed his social and
economic duties as a father. Whether the biological father and his
relatives were ever recognized would depend on the assistance that
they gave in rearing the children and the attitude of the stepfather.
Should the stepfather fail to perform his duties as a father, the
children’s affections were usually transferred to one of the mother’s
sisters’ husbands. This was an important matter to a young person
who must make a decision as to the “father”? he would recognize
when participating in the social and sacred rites of the community.
Since the father, the stepfather, and the mother’s sisters’ husbands
were frequently of different clans, the decision had an important
bearing on the selection of ceremonies in which he would participate.
Should a young man, however, distinguish himself in warfare we
find, from a study of genealogies and case histories, that the father
invariably began showing new interest in a neglected son.

Members of an age-grade society treated each other as related kin
of sibling grouping although all of the clans of the village were
generally represented in the membership. Members assisted each
other in warfare, ceremonial functions, and on any other occasion
when such group action would enhance the prestige of the society.
Although age-grade purchase was a group action, instruction and
preparation of the symbols of the society were individual in nature
and involved intimate personal relations between the seller and one
to four “sons” by the extension of the kinshipsystem. Each organized
men’s society thought of the next higher society collectively as
“fathers” and the next lower one as “‘sons.’’ Women of an organized
women’s society likewise thought of each other as ‘female siblings.”’
The clan principle was not closely followed by females, the sale being
made to ‘“‘daughters” who were daughters of female members of the
clan or of the father’s sister’s clan. Either group, however, addressed
& woman as “daughter’’ and the collective transfer was considered a
“mother-to-daughter” transfer. The comrade or pal relationship
(iraktiu) that existed between individuals was extended to men’s
societies in their relationship to the women’s societies. Each of the

94 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

women’s societies had a ‘“‘pal’’ society which assisted during the
performance of their organized social and ceremonial functions.

The Hidatsa treated the Whites married into the tribe as a single
clan of male “brothers.”

Ordinarily, adoption of a child took place when parents separated
or the mother died. Usually the mother’s relatives adopted and
cared for the child. The first responsibility for the care of an orphan
rested with the child’s mother’s sisters. If one of these was childless,
she would invariably adopt the child and care for it; the husband’s
opinions were not solicited. If the child had no close “mother’s
sister’ the responsibility rested with the father’s sister; she commonly
asked for the child even when there was a mother’s sister to care for
it, but to relinquish a child under those circumstances was considered
improper and one so doing would be the subject of severe criticism
by the other members of the child’s clan.

In extreme crisis situations, such as the occasional destruction of a
large part of the village population by warfare or epidemic in which a
number of the households were broken up, extreme measures of
reorganization were necessary. During the smallpox epidemic of
1837, when more than half of the Hidatsa died, children were cared
for by their nearest kin—the first responsibility rested with the
mother’s own sisters and the maternal grandmothers; second were the
father’s brothers’ wives or the father’s sisters. ‘Those having none of
these relatives were cared for by women of the clan. A few instances
were cited where orphans were adopted by women not of the above
groups because of unusual circumstances such as being left childless
with no child of the clan available for adoption. In cases such as the
latter, the child so reared invariably disregarded his blood kin and
clan and adopted the clan and kin of the person raising him. Should
such a person endeavor to marry one of his own blood, however, he
would be advised not to do so. Adoption of children of alien tribes,
when the parents were unable to care for them or they had been
abandoned by their parents while trading at the Hidatsa villages,
was of common occurrence. The cases usually involved children whose
father had been killed or died and whose mother was unable to travel
with and care for a small child. These children when adopted
frequently assumed the position of a child who had died, while the
kinship bonds with the blood relatives were never broken. They
could return to their own tribe when grown and nothing would have
been done to prevent it. In fact, it was a common occurrence to
return to visit the blood relatives, and no war party would have
knowingly attacked a band from another tribe coming to the village
to visit relatives.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 95

Another group adopted into the villages was composed of prisoners,
comprising women, small children, and even babies, when it was
possible to bring them back safely without danger from counterattack.
A woman sometimes would ask a brother leaving for war to bring
her a child, to replace one that had recently died, instead of a horse.
Women prisoners were taken as wives and their children captured
with them lived in their mother’s household. Motherless children
were adopted and cared for by other households. If a girl was ap-
proaching marriageable age, she was usually taken into a household
without formal adoption and assisted the women of the household
until she could be married to some young man who would assist in
the hunting. The most illustrious prisoner to become a member of the
tribe was Bird Woman, the Shoshoni guide for Lewis and Clark in
1805-1806. By residence at Awatixa village, she became a member
of the Itisuku clan.

Within the village, those men owning ceremonial rights that included
a buffalo skull were collectively spoken of as ‘‘fathers.”” Women of
comparable status were addressed as ‘“‘father’s sister.”” The kinship
system also comprised the culture heroes and various sacred objects.
Woman Above, Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, the field mice, the corn
mill, and the Holy Women were referred to as ‘“‘grandmother.” Fire
and Missouri River clan bundle deities were “‘grandfathers.”’ Sun,
Moon, Two Men, Buffalo Bull, and many others were ‘‘fathers.”” In
every situation of a sacred character, there existed a kinship relation-
ship between the sacred characters and objects on the one hand and
the bundle owner and purchaser on the other.

The numerous methods of extending kinship within the village
invariably brought about situations in which a Hidatsa had a choice
of two or more relationship terms for the same person. A few case
records will indicate the general underlying rules for determining kin
not in the direct bloodline. Chart 10 illustrates several alternate
relationships between Bears Arm and Walks. Bears Arm always
called Woman-in-Water a “father”? because Woman-in-Water and
Old-Woman-Crawling were of the same clan and were presumed to be
related through ‘‘clan sisters” further back, although they could not
trace out actual blood sister relationships since Woman-in-Water’s
female lineage was of Awatixa village while Old-Woman-Crawling’s
mother’s lineage was from Awaxawi village. Bears Arm explained
that Medicine Robe was, by the extension of his mother’s lineage to
include those of her clan, actually an “‘older sister” since he and
Medicine Robe were of the same clan and that would have made
Woman-in-Water a “brother-in-law.’”” Bears Arm placed greater
emphasis on the ‘‘sibling’’ relationship existing between males, in this
instance Woman-in-Water and Old-Woman-Crawling, than a similar

[Bull. 194

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

96

"SHIRA puke WIY sivog us2MI0q sdiysuONe[aYy—‘O] LUVHD

(ubj2 ayiuy)
Wiy si0eg

(ubj9 ajiuy)

V
(upjo ayluy) (ubJ2 DjJIMDUaXDMD) (UD]D b{IMDUaXDMD)
SyjmMolg Aun; BuljMDJQ-UDWOM-Pi|O —°*% JasDM—-UI-UDWOM
fe) V V
(UDID D{IMDUeXDMD)
re) S494SIS UD} Oo

SHIOM
V

(ubja ayjuy )
aqoy esuUldDIpaW
O

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 97

sibling relationship between Many Growth and Medicine Robe. He
always addressed Woman-in-Water as “‘father’’ and Medicine Robe as
“mother.”’ Although by this reasoning, Walks should have been a
“son,’”’ this would have been inconsistent with clan exogamy. He
always called him ‘“‘brother,’’ claiming that common sex was again the
important factor.

In the case of Yellow Coat (Chicken-Can’t-Swim) of the Itisuku
clan (see chart 11), Bears Arm called him “‘grandfather’’ by this
reasoning: he first showed that nowhere in his known matrilineal or
patrilineal lineages were there any lineal or collateral relatives married
to persons of the Itisuku clan. Yellow Coat’s wives, however, were of
the Prairie Chicken clan as was also Bears Arm’s maternal grand-
father, so Bears Arm called each wife “grandmother” and Yellow Coat
“grandfather.”” He could have addressed Yellow Coat as “‘father’’
since the Itisuku clan was of the Four-clan moiety to which Bears
Arm’s father belonged, but he considered the other relationship a
closer one. He could also have called Yellow Coat ‘‘grandfather’’
through Breathing, Bears Arm’s paternal grandfather who was also of
the Prairie Chicken clan, but he considered Bear-Lying-Against-Tree,
the maternal grandfather, a closer relative than Breathing. Bears
Arm called Two Bulls a “grandfather” who, although a son to Good
Squash, was also of the same clan as Bear-Lying-Against-Tree. He
could also have called Two Bulls a “‘brother-in-law”’ since Bears Arm
and Chippewa Woman were of equated Mandan and Hidatsa clans
and would have so classified Two Bulls had there been no other rela-
tionship. He considered relationships with Mandan individuals on
the basis of equated clans closer than moiety relationships within his
own village and tribe.

Bears Arm (Knife clan) called Cherry Necklace (Maxoxati clan) a
“brother” because both were of the Three-clan moiety, and the wives
“sisters-in-law” because there were no persons of the Maxoxati clan
in Bears Arm’s lineages; neither were there persons of the wives’ clan
in his lineages. None of Bears Arm’s relatives had ever adopted a
“son” or “brother” in Cherry Necklace’s lineages. The moiety was,
in this instance, the last resort in establishing relationships.

The evidence indicates that the moiety or the “linked” clan served
as the basis of extending kin only when lineages did not apply. The
Three-clan moiety, consisting of the Maxoxati, Knife, and Low Hat
clans, comprised one group of linked clans. The Four-clan moiety
had two groupings or phratries: Phratry I comprised the Prairie
Chicken, Speckled Eagle, and Awaxenawita clans; Phratry II com-
prised the Waterbuster, Xura, and Itisuku clans. Thus, a person
would call females of the Prairie Chicken, Speckled Eagle, or
Awaxenawita clans ‘father’s sister’? when the father belonged to

[Bull. 194

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

98

"JWOD MOT[PX pue wiy sivog ussmjeq sdiysuoneEy— |] LIVHD

(uoja asiuy)

wiy sipeg
V
(uopuoy (uoj2
(ubjD ajiuy) (UDjD_ DJImMpUAaxXDMD) —UD/D yISiwod}) UayoIYyd al4iDsd)
syjymosg AUDW Hulj|MD1ID-UDWOM-PIO UuDWOM DMaddiyy) sjing OML
Oo Vv oO V
(ubjo
uayoiyd alsipsd) (uojo (upJo

(UDj2 asiuy) aasj-ysulpBy (upj/2 DJIMDUAaXDMD) uayolyd alziosd) uayoiyd alsiosd) (uDj2 bynsii)
JudsasIC IV -Bulk]-408g = suldIpe~-40j-syoo 7 Bulyyoasg usonbs poog jDOD MO}JOA

Q Sra SS SS Y Oo Vv — a=

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 99

one of these clans. This was an important relationship for the
Hidatsa because of the numerous situations when one was expected
to offer presents to males and females of the father’s clan.

This ‘father’s sister’-“sister’s son’ relationship would, unless
broken by closer ties established by marriage, extend to all of the
father’s sister’s female descendants as well as to the female members
of the father’s clan. Chart 12 illustrates this point. Old-Woman-
Crawling could call Bear Woman and Hunts Turnips ‘‘daughters-
in-law,”’ since they were his wife’s mother’s brother’s wife and sister-in-
law. The Hidatsa, however, preferred not to employ classifications
based on affinal relationships when other relationships were applicable,
due, I believe, to the instability of marriages. In this instance
Old-Woman-Crawling never classified the two women as “‘daughters-
in-law” but rather as “sisters” because they were of the same clan.
Bears Arm called them “father’s sisters’? since they were of Old-
Woman-Crawling’s clan but they were Bears Arm’s mother’s mother’s
brother’s wife and wife’s sister. He called Bears Nose an “older
brother’”’ but called the women “father’s sisters’? instead of ‘‘sisters-
in-law.”” Bears Arm, on the other hand, called Bear Woman and
Hunts Turnips ‘father’s sisters” even though Bear Woman was
married to his mother’s mother’s brother. In his own age group
was Medicine Woman, daughter of Bear Woman, who also might
have been classified as a ‘‘father’s sister.’”” However, she was a
“closer” relative to Bears Arm than her mother, Bear Woman, being
the daughter of Bears Nose (Knife clan of Bears Arm) whereas
Bear Woman was only his wife. From Bears Arm’s point of view
Medicine Woman was a blood relative while Bear Woman was not.

Lying Chicken stood in several relationships to Bears Arm. In
the first place he was the husband of Hunts Turnips, whom Bears
Arm called a ‘father’s sister,” and was therefore a “grandfather.”’
Likewise he was a “brother,’”’ since Bears Nose was a “brother”
to both: to Bears Arm by being his mother’s mother’s brother and
to Lying Chicken since they had married sisters. Old-Woman-
Crawling called Lying Chicken ‘‘brother’”’ because they were of the
Four-clan moiety. When Lying Chicken—who, by all standards
of kinship extensions would have been classified as a very distant
relative indeed—married, Old-Woman-Crawling adopted him as a
“son” since Lying Chicken gave promise of becoming a distinguished
warrior, and thus new and permanent relationships were established
between two sets of relatives. Bears Arm continued to treat Medicine
Woman as a “daughter”; Lying Chicken became Bears Arm’s
“brother,” a relation that could not be broken during their entire
lifetime except in the event of cowardly acts; Hunts Turnips and
Bear Woman became Bears Arm’s “‘sister-in-law.”

(Bull. 194

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

100

(Yojd D¥NSi{1)
uayoI49 Bulk q

> ——— ee (6

“URWIOM Jvog pue Zul[MelD-ueWOM-PIQ u22MI0q sdiysuonjejay— 7] Lave

{uo/o D{IMDUSXDMD)

(UD/D DJIMDUAXDMD)
Sdiuiny sjuny UDWOM

[ee ee

UDWOM auUldipay
(@)

(40/9 ajiuy)
9SON Sipeg
OO

jpag

(uoja agjuy)

wi Siapag
V
|

(Ub/9 afjuy) (udD/9 o4IMoUaxDMD)

|
YJMOIQ AuDW

oO

V

(uoja ayiuy)

49493310 IV
V ie)

ae Se ee

Bul|M0s9-UDWOM-PIO

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 101

All other things being equal, relationships through persons of the
same sex were closer than through opposite sexes. Frank Packineau,
Low Hat clan, and his wife, Rattles Medicine of the Maxoxati clan,
both belonged to the Three-clan moiety with Bears Arm who was of
the Knife clan. Bears Arm would classify Packineau as an “older
brother” and Rattles Medicine as an “older sister’ prior to their
marriage, but after they were married he could not do so since that
would imply that Frank Packineau had married his sister. Bears
Arm could continue to call Rattles Medicine a ‘‘sister’” and then
Frank Packineau would be a “brother-in-law” or he could call Frank
Packineau a “brother” and Rattles Medicine would be a “‘sister-in-
law.”’ Bears Arm chose the second alternative because he considered
relationships established between individuals of the same sex closer
than with the opposite sex. Bears Arm’s sister, Wolverine, employed
the first alternative, calling Rattles Medicine a “‘sister’”’ and Frank
Packineau a “‘brother-in-law.’”’ Informants recognize that relation-
ships based on moiety membership are remote and not ordinarily
employed.

Formerly, the village residence was also a factor in determining
relationships when no known lineal or clan affiliation existed. Persons
of the same village were considered closer even when no actual rela-
tionships were known. Since Rattles Medicine and Bears Arm were
of parents coming from Awaxawi village, whereas Frank Packineau
was from Awatixa village, in former times Bears Arm would have
considered Rattles Medicine a closer relative of the Three-clan than
Frank Packineau and would have called her “sister” and Frank
Packineau “‘brother-in-law.”? This distinction was rarely used after
the remnants of the three Hidatsa village groups united following
the epidemic of 1837.

Out of the numerous alternatives, the selection made by the indi-
vidual determined his social position in relation to others. A woman
of the Xura clan might call an individual of the Maxoxati clan a
“son’”’ whereas he would call her “father’s sister’? while her husband
called the same individual a “brother-in-law’’ because the man of
the Maxoxati clan had married a “‘sister.’”? Lead Woman (see chart
13) called Old-White-Man a “son” as he was the son of a member
of her clan. She also could have called him a “grandfather” since
Old-White-Man was Lead Woman’s husband’s sister’s husband, but
the latter relationship would be based on marriages and could be
dissolved at will whereas neither Lead Woman nor Old-White-Man
could change their clan affiliations. Also, by maintaining a “father’s
sister” status to Old-White-Man she was eligible to receive presents
during social and ceremonial occasions. Crows Heart could have
called Old-White-Man a “grandson” but he never did, always calling

710-195—65——8

[Bull. 194

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

102

(ub/2 14DX0xDUI)
UDW-34}!UM-PIO
V

“URWOM PIT pue URT\-O}1YM-P[O U2e2eMI0q sdiysuoNYjay—*¢] LUVHD

(uopuopy —uojo (uopuopw —uD/92
vayoiyd 93141044) UayIIYD ai4/04d)
SPOO/-UI-aUuldIpay J4D9H SMOID
oO V
A Se ROR ae ae A

(upj2 140xoxow)
UDI - AHUM-PIO
V

(ubj2 D4nx)
UDWOA\ pda 7 (uDj2 o4nx)

== V
[ia A es ———t

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 103

him “brother-in-law.” In either instance Old-White-Man was an
affinal relative. Crows Heart considered a relationship to Old-White-
Man through a sister ‘“‘closer’”’ than one through a wife.

The above examples illustrate the methods of determining ex-
tended kin. The Hidatsa considered everyone of the tribe a relative
and there is evidence that the extension of the kinship system, to
include the Mandan through the equating of Mandan and Hidatsa
clans, is of recent development. One’s relationship by blood and
lineage is the basis from which extended kin groupings are deter-
mined. There are so many factors involved in the classification
beyond the blood relatives that no fixed rule can be made. The
relationship is largely determined by social participation. Although
the Hidatsa kinship system is not a ‘‘clan system” the importance of
the clan, phratry, and moiety, in regard to kinship has been indicated
by the foregoing discussion of the kinship extensions. Other exten-
sions of the kinship system are brought about by ceremonial adoption
and cooperation in the organized ceremonies and age-grade societies;
these extensions go beyond the limits of the village and tribe. The
general outline of social behavior prevailing between relatives was
the basis for socially recognized relationships with groups of extended
kin.

ms KINSHIP BEHAVIOR

Reciprocal obligations and duties between relatives were important
elements in social integration. The basic relationships were those
existing between members of the elementary family, the household,
and the related households. Although the basic relationships are
those which apply to parents and children, because of descent and
residence factors, relationships of a more distant order play an im-
portant part among the Hidatsa. Within the elementary family
there are nine possible combinations of relatives or reciprocals:
mother-daughter; mother-son; father-son; father-daughter; husband—
wife; older sister-younger sister; older brother—younger brother; older
brother—younger sister; older sister-younger brother.

Within the parental household groups there are also these important
reciprocal relations: mother’s brother-sister’s son and daughter;
father’s sister-brother’s son and daughter; grandfather-grandchild;
grandfather—daughter-in-law; grandmother-daughter-in-law; father-
in-law-son-in-law; mother-in-law-son-in-law; brother-in-law—brother-
in-law; sister-in-law-sister-in-law; brother-in-law-sister-in-law.

The general pattern of behavior prevailing between these pairs of
relatives should throw much light on the native values ascribed to
the terminology and indicate the relationship of the individual to the
family, the household, and the other household groups comprising the
village unit.

104 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

MorsER—DAUGHTER

The relationship between a mother and her daughter was an ex-
ceedingly close and intimate one. It was based on kinship ties, life-
long residence together, common occupations, and common sex. The
mother was the principal instructor in both economic and ritualistic
matters. She taught her daughters to cook and care for the lodge,
grind corn, tan and decorate hides, sew, butcher and cure meat, and
to perform all of the special tasks. If, for instance, the mother was
a potter and owned particular designs, the daughter was expected to
buy the complete rights and continue the designs unique to that
female lineage.

She instructed her daughters in the care of the gardens, the planting
of the seeds, the pulling of weeds, the curing and storing of the
garden products, and the performance of those rites celebrated while
engaged in agricultural activities. She taught them good manners
toward visitors and strangers and particularly toward prospective
husbands. She selected her daughter’s first ‘ceremonial’? mother at
the time of her daughter’s first introduction into and participation
in the age-grade societies. She also was the principal one to advise
the daughter in premarital sex matters and, with the assistance of
the other ‘“‘mothers” and “‘older sisters,” kept a watchful eye to see
that these instructions were obeyed. The mother assumed an impor-
tant role in the marriage of the daughter, for no well-trained daughter
would want to marry a man disapproved of by her mother.

A woman’s deepest affections were for her own daughter, but, in
a household where there were many others standing in a mother—
daughter relationship, diverse female work patterns developed. Thus,
one or two “mothers” commonly worked together in the gardens
while the others were in or about the lodge preparing the meals,
tanning and working with hides, or performing the multiple tasks
of the household. When there was urgent need of extra help in the
gardens, one of the “mothers” would take all of the household “daugh-
ters’’ to the fields where they worked together. Here the daughters
were watched to see that they performed their work.

A mother who had given her daughter good training preferred to
have her live in the same lodge after marriage and to assist her as
she grew old, hence the tribe was strongly matrilocal. The mother
was always present when a child was born to her daughter; if the
daughter was living in another lodge, she invariably returned to her
mother’s lodge to give birth to the child. The mother advised her
daughter in the care of the child and would offer such assistance as
she could without taking over its actual care. A mother might
punish her child by denying her privileges or by scolding her, but

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 105

physical punishment by whipping was almost entirely unknown. An
older brother might shake her and ask her to come back to her senses
but the usual procedure was to scold her or to offer positive rewards
in return for good behavior.

Although residence was normally matrilocal, it was not customary
for several sisters with different husbands to occupy the same lodge.
The Hidatsa believed that it was hard for men married to sisters and
living in the same lodge to get along together. If one husband was
ambitious and a good hunter, he would be praised by the female
owners of the lodge and only poor hunters or unlucky warriors with
little pride would continue to live there. The first residence was
invariably patrilocal whenever insufficient time had been allowed
for the preparation of the son-in-law section of the lodge.

Informants all thought that a woman had more ‘‘mothers” through
the father’s clan than in the mother’s clan. This is consistent with
the extension of the “‘mother” relationship beyond the immediate
households. In the mother’s lineage and clan, only her household
sisters and those females who were daughters of the maternal grand-
mother (rarely was the great-grandmother known) were classified
as ‘‘mothers”’; all other clanswomen were classified either as “older
sister,” ‘‘younger sister,’ ‘‘daughter,”’ or “‘grandchild,” depending
upon their relative ages and other factors. Within the household
there were frequently other ‘‘mothers” of different clans when the
father had not married sisters. A female classified as “‘mothers”’ all
spouses of men of the father’s clan. Of this group of ‘‘mothers”’
close bonds of affection and respect were often shown due to the
practice of looking to the members of the father’s clan for instruction
and assistance in ceremonial matters.

Since the wife contributed significantly in goods and services
whenever a man performed a ceremony and shared in his purchases,
her advice was widely sought by a “‘daughter’” through her husband.
In visiting other villages, one felt free to move in with a household
whose female members were classified as ‘‘mother” by the extension
of the kinship relationships when it was not convenient to stay with
a “‘sister.”’

MortrHEer-Son

The relationship of a mother to her son was almost as close as to
her daughter since it was based on kinship ties. It was, however,
different from the mother-daughter relationship due to sex dichotomy,
division of labor, and matrilocal residence. A mother taught a son
early in life to play boys’ games, to dress like boys, to be brave, and
at all times to avoid female avocations lest he be ‘‘blessed’’ by one of
the female deities and become a berdache. Naming, games, and

106 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

terms of address all emphasized a son’s masculine character and
discouraged him from participating in female activities. He was
permitted to own property in his own right and to dispose of it; he
was taught to use bows and arrows and to hunt small animals and
birds; he was instructed in the importance of warfare, fasting, and
hunting, and was discouraged from gardening and wood gathering.

The mother contributed much time to advising her son, as a child,
a duty that was largely taken over by her brother as the son ap-
proached the age of puberty. She would advise a son in matters
dealing with ceremonial participation, contribute goods for his use
in the ceremonies, and direct his efforts in securing proper visions.
The mother was his closest relative and the one who did most to
organize her cooperating group to contribute material assistance
consisting of goods, horses, and food for a son’s age-grade and other
purchases. Although a mother would have a direct interest in
selecting a daughter-in-law who would make a good wife, she would
not ordinarily say a great deal when she disapproved, leaving the
matter to her brothers and older sons to decide. If they, too, objec-
ted to the marriage, there would be no goods put up, in which case
the other family would generally withdraw the marriage offer.

A young man was expected to obey his mother. If she was growing
feeble and had no daughters to help her in the lodge and her gardens
she, in consultation with her brothers, frequently selected a young
woman as wife for her unmarried son at home with the intention of
bringing the daughter-in-law into the lodge to help her and to inherit
the lodge and gardens when she herself was too old to manage the
household. In such cases, she enlisted the assistance of the other
females of the lodge and her brothers of other households to put up
the necessary goods and horses to complete the marriage. This was
a happy arrangement for a woman without female descendants. She
could keep her son at home to hunt and provide for her household.
Situations of this nature required respect and cooperation between
the females, the mother on the one hand and the wife on the other.

A man was expected to look after his mother, irrespective of his
residence, and to take an interest in her welfare. As a newly married
man he was free to return to his mother’s lodge at any time, and if
he wished to give a feast for his friends or respective relatives, it was
always given at the mother’s lodge. She and her daughters were
expected to meet him when returning from a successful war expedition
and to sing his praises—or to torture themselves if he died or was
killed. A man would return often to his mother’s lodge for meals
and, should he return to the village from hunting and find his wife
out of the lodge, he would leave most of his meat with his wife’s

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 107

household and return to his mother’s lodge to eat, for it was not
considered proper to be in the lodge alone with only his parents-in-law.

His horses were grazed and cared for by the younger members of
his mother’s household and most of his personal property was kept
there. Although he was expected to hunt for the wife’s household
when living with her people and to supply meat for her to take to
her parents, a man’s interest was at first primarily with his mother’s
group. The mother would be ashamed of a daughter-in-law who
failed to keep her husband’s clothing mended and his moccasins in
good repair. If he needed a good horse and his wife’s people had
none, he could use freely those of his mother’s household. The
spoils of war went to his mother and her female relatives and they
were expected to mourn longest if he lost his life.

FaTHER-SON

The father’s relationship to a son was quite different from that of
the mother. In the first place, they were of different clans; but it
was to the father and his clansmen, nevertheless, that the son looked
for formal training in the ceremonies. The two parental groups
comprising the father and his brothers, and their sisters and their
children, on the one hand and the mother, her sisters, and brothers
on the other, were sharply differentiated both as to lineages and
functions. The father’s obligations were both economic and ritu-
alistic. He should provide for the family by hunting game and
protecting them from their enemies. In the Hidatsa’s mind, how-
ever, this was not an essential function, for households were known
which had had no adult male for a decade or more and in which the
members lived very well by exchanging garden produce for other
necessities. A man’s status in the wife’s household rose as children
came along. He was never present at the time of the birth of his
child. Once it appeared that the infant was going to live (at the age
of 10 days or so), however, he took the leading role in securing a name
for it. He could give the child a name from his own ceremonial
rites but ordinarily a man preferred to widen the field of supernatural
forces working for the child’s welfare by selecting another of the same
clan to give the child a name suggested by the namer’s ceremonial
rites. Even at the age of 10 days a child’s individuality was reconized.
When approaching the person who was to supply the name, the father
would say ‘“‘My son who has just come to live with us asks you to
give him a name and to receive these goods.’”’ The father’s brother
or sister supplying the name would pray to his or her sacred bundles
to send the child good luck and the father would do likewise. Each
time thereafter when the father offered the pipe and food to his
sacred bundles, he would ask that they send his children good luck

108 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

and keep them healthy. He would continue this practice until the
son’s security was assured by owning sacred bundles of his own.

It was considered improper for a man to urge a son to participate
in sacred rites. ‘This belief stemmed from traditional lore that an
individual’s role in the sacred rites would be revealed in due time by
vision instructions. Hence the father taught by example rather
than by direction. At all times the initiative came from the son or
his son’s older brothers. Although the Hidatsa made little distinc-
tion between the father and the father’s brother and received instruc-
tions from both, it was from one’s own father that ceremonial rites
were normally obtained, although one was not denied rights to bundles
owned by the father’s brothers or even husbands of the mother’s
sisters when the proper vision instructions were received.

The cultural patterns provided many situations for the extension
of this father-son relationship to more distant or attenuated ‘‘fathers.”
A man’s closest ties were with bis own father if his parents were not
divorced. The father’s brothers were next in importance. In the
purchase of a ceremonial bundle a ‘‘ceremonial” father was selected to
instruct the “son” and to prepare a new bundle. He was one of the
father’s clan but rarely of known blood relationship. This selection
brought together distant “fathers” and their relatives, which thereafter
increased cooperation between these two groups of relatives. Feasts
were given by each group to the other and, in the performance of other
rites at a later time, the “ceremonial” father’s children, now standing
in close sibling relationships, were expected to assist.

A “father” coming upon a “son” who had just killed an animal
should be given the choicest parts and the hide without asking.
It was expected that he would praise his “son’’ upon returning to
the village, or condemn him if the gift was not a generous one. Since
& man’s status was raised through his relationships with “fathers,’’
no person hoping to be shown honors and respect would deny a
“father”? meat even should it mean returning to the village empty-
handed. Wishing to save an animal for one’s family, it was a more
common practice for a man killing an animal and knowing that
“fathers” were hunting nearby, to move away from the kill and
pretend that the animal had escaped until the meat could be brought
to the village undetected.

It was a man’s highest aim to have many “sons” and ‘‘daughters”’
both of his own and through extension of the kinship system; he was
then assured of many presents and other honors during his lifetime.
He received goods, horses, and the right of ceremonial intercourse

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 109

with the “‘sons’”’ wives; in return he sold sacred rites, performed
sacred rites, and taught tribal lore to his sons. If a son died, the
father or his sister must, when asked, “bring the blanket’? to wrap
the body in, take it to the scaffold or grave, and send the spirit away.

A father, on request and for pay, instructed a son in the arts of
warfare and horse stealing but avoided taking him on his own expedi-
tions. He would supply objects from his own sacred bundles for
the son to wear until he had sacred objects of his own and the son
was expected to pay the father with horses taken. There was always
an aloofness toward the father that never entirely disappeared.
Although a young unmarried man would go out hunting alone with
his father and would be taught many things, most that one learned
of secular matters was taught by an older brother or one standing
in that relationship. The Hidatsa have a saying that if a chief’s son
has many “older brothers’ he will become a chief also, but if he
has no “older brothers” his father will spoil him.

FatTHER-—DAUGHTER

A father’s relationship with a daughter was even more distant
than that with his son. It was expected that he would provide meat
for the household but he had few other economic duties. He was not
present at her birth, but he did provide a name for her or he selected
another of his own clan to name her. He was usually consulted by
his wife and her brothers when a husband was being selected. He
might even give a horse to the other family if he thought much of his
daughter. A man avoided being in the lodge alone with a daughter
after she reached the approximate age of 10 years. Often through
life he offered the pipe and food to his sacred bundles, asking for her
continued success and good health. In later years she was expected
to assist in the preparation of goods and food for her brothers’ cere-
monial purchases from the father. A daughter’s attitude toward
the father was largely determined by the compatability of the par-
ents; if the parents had cooperated in the ceremonies and there was
good will between them, the father was highly respected as the
owner of important bundles. Although a daughter rarely inherited
important bundle rites from the father, the culture provided some
ceremonial rewards to the sisters assisting a young man in purchasing
their father’s ceremonial rites. Due to the division of labor between
sexes, a daughter learned little from her father of the daily skills
and practices. In the event that the mother died, unless a sister
or other female replaced her through the operation of the sororate,
the father usually returned to his sister’s household to be with people
of his own clan until he could remarry into another household.

110 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

HusBanp-WIFE

The relation between a husband and wife varied widely with
different couples and changed gradually from the time of marriage
to old age. Probably the majority of couples got along very well,
particularly when the young people made their own choice of mates
and were assisted subsequently by their relatives in completing the
malriage ceremonies. Residence was, in theory, matrilocal. A
study of 39 lodge groups at Fishhook Village as of 1872 shows that
22 were matrilocal, 11 were patrilocal, and 6 were both patrilocal
and matrilocal. A young married man was expected to live with his
wife at her lodge and to hunt for her family except when: his mother
had no grown daughters at home; he was an older man long married
and needed a young wife to help his aging wives; or his wife had
several brothers-in-law already living in her mother’s lodge.

At first the bond between the husband and wife was weak and
easily broken by the husband if they were living in the wife’s lodge,
and by the wife if she was living with her husband’s people. This
was probably due to jealousy since the husband would frequently
continue to see girls he had “run around” with before marriage and
husbands were suspicious of their wives and always checking up on
them to see if they had dropped their former sweethearts. There
was a saying that a young married couple would get along better
when their children came. This was generally true.

There was a marked sex dichotomy in labor and in ownership
of property. The woman cared for the garden, cured the meat,
tanned hides and made the clothing, supervised building the lodge,
and did all of the household work. ‘The man hunted, cared for the
horses, assisted in the heavier work of building and repairing the
lodge, went on war expeditions for horses and scalps, and carried
out most of the ritualistic activities.

Sexual relations were avoided during menstrual periods and there
was segregation during that time. Although sexual relations were
not taboo during pregnancy, it was customary for the parents-in-law
to offer another daughter or one standing in that relationship as
second wife when the first one was in advanced pregnancy, since
intercourse was not considered wise after the fifth or sixth month.
In a population with a ratio of nearly three females to each male,
rarely was it impossible to supply a second wife. This was obviously
an insurance against having the man running around with other
women and possibly losing him as well.

In the wife’s lodge a man‘could divorce his wife by simply picking
up his things and walking out—or his wife might tell him to leave.
When living with the husband’s household, a man would generally

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 111

hesitate to tell a wife to leave unless she was one he had married
without the exchange of goods between families. Instead, he would
probably go out visiting to another village and stay away until the
news reached him that the wife had returned to her people. Adul-
tery and mistreatment were the most common grounds for divorce.
Usually the families would attempt to patch up differences between
them. If a man had been unusually mean to his wife and she had
run away or sent him away, he would usually, when desiring a recon-
ciliation, send his sister to straighten matters out. In cases of
separation the children customarily stayed with the mother.

The ties that held husband and wife together were, to begin with,
affection or respect for their parents and, later, children and common
interests in household and village activities, particularly those of
a ritualistic nature. After a few years of married life when the
husband and his wife or wives had adjusted their lives to each other
and the children were coming along, marriages were quite stable;
only during the first years of adjustment were divorces common.
The extended household tended to maintain its structure in spite
of numerous divorces and separations.

OLDER BRoTHER—-YOUNGER BROTHER

A very close bond of mutual assistance and affection prevailed
between brothers of approximately the same age. This was based
on common blood and residence. Age was an important factor in
determining the relationship between brothers. Brothers would
tease each other a great deal but quarreling was largely unknown
due to the early training of the household in which harmony between
persons of the same clan was emphasized. The closest bond was be-
tween “brothers” of the same household, and little distinction was
made between one’s own brothers and the sons of mother’s sisters
living in the same household. Of the other households having close
“brothers,’”’ those in lodges occupied by the mother’s sisters were
considered closer brothers than children of the father’s brothers;
the former were not only “brothers” through blood sisters but were
also of the same clan.

The universal rule that it was the duty of the clan to discipline its
own members might well have been restated to say that it was the
duty of the older male members to discipline and train the younger
male members since much of the actual training of boys and young
men was directed by their ‘‘older brothers.’”” Age was an important
factor in determining whether one gave or received advice. My
informants frequently mentioned accepting advice and instructions
from “older brothers” who, at most, were only afew months older. In
one instance, Wolf Chief had told a male clansman that he would do as

112 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

the other advised because he was the older and therefore would under-
stand such things better—actually, the difference in age between them
was at most not more than 3 months.

An older brother would advise his younger brother in competitive
contests or in hunting small game and take an active interest in the
things he was doing. If the older one had been away to war and had
won honors, he would relate his experiences and encourage the younger
man to follow his ways. If the difference in age was not great, they
would play together, hunt together, chase girls together, and fast
together in the same ceremonies or at the same places away from the
village. They would assist each other in putting up goods to hear the
sacred myths or ask the mother to help them with feasts to their
“fathers” who were to pray for them to be successful in war expeditions.

Older brothers already established in the ceremonies would help the
younger ones in their ambitions to secure a good wife, honors in war,
and rights in ceremonies and age-grade societies. In fact, a younger
brother not making suitable progress was severely criticized by older
brothers. It was the most distinguished older brother’s right to
discipline those not showing special interest in warfare and ritualistic
activities. An older brother rarely punished a younger one unless the
other clan members of the household demanded it. Finding a group
of boys abusing a girl, he would feel obliged to whip and cuff the young
boys of his own clan and related households at once and see that the
girl got back to her lodge without further trouble. Having once
punished his own brothers, the girl’s brothers could not punish them
again. Learning of the attack, “older brothers” of the other boys
involved in the attack would hasten to punish their relatives to avoid
having their property cut up and their horses shot by the girl’s relatives.
Boys caught stealing were also punished by whipping or ducking in the
river to avoid ridicule and retaliation. Older brothers, being around
more with their younger ones, were expected to keep an eye on them
to keep them out of trouble and to avoid situations requiring the inter-
vention of the Black Mouth society.

Inquiry among the older Hidatsas revealed that only a few had ever
been whipped or ducked by an older brother but all had been scolded
at one time or another. Those who had been both ducked and scolded
thought that the scolding was the more severe punishment, for in-
variably it was done in public or word of it got around. In any event,
it was not held against an older brother afterwards since there were so
many situations when he could and did offer assistance. They would
assist each other in progressing through the age-grade societies and if
their age differences were not very great they often bought societies
simultaneously. They would have feasts prepared to show honor

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 113

and respect to the same older people, fast together, dance together,
and even hunt together alone when there were no reports of enemy
activities about.

Unless there was a great difference in age, they would go on raiding
parties together under the leadership of a war chief and assist each
other in capturing horses. In situations of extreme danger, a brother’s
first duty was to protect the other one even when the odds were
against him. Should one be killed by the enemy, his brothers were
expected to avenge his death. One who succeeded in killing the
particular enemy responsible for the death of a brother was highly
respected and Hidatsa traditions are rich in accounts of brothers
going out alone to waylay and kill the person responsible for a brother’s
death. Like the Mandan, there was a special design to be worn
indicating that the wearer had gone out alone far from the village
to kill and scalp one enemy.

It was a man’s duty to see that his deceased brother’s widow and
children were cared for. He held first right to marry the widow
and she ought not remarry with another until her husband’s brothers
had made their views known. A man felt strongly obliged to marry
a widow who had mourned long for her dead husband. A single
man would ask a brother for his wife to assist in certain ceremonies
and one should not refuse his request. If one or more of a man’s
wives wished to go out with her male relatives and their wives to get
meat, and the husband found it inconvenient to go along, he would
frequently send a younger unmarried brother in his place to hunt for
the women and even to assume his own rights and duties. Older
men and women involved in this temporary husband-wife status
explained that this was done to keep other men from running off
with these unattended women. Under no circumstances was a
brother permitted intimacy with a brother’s wife without the other’s
permission. A man would tease his sister-in-law and tell her that
she should go out with him on the prairie or go visiting the Crows,
but she was expected to accept these overtures as a form of teasing
and never take them seriously. If a woman made overtures to her
husband’s brother and he was ‘‘unable to resist,” the woman and not
the man was punished, for it was said that women should have
greater controls of their sexual impulses than men. A brother was
not expected to hold a grievance against another brother; in fact,
when conflict situations arose, brothers invariably banded together.
There are numerous references in the mythology to widespread chaos
in the village stemming from quarrels between brothers.”

18 See ‘The Legendary Period,” pp. 297-308.

114 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

OLDER SISTER—-YOUNGER SISTER

Except where there was a marked difference in age or ability, there
was little difference in behavior between this set of relatives. Where
there was a marked difference in age, the older sister acted more like a
“mother” to the younger one. The bond between sisters was very
strong, being based on close blood ties, residence, sex, occupation, and
lifelong residence together. As children they played together around
the lodge. Later they worked together in the gardens or about the
lodge and cooperated in the same household activities. Quarrels
between sisters were rare and of little consequence. Unless there was
a marked difference in their ages, they were commonly married to the
same man. There was a strict rule that the oldest sister should
marry first and ultimately become the female head of the household.
The younger sisters were expected to marry the same man as they, in
turn, reached marriageable age. When differences in age were great,
however, younger sisters frequently had a different husband and
commonly moved to a different lodge unless the husbands were of
great difference in age. The oldest sister or sisters married to one
man normally inherited the lodge, garden plots and tools, and the
household goods. There was little distinction in behavior between
sisters of the same or of different mothers, provided they were
reared together in the same household. With few exceptions, sisters
reared their deceased sister’s children. Since descent was matrilineal,
children of sisters were adopted without changes in clan affiliation or
kinship terminology.

When a husband maintained two households, the wives were often
of different clans. Then the sister bond was not as close; in fact,
there frequently was mild antagonism toward each other. The
attitude of sisters of different households depended in large measure
on the attitude of their mothers toward each other.

Sisters cooperated in preparing food and goods for ceremonies
performed by their husbands and brothers, working together as a
team. ‘This relationship of two or more sisters working together and
taking over the role held by the mothers formed the basis for the
continuity of the Hidatsa household. Brothers were expected to
marry and move away, but the sisters’ obligation to the household
was primarily that of preserving its continuity.

BROTHER-SISTER

A strong bond existed between a brother and his sister, based on
common blood and residence combined with common economic and
ceremonial interests. They played together until they were 6 or 7
years of age, after which they tended to avoid each other when other

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 115

relatives were not present. Early in life, division in their play and
work activities was emphasized by the parents lest a son take an
undue interest in girls’ toys and dress and become a berdache. Thus,
a boy was treated like a boy and a girl like a girl so that a brother and
sister quickly developed many different interests. Less concern
was shown over a girl who played with bows and arrows than was
shown over a boy who played with a ball or doll.

It was not considered proper for an adult male to carry on prolonged
conversations alone with a sister, particularly if they were alone in the
same lodge. A man would have a great deal in common with a
younger brother or an older sister but very little with a younger sister.
An older sister would tan hides and make clothing for a brother even
when he lived in another household. It was expected that he would
frequently return to eat with the sister’s household. They aided each
other in assembling goods whenever one of their relatives was giving a
feast, and a brother often gave horses or other property for a sister at
dances. Each would put up goods when the other married and do all
that they could to bring honor to the sister’s household. A sister
would look to her brother for help against an abusive husband and one
frequently hears an informant say even today, ‘She got pretty
saucy with her husband for she had many brothers.” However,
brothers did not always defend a sister from her husband’s wrath.
If she was found meeting a lover in the cornfield or while out for wood,
the brothers would do nothing when she was severely beaten. If the
husband was a good provider for the household, the brothers would
recognize this and endeavor to put her straight. (Although no one
thought the less of a runaway woman who returned to her husband,
everyone thought ill of a man who cried around because his wife had
left him and who made overtures to get her to return.)

When there were several mothers in a lodge there were likely to be
brothers and sisters of different ages. If the mothers had died or
were feeble, the younger brothers and sisters were invariably cared for
by older sisters living in the lodge with their husband. These older
sisters cared for them as they did their own children and the children
would come to respect their older brother-in-law and treat him as a
“father.” Although older brothers had an interest in the household,
living in a different lodge after marriage their interests were divided.
They would advise and discipline their younger brothers and sisters
but the principal responsibility for their training rested with the older
sisters. A married brother would bring meat to the family and see
that they were provided with horses for his brother-in-law’s use. In
return he would get assistance from his sisters in his social advance-
ment.

116 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Bull. 194

A sister would fast and pray for her brother’s success when he was
away on a war expedition and she should be the first to meet him
outside of the village when he returned. ‘Then he was expected to
give her the horses he had taken., All his war activities were directed
toward the enrichment of his mother’s household and, in return, his
sisters were expected to inflict the most severe personal self-torture
and to mourn longest were he to be killed.

MoruHErR’s BROTHER-SISTER’Ss SoN; MorHer’s BrRoTHER-SisTER’s DAUGHTER

There is no distinction in the terminology for a mother’s brother;
he is an “older brother” or ‘‘younger brother’? depending on their
relative ages. The sister’s children are ‘brother’ and ‘“‘sister,” older
or younger, depending on their relative ages. In the Hidatsa matri-
lineal system the mother’s brother is a very important relative even
when married and living in a different household. The most distin-
guished mother’s brother was usually considered the head of the
mother’s household and the actual direction and supervision of the
“younger brothers” was his responsibility. It was his chief duty to
direct their interests so that they would bring honors to themselves
and distinction to their household. He advised, punished, and praised
them; he organized their fasting and games of skill and instructed them
in tribal lore.

He would advise a “younger son” in marital matters and give
material assistance if he approved of the match; rarely would a
young man marry someone of whom his mother’s brother disap-
proved. He would condemn a “sister’s son’’ for being derelict in
his ceremonial duties while offering assistance with goods and horses.
Until a young man had made considerable advancement in the cere-
monies he would not tease a ‘“‘mother’s brother,” but should he have
the good fortune to exceed his adviser in amassing war honors, he
would invariably tease his ‘mother’s brother’ saying “I went in
where the fighting was heaviest and see all the honors I have, but
you must have been somewhere else for I see you do not have as
many honors.”

Unlike the Mandan, who transmitted most of their tribal bundles
from mother’s brother to sister’s son or ones standing in that rela-
tionship (except those owned by the clan or reserved for women),
sacred bundles passed from father to son. Therefore, the sister’s son
or daughter did not look to the mother’s brother for ritual training.

The relations of a girl to her mother’s brother were less restrained.
He would give assistance at her wedding or settle domestic quarrels
in the household, but the role he took depended on the assistance
asked of him by his sister.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 117

FatHer’s SisteER-BRoTHER’s Son; FatTHER’s SistER-BROTHER’S DAUGHTER

The father’s sister occupied a position similar to the father in the
ceremonial life and distinguishable only by tribal limitations placed
on the activities of females. It was her right and duty to be present
when a brother’s child was born and to receive presents for rituals
performed at the time of its birth and naming. Most female babies
were named by the father’s sister or a woman standing in that rela-
tionship, the name being taken from ceremonies in which she held
rights with her brother. She was paid by the child’s clan relatives.
The sum was large if a distant “father’s sister” was giving the name
but only a token payment was made if she was the child’s father’s
own sister or the maternal grandfather’s sister.

The father’s sister was expected to pray often for her brothers’
children so that they would be healthy and grow to maturity. In
later years it was expected that they would honor her by giving her
goods and horses during ceremonies and social events. Should her
brothers’ children be sickly, she was expected to come and assist them
with the doctoring and “bring the blanket” if death occurred. Even
though she might be younger than the deceased “‘brother’s child,”
it was her duty to officiate at the funeral, when requested by the
deceased’s clan relatives, and to send the spirit to the “home of the
dead.”

Having assisted her brother each time he made ceremonial pur-
chases, she was likewise considered to have supernatural power
controls, and presents were due her each time honors were shown her
brother. The father’s sister played an important role in the transfer
of the age-grade societies owned by women. She selected as a
“daughter” first those who called her ‘father’s sister”? and instructed
them in the ritual of the society being purchased.

The father’s sister took no part in the marriage of her brother’s
children; neither was it her duty to give presents to the sister-in-
law’s household. Marriages were in no sense religious in nature.

GRANDMOTHER-GRANDCHILD; GRANDMOTHER-DAUGHTER-IN-LAW

In general, grandmothers treated their grandchildren kindly and
looked after them much the same as the ‘‘mothers” of the lodge did.
A child saw more of the maternal grandmothers since they usually
lived together in the same household. These old women, too old for
active work in the gardens or for heavy work around the lodge and
village, usually cared for the grandchildren of the lodge. They
would make toys, offer advice, relate myths and traditions, and teach
skills they had themselves obtained. For this advice and instruction
the children were advised to make payments to them even though
they might be of little value.

710-195—65—9

118 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

A grandmother might sleep with her granddaughter and watch her
to see that the boys did not molest her, going out with her after dark
when the granddaughter had business away from the lodge. A
grandmother was with her granddaughters more than with a grandson.
A grandmother would tease her grandchildren about their associates
and they would do likewise, but teasing was mild out of respect for
her age.

A “grandmother” had a right to meat being brought back to the
village and, learning that a hunting party was approaching the village,
the old women of the village would walk out to the point where the
hunters would pass and sit down to await the men with their loads.
Each hunter was expected to give meat to those women whom he
addressed as ‘‘grandmother” irrespective of the lodge in which she
lived and she, in turn, should sing one of the songs of praise. Any
young man wishing to become a village leader must be generous to the
“orandmothers.”’

A grandmother might adopt a child whose mother and mother’s
sisters had died and care for it until it was old enough to marry. In
return, the child was expected to care for the grandmother during the
latter’s old age.

The paternal grandmother was treated with respect due to her
position as mother of the father from whom one received training in
the ceremonies. She was not teased; in fact, she was feared and
highly respected if her husband owned important ceremonial bundles.
Since men were afraid to marry the widow of one who had important
sacred bundles, even the grandchildren feared her and treated her
with a certain reserve when she came to call. This difference seems
to have been less apparent when she lived in her son’s lodge. As
children grew older the paternal grandmother played a greater role
in the ritualistic training than did the maternal grandmother and,
being of the father’s clan, her knowledge of sacred matters was
solicited and paid for on numerous formal occasions.

Other “grandmothers” were those women whom the husband
called “mother,” “father’s sister,” or “grandmother.” They, in turn
addressed the young man’s wife as “daughter-in-law” to distinguish
her as being not of their blood. If living in different lodges, the
“orandmothers” always treated her with respect. The situation was
somewhat altered with time when living together in the husband’s
household where none of her sisters-in-law lived. Although the wife
preferred to live in her own household, frequently the husband had
no sisters to care for his parents and payments were made to the
daughter-in-law to come to the husband’s lodge to live. This was a
good arrangement for the husband’s people, for, provided they chose a
good daughter-in-law, they would have help around the lodge and in the

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 119

gardens. When the daughter-in-law was treated well and got along
with her husband’s family, she gradually assumed the position of
“one of the family” with the arrival of children. She inherited the
lodge, gardens, and lodge property. After a number of years of
harmonious residence together, the mother-in-law would say that her
daughter-in-law was just like a daughter and would begin to call her
“daughter” and the daughter-in-law would address the mother-in-law
as ‘“mother.’”’ This change in terminology was based on common
residence, common interests in ceremonial bundles held by her
husband, and lodge inheritance. There was not, however, a corres-
ponding change in terminology for the husband’s father, brother, or
sister.

GRANDFATHER-GRANDCHILD; GRANDFATHER—DAUGHTER-IN-LAW

A child showed somewhat different attitudes and feelings toward
the mother’s father than toward the father’s father due to the inher-
itance of sacred bundles and rights from the latter. Residence was
also a factor. A child normally saw more of the mother’s father, so
it was this relative who contributed most to his early training in
games and hunting. The grandfather would make toys for his grand-
sons and teach them games. As the children grew older he would
show more attention to the grandsons, instructing them in the art of
hunting and warfare although not actually participating in those
activities himself. A grandfather might mildly tease his young
grandchildren and they would reciprocate. With age, however, the
children learned to respect and fear their grandfather (particularly if
he was an important leader in the ceremonies) and the teasing less-
ened.

A grandfather might scold one who was lazy or disrespectful and
might even hit one with his cane when they were residents of the
same lodge. The mother’s father, due to his position as the ranking
male member of the lodge, was entitled to meat brought in by a
grandson married into another household merely by walking up when
the hunter was entering the village and saying, ‘“‘We are hungry.”
Should a child lose both parents, the maternal grandparents might
adopt the child, otherwise the child should be cared for by the paternal
grandparents.

A woman classified as “grandfather” all those whom the husband
called ‘father’ or ‘“‘grandfather.’”’ The men, on the other hand, dis-
tinguished her from their blood relatives by classifying her as a
daughter-in-law. She was treated with respect, and teasing was
improper. She was expected to respect them in return, feed and
shelter them, and treat them at all times with kindness. The penal-
ties for those who are unkind to the husband’s father are well illus-

120 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

trated in numerous myths. Women who were kind to their husband’s
father were believed to have good luck all through life.

The grandparents’ roles in the preservation of the tribal traditions
and cultural heritage were important. It was considered proper to
shift the physical responsibilities to persons of middle age, allowing
older people more leisure time. Thus, while the father was engaged
in warfare, hunting, or preparing for ceremonial feasts and rites, and
the mother and her sisters were busy in their various economic,
social, and ritualistic enterprises, the grandparents were free to teach.
It was the pattern of the culture for the younger people to seek out
the knowledge and skills possessed by the older people, particularly
those of their own households. In return, the society offered many
rewards to those possessing unique skills and knowledge. It seemed
to this writer that Hidatsa interest in the history of their tribe and its
institutions is not unique among the older people today.

Much of their culture was transmitted through purchase from
those of the previous generations who had bought from their elders.
Thus, arrows were made only by those with ceremonial rights in
bundles carrying arrow-making songs; pottery was made by those
with bundles associated with Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies; basket-
making was practiced by those with Holy Women rights; fish, eagle,
and game traps were controlled by those with Black Bear rights;
and bullboats and earth lodges went with River bundles. Since
these skills were related to the principal bundles from which the
original rights were given, there was an aura of sacredness about
them. A person wishing to learn to chip flint and to make arrows
could buy the rights and receive the instructions from those with
the sacred bundle or he could buy the rights from one who had bought
secondary rights from the bundle owner. In practice, it meant that
a young man would go first to the people of his own household,
generally a maternal grandfather, for instruction and training. The
same rules would apply to a woman wishing to obtain the knowledge
of pottery making. One did not have the right to make those things
or perform those rites which were privately or group owned without
first getting permission. Thus, much of the knowledge which one
acquired during his or her lifetime, often at a high price, was shared
with the younger generations, while the goods received in payment
helped to sustain them in old age.

MortrseErR-IN-LAW-SON-IN-LAW

A man classified as ‘“‘mother-in-law” all those females that his wife
and his own brothers’ wives classed as “mother,” “father’s sister,”
and “grandmother.” In theory, all of a woman’s sons-in-law’s
extended ‘‘older brothers” and ‘‘younger brothers” were also “‘sons-in-

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION ed:

law” but ordinarily these extended kin were not so recognized. ‘There
was complete avoidance of recognized sons-in-law, but the limits to
which the taboo extended were largely determined by the associations
of extended “brothers.” The avoidance taboo would invariably ex-
tend to two households, the wife’s mother’s and the wife’s father’s
sister’s, but generally there were four or more lodges in which the son-
in-law could not carry on a conversation with the older females.

When residence was matrilocal, a separate section on the left side of
the lodge was prepared for the son-in-law and his wives; here he was
expected to stay when the ‘mothers-in-law’”’ were in the lodge.
Should they meet in the entrance to the lodge or out in the village, they
would turn their heads and appear not to recognize each other. Un-
less the son-in-law’s section was ready when the marriage was com-
pleted, the newly married couple would live with the husband’s people
until it was ready. However, if the family was in urgent need of a
hunter, quick work was made of finishing the repairs. When residence
was patrilocal, the taboo caused little inconvenience to the husband.
He was free to move around his mother’s lodge at will, help himself to
the food at the fireplace if the women were away, clutter up the lodge
with his riding equipment, and have friends in at any time. In his
wife’s lodge he had none of these privileges. Conversations were
relayed through the wife as intermediary.

The son-in-law could break this taboo by taking a scalp in warfare
and bringing it to any one of the numerous women classified as
“mother-in-law.’”?’ One of the women then would carry the scalp
during the victory dances and proclaim her new ‘‘son’’ so all could hear.
Then all would know that he no longer avoided her. He would ad-
dress these “‘mothers-in-law”’ thereafter by the same terms as his wife
did. Scalps were never brought to the mothers-in-law unless one was
living in their lodge. ‘To have done so while living with his own people
would have been grounds for much teasing on the part of his joking
relations. They would say, “That foolish fellow must not trust his
wife; perhaps he is getting his mother-in-law on his side.’”’ Others
would say, ‘‘Perhaps he is going to give up his wife and marry his
mother-in-law.’ In any event, the taboo was never broken down
when the man was living with his own people.

The scalp was a mark of prestige; to give it to the wife’s household
instead of his own was to bring extreme honors to them. They would
dance and sing his praises. Apparently the wife’s family did not ex-
pect the first scalp. When, however, he had taken scalps on several
occasions without honoring the wife’s people, his omission was viewed
as an insult. Their joking relations would say ‘‘We heard that your
son-in-law won great honors the last time he was to war but I don’t
suppose you would know anything about that,” or ‘We heard he

122 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

meant to bring you a piece of it but a White man gave him a bottle of
whisky for it.’ Repeated successes in warfare without recognizing
the mother-in-law often led to divorce. Giving the mother-in-law
a scalp was no guarantee that the marriage would be successful, but
it did help in changing the status of the son-in-law in the wife’s house-
hold. He could help himself to food when the women were out, bring
in his friends, and do about as he would in his own household. Al-
though his status was somewhat improved after children had come,
there was still general avoidance unless the taboo was broken in the
above manner.
FatHEer-1n-LAw-Son-1n-LAw

Although the taboo was not as extreme in the case of father-in-
law and son-in-law, it was not considered proper to sit around and
visit. If they had business to transact, they discussed it and then
separated. The same reserve prevailed through life and was not
modified by long residence together or the presentation of scalps to
the mothers-in-law. The avoidance was not as strict when the
father-in-law and son-in-law were of the same clan, for there were
many situations when cooperation outside of the household was
necessary. Unlike the Mandan, there seems to have been no effort
to get a son-in-law of the same clan.

BrotHeER-1IN-LAW-BROTHER-IN-LAW

This was a relationship based on marriage. One classified as
brothers-in-law the husbands of “sisters”? and the “brothers” of one’s
wives. In terminology and behavior no distinction was made
between the two groups. There was mutual assistance between
them. Brothers-in-law generally hunted together and if one was
unmarried and living in the same lodge, they would pool their meat
and bring it to the same household. The wife’s brother would
bring back horses from raids and give them to his sister for her
husband’s use to show respect for his sister’s husband who was hunt-
ing to provide for the family. Assistance was interpreted in terms of
the welfare of the sister’s household since it was not considered proper
to give a brother-in-law horses when residence was patrilocal.

There was usually a certain amount of rivalry between them in
ceremonial matters. Although a woman would assist either a brother
or a husband in obtaining sacred rites, a man would receive assistance
from a brother and a sister but never directly from a sister’s husband.

When the wife had small brothers whom she was caring for in the
lodge, her husband frequently assumed the role of a “father,’’ pro-
viding for the younger “‘brothers-in-law’s” physical needs and instruct-
ing them in sacred matters. Jf a man was mean to his wife, beating
her too severely or accusing her falsely, brothers-in-law were likely

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 123

to interfere, especially if the man was not a good provider or was
not the owner of important sacred bundles. The Hidatsa have a
saying that “a woman won’t take much abuse from her husband
if she has many brothers.” Other times one will hear them say,
“She was saucy to her last husband too because she had many
brothers and now she is a widow again.” Nevertheless, a husband
could make certain demands of his wife that even her brothers would
not question. Should her husband whip her for failing to perform
her duties, the brothers were unlikely to do anything about it.

SISTER-IN-LAW-SISTER-IN-LAW

In this class are the females the husband calls “sister”? and the
wives of those men she addresses as “older brother.” It was cus-
tomary to distinguish age by classifying the spouse of a younger
“brother” as a daughter-in-law when the difference in their ages
was 10 years or more. There was mutual assistance between sisters-
in-law, irrespective of their residence. They normally were in
different households but, in any instance, helped each other, working
on robes, or curing meat while out with hunting parties. When a
man prepared food and goods for a ceremony, his principal assistants
were his wives and his sisters. They shared the confidence and
respect of a common man. Returning from the hunt, each should
be cared for; finding his wife out visiting, he would go to his sister’s
lodge to eat.

BRoOTHER-IN-LAW-SISTER-IN-LAW

A woman classified as brother-in-law all males her husband classified
as “older brother’ and “younger brother,’’ and the husbands of
women she classified as “older sister” and “younger sister.”” By the
extension of the kinship system, a female had many brothers-in-
law and a male had many sisters-in-law. By the operation of the
sororate and levirate, all of a woman’s “brothers-in-law”’ were poten-
tial husbands, and all of a man’s “‘sisters-in-law’’ were potential wives.
Rarely, however, did a blood brother assume the duties of a deceased
brother, chiefly because he was usually already married into a dif-
ferent household. If he was getting along well there he would be
likely to invite trouble since jealousies would be sure to arise. A
single man would often be teased by his joking relatives, but if he
was attached to his brother’s children more than to some young
unmarried woman he would usually take his brother’s widow in
order to provide for the children. It was usually a more distant
“brother,” however, who married the widow. Instances of marriage
to a deceased wife’s younger sister were even more rare, chiefly
because seldom were any available. If the family intended to have

124 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

sisters marry the son-in-law, the marriages were already completed
before the death of one of the sisters. It was common occurrence
for two brothers actively engaged in warfare together to promise
each other and their wives that, in the event one brother was killed,
the other would marry the widow and care for her children. Then
friction rarely developed between the two households.

A brother-in-law would tease his sister-in-law a great deal, often
carrying the teasing to the point of vulgarity. He would accuse her
of love affairs with decrepit old men or little boys and ask her when
he could take her out. Often when the husband could not get away
for a hunt planned by a few households he would send a brother in
his place to look after his wife, hunting and butchering for her.
Supplying a wife for a brother to use in a ceremony or age-grade
purchase was a common occurrence. Cooperation between brothers-
in-law and sisters-in-law in ceremonies was the usual practice since
a man making these purchases would have the assistance of his wife
and his brothers as well as his wife’s sisters.

FRIEND—FRIEND

This was a relationship prevailing between two males or two
females. The selection was made by the individuals themselves
and was of an informal nature. They would play together. Men in
later years hunted or went to war together. The only bond was a
common liking for each other. A list of a dozen or more sets of
friends showed that rarely were they of the same clan. Age and com-
patability seemed to be the basis for these associations. It was of
common occurrence for two male friends to marry two girls who were
friends or for a man to marry two girls who were close friends.

JOKING RELATIVE-JOKING RELATIVE

This is a relationship between related kin with a difference in
the degree of teasing depending upon the relationships between the
opposing parties. The term ‘joking relative’ applied, in descending
order of activity, to persons whose fathers were of the same clan;
sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law; persons of the same clan; persons
whose fathers were of the same moiety or “linked” clans; and grand-
parents with grandchildren.

It was the right of the ‘joking relative’ to criticize an offender of
tribal custom and standards, and one was obliged to accept it in good
grace. Men would tease one who had less honor marks or had not
stolen many horses. Even a member of the village council was not
above criticism. Crows Heart had distinguished himself in warfare
and for a number of years had the highest war record of the Mandan
and Hidatsa. Still, his joking relatives would tease him, saying that

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 125

he was once brave but now that there were no enemies around, he was
even afraid of the snakes. On one occasion he and a number of his
Hidatsa inlaws were returning from visiting the Sioux on the Cannon-
ball River. They stopped in the shade along the river to eat and rest.
While the men were sitting there he looked around and his joking
relative asked him if he was afraid of snakes. While they were dozing,
a bullsnake crawled over his arm. His joking relative saw the snake
and waited for Crows Heart to jump away so that he could tease him
but Crows Heart, pretending to be sleeping, waited until the snake
had crawled half way through his hand and then threw it at his joking
relative, striking him onthe chest. Not being prepared for this sudden
turn in events, his joking relative jumped away. Crows Heart then
said, ‘‘Now I see that my joking relative is not very brave. He went
out to war all the time but he never won many honors. When there
were enemies to strike, he must have been somewhere sleeping.”

The most severe criticism was leveled at one who had been cowardly.
A joking relative was expected to save another in danger and failure
to do so would have brought down upon the person such criticism that
he would have been ashamed to appear in council or to offer advice on
village matters. If one was angry at a joking relative and was the
possessor of greater war honors, he could say ‘“That is how I strike my
enemies” and administer a severe blow to the other who could not, on
penalty of loss of face, strike back. Often brothers returning from a
successful war expedition with scalps would search out a joking relative
who had not shown much interest in warfare or had not struck the
enemy when out. Seizing him, they would hold him and cut his hair
off, telling him that it was a man who looked just like him that they
had scalped. Then it was the right of the victim to demand a good
horse in return.

It was the duty of the joking relatives to criticize one who made
unjust claims of bravery or industry and to set him aright. As arule,
the severity of criticism and teasing was influenced byage. Individuals
with a great difference in age criticized and teased each other less
severely even though they were children of men of the same clan, for
one was supposed to show due respect for age. The degree of teasing
was also affected by residence. ‘Those living in the same lodge were
supposed to live together harmoniously; therefore, the more distant
‘Joking relatives’’ were the ones who were most active.

The importance of the joking relative cannot be overemphasized.
No one, from the highest chief to the lowliest orphan, was exempt from
these relatives. If criticism and teasing were not taken in good
grace, one was certain to lose prestige. If one resorted to force, public
opinion and, if necessary, the Black Mouths could interfere. How-

126 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

ever, since the clan should discipline its own members, it seems that
matters never got entirely out of hand.

Lirt CyYcLE

Most social, economic, and ritualistic activities were more complex
sets of relationships than was indicated above in the analysis of
general attitudes and behavior patterns prevailing between pairs of
relatives. Relatives had prescribed duties and obligations for every
important occasion in the life of a Hidatsa. Some insight into their
general attitudes and behavior patterns is indicated by tracing an
individual from birth to death. Since no effort has heretofore been
made to bring together the important events in the life cycle of this
tribe, it is particularly appropriate that these specific aspects be
examined in relation to the total cultural setting.

BIRTH AND NAMING

It is rather difficult to get adequate information on Hidatsa beliefs
concerning conception and birth. On inquiry about the physical
nature of conception, informants invariably mention “spirits” entering
the mother’s body, causing a baby to develop there. Although they
frequently cite instances of virgins giving birth to babies who grew
up to become culture heroes, they consider humorous any suggestion
that unmarried girls of recent times gave birth to children without
actual intercourse. On the other hand, they recognized that all
married women did not have children.

The spirits destined eventually to become human beings, like those
that will become animals and birds, were believed to inhabit certain
hills in their traditional territory. Three of these hills are remembered:
one is near the mouth of Knife River; a second is on the Heart River;
the third is southwest of Dickinson, N. Dak., and east of the Little
Missouri River. Each hill was believed to be an earth lodge in which
the babies lived and were cared for by anold man. Women would put
toys at the foot of these hills if they wanted children. It is of signifi-
cance that in the memories of my informants, only the hill near the
Little Missouri and farthest from their villages had been visited by
childless women. Matthews (1877, p. 51) indicated that men were
accustomed to fast at these hills when desiring ason. If this was true,
the custom has fallen into disuse. According to native beliefs,
children desiring to leave the hill and be born, must crawl across a
ditch within this earth lodge on an ash pole. If they succeeded in
reaching the opposite side without falling into the ditch, they would be
born into the tribe soon afterward. One time when Cherries-in-
Mouth, Cuts-his-Hair, Sitting Elk, Puts-His-Hair-Away, and Crows

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 127

Heart were out on the warpath under the leadership of Cherries-in-
Mouth, Crows Heart wanted to go onto the Baby Hill near the Little
Missouri to look around, but the leader said, ‘‘We came out to look for
our enemies, not babies’ tracks.” Shortly afterward, however, the
entire party went to Buffalo Home Butte nearby to see if the buffaloes
had been coming out of the cave recently. They made offerings of
eagle feathers to the buffalo spirits residing in the hill and asked the
buffaloes to come out faster, for the number on the earth was not very
great at that time.

It was believed that the tracks of the little babies and buffaloes
could be seen under the rocks and in the caves of those hills where
they were believed to reside. Some people would claim that they
could remember things before they were born. Sitting Elk ™ of the
Hidatsa and Standing Bear of the Mandan would claim that they
could even remember each other when they lived in the Baby Hill.
Standing Bear was in the lead and they came to the washout with a
small pole as a bridge. Standing Bear crossed safely but Sitting Elk
fell from the pole after he had reached the opposite side, so he was
delayed. Standing Bear was born first. Although they were born of
different mothers, Standing Bear would call Sitting Elk his ‘‘younger
brother” for they had started out of the hill at approximately the same
time. Standing Bear said when they grew up, “I crossed the bridge
and went on but Sitting Elk nearly fellin. That is the sign that I am
going to live to an old age but Sitting Elk will not grow old.” Stand-
ing Bear and Sitting Elk called each other brother even though the
former belonged to the Mandan Tamisik clan and the latter to the
Hidatsa Waterbuster clan.

The concept of the origin of humans from spirit homes was extended
to other animal life as well. There were numerous Buffalo Spirit homes
where offerings were made for the propagation of the big mammals.”

From the ceremonial myths believed to be of Awatixa village origin,
it appears that they, unlike the Hidatsa and Awaxawi, thought that
they came from the sky in contrast to the other groups who tell of the
first settlement of the earth from people coming from underground.
Sometimes a person would say that he came from above when he was
born and that, when he died, he would return to the land above.
Then the people would say that he talked just like an Awatixa.
Frequent reference is made in the sacred myths to former existence in
the sky. A common theme of these myths is that one’s former
existence will be revealed by visions. ‘The Hidatsa also believed that
the spirit babies would play with sticks and were so rough that some

14He had a Naxpike bundle but was obliged to leave the village after he murdered Edge-of-Rock. a

clansman,
16 See Earthnaming Rites, pp. 433-436, for these spirit homes,

128 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

would be hit on the base of the spine producing a purple mark which
was distinguishable for several months after birth.

If a pregnant woman ate the pancreas, or killed snakes or any
animals, she would have a difficult delivery. She should not eat or
look at a rabbit or the child would have a split lip. If she ate eggs, it
was believed that the child would awaken early in the morning and
keep the people awake. She should not quarrel and become angry or
the child might come too soon and die. If she braided grass and made
a ring of it, or picked up a ring of braided grass, the male child might be
deformed. It was believed that working in the cornfield was good for
a pregnant woman, for the baby would then be strong but not so large
as to make delivery difficult. The older women would tell their
daughters having their first babies that if they kept busy and did not
think about it, the delivery was always easier.

Regardless of residence, it was customary for a woman to give birth
to her first baby at her mother’s lodge assisted by her female clans-
women. Various household rites were employed when delivery was
difficult. If delivery was further delayed, her husband’s sister and
mother were expected to contribute assistance. If their measures
failed, certain women having both sacred rites and practical knowledge
relating to childbirth were called in and paid to assist the women.
The otter was believed to possess the supernatural power to make
delivery easier. Other doctors used black root, scrapings from the
turtle, or pulverized rattlesnake rattles taken with water to induce
delivery.

It was the maternal grandmother’s responsibility to care for the
child, and bury the placenta or wrap it and place it out of the reach of
animals. The child was wrapped in soft tanned hide and placed in a
cradle made of buffalo hide. The household group made the cradle,
the men providing a young buffalo’s hide which the women tanned
prior to cutting and sewing the parts together.

The child was taken from the cradle twice a day to be washed and
cleaned. The rites of naming the child were viewed as the formal way of
introducing him to his father’s relatives. Often a child was named by
the maternal grandfather living in the lodge and only a nominal
payment was made for the service. When the child was named by
someone outside of the household—a ‘‘distant’’ father or father’s
sister—it was customary to procure a supply of fresh meat and garden
products, take the child to the person giving the name, and pay him
with the food. The richer families usually gave a horse also. The
name given was taken from some incident or association with the
name-giver’s sacred bundle. The person giving the name would first
pray to his or her medicine bundles. When a boy was to be named,
one would ask his sacred things to give him good health so that when

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 129

he grew up he would be helpful to his people and brave in battle.
They would ask that he live a long useful life and be a leader among
the people, kind to the old, and have much to show for his efforts.
One would ask that a girl be industrious and good to her people so that
she would sometime have a happy home with a good hunter and
warrior as her husband.

Prior to receiving a name, children occupied a marginal position
between the spirit world and the mother’s household. Should they
die unnamed, they were wrapped and placed without ceremony in a
tree with other unnamed children. From there the spirit left the body
and returned to the Baby Hill or other place from whence it had come,
while the body was thought to be consumed by Sun and his sister,
cannibals of the upper world. Only rarely did an individual ‘‘know”’
the hill or place to which a child returned; this information usually
was revealed to the child years later during fasting.

Birth and naming made the child a member of the mother’s house-
hold and clan while additional transitional rites between birth and the
attainment of adulthood were the means of establishing new sets of
relationships, some of which were with people outside of the village
and tribe. The naming ceremony also introduced the child to the
people of the father’s clan. The child’s position was then complete
as far as the immediate parental clan groups were concerned. It was
further believed that one’s “real”? person was not revealed until
fasting had been undertaken seriously. Then one’s spiritual father
would come to him and enumerate the things the young man should
undertake to help his people.

TRAINING AND CEREMONIAL PARTICIPATION

The early training of a Hidatsa child was largely entrusted to the
mother, with assistance from the other females of the lodge. When
the mother was ill or died during childbirth, it was not uncommon to
give the child to another woman to care for and to adopt. At an early
age, boys began to receive training different from that of girls. Boys
were trained in games of hunting and warfare by the older men,
especially the grandfathers, of the lodge, or by the younger men of the
lodge who were classified as “older brothers.’”? The father’s role,
particularly as far as it concerned his first son, was likely to be one of
aloofness and distance if living in the wife’s lodge. He was expected to
hunt for the household and help protect the village from its enemies.
Thus his attention was directed toward other matters. He was
expected to show respect for his son by neither scolding nor punishing
him. When a child was old enough to walk, he was usually in constant
company with the other children of the lodge and their closest rela-
tives of related households. An older brother would look after a

130 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

younger one, seeing that he did not get hurt or stray away, pulling
him back when approaching too close to the horses or when in danger
of falling into an open cache pit. A younger sister would be given into
the care of one of the older sisters of the lodge. Those a little older
would teach the younger ones games which they had learned from
those a little older than themselves. Thus the knowledge possessed
by the older siblings was passed down to the younger ones. Most
of a boy’s economic training came from the maternal grandfather and
the older brothers—less frequently a brother-in-law—while his
ritualistic training was reserved for the father and the people of the
father’s clan. Except for ritualistic training, most of the cultural
heritage was transmitted informally. A girl received most of her train-
ing from her mother and the older women of the lodge. Although her
own mother was closest to her, as a rule, all lodge females would give
advice and training directed toward her welfare and upbringing.
The household was sharply divided as far as its child-training func-
tions were concerned; one looked to the mother’s lineage for economic
and social training while the father’s lineage assumed the responsi-
bility for ritualistic training.

A boy was discouraged from playing with toys usually used by
girls while, to a lesser degree, girls were not encouraged to play with
boys’ toys. “Spin the top” was the first game played by very small
boys while the girls of the same age would play with marbles and
beads. Usually the maternal grandfather would make the top and
show the little boy how to spin it. The maternal grandmother or
some other old woman of the lodge would supply the toys for the
little girls and show them how to string the beads or roll the marbles.

Even though men had firearms, the boys had bows and arrows.
It was said that a Hidatsa boy grew up with a bow and arrows. He
was given a bow and blunt arrows as soon as he was able to use them.
At first he would use them around the lodge, shooting into the coals
or at targets made of grass set up against one of the lodge posts.
Girls of the same age would have a ball to roll and kick. Gambling
was common and encouraged by the adults. A boy would invite
another of an adjoining earth lodge to come over and shoot at a
target, usually a stuffed rabbit skin, and the one who hit it would
take both arrows. The old men of the lodges would join in the
contest, betting things for their lodge members, and pitting lodge
against lodge. It would not be long until the young boys of the
same age were shooting at moving objects with greatly improved bows
and arrows. Wolf Chief said that he was not more than 6 years of
age when he began testing his skill with other boys in the game of
“tied up,” one involving shooting arrows into a stuffed bird thrown
into the air by some old man. Each contestant would usually have

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 131

some old man and older brothers there advising him, showing him
how to lead the moving object so as to hit it. In none of my accounts
was there reference to the father’s participation in these games.

While boys of 6 or 7 years of age were gaining proficiency in the
use of bows and arrows, the girls would play “‘kick ball’’ or learn to
sew clothing for their dolls. The women would encourage the little
girls to care for their younger sisters and encourage the boys to pro-
tect and look after their younger brothers. Little boys just learning
to use the bow and arrows would help the older ones to surround
small patches of brush where rabbits were known to stay and to keep
them from running out while they closed in on them. Frequently
100 or more children, both boys and girls, would surround a patch
of brush to enclose the rabbits. Then the older boys would teach
their younger brothers how to hit moving targets. According to the
reminiscences of numerous informants, this must have been common
winter sport for Hidatsa children. Each child was entitled to the
animals he had killed, identification of his rabbits being made by
special markings on the arrows. Returning home with his rabbits,
the parents would praise him and say that he would surely be a great
hunter and warrior when he grew up. Informants related that they
went out to surround rabbits while still so young that it was necessary
for their older brothers to carry them through the deeper snowdrifts.
Some older person would act as ‘‘crier’” for the boys and call through
the village that the little boys should get their weapons and come out
for the rabbit hunt. Here we see, even in the childhood games of
boys under 10 years of age, elements of the adult social pattern: the
organized age-group with an announcer; the leader; the cooperating
group; and the approval of society as a whole, expressed by praise
for those who had demonstrated exceptional skill.

Concepts of reciprocal obligations were taught early in life. A boy
would get his bow and arrows from his maternal grandfather who,
in turn, should be presented with some of the rabbits, gophers, or
prairie chickens shot with them. A girl would do favors for her
“‘srandmothers” who had made toys for her or had taught her how
to decorate things with beads and quills. Informants spoke warmly
of these relatives and the reciprocal relationships of their childhood.

The discipline of little boys and girls was a household responsibility
and the duty of the older members of the clan. In some situations
they learned about the police. When word was sent through the
winter camp that everyone should be quiet, for the buffalo herds were
approaching the river, freedom of movement about camp was often
permitted by the Black Mouth police society provided there was no
noise. One informant said that when he was 6 years old he was
sliding downhill with other boys and girls of his age when word went

132 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

around that the buffaloes had appeared on the hills opposite and that
everyone should be quiet. The children forgot about this order and
began to shout. The police appeared carrying their clubs. Seeing
them, the children ran for home for they had been told that the Black
Mouths killed people who did not obey their orders and there was
nothing the people could do about it.

There were always a number of old women in the village who
encouraged boys to be active so that they would become good hunters
and warriors when they grew up. In the fall, when the corn was in
the milk, one of these old women would invite the boys and girls under
10 years of age to come to her garden where she had prepared roasted
corn on the cob for them. The girls would stand around the fire
where the corn was roasting while some old man would line up the
boys for a footrace to be run to the fire. The girls would shout as
when someone returned from the war with horses and scalps while
the boy who ran fastest was praised and told that he would surely be
the first of his group to strike the enemy. Boys were always running
footraces in imitation of the young men preparing for war. Some of
these courses were 5 and 6 miles in length. The older men would
encourage them to race, and commonly bet on their relatives.

Girls’ training was quite different from that of the boys. They
cared for their younger brothers and sisters when the women were out
of the lodge. As they grew older they were taught to cook, care for
the lodge, make and repair clothing, and care for the gardens. Even
the heavier work in the gardens was performed by the females of the
lodge. Although old men too feeble to engage in hunting or warfare
would frequently assist the women of the household in clearing brush,
repairing fences, or even hoeing the garden if the work proved too
much for the women, boys and young men were never permitted to
assist. This prohibition was fortified by ritual beliefs that those
young men who performed women’s customary duties were more
likely to dream of the Woman Above and become berdaches. This
resulted in a distinct sex dichotomy of labor. The only common
exceptions were butchering and retrieving wood from the river.

Children were taught, when 4 or 5 years old, to respect the sacred
bundles hanging at the head of the lodge. They were told by their
clansmen that these bundles were gods and that they should “cry to
these bundles” whenever they thought of them to get good luck. All
“older brothers” were not equally entitled to discipline a younger one.
Special rights and obligations were held by those who had shown
bravery in war. Age and experience were important, for a boy only
2 or 3 years older would teach the younger one all that he knew. An
“older brother” who had been unusually brave in battle would make it
a point to watch while going through the village for younger ones who

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 133

were not doing right and scold them. Frequently he was an older
brother by the extension of the kinship system to include males of the
same clan. Finding the boys playing rough or teasing the girls, he
would seize one of his own clan and duck him in the river or hit him
with a strap saying, ‘“This is the way I hit the enemy.’”’ They would
say that boys who fought with the girls would not be brave in battle.

Older brothers, particularly the mother’s brothers, were the ones to
prepare the younger ones for their first fasting. The first fasting was
customarily begun at the age of 7 or 8 years. It was customary for
a boy of that age to accompany a brother a few years older to the
ceremonial grounds and stay with him. Advice and direction was
given by a brother who had fasted often. A boy 7 or 8 years old
would be afraid to attend alone, but it was considered great sport to
fast if accompanied by an older brother. Seeing that his son was
making plans for his first fasting, the father would take some object
from one of his sacred bundles and place it on a stick to be set up in
front of his son at the ceremonial lodge. Relatives—father’s and
mother’s—would praise him and call his name as he walked to the
ceremonial grounds, saying that he would surely be a brave man
when he grew up. The household would bring presents to the cere-
monial grounds and give them to people of the boy’s father’s clan
who, in turn, would pray for the success of the “‘son.’”’ Small boys
were not expected to stay at the ceremonial grounds for the entire 4
days but they were expected to stay for a short time. Usually most
of the small boys had left the ceremony by the end of the first day.
On future occasions, they would stay for 2 or even 3 days. By the
time a boy was 15 or 16 years of age, fasting was taken more seriously,
for he was then reaching the age when he should be going out on his
first war expedition. Fasting introduced a boy to a new set of rela-
tives, particularly the ‘ceremonial’ fathers; the prominent men of
his father’s clan.

When the boys reached the age of 11 or 12 years, they would run
in gangs chasing the girls. The older brothers would criticize the
younger ones for dressing up in their finest clothes and watching the
girls all the time when they should be fasting or caring for the horses.
At this age, boys often made a great deal of trouble around the village.
Those who took little interest in training for warfare would dress in
their best clothes and loaf around the village or at the trading posts
watching for the girls. The girls were taught not to be intimate with
these boys for they would be poor hunters and have no war records.
Nevertheless, gangs of boys would watch for girls to catch them alone.
It was considered great sport to catch a girl who was being watched
especially closely by her female relatives. Girls would be scolded for
carrying on an affair with the boys, while nothing was usually said to

710-195—65——10

134 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

a boy unless he gave so much attention to the girls that he neglected
other duties. Cases of rape were common. The offender might be
severely whipped by the girl’s brothers or the man’s sisters might try
to restore good relations by expressing regrets and giving her house-
hold a horse or other valuables. The young man would lose face as
it was considered cowardly to force a woman into sexual relations
against her will.

It was at this age, when the young boys were getting into mischief
and just before they were old enough to go on war expeditions as
camp tenders, that they joined the Stone Hammer society. At the
age of 12 to 15, boys organized and bought the society from the older
boys who were ready to buy the next higher one. As members of the
Stone Hammer society they were expected to confine their mischief to
those times when the society was meeting. They would announce
their meetings in advance so that all would hear; then those who failed
to protect their food were likely to lose much of it during the night.
The society owned a stuffed mouse to which they prayed, asking it to
help them find the best food. The leader would tie the mouse in his
hair before going out on a raid for food. The members would grease
their bodies to make seizure difficult, paint their bodies with the dis-
tinctive society markings, and tie up their hair in a knot. If a lodge
door was securely barred, entrance was often made down the chain
suspended from the smokehole or poles were removed from the side of
the lodge. Old people would often place their meat between robes on
the bed so that they would waken if someone attempted to move it.
Frequently old men would stay up all night talking and smoking
around the fire with the meat in a conspicuous place near them to
encourage the boys to attempt to slip in quietly and remove it. This
was considered good practice for stealing horses when older. Other
households would set up various traps to warn them that prowlers
were at hand. This was considered good training for entering a Sioux
camp undetected when out raiding horses.

When one was caught stealing, his hands were tied in back of him
and around one of the large lodge posts. His associates would return
to the lodge where the society had its headquarters to report the
misfortune. The society would collect goods and follow the leader
to the lodge where its member was being held prisoner and form a
circle around him crying. The old people would scold them severely
for attempting to steal their best meat. Then the boys would offer
some of their goods to free their member. A high price was always
set, not expecting that it would be paid, but not infrequently the boys
paid up without dickering. Old women would warn them that the
next time they would keep them tied up longer and it would cost them
more to get their member back. It was understood that if the boys

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 135

failed once, they would continue until they succeeded. When they were
successful in stealing from a lodge, the old woman of the household
would prepare a feast for them. ‘They would smoke the pipe she had
filled and had ready for them; then they would enjoy the food, singing
and dancing while they ate. After that it was considered improper to
steal from that household. Wolf Chief said that during the time he
was a member, he had been in many of the Arikara lodges and all of
the Mandan and Hidatsa lodges looking for food. This training in
entering a lodge undetected was considered good training for entering
an enemy camp at night.

A boy was encouraged to fast during all ceremonies that included
fasting rites. At the age of 15 or 16 he was constantly reminded to
fast by his ‘‘older brothers” if he did not join in the ceremonies. He
was scolded publicly; even his mother would cry because the family
was poor and her son was not doing anything to help them. When
there were a number of boys of approximately the same age in several
related households, the bravest and most distinguished older brothers
would frequently select a man classified as ‘father’? who had led
war parties to take the boys out from ,the village, there to supervise their
fasting and suffering. He would see that they cried to the holy things
and did not take food or water. He would suggest that the boys cut
off a finger, cut flesh from their body, or be suspended from a tree or
bank by means of thongs put through the skin to induce dreams from
the spirits. Those who agreed were tortured by the man in the manner
that they chose. He would promise the bravest ones that they could
go out with the next war expedition.

Because of the numerous enemy tribes near at hand, it was necessary
for the Hidatsa to herd their horses continuously during the daytime
and bring them in at night. Except when snow was on the ground,
scouts were kept out beyond the range of the grazing animals. A
common arrangement was to place the horses in charge of the younger
boys, while those who had been to war acted as scouts to signal in
case an enemy war party was discovered. Frequently, several older
boys would take out the horses and train the younger ones. Those
showing sufficient skill in handling horses were invited to accompany
war parties and assist in driving back the captured animals.

The most distinctive feature of Hidatsa child training was its
uniformity. Irrespective of the unequal and changing status positions
of the various households, each child had essentially the same oppor-
tunities. Some households would have no fathers to whom the boys
could go for ritualistic training; nevertheless, they could attain emi-
nence by following the instructions of the older persons of the house-
hold. One could acquire the sacred bundles and ceremonial rights
owned by a deceased father provided he showed bravery in battle,

136 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

was industrious, and married well. Nevertheless, a young man was
ereatly handicapped by having no father to whom he could go for
early guidance in ritualistic matters. He was further handicapped
belonging to a household without an adult hunter, for it never received
the same share of hides and could not put up as much goods in the
ceremonies. Likewise, having no mature male to assist in the cere-
monies, the household did not receive many gifts during the cere-
monies. Due to the heavy losses of males as war casualties, it was
not uncommon for a household to be without a male provider for
several years, during which time the children were growing up, for
the Hidatsa population was composed primarily of women and
children.

Although the products of the community summer hunts were
equally available to all households, as were the animals taken in corrals
during other seasons, they did not always resort to these methods of
securing game. The people of the clan would provide their basic
necessities and the women of the household would trade garden
produce for meat and other things. A boy would frequently stay
out of an age-grade society in which he should belong because he felt
that his people could not spare the goods. At the same time, other
boys would take the honored positions because their families were
wealthy and showed good prospects of a continuous income from
prominent positions held in the various tribal ceremonies. Death
of a father was a serious blow to a young man’s ceremonial ambitions—
chiefly because one was expected to pay ‘‘ceremonial’’ fathers for
their advice and, frequently, the household was poor.

The Hidatsa say that the best husbands often were those who had
no fathers or became orphans too late to be adopted; they had to
work hard to get ahead. The sons of eminent men were the ones to
lead the war parties but the poor boys were often the ones to capture
most of the horses. Difference in wealth was reflected in the course
of a young man’s interests. One who was poor and felt unable to
accumulate the goods to buy the deceased father’s rites, generally
established personal bundles based on his visions preliminary to later
tribal bundle purchases when he had prospered. ‘The richer boy,
while still a relatively young man, would perform the formal cere-
monies and obtain the same rites as his father owned. A young
man’s interest, whether in warfare and hunting or in rituals, was
usually evident before he had married. This was partially deter-
mined by his birth—into a household that either did or did not possess
many rights in ceremonies. In either instance the course followed
to attain eminence was difficult and exceedingly competitive.

A young man usually received his first serious training in the hard-
ships of warfare and hunting at one of the formal ceremonies which

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 13%

included fasting and torturing as a part of the rituals. By partici-
pating with the household furnishing the goods and horses as gifts
to the ceremonial fathers, one could enhance the status of the person
putting on the ceremony. The demands were so great that only
those who were married could initiate a ceremony. However, any
young man (more particularly, those classified as ‘‘younger brothers’’)
was obligated to put up goods and to fast whenever a ceremony
involving fasting was being given. The distinguished war leaders
would come to watch the young men and to observe their response
to hunger and pain in order to get only the most promising ones for
their war parties.

It was considered a great honor to be invited to go out with the
higher-ranking war leaders. Parents discouraged their sons from
accompanying those leaders with poor reputations. Boys who were
alert, good runners, and ambitious were soon invited to go along
with war parties to serve as camp tenders. They were expected to
care for the fires, bring water, and do the cooking. If there were
two or more boys along, the leader would observe their response
when camp duties were assigned them. Should he need a green
branch to hang sacred objects on and there were four boys in camp,
at his request all four were expected to jump up and bring the branch
even though one could do it. Boys knew that they were being
watched and that those who were lazy would not be invited out again
soon. Returning home, it was expected that the leader would
praise publicly those who had shown interest and had obeyed his
orders. As time passed it became more difficult for the lazy boys to
join war parties under the more successful leaders.

Offensive warfare provided a young man with many opportunities
to learn skills in locating horses and attacking or evading the enemy.
There were also opportunities to observe and participate in rites
not practiced in his own household. The ambitious leaders encouraged
fasting by the camp tenders, offering as rewards the opportunity to
serve as scouts on future expeditions. At this point in a young
man’s training, the father’s experiences and training were solicited
directly by a son. The father would outline in detail his experiences
in fasting, the dreams he had received, the ceremonies he had per-
formed, and his military achievements. He might even ‘‘give’’ his
son those horses and scalps which the former had been promised in
his dreams but which, for one reason or another, he had not yet
possessed. When a young man had reached the point where he sought
advice in ritualistic matters, the ‘older brothers’? became an assisting
group, supplying goods, horses, and other necessities as payments to
the father or ‘“‘ceremonial fathers.’’ ‘The Hidatsa believed a young
man wishing to get ahead should have many fathers praying for him.

138 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Thus, the father generally directed his son to other “fathers” and
payments were made to them individually for their ritualistic in-
structions and prayers.

Even those eligible by the rules of inheritance to purchase the
father’s sacred tribal bundles, believed to go back nearly to the
beginning of time, were not exempt from military duties. Every
sacred bundle was in some way concerned with warfare even though
its principal functions were to bring the buffaloes, catch eagles, insure
good growing conditions for crops, or attain other social values. In
the competition for high status, those who had performed many
ceremonies and had publicly disposed of a great deal of wealth were
not expected to have as many war records to show as those who had
distinguished themselves largely in warfare.

A girl’s position was much different from that of a boy. She
usually remained a lifelong member of her mother’s household,
brought her husband there to live, and inherited the lodge and lodge
property, including the gardens, when the older female members of
the lineage died. Her training was in domestic tasks so that she could
marry a good provider. Her affections and interests were with her
brothers even after they had married and moved to another lodge.
She would put up goods when a brother returned from a successful
war expedition, fast for his success while he was away, and have first
claim to the horses he had captured, even when he lived with his
wife’s household, provided she ran out to meet him. She fasted less
than her brothers, never tortured herself while seeking a vision, and
generally kept the first name given her for her entire lifetime. She was
taught to avoid the village ceremonies during her menses lest she undo
all the rites, and, if on eagle-trapping expeditions or small hunting
parties, to report her condition so that appropriate sacred songs
could be sung to send away bad luck. There were no organized
puberty rites but many simple household rituals relating to agriculture
which she was expected to observe. A girl was trained to become a
good gardener and housekeeper, and a skillful tanner and decorator
of hides. It was customary for the household to arrange her marriage
soon after she had reached puberty.

MARRIAGE AND THE HOUSEHOLD

Marriage did not involve more than a few Hidatsa households at
most and was never a public event. Frequently only the two house-
holds of the couple were involved. Courtship was usually carried on
openly and people would see that the couple were showing affection
for each other. When a girl was a good worker, and neither she nor
the man had been married before, his older brothers and sisters would

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 139

see the couple together a good deal in the village, perhaps noting that
the girl had accepted his pemmican at a ceremony, that she was wear-
ing his beads, or that when he was away from home herding the
horses or hunting she would pass his mother’s lodge several times a
day. They would tell their younger brother that he should marry the
girl. Frequently a young man would be reluctant to suggest marriage,
fearing that her family would demand more horses than could be
spared yet being reluctant to suggest that they elope for fear that her
family would resent the suggestion and either keep a closer watch on
her or marry her to someone else. When the brothers and sisters
suggested the marriage, a young man was free to bring up the matter,
knowing that his family would put up horses for him. My informants
claimed that they never gave any thought to the matter of close
relationship at first, for their older people were quick to disapprove
of courtship with one of the same clan or of a too close blood relation-
ship.

A young man preferred to marry without putting up horses. His
joking relatives would be sure to tease him for buying a wife otherwise.
However, few households permitted their daughters to marry for the
first time unless the husband’s people delivered the number of horses
demanded of them. If the girl agreed she would say to him, “It is all
right, but I will have to ask my mother first.”

Even though the young man was acceptable, the first thing the
mother would ask was, ‘“How many horses did he promise us?”” Rarely
did a young man offer horses, preferring to get married without
relinquishing them. To discourage undesirable marriages, the mothers
would tell how hard they had worked to bring the girl up well while
the young man ran away or never seemed to get any honors when at
war; how he loafed while herding his brothers’ horses and had not
given them good care; how he never showed interest in hunting; how
he slept late every day and never seemed to find anything to do. If
the girl still expressed a desire to go through with the marriage and,
if necessary, live with her husband’s people, the older brothers were
appealed to in an effort to prevent elopement. They would restate
all of the young man’s faults and if there was still danger of an elope-
ment, the children of her father’s clan (the “joking relatives’’) might
participate. The girl could persist in the marriage and escape the
household’s criticism, for “a mother should love her daughter.”
There was no escape from the father’s clansmen’s children, however,
for they were scattered throughout every Hidatsa village to which
she might go. Nevertheless, once the marriage was completed, people
preferred not to talk about it.

If the proposal was acceptable, the woman’s household set the day
for the marriage and the number of horses that would be expected.

140 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

The man would inform his household of the number of horses that the
girl’s family wanted and his mother’s sisters and brothers would meet
and decide which horses to give. The man’s sister would take the
horses to the other lodge beforehand and leave them. Meanwhile,
food was being prepared for the wedding feast. When the horses
arrived, the girl’s mother would invite her male relatives and their
families to come for the feast. The sister’s older brothers and mother’s
brothers present at the feast were given the horses brought from the
young man’s household; they then gave an equal number of their
own horses to the girl’s mother who, on the day of the wedding feast,
took them to her son-in-law’s household, tied them up, and left.

The groom’s relatives, the household and those whom he classified
as “brothers” living in other lodges, came to the groom’s lodge at the
appointed time. The women from the other household, including the
bride, came to the groom’s lodge with all of the food needed for the
feast and the horses given by the wife’s household. The bride re-
mained and all of her household left. A robe was placed on the floor
for the marrying couple to sit on. At this point the groom was ex-
pected to appear bashful so that his brothers could tease him. The
husband’s relatives passed around food and then began presenting
the bride with goods which were to go to her mother’s household. At
the same time the bride gave the horses to her husband’s people.
When the exchange of goods was completed, word was sent by the
bride to the other household who sent female members over to take
the things away. This completed the ceremony.

In this instance, the initiative being with the husband and his
relatives, residence was patrilocal. Few families were willing to
relinquish their females, however, and it was customary to prepare a
separate section of the lodge for the son-in-law and his family, after
which a horse and other property were taken to his household with a
request that he bring his wife back to her own household. If the wife’s
sisters and their husband or husbands were already occupying the
lodge with their wives’ older relatives, it was not uncommon to permit
a younger daughter to take up residence with the husband’s people.
An ambitious man generally did not like to live in a lodge with his
wife’s sisters and their husbands unless the two men belonged to the
same clan.

Marriage was as frequently initiated by the woman’s household.
People who had raised their daughters well would look for an am-
bitious young man who was a good hunter and warrior, showed
great interest in rituals, and was good-natured and kind, to become
their daughter’s husband. When a marriage was planned by the
woman’s household, the older women of the lodge would go to the
females of the other lodge and get their approval even before the

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 141

matter was discussed with the prospective husband. Once the
proposition was agreed to by the females of the two households, the
man’s older brothers were instructed to go to him and break the
news that his people wanted him to marry the girl. The older brothers
were selected since one was expected to obey them and because they
would be assisting in supplying the horses and goods for the wedding.
When the initiative was with the girl’s people, they would indicate
the number of horses that they would put up. They selected the
day for the wedding, took the horses and food to the husband’s lodge
and returned for the presents given by the husband’s relatives. A
few days after the ceremony, the wife’s brothers took a horse, gun,
or other things used by a man in hunting and invited him to move
over to their mother’s lodge.

Frequently a man was poor and had few relatives to assist him in
completing the marriage ceremony, particularly when he belonged to
a small clan. Several informants referred to the marriage of Two
Shields whose close relatives had all died years before. He had lived
from lodge to lodge while a young boy. When he was old enough to
go out hunting, he would volunteer to go along at every opportunity.
There was a household that had four daughters. They had been
brought up well by their people and never ran around with the boys;
instead, they had the reputation of being good workers and kind to
the old people. Their parents talked of marrying two of them to
Two Shields. Informants were not sure why Two Shields could not
have the other two daughters as well but they thought that the
household wanted at least two sons-in-law to help them. When the
matter was discussed with Two Shields, it was agreed that he must
not ask for the other sisters or have an affair with them.

Concerning this marriage Crows Heart said:

Two Shields was not good looking; sometimes he acted queer and did not seem
too bright; he didn’t take much interest in rituals and sometimes he did not even
seem to respect those things; sometimes he would steal and once his clansmen
beat him for taking things. But he wasa good hunter and liked to go out hunting.
It seemed that even though he was not too bright, he did understand the habits
of the wild animals.

When the people heard that Tucks In wanted to marry his daughters to Two
Shields they said, ‘‘We think you are foolish to give your daughters to that man,”
and Tucks In replied, ‘‘You people do not know it but I want to eat meat; that
is why I want to give my daughters to that man. I know he does foolish things
and does not care about the holy things but he is nevertheless a good hunter.”

So Tucks In and his wife gave two of their best buffalo horses to Two Shields
and he married the two girls and came to Tucks In’s lodge to live. Since Two
Shields was an orphan and had no regular lodge he did not put up anything.
Tucks In had two sons and they would go out hunting and bring in all the meat

that the household could use. The family treated him well for he was a great
help in getting meat and they did not want to lose him. It was a‘good place to

142 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

go visiting. There was always plenty of food, for Two Shields hunted and the
women worked hard in the gardens.

People were soon saying that Tucks In was a great man for he was very generous;
whenever one went to that lodge, he would find it full of their relatives. The
women were busy all the time tanning robes to sell to the trader to get guns and
ammunition for Two Shields and his two younger brothers-in-law. One time he
found some stray horses and gave them to his father-in-law.

Two Shields was such a good provider that Short Bull offered him his daughter
named Spotted Woman. Then Two Shields had two lodges to provide for and
Tucks In’s relatives didn’t come so often. He would stay at one lodge for a short
time and then he would move over to theotherlodge. When hunting, he would take
the meat to the lodge where he was living at that time and the women of that lodge
would take part of it to the otherfamily. But the lodge where he lived would get
the greater share. If either family had objected to the arrangement, it would
have got no meat.

He left Spotted Woman because her family was not satisfied with the arrange-
ment. If the family had wanted him bad enough they could have given him
another horse and asked him to come back but I guess they were glad to be rid of
him for they had another man in mind.

Although Two Shields was a good hunter, he was not too smart. One time the
Fort Buford band was up near Poplar hunting and the men found a gray mare
that was so wild they could not catch her. Two Shields threatened to kill her but
the older men who understood the holy things said, ‘“You must not kill that horse;
it may be that she comes out of the earth and goes back in again when she has
enough to eat. That is why her mane and tail are so long. MHorsesare holy. If
you kill her, she may bring you bad luck.”’

Two Shields did not believe that so he waited for her at a waterhole and killed
her. The people said that he would surely have bad luck. More than twenty
years later, after the people were put on the Reservation, Two Shields, while
mowing hay, was cut on the foot and bled to death.

It was not uncommon for a family to attempt to marry their girls
to men who were already married and had families. If the two
households were related and the women were of the same clan, this
prearranged plan was often very satisfactory, particularly when a
shortage of eligible husbands existed. This arrangement was often
made between related households so that each could have the services
of a good provider. It was less likely to be more than a temporary
arrangement when the second household was not on intimate terms
with the other one. Then each household would try to outdo the
other and in the end one would become tired of the arrangement.

Owing to the greater risks taken by males in warfare and hunting,
adult females greatly outnumbered the males, often 2 to 1. Monogo-
my was rare. Divorce was common. When there were children,
families were less likely to break up. While making this study, the
Hidatsa said that Wolf Chief was one who had more than the usual
number of wives. Wolf Chief enumerated his various marital ventures
and seemed proud of many of his conquests. His only regret was that
with so many wives, he was childless in his old age. The variety of

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 143

ways in which he obtained a spouse and the complexity of his marital
relations are given below in his own words:

When I was 18 years old and single I had a dream of four frames surrounding
my father’s sacred bundles, the outer one being old and broken down. I remem-
bered my dream and told my father how I saw willows in a circle like the fishtrap
and that there were four concentric circles with the outer one broken down. He
said, ‘I often think of the way that you and your friends play here in front of
these skulls 1° and now this dream has been given to you by these ‘grandfathers.’
It means that you will give the ‘walking’ ceremony four times and make your
wives ‘granddaughters’ of the buffalo bulls.” It also means that you are going
to live to be an old man for the last circle of sticks is old and broken down.”

I thought that I would have my wife “walk” with the buffalo when I married
and then I would surely have a long life. While the other young men of my age
were out looking for the enemies, I used to dress up and go out through the village
looking at the girls; but one day the enemy came to the village and I thought that
this time I will surely have to fight. I went out and, being brave, I was to the
front chasing the enemy when one man turned and shot my horse, killing it.
When the fight was over all my “‘fathers,”’ the men of the Waterbuster clan, were
proud of me because I was so brave and sang the honor songs.

When I came back to our lodge, a girl stepped up in front of me and I asked
what it meant. She asked where my bed was and I showed her. I felt bashful
for I was only 18 at the time. Her name was Different Snake; she had been
married and was separated from her husband. She said ‘“‘You are not supposed
to go out tonight.”

Seeing us together at my bed, my mother came over and said, “Will you want
any supper? It seems that I have a daughter-in-law.” Different Snake said
that we should go to bed so she took off my moccasins and leggings. When she
came near me I was not bashful any longer and possessed her. In the morning
my mother got up and prepared breakfast for us and we sat together on a robe
she spread for us. When it was daylight I was bashful again and did not talk
much with Different Snake.

I did not love her for she had come to me without being asked. I was fond of
another girl who had not been married so I thought as I sat there eating my break-
fast, “I will go out and stay away for a while; it will be better to separate from
her.”

I went out and did not go back for 4 nights when I heard that she had left.
While I was out I met the girl I liked and she said that she had heard I was married.
I told her I did not like Different Snake. She told me that I should go back as I
was married but I told her that I would not. I kept seeing her and 3 nights later
I got her to come with me to my mother’s lodge. She was Brown Blossom, a
Mandan. The families exchanged presents after she came to live with me.

Now that I was married, I thought that I should give the “walking” ceremony.
I thought that Brown Blossom was quite young and might not obey me so I
mentioned the matter to my father. My father said, ‘We will tell your mother
about it and she will advise you. Since you have really promised, you should not
back out. When your mother comes in we will have her explain it to your wife,
also to your mother-in-law, and it may be that they can persuade your wife to
help.”

16 The Waterbuster clan bundle, See pp. 467-473 for the rites,
1 The Painted Red Stick rites. See pp. 451-463.

144 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

The women all agreed to it, thinking that it would make me a good husband;
then my wife would be with me always and we would have a good living. My
wife’s brother said, “It is a great thing for it is hard to do. If he puts you in the
ceremonies that way, it is like giving you to the gods. Then the gods will take
good care of you. You must not be bashful or refuse the holy men for they are
doing that for your welfare.”

When everything was arranged between my wife’s relatives, I talked to her
about it, telling her how much I wanted to give the ceremony and have her
““walk’’ with the gods and become a “granddaughter” to my fathers !® but that
I hated to ask her. She immediately replied “It is all right; my people have
advised me to do this for you, for then you will stay with me. It will show that
we love and respect each other and that you want to get along with me and not
leave me.”

My father said to me, “I think this is a good thing you are doing. I had your
mother in the same ceremony and she was always the right kind of woman after
that. Your wife is old enough to understand and this way you will have a good
living and she will be faithful to you. If you give it four times as in your dreams
you will be a great man and have good luck and a good home. You must go onto
the lodge and announce the ceremony saying, ‘I am promising to light the fire
and give you the light. I promise to make feasts for my fathers all over the world.
I want to see my people well fed with enough food for a good living.’ ”’

Brown Blossom was in the ceremony 2 nights, going to the various holy men
and saying, ‘‘I will take you out,’”’ but each would pray for her in the lodge in-
stead of having intercourse with her. My father had told me not to think about
it if I saw her going out, saying ‘‘If you think of your wife when someone takes
her out, you will not be successful. When I was doing my part in the same
ceremony, sometimes the men took my wife out and other times they gave her
the red sticks to press to her chest. Then when we went to bed I could always
tell the difference for it seemed that she smelled good and had new life.”

I happened to look in the direction of the door and saw that Walking Chief
of my father’s clan, the Waterbusters, was taking her out. When they returned,
I asked her to go to Poor Wolf, Waterbuster Clan, and he prayed for her. The
next day she hid and was afraid to go through with the ceremony. I thought
that I would not be able to finish the ceremonies; then I would surely have bad
luck for not finishing what I had promised the gods. I went to a clan brother,
Knife, who said, ‘‘My younger brother, you do not need to stop the ceremony.
All the women married to men of the Prairie Chicken clan are eligible to go in
with you and help you out. So you can use my wife for the next 2 nights.”

I was angry at my wife for hiding. My people thought that some women
were afraid of the ceremonies and that I should not beat her. I began seeing
Tron Woman every day and 5 days after the ceremony was finished she told me
that my wife was seeing Small Bull. He had gone along when the women were
picking Juneberries and had picked for my wife. I was angry at my wife so I
brought Iron Woman to my father’s lodge without paying her, for she was looking
for a man at that time. Then I had two wives. After 4 days with two wives,
during which time I directed all of my attentions to Iron Woman, the other took
her things and left. I was glad that Iron Woman was looking for a man and had
told me about my wife’s affair with Small Bull for, by getting her, my “joking
relatives”’ no longer teased me about my wife who ran out on me at the ceremony.
So I proved to them that I could get plenty of wives, even without paying horses
for them.

8 Heretofore she was a daughter-in-law to Wolf Chief's ‘‘fathers.’”’

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 145

While I lived with Iron Woman, another young woman named Folds-her-
Robe would watch for me and stop to talk. I liked to have her stop me that way
for some of my “‘joking relatives’? were sure to see us. This made Iron Woman
angry, but she did the best she could to hold me. In a few months I brought
Folds-her-Robe to my father’s lodge but I did not have to put up any horses for
her either. Then I had two wives who said mean things to each other all the
time. I got tired of their constant quarreling and used to go out through the
village looking for other young women. When I came back I would find that
they had been fighting. I would talk to both of them and try to make peace
between them for it had not been long since my other wife, Brown Blossom,
had walked out and hidden during the ceremony.

My mother would keep saying to my wives, ‘‘After a while you women will
have children and then you will get along better together.”

Buffalo-with-Grey-Penis was going out hunting with his wife and wanted me
to goalong. I wanted to go for he was a good hunter and his wife was my “‘grand-
mother.” They came to my mother’s lodge and invited my two wives to go along
for they knew that I would not trust them alone in the village. I got powder and
bullets from the trader. I left Iron Woman with my parents for she did not care
to goalong. Weset out afoot, just the four of us, and walked to the mouth of the
Little Missouri where we camped. We hunted up the Little Missouri where we
shot elk and cured the meat, drying it over a slow fire. In all we killed five elk
and two deer. We made four bullboats of the four elk hides to float the meat
and the four of us to Fishhook Village. Before we returned, the women divided
the meat equally between them. When we reached the bank at the village my
wife called her brother, Old Bear, and her sister, who was Buffalo-with-Grey-
Penis’s wife’s sister, and the two came to the river bank. I thought that since
the meat belonged to my wife, it was her right to dispose of it as she wished, so
I took my gun and personal things and went to my mother’s lodge.

My wife came in shortly afterward with a bundle of meat as large as she could
carry on her back; what she could not carry she had given to her brother and sister.
Bringing so much meat to our lodge made my mother very happy, for my wife
did not have to do that since she had many relatives. My mother set to cooking
some of the meat. Iron Woman was still in the lodge but she did not say much.
She was as surprised as the rest of us that Folds-her-Robe had brought us so
much meat. Folds-her-Robe was with me all the time and sat down with me
when the food was ready but my other wife would not join us. My mother
dished out her share and took it to her. When I looked at her from where I sat
eating with Folds-her-Robe, she would put her head down and would not talk.
Then she refused the food, picked up two dry robes she had been decorating, and
went out. After she left, my mother told me that she had heard in the village
that Iron Woman’s people had told her to come back home for Wolf Chief had
left one of his wives and would do it again for he was not good to his wives.

While I had Folds-her-Robe with me, I found another girl that I became fond
of so one day I hid myself out in the woods so that I could talk to her. My wife
must have suspected us for she came along and found us talking. When I went
home she was angry. She turned her face from me that night; in the morning
she would not eat so I went out for a while visiting my friends. When dinner
was ready, she refused to eat and cried, saying to my mother, ‘‘I have been doing
the best that I can for your son, going out after meat, and caring for his things.
Now I do not think I can get along with him.’”’ Then she picked up her bedding
and walked out.

146 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

When I got back my mother told me what had happened but I did not say
anything for I knew another girl who had not been married. I liked this Bird
Woman very much but it was awful hard to see her alone. Her mother watched
her all the time and never let her go out alone. Her father never paid much
attention to her for while he was caring for this family he was also running around
with other women all the time. His wife did not worry for she was caring for, and
was good to, her husband’s mother who was old. They had lived together so long
that she no longer paid attention to his love affairs and knew that he would
always come back. It was a long time before I was able to get Bird Woman alone
where I could talk to her, for William Bell was watching to catch her alone to
talk to her, too, even though he was also watching for Looking-for-Sweetgrass.
At last she learned that I was watching and following her and that I wanted to
marry her. She made it as hard as possible for me to talk to her. One night I
met her and asked her to marry me. She said, “You are married; you don’t
need me.’”’? When I told her that I had sent my wife out she said, “I am not a
foolish girl; I won’t marry you unless you give me a horse.”’

I gave her the horse which she took to her brothers who gave me a poorer one
in return. Then she came to my parents’ Jodge to live. Bell married Looks-for-
Sweetgrass. That summer we were out hunting along the Yellowstone for we
heard that there were many buffaloes out there. Because my wife was young,
I took my sister along to teach her how to cure meat and hides. I had a good
running horse and killed several buffaloes so we had plenty of meat and hides.
We were hunting about 10 miles from the Yellowstone and my father said that
we should take care when skinning the buffaloes not to cut holes in the hides or
they could not be used for bullboats. My father thought that we would need
four bullboats for our meat so my wife and I went out to get the poles. While
we were cutting the poles, scouts rode by and called that a small herd was nearby
so I left my wife to finish trimming the poles while I went out for another hide
for the boats.

When I came back with the hide, from a distance I saw two people talking to-
gether. I discovered that it was William Bell talking to my wife. Then I
remembered that I used to meet his wife before he married her and could have
taken her away from him instead of marrying Bird Woman so I did not worry.
When I came back to camp my sister was worried because Bird Woman had not
come back and thought that she might have drowned. She kept looking out and
wondering about my wife’s disappearance until I told her that my wife was out
with William Bell. :

My sister said, ‘‘She went out after some wood; it is too bad; I thought she would
be different from the others.”

I said to my sister, Brown Woman, ‘“‘You can divide the meat and bullboats so
that she has half. I know William Bell’s wife for I have talked to her before.
I do not think it will be very hard to get her to come over here with us.”

I went to her lodge after dark and lay down close to it so that I could look in
and see which side she was sleeping on. When it was quiet inside, I went up and
lifted the cover, for their tent was a frame covered with robes. At first she was
startled. I told her who I was and added, ‘‘Your husband is out in the brush
with my wife.”’ That made her very angry. Isaid, “I do not think your husband
is coming back tonight so there is no reason to be afraid if I come in with you.”
So I pulled off my clothes and crawled under her blanket and told her to do the
same. My brother-in-law, White-Finger-Nails, who was the brother of Bird
Woman, was sleeping in the lodge so we made enough noise to make sure he knew
what was going on. I thought this would shame him so my wife’s brothers would
scold Bird Woman.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 147

During the night Bell came in and, seeing that we were together, he went out
again. In the morning I took Looks-for-Sweetgrass back to my mother’s camp.
She brought her share of the dried meat with her. Some families were bringing
down their meat with horses but ours was using bullboats. My new wife and I
painted up and dressed in our best clothes so everyone could see how happy we
were. Others were floating along, too, but we kept a little to the side of the others.
I was singing the Fox Society songs as we floated along but at the same time I
had my eyes on some other girls. This way I got separated from my family.
Hearing a noise, I saw that my new wife and Bird Woman were fighting with bull-
boat paddles so we paddled off where Bird Woman could not hit her.

When we got back to the village, Looks-for-Sweetgrass gave all of her meat
to her mothers, sisters, and brothers. Then she came to me at my mother’s
lodge. I liked her for she did such fine quill and bead work so I kept her for
a year. During that time I again had the 4-day walking ceremony for the
buffaloes. We went through it together and while she was taking the kettles
back after the ceremony was completed, I stopped to smoke with some of my
friends. I caught her standing with White Belly, one of my friends, holding
hands. I said to them, “‘You two people stand there very pretty,’’ but my
feelings were badly hurt for he was a clansman. I went back home and closed
up the door so there was no chance for her to getin. I knew he would take her out.

Now that I had gone through the ceremony with Looks-for-Sweetgrass, I was
sure that I could get a good wife who had not been married. I found a girl
named Otter who was the daughter of Red-Buffalo-Cow, the head chief of the
Nuptadi Mandan. I tried hard to get her, for none of the young men could
boast that they had possessed her. We could see that she warranted that good
reputation; she worked hard and never seemed to want to get away from her
mothers to talk tothe men. It took me a long time to marry her for she wanted
three horses while I tried to marry her without putting up borses. I tried to
get her to love me; I tried to get her to go out with me alone on the prairies.
She refused each time I asked her. I could see that her people were not wor-
ried for they had confidence that she was not going to elope. At last I had to
give in and put up the horses. My brothers and sisters helped me and we had
the feast at my mother’s lodge. Immediately, her family paid me a horse to
come to my wife’s lodge to live.

Red-Buffalo-Cow was good to me. We were of the same clan and he treated
me like a brother. He would say to me, “Sometime you must invite the old
people to eat with you here and then you may become a chief, too.’”’ This was
much different than in the Hidatsa lodges where the fathers-in-law were not as
friendly. At that time I was strong enough to stand many hard hunting trips
without eating during the day. I would go out hunting often and we surely
had a good home. I had two mothers-in-law there. The Government issued
out two guns to each tribe and my father-in-law got one with many shells. Hesaid,
“My son-in-law, here is a gun for you; now you can kill all the game you want.”’

He had other daughters; All-Comes-Out was about 2 years younger than
Otter, and Antelope Woman was much younger. One day when Otter was sev-
eral months pregnant, my father-in-law said to me “I am well satisfied with the
way you treat us, bringing in meat from the hunt and bringing me the candy
and goods from the trader. We do not think we can find a better husband
for our daughters so you can have All-Comes-Out but not Antelope Woman,
for it is up to her whom she marries since she has been married before.” I
took All-Comes-Out without putting up any horses and was with her all the
time while Otter was pregnant. The baby was a boy; my father-in-law named

148 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

him Standing Coyote from a dream in which he saw a coyote standing looking
out over the land.

I slept with All-Comes-Out while Otter was nursing Standing Coyote. Ante-
lope Woman’s mother and sisters talked of giving me Antelope Woman, too,
but I did not learn of that until later. One day I lay in bed with the rear cur-
tain raised for it was hot in the earth lodge. I had just come from bathing in
the river and was lying in bed naked. Antelope Woman came around to the
back of the bed and said, ‘I will lie beside this man.’”’ I moved over and she
crawled in with me. While I possessed her, my oldest wife lifted the curtain
and told us it was wrong so Antelope Woman left. Then I went outside and
stayed in the village until late that evening. Otter met me when I came in
and said ‘‘Why don’t you go to your new wife? Isaw youinthere. You have
treated my younger sister like a dog. You can leave. We are not dogs.”

I left because it was their lodge. I did not mind so much leaving my wives
even though Otter had been in the walking ceremony twice with me for she was
not a blood relative. It was hardest to leave my son. When the other women
heard about it, there was trouble in the family, for Antelope Woman had been
married before even though she was the youngest of the three sisters. The family
did not object to my coming to see the boy, for it was not my fault, and then I
stayed with All-Comes-Out again. Otter would quarrel with me even though I
did not stay with her since she was nursing the baby. One day she said to me,
“Why don’t you go back to Antelope Woman and leave All-Comes-Out alone?
Antelope Woman may have a disease and then you will pass it on to my sister,
All-Comes-Out. We have had plenty of chances to marry. You are not the
only eligible husband around here.’?’ That made me very angry so I left Red-
Buffalo-Cow’s lodge.

Two days later my mother said, ‘‘ Your mother-in-law was here while you were
out; she wants you to come back.”’

I replied, ‘‘I do not think I will go back; they made me angry telling me that I
was not the only man and that the other girl might be diseased.”

A few days afterward I had my eyes on another girl named Rubs Herself and
I thought that I would like to marry her. I stood around near her lodge, trying
to get a chance to talk to her. At the same time, White Belly was watching for
her. Then I learned that she had married him. I had met her once alone and
talked to her. I was hurt when I learned that another had got ahead of me.
I still tried to talk to her but it was much harder now that she was married. One
dark evening I saw her in front of her husband’s lodge and seized her saying, “I
have tried hard to see you.”

She said, ‘‘You must not do that for I am married now and they might hear
you.” Her husband did hear us and came running out so I ran off before he could
see who was with her.

It was customary for the men to sit on the earth lodges during the day and watch
the people as they went about their work in the village. I sat down on a lodge
with some of my friends where I could watch White Belly’s lodge. I wanted to
find out if she had been beaten. I saw her going toward the bank and met her
between the lodges. She had been crying. She said, ‘‘He found out about
last night and has been beating me, The last time he hit me on the shoulder and
nearly knocked me down.”

I said, ‘‘You should go to my lodge for he is angry; I do not think he will treat
you kindly now that he knows I have been with you. I think I will treat you
better than my clan brother, White Belly.”

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 149

She replied, “I will go along to your lodge if you are not afraid of him. He told
me that if he ever caught me out that way again with a man he would beat me and
the man too.”

I knew that some men were not very brave and would make trouble when their
wives were stolen. White Belly was always cutting up in the Stone Hammer
Society meetings; sometimes when the society was not meeting he would steal
things; he would even carry on with others’ wives but I thought he might not be
brave so I said, “If we stay around here, he may catch us or do something foolish.
He might treat you even worse than he has and come to my mother’s lodge for you.
We will run away. I will have my saddle horse hidden in the trees. We will go
up to Fort Buford and stay until things quiet down.”’

I asked my mother to prepare me food as I was going to Fort Buford. Next day
when Rubs Herself went to the place we were to meet, I came down from the earth
lodge and met herthere. She had arobe along and we put it on the horse and rode
double, keeping to the heavier timber. She was afraid for she thought that her
mother-in-law suspected something. We traveled fast and came to a place in the
heavy timber where we stopped to eat. There I possessed her and then we rode
along slowly. Soon someone was riding toward us and I saw that it was her
husband. He pulled her off the horse, whipped her, and even knocked her down
and kicked her. At first I intended to fight with him and then I thought the better
of it.

She said to me, ‘‘Why don’t you help me? Don’t stand there and look at me.’’
So I said to White Belly, “You came after your wife and now you want to kill her.”’
I knew that I would never fight with him for it was not right for people, particu-
larly those of the same clan, to fight. But she was his wife and he had the right
to take her. I knew that people would say bad things of White Belly for taking
back by force a wife who did not want to live with him. He put her on the horse
and walked, leading the horse. I stood there after they left and did not know
what to do. I wondered which of White Belly’s joking relatives would say most
to him. I thought that they might say too much to him and that he might even
kill me. Still I kept thinking of that woman but I was consoled to know that I
had not been entirely unrewarded for my trouble. Finally I mounted and gal-
loped toward Fort Buford and Crow-Flies-High’s village, arriving there the next
day after sleeping out in the timber. I went to Two Bull’s lodge to live, for he
was a close relative of my clan.

I had not been there long when I found an eligible woman named Many Growths
who was not married. Finally I saw her alone and talked to her. She said that
she would marry me but I would have to give her one horse. I visited her a second
time and then she wanted two horses. I decided to look for two horses but I
tried to marry her without giving up horses, telling her I did not have a home and
only a few relatives there. When Two Bulls heard that she wanted two horses he
offered me two old ones for mine which was a goodrunner. I gave her Two Bull’s
two horses and her parents invited me to come to their lodge to live. I lived with
her in Standing Bear’s lodge that summer.

The people planned to go farther west to set up the winter village under the
leadership of Poor Bull who had had many dreams of the buffaloes even though
he had never given the big buffalo ceremonies. The people thought that he
would certainly be able to call the buffaloes close to the village. Since I gave
my good running horse to Two Bulls when I was married, I did not have a horse
so my wife and I went back to Fishhook Village to get my gray gelding to use
in the hunt. I saw White Belly who was not very friendly for a clansman since
his joking relatives were still annoying him even though he then had a different
wife. I was just past 30 at this time.

10-195—65——11

150 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

We went as far west as Poplar Creek and learned that there were buffaloes farther
up that creek; so we went there and found a Sioux camp of 400 tipis. They
invited us to join them so we traveled along to Sand Creek and finally to Wolf
Mountain where there was a trading post run by Weidman, Bears Arm’s brother-
in-law. Buffaloes were numerous there so we stopped but the Sioux went on.
The White hunters were bringing in green hides for the women to tan at $4 a
robe. Our group stayed around the trading post all spring tanning and decorat-
ing robes for the trader since the council had decided to ask permission of the man
in charge of the steamboat to send the old people and children back to Fort
Buford with him. Those of us who went by land did not travel as fast as the
older people. When I got to Fort Buford, I decided to go down to Fishhook
Village to see my parents. I asked my wife to pack up some of the dry meat
for them. I left my wife at Fort Buford but it was not because we did not get
along well. I would have gone back to her since she did not want to live at
Fishhook Village if I had not seen Coyote Woman, a Mandan.

Coyote Woman was very beautiful and I decided to marry her if Icould. When
I had seen her a few times she said she wanted three horses. I did not promise
her at once for I wanted to marry her without putting up the horses. Finally
I put up the horses anyway, but my brothers and sisters gave me most of the help.
Then her father, Big-Foot-Bull, paid us to come to his lodge to live. Some of
the people thought that it was wrong for me to marry her for she was of the
Prairie Chicken clan. Others thought that it was all right since we came from
different tribes. I got along quite well with her. She helped me in the walking
ceremony and did all she could to help me buy my father’s Wolf bundle rites.”
It was not long after we were married that the people went out onto the reserva-
tion and we came up here. She died shortly afterward of tuberculosis and then
Big-Foot-Bull gave me her sister named Sweetgrass Blossom who died shortly of
the same disease. Then he gave me a third sister named Woman and she died.

By this time the homes were all established on individual allotments on the
reservation. The agency was established at Elbowoods and Indian judges were
appointed to assist the Agent. Then I married Moves Sweetgrass. She had
been married to Edward Goodbird; they could not get along so they separated.
She came to me and wanted to marry meso I tookher. I had been told that no
one could get along with her but at that time I was single and could not find
anyone else. I thought, since there is no other woman available who will marry
me, I will do the best I can to satisfy her. Whenever we went places I bought
her nice clothes. At this time there were Squaw Dances, for the old ceremonies
were not given so much, but I did not care to go myself. She liked to go and I
always gave her permission to go even though I did not go along.

She complained that I was stingy. She would say, ‘‘When I go to the dances,
you should have me give flour, sugar, and calicoes.22 When I go there, I am the
only one who does not give things away.’”’ She was so mean to my mothers that
they stopped coming to see us and I did not like that. At this time I was caring
for George Bassett, who was of my father’s clan, for he was ill and poor. She
refused to care for him and would not prepare my meals for me when I was work-
ing in the field.

One day she said, “I would like you if you would only give away many things
at the dances. Then I would carry out your orders.”

19 See “The Wolf Ceremonies” for her contribution (pp. 392-433).
2% Wolf Chief had a store at Independence at this time.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 151

At that time I was afraid that she would tell lies to the Indian judges at the
Agency and they would criticize me. I went to my good friend Major Clapp and
said, ‘I am married to Moves Sweetgrass but she does not attend to my cooking.
She runs around all the time to the dances. I tell her you do not want the Indians
to dance. She wants to give away all of our things at the dances. She dances
and comes back late. You are the agent and if you say I must keep her, I will.’’
Major Clapp asked me to bring her to the Agency for the next issue of Govern-
ment rations. He asked her, ‘‘Does your husband refuse to go to dances? Do
you ask him to give away property? When he comes in from work, do you tell
him to cook his own meals? Do you ask others to dance and to take you to
dances?” Without waiting for her answers the agent said that she was wrong to
demand so much and that people should not dance all the time. Then he divorced
us. But the three Indian judges, Good Bear, Sitting Bear, and Black Eagle
wanted me to take her back and try it again.

I said to them, ‘“‘Ican’t. If you want to know her better, you should marry her,
yourselves.” Then I walked off, for I knew that the Agent was on my side. [End
of Wolf Chief’s narrative.]

From Wolf Chief’s narrative, something of the range of marriage
patterns can be observed. In some instances there were no rites
whatsoever, the wife moving in with Wolf Chief. In other instances
there was an exchange of horses and other property. He avoided
giving horses or enlisting the assistance of his relatives in completing
the marriage whenever possible, and openly boasted of his extra-
marital adventures. We note that he avoided marrying those with
children. He expressed sadness only when separated from Otter
because of his love for his son, Standing Coyote. All through the
narrative we see him referring to his dream of a long life promised
him if he gave his wives four times in the “ walking” ceremony to call
the buffaloes. Having assisted him in the rites, his wives are cast off
with little show of emotion. When he gave the “walking” ceremony
with Looks-for-Sweetgrass, he concluded that his social stature was
so much higher that he could get a better wife and tried to marry a
woman who had never been married before, the daughter of a Mandan
chief. We see that when Wolf Chief locks Looks-for-Sweetgrass out
of his lodge because of an affair with White Belly, separation is accepted
by both parties. A few years later, however, when Wolf Chief
steals Rubs Herself, White Belly does not accept the situation and
threatens to kill Wolf Chief, his own clan brother.

He also had his eyes on a captive, while with the Sioux on Sand
Creek, but was unwilling to buy her from the man who had captured
her because he disliked putting up horses. He did not dare steal her,
for he considered that equivalent to stealing a man’s horse or gun,
which to Wolf Chief was different from eloping with another man’s
wife. In no instance did the aggrieved man’s clan destroy property
of Wolf Chief’s household or clan, for most women with whom Wolf

Chief was involved had themselves been involved in numerous

[52 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

marital adventures. We see that when William Bell has an affair
with Bird Woman, Wolf Chief bravely moves in with Bell’s wife.
He is unwilling, however, to defend Rubs Herself from a beating
inflicted by White Belly because of public opinion which gave a man
the right to take back his wife if he was willing to face the ridicule of
his joking relatives.

We must not infer that Wolf Chief’s record is characteristic of his
time. Wolf Chief lived in a prominent household with parents who
stood high in the estimation of the tribe, for Small Ankles had not
only distinguished himself in warfare but had obtained numerous
sacred bundles. His wives were also prominent in various ceremonies
in their own right. Small Ankles had also been honored by being
selected as chief of the winter village. During his youth, Wolf Chief
had older brothers and a brother-in-law who provided for the house-
hold. He usually dressed up and walked through the village when the
other young men were preparing for war. His early efforts at fasting
were not very ambitious. He showed so little interest that, at one
time, his father criticized him sharply in public for his indifference to
fasting. It was indeed an extreme measure for a father to reprimand
ason. By Hidatsa standards, Wolf Chief would not be considered a
good son-in-law so we see that most families did not invite him to
live with them.

Further understanding of Hidatsa family relations is brought out
by a study of Bear-Looks-Out’s family. He was one of the “village
builders” or ‘‘protectors of the people’ when Fishhook Village was
built in 1845. At that time he was married to Corn Woman, a Man-
dan, who had assisted him in purchasing the Mandan Corn Bundle
years before. A few years later he married four girls who had lost
their parents in the smallpox epidemic of 1837 and who had been
raised as sisters by Swan. Bear-Looks-Out maintained their separate
household and the five women assisted him in purchasing Old-Woman-
Who-Never-Dies and other ceremonial rites. Bear-Looks-Out was
a good hunter and the women were good workers. He also got many
things for helping in the ceremonies. He would invite in many
people to eat with him. Corn Woman died first but he preserved the
Mandan Skull Bundle which had come from her father. With this
background, we will examine the later family life of this household of
four sisters occupying two different earth lodges, as related by Crows
Heart:

People liked to go to Bear-Looks-Out’s lodges for he always had good things to
eat. It was not known that the women were not getting along, for their lodges
were used for the White Buffalo and Goose Society dances and the women were

officers. When their children were nearly grown and my mother’s brother
named Bears Heart had grown children, he ran away with Bear-Looks-Out’s two

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 153

younger wives. I can remember that Bears Heart was always chasing after
women even though his own wife never divorced him for it. He was my ‘ptéwada-
tod’ and was always bossing me around, telling me just what I ought todo. He
would tell me that I should stay away from the girls, for chasing girls would hinder
my warrecord. He would tell me that girls had vaginal teeth that would bite me.
He would always bring up the matter of fasting whenever he came to our lodge,
and tell me to stay away from the girls and forget about them. My mothers used
to tease him for he was always doing what he told me not to do.

Bears Heart was not well-to-do at the time he ran away with Different Sage and
Juneberries, Bear-Looks-Out’s two youngest and prettiest wives. They had to
walk out west to the Crows for he had no horses and his relatives would not help.
As soon as Bear-Looks-Out missed his wives, the people of his clan helped him
look for them, for at first they thought something had happened tothem. Bear-
Looks-Out knew that sometimes they met other men, for it was hard to watch
four wives, but he thought nothing of it as long as they attended to their work and
did not cause too much gossip. That is why he had his clansmen watching for
him. When Bears Heart, my clansman, was missing they knew that he had gone
off with them.

My relatives of the Prairie Chicken clan met and put up goods to take to Bear-
Looks-Out so that he would not destroy their things or shoot their horses. Several
brought horses. Then they went to Bear-Looks-Out’s lodge and offered to give
him the things but Bear-Looks-Out refused the things saying, “‘What is this for?’’

My mothers’ brothers said, ““‘We thought you would be angry. Don’t you
know that Bears Heart has taken your two younger wives?”’

Bear-Looks-Out laughed and said, ‘“‘Why should I get angry? I am getting
old so those younger women don’t want me. Take your stuff back and keep it.
I am not going to do anything about it. I know those women asked Bears Heart
to go away with them.”

At the time they eloped, a Hidatsa hunting party was on the Missouri above
Knife River. They decided to cross the Missouri well below their camp so as
not to be seen by the hunters for fear that the Waterbusters in that camp would
seize the women and beat Bears Heart. They made a raft of logs and put their
clothing, food, and weapons on it, swimming back of the raft and pushing it across
the river. In midstream the raft came apart and their things were alllost. While
they were sitting on the bank naked wondering what to do, a hunter from the
Hidatsa camp came along. He was one of Bears Heart’s joking relatives. When
Bears Heart told him what had happened, the hunter teased him about it. Bears
Heart asked him to ride to the camp and ask help of the Prairie Chicken clan for
himself and of the Knife clan for the women. The people of the Prairie Chicken
clan sent word back that they could not help him, even while they were getting the
things together for it was their duty to help their own clan members. Bears
Heart was sad when he heard that his clan members, even though they were of the
Hidatsa and not the Mandan Prairie Chicken clan, would not help him. He was
contemplating returning to Fishhook Village with the women when things were
brought down to them from the hunting camp. The people of the Prairie Chicken
clan sent Bears Heart three horses, a gun with ammunition, and clothing, while
the women of the Knife clan sent clothing and bedding for the women. They
told Bears Heart not to come to their camp for Bear-Looks-Out’s clan relatives
were angry. The three went west to the Crows where shortly afterward Different
Sage was captured by the Blackfeet and became the wife of a chief who appreciated
her fine quillwork. Bears Heart was wounded in the battle but Bear-Looks-Out’s

154 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

relatives who lived with the Crow 2! would not help him so he had to walk back
to the camp unassisted after the bleeding had stopped.

Some time later, a Crow who had been a good hunter but was then ill wanted
raw kidneys to eat. Hearing that Bears Heart was a good hunter but had no fast
horse, the Crow sent his young wife with Bears Heart to get meat. When Bears
Heart saw how pretty the woman was, he thought how lucky he was; he could kill
a buffalo at a distance from the other hunters and possess her while they were
butchering. With this idea in mind, he sent her to a distant point near the woods
and killed a buffalo there. Before he could tie up his horse and begin the butcher-
ing, the woman’s father and brother joined them, never giving him a chance to
be alone with her. Bears Heart suspected that a trick had been played on him so
the next time the Crow offered to send his young wife with Bears Heart, he refused.
The Crow men tease each other a great deal and talk about sex all the time so
they would say, ‘‘The next time we go out hunting, we will let Bears Heart take
our wives. Then we will get much fat meat.’’

Bears Heart stayed with the Crow Indians 1 year and then he brought June-
berries back to the village. When Bear-Looks-Out heard that they were back,
he had his other two wives, the sisters of Juneberries, cook a big meal. Then he
invited Bears Heart to come and eat with him. Some people thought that he
should not go but Bears Heart said to them, “I have to go for he has invited me.
I have to die sometime.”

Three of his friends went with him to protect him if there was trouble, After
they had smoked, one of the men said to Bear-Looks-Out, “I heard that you
invited Bears Heart so I came along with him to see whether you were angry or
whether you had just called him in to feed him.”

Bear-Looks-Out said, “I am not angry at Bears Heart. I was angry at those
women because they did not want me any longer and left me. I want you to come
here, my brother,?2 whenever you want to smoke.”’

Bears Heart and Bear-Looks-Out were often seen together after that. Bears
Heart often called on his former family but he never went there to live again for
his other wife had grown children to take care of her. [End of Crows Heart’s
narrative.]

Reactions to the loss of a wife by elopement differed with the indi-
viduals. One should pretend disconcern, or, when the elopers had re-
turned, invite the woman back home and there, after painting and
dressing her up, put her on a good horse and take her back to her new
husband. When this was done the woman would cry from shame.
Should a man demand his wife back, she should return to him. It
was considered cowardly to force a woman to come back against her
will. Frequently a man, on discovering that a wife had eloped, would
set out alone or with a small party of close friends and relatives to
raid some adjacent enemy camp. However much his feelings may
have been hurt, he should conceal these feelings and pretend not to
care. It was believed that the woman’s reputation was injured if he
returned with scalps and horses because she could not partake in the
victory celebration with her husband. Since families wanted to marry
their daughters to men with good war records, one returning as leader

21 These were people who abandoned agriculture after the smallpox epidemic of 1837 and joined the Crow.
32 Men married to sisters are classified as ‘‘brothers.”

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 155

from a successful war expedition was likely to receive many invitations
to marry girls who had not been married and who had good reputa-
tions, even before the victory dances were ended.

Prominent men invariably had two or more wives. The older ones
had assisted the husband in achieving his ambitions by contributing
towards ceremonial purchases and formal feasts for the older men and
women. As aman’s social status grew, his social obligations increased.
Frequently the wives encouraged their husband to get another wife
to help them with their work, in which case the additional wife lived
with the household. A man might bring a female prisoner to his
lodge to increase the number of his wives or he could marry someone
from the tribe. Not uncommonly, however, it was necessary to main-
tain two or more households because of the objections of the other
wives to moving or abandoning their lodge. Sometimes the new
wife was the chief provider for her own old people. A village leader
could not risk his reputation by marrying one who had carried on
numerous affairs with other men. Thus he invariably married a
young girl strictly trained by her parents. Being past the age when
he would be offering his wives in the walking ceremonies, he would
keep close watch of her and usually enlisted his clansmen and society
to do likewise. He would keep her always as his favorite wife and
should a situation arise when a clansman asked for a wife to take to
the “walking” ceremony, he would give him one of his first wives.
Knowing that he was keeping close watch of her and had the aid of
his friends and relatives as well, it was considered great sport to meet
her on the sly. He would take her out on hunting trips, on visits to
neighboring camps, even on war expeditions, knowing that his joking
relatives would tease him if they learned of an affair going on behind
his back. If her lover was one of little standing in the village or
belonged to a small clan and had few relatives, he was likely to be
beaten. Sometimes however, the rival was a person of considerable
social stature in his own right, or even a clan brother. The Hidatsa
still tell and retell the story of Two Tail’s and Wolf Chief’s quarrel,
occurring between 1826 and 1830. Bears Arm’s account is as follows:

Two Tails was a great gambler. He would gamble each day at Hidatsa
village on the Knife River. Wolf Chief, who was one of the principal chiefs of
that village, had three wives, the youngest one being much younger and very
pretty. Her parents had married her to Wolf Chief but she liked Two Tails
who was younger than her husband. She would send little boys to Two Tails to
tell him where he could meet her.

Two Tails was getting a good reputation as a war leader after he had given
both Wolf Ceremonies, was leading successful war expeditions, and was fasting

often. He would gamble all day and then go out to fast for several days. One
time when he was out fasting, Sun came down and said to him, “Every morning

23 The name refers to two eagle tail feathers. Two Tails was the father of Four Bears, chief at the time of
the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851.

156 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

when I come up IJ see you sitting there. My son, you will be a great man and a
leader of your people.”

One day Wolf Chief learned of the affair between Two Tails and the young
woman. He became very angry but he did not let on how he felt to anyone.
Instead, he organized a war party and went out against the Sioux. He stole
horses and camped near Hidatsa village until morning. They painted and came
into the village at daybreak, driving the horses stolen from the Sioux. Wolf
Chief drove the horses directly to Two Tails’ lodge and called, ‘‘Two Tails, come
out and see what I brought. You go out and do the same thing right away.”

Two Tails knew that the people would call him a coward if he did not go out,
for everyone had heard of his affair with Wolf Chief’s wife. The people knew
that Wolf Chief was taking his anger out on the Sioux. Two Tails organized a
war party and brought back both horses and scalps. His party went directly
to Wolf Chief’s lodge. Two Tails called, ‘‘Wolf Chief, come out and see what I
brought back. You go out and bring in only horses; I bring horses and scalps.
You go out right away; we will keep this up until the snow comes.”’

Wolf Chief went out again and brought in horses. Then Two Tails went out,
killed the occupants of an isolated tipi and brought back scalps and horses. He
stopped at Wolf Chief’s lodge and called, ‘‘See what I brought. You get only
horses; I get both horses and scalps. My father, the Sun, asked me to do this
but I like gambling better. You have hurt my feelings so you go right out again.
If you lose one of your men, we will make war right here.’

Then he returned to his sister’s lodge and gave her the horses. The 10 men
ruling the three villages #4 met to devise a plan to prevent bloodshed in the tribe
They decided to take the pipe to Two Tails and ask him to make peace. They
selected a man of Two Tails’ clan to carry the pipe. They found Two Tails at the
head of the lodge with the scalps on sticks. When they put the pipe before him,
he asked the meaning of it and his clansman said, ‘‘We want you to stop going
on the warpath. It might bring trouble. We want you to smoke the pipe.”

Two Tails said, ‘‘If I light it, my brother, Wolf Chief, will say that I am afraid
and want to quit. Wolf Chief started this because he learned I was with his
wife who likes me and sends for me. I did not want to insult her so I went out
with her. Now it seems he wants to get even with me. Take the pipe to him
and explain these things to him. If he takes the pipe, then you can bring it to me
and I will smoke it. This trouble will then be settled.”

The council picked a man of Wolf Chief’s clan to carry the pipe and they
went to the other man. When they went in, Wolf Chief inquired what it meant
and the clan brother said, ‘‘We fear that there might be trouble, for this rivalry
has gone too far. Two Tails says that you did this because he visits your wife
and that it is all because of your jealousy. We 10 head men have looked into this.
You must discontinue this contest or there might be trouble.”

Wolf Chief replied, ‘‘It is not so; I do not care what he does to my wife; I am
not jealous. I wanted him to do something for the people—be brave and do
things like I do for the people. You men did right coming to me, for now you
know I only wanted to make him a brave man.” Wolf Chief lit the pipe and
when he had finished smoking, the men went back to Two Tails.

They told him what Wolf Chief had said and added, “We know that Wolf
Chief is a great leader and is brave. Now you have exceeded his war record.
We now have seen what you can do. You are braver than Wolf Chief.” So
Two Tails built up his reputation and was a leader after that, but he no longer
bothered Wolf Chief’s young wife.

2% Bears Arm refers here to an intervillage council that was instituted shortly before to handle problems
concerning relationships between villages.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 157

Many years later after the people moved to Fishhook Village, Two Tails’ son named
Four Bears also had a young wife he got after he was far along in the ceremonies.
One day Bear-on-the-Water, a Mandan, stole her and took her to a Mandan
hunting camp. Four Bears became very angry and threatened to kill every
Mandan in the village. They fled rather than attempt to pacify him with goods
and horses. He called the Black Mouth society and his clansmen to go to the
Mandan camp with him for his wife. They went to the camp prepared for war.
He went into the tipi where she was hiding, dragged her out by her hair, and beat
her for leaving her child who was, according to Four Bears, ill at the time and had
no one to care for him. He jabbed her with arrows and beat her with his bow,
daring the Mandans to come to her rescue. As the party left the camp, a clans-
man named Poor Wolf who was also leader of the Black Mouths at the time,
killed a valuable stallion belonging to Bear-on-the-Water’s brother, Moves
Slowly. Most of the people did not approve of Four Bear’s action; they considered
it unworthy of a principal chief. Poor Wolf was in an embarrassing situation,
for, only a few years earlier, he had stolen a Mandan’s wife and nothing was done
about it. Even Four Bear’s best friends thought he had given a very poor argu-
ment for taking his wife back, since the child had several mothers in the lodge to
care for him. [End of Bear Arm’s narrative.]

The position of the older wives in the household was quite different
from that of a man’s young wife. The older ones were generally the
owners of the lodge and the household equipment, the associated
gardens, and many of the horses which they had inherited from their
mothers and grandmothers within the maternal lineage. They had
assisted the husband in his ceremonial activities, prepared goods to
be given away on numerous social and ceremonial occasions, had
acquired much knowledge of sacred lore while assisting their husband,
had borne him children, had prepared feasts for the older men on
orders of the husband, and had “walked” with the husband’s ‘fathers’
during age-grade purchases or certain ceremonial performances.
They had come to take each other more or less for granted.

Men were, in general, afraid to have love affairs with a woman who
had participated often in the ceremonies with her husband. They
were even more reluctant to marry her if the husband died. Widows
frequently pledged publicly during the funeral rites not to remarry
and were not asked to marry thereafter. Women who had obtained
considerable knowledge of the husband’s sacred rites were viewed as
sacred and, therefore, potentially dangerous. This avoidance applied
to all men except the deceased man’s brothers or those with identical
ceremonial rights. When no vow was made during the husband’s
funeral, some man might desire to marry her. Those not acquainted
with her husband’s ceremonial rights were said to be foolish to marry
her. There are many traditional accounts of those violating the rule
by marrying the widow of an important man, only to go insane, blind,
or die soon afterward. Hence there were generally a few older
widows in most households.

158 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Bull. 194

The younger wife rarely remained a widow very long. She had
taken little or no part in her husband’s ceremonial purchases and
ritual activities, and it would have been considered foolish for her
to vow not to remarry. The men were not afraid of her for she would
have little knowledge of her deceased husband’s sacred lore.

From the foregoing accounts we see that marriage was always a
secular activity. The bride’s household, expressing their social
status by demanding horses or other property, tended to eliminate
suitors who came from poor and low status households. The return to
the groom’s household of an equal or greater number of horses and
other property expressed the bride’s family’s estimation of the husband
and his household. Strictly speaking, marriage involved only two
clans, that of the husband and that of the wife. The husband’s father
might speak for his wife’s relatives, once they had reached a decision,
but his relatives had no part in the ceremony; generally they did not
attend and under no circumstances would the people of the father’s
clan put up horses or contribute to the feast. This attitude on the
part of the people of the father’s clan is consistent with a broader
cultural pattern that ‘fathers’ and ‘father’s sisters” receive gifts
and give “blessings.”” The Hidatsa did not consider marriages of
sufficient ritualistic importance to enlist the aid of the father’s rela-
tives. The mother’s relatives, the members of her clan, were a man’s
principal cooperators and participants. The maternal grandmothers,
mothers, sisters, and brothers put up the horses and other property
and welcomed the new daughter-in-law into their household. It
was this group who made the arrangements with the bride’s relatives.
Although the bride’s father might prefer a different young man and
discuss the matter with his wife, the bride’s mothers and brothers
were the ones to approve or disapprove a proposal of marriage. In
completing the marriage, they were the ones who made gifts to the
bride’s husband’s household. The groom’s economic value to the
wife’s household was expressed by a personal gift of a horse and
weapons by the bride’s household with an invitation for them to live
in the bride’s lodge.

Marriage within the clan was strongly disapproved of but there was
nothing that could be done to prevent it other than indirect controls
such as ridicule and adverse comment when the couple persisted in
their plans. There was no exchange of property between households
and no marriage feast. Those marrying within the clan were teased
by their ‘joking relatives.” Hidatsa thought that children suffered
most because of conflicts in relationships, for a man would be both a
father and an older brother. Formerly, no objection was raised to
marrying one of the Mandan Prairie Chicken clan when the Mandan
and Hidatsa had separate villages. After they settled together at

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 159

Fishhook in 1845, the Mandan and Hidatsa clan systems were so
completely equated that marriages between them were generally
disparaged. Although no objections were raised to marriage within
the Three-clan moiety, the Hidatsa have recently come to disapprove,
according to my genealogies and native observations, marriages
between certain clans of the Four-clan moiety. It was improper for
one of the Waterbuster clan to marry either a Xura or Itisuku, or for
a Prairie Chicken to marry a Speckled Eagle.

Marriage of a woman to one of the father’s clan was as uncommon as
with one of the same clan. The genealogies show that this reluctance
to marry into the father’s clan was of long standing. This was in
sharp contrast with the Mandan who commonly and preferably had
a clansman as father-in-law with whom he talked freely and without
the restraints normally shown a Hidatsa father-in-law. The
genealogies show a higher frequency of marriage to men of the father’s
clan for the Awatixa women than for the other Hidatsa village groups.
This was also the village group that transmitted some sacred bundles
through the clan. In the few cases of marriage to a man of the
father’s clan observed by my informants, the father-in-law taboo was
less rigid; they had common clan interests and the father-in-law felt
obliged to assist his son-in-law in society and ritual purchases. This
did not, however, in any sense alter the mother-in-law taboo relation-
ships.

Marriage of blood brothers to women classified as sisters and of
the same household must have been exceedingly uncommon although,
by the extension of the kinship system, males married to sisters were
classified as “‘brothers.”” Cases of the sororate were numerous. The
levirate operated only when the deceased husband’s family so de-
sired, after observing that the widow had mourned long.

The basic economic unit was the household or extended matrilinear
family based on matrilocal residence. The older daughters invariably
brought their husbands to their lodge. If there were a number of
daughters, the younger ones commonly lived with the husband’s
people, particularly when his services were needed at home to provide
for his parents. If, however, her older sisters died, she would take
her husband to her own lodge to care for her parents. If her husband
died or divorced her, she would return to the mother’s lodge. The
household would normally consist of the old parents, old men and
women of the clan, daughters with their husband or husbands, un-
married daughters and sons, and usually a few orphans belonging to
the clan of the females. A few households would also have a berdache
either reared in the household or brought to it by marriage. With
the exception of those households where, for want of a daughter,

160 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

residence was patrilocal, the unit was composed of a number of ele-
mentary families held together through the female line.

Except for certain ritualistic practices celebrated by the females and
sold to the daughters, the household did not perpetuate ritual prac-
tices. A man would secure his ceremonial bundles and rites from
his father living in a different lodge, and sell them to his married son
residing elsewhere in the village. Thus the sacred bundle rights
circulated from lodge to lodge. This was in marked contrast to the
Mandan system where bundles were often retained in the same house-
hold from generation to generation.

Until the small log cabins were adopted, the lodge arrangement of
families varied little between households. The section to the back of
the lodge was reserved for the sacred bundles of the principal male
member of the household. He lived in that section of the lodge with
his wives. The right side of the lodge on entering and nearest the
door was penned off for the horses. Beyond the pens were the beds
for the old people and the very young children. The central section
contained the firepit and seats for those of the established members
of the family. A section next to the door on the left side on entering,
and beyond the windbreak and area reserved for the wood, was
walled off for the son-in-law and his family. As time passed and the
son-in-law became permanently adjusted to the others of the house-
hold, while growing in importance in the community, he and his
family moved nearer the head of the lodge and took over the favorite
and honored position formerly occupied by the father-in-law and his
wives. The final shift to the head of the lodge was made when the
father-in-law reached old age and no longer participated actively in
village matters, or at any other time when the son-in-law had at-
tained unusual respect in the village or the father-in-law died.

The women cared for the lodge and kept it repaired. When the
lodge timbers were decayed and it was necessary to rebuild it, the
women provided the materials for a new roof cover. They enlisted
the assistance of their related households who worked together as a
team. The males living in the lodge and those belonging to the house-
hold living elsewhere raised the heavier posts, beams, and timbers.
It was the duty of the clan to care for its own members. Most of the
female clan members assisted in one way or another, if for only a
few hours, and also brought food for the workers.

When camping away from the permanent summer village for short
periods during the eagle trapping season, or on other occasions when
the campsite was on the river and was to be occupied for only a
few months at most, it was customary to build the small “wood
lodge.” These were small wood-covered tipi-shaped structures built
on a four-post central platform. Being smaller than the usual earth

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 161

lodge structures, two or more with entrances facing each other were
usually built for each household. One lodge would then be occupied
by the mothers-in-law and their husband, and the other by the
younger married people. Children were quartered in either lodge.
After 1860, the Hidatsa largely abandoned the large circular earth
lodge for winter village use. When returning to a former winter
camp, the lodges still usable were repaired as shelters for the horses,
storerooms, and dancing lodges, while small rectangular log cabins
were built nearby with an enclosed hallway leading into the earth
lodge. Often as many as four such cabins were built adjacent to the
earth lodge when the household was composed of several families.

The log cabin was in general use for winter camps by 1860, and by
1865 was replacing the large circular earth lodges of the summer
village as well. In 1872 McChesney reported 35 earth lodges and
69 log cabins occupied by the Mandan and Hidatsa of Fishhook
Village (Matthews, 1877, p. 4).

The household economic pattern seems to have been affected little
by the adoption of the log cabin. Although two or more cabins were
built to house a former earth lodge household, the lodges were built
adjacent to each other or as double-roomed cabins with separate
entrances and an intervening doorway. Each room had a fireplace
with a plastered chimney and an opening in the roof to admit light
and air. When the lodge was completed, certain women skilled in
making chimneys were paid to make the fireplace and construct the
chimney. This right to build chimneys and fireplaces was bought
in the matrilineal line like other ceremonial rights. Each room had a
cache under the earth floor. Having a separate room away from the
mothers-in-law, a man felt freer to invite in his friends. The eco-
nomic life of the household, however, was unaffected by the change
in living quarters. The women continued to plant and harvest the
crops according to the ancient system. ‘The gardens were held by the
linked households and the women worked as a group curing and
storing the produce without consideration to the small family lodge
units. They also shared the common stores as before. A young
wife living with, or adjacent to, the husband’s people continued to
plant crops with her mother’s group, at least until she had children
and was an established member of the husband’s household. The
son-in-law provided meat for both his own and his wife’s family.

In theory, a man provided the meat and hides for his wife and her
household while the wife’s household provided him with the necessary
horses, weapons, and knives. For the communal trips and summer
hunts, however, the Hidatsa employed a more equitable system of
dividing the products of the chase. These hunts being highly or-
ganized activities, all able-bodied men could not devote equal time

162 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

and effort to killing the animals. Some men, especially those of the
Black Mouth police society, were continuously engaged in policing
the camp or guarding the encampment to forestall a surprise attack
from their enemies. Others were at a distance from the encamp-
ment serving as scouts, guarding the horses at pasture, or seeking
buffaloes and planning the surround. It was customary, there-
fore, for those with good buffalo horses to do the killing while older
men with packhorses brought the meat to the camp.

Once in camp, the meat was placed in centrally situated piles where
all could help themselves, irrespective of households. Older men too
feeble to engage in the heavy work of butchering and transporting
the meat would assist their households in erecting drying platforms.
As each platform was completed, the meat taken from the common
piles was sliced in thin strips and dried by households. One was
considered selfish to take meat or hides that could not be cured
immediately while others were able to give these things immediate
attention. From native accounts, these communal hunting expedi-
tions were happy times. A household with many active young
women, having all their meat cured, would pitch in and help the less
fortunate ones. Frequently the special officers refused their extra
share of hides and tongues because of the size of the kill and the
limited facilities for transporting it to the village.

Animals taken in corrals were divided in a different manner. After
the special awards were made to those managing the rites and directing
the animals to the corral, a line was drawn through the center of the
enclosure from the center of the mouth to the opposite wall. Animals
lying on one side of this line went to the Three-clan moiety and those
on the other side belonged to the Four-clan moiety. Employing this
division in 1872, we would have found 22 households butchering on
the Three-clan side and 27 on the Four-clan side. Five additional
households, comprising two with Arikara female members and three
represented by both moieties, would have to be taken into account.
According to Bears Arm, if the households were unequal in number,
mixed ones butchered on the weaker or smaller side. When butcher-
ing at the corral, each household group selected one animal until
there were no longer enough animals to go around, when related
households went together and shared the additional ones.

The women of the household also frequently shared certain sacred
and secular rights, mythological lore, techniques of basketry and
pottery decorations and manufacture, household doctoring procedures,
and other activities which were transmitted through the household
lineage.

Due to matrilocal residence and patrilineal inheritance of most
sacred rites, sacred bundles obtained by a male usually passed out of

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 163

the household in one generation. Thus a man, after he had married,
would normally obtain his bundles through his father living in the
younger man’s maternal household but belonging to a different
household lineage. Although the sacred bundle rites were not long
kept within the female household, the members of the various house-
holds had certain duties and obligations whenever the transfer was
made. In the purchase of the father’s bundle rites, a man received
assistance in the form of goods and food from his brothers and their
wives, mother’s brothers and their wives, his sisters, and his sisters’
daughters and sons when they were old enough to assist. From
his wife’s household he received the assistance of his wives, his wives’
sisters and their husbands, and the mothers-in-law. This group of
relatives, varying in number, would occupy different households but
the principal contributions came from two household groups; his
mother’s and his wives’. The clan and society members of both
the buyer and his wife were also expected to lend assistance, but
their responsibilities were not as great. These many relatives and
other cooperating groups lightened the burden of ceremonial purchases
and enhanced the prestige of all of them.

The household group was a stable unit for generations as long as
there were daughters to inherit the lodge complex. With strong
loyalties to the mother’s household group, any study of a Hidatsa
male or female must take these ties into account. The Hidatsa say
that a person without relatives is nothing.

MATURITY AND OLD AGE

Membership in the Black Mouth society was viewed as a mark of
maturity and respectability. As a man moved upward through
the age-grade system, his role as buyer of ceremonial rights changed
to that of seller. A man’s position in the lodge also changed in time.
At first, as a young married man living in his wife’s lodge, his section
of the lodge was that nearest the door on the left side as one entered.
As the older people became aged and infirm, they slowly shifted their
beds and personal equipment in a clockwise direction. The most
mature and active male member of the lodge would then occupy
the head of the lodge where he kept his personal property and sacred
bundles, and entertained his friends.

A woman’s position in the household was essentially the same as
that for a man. As her parents grew older and were unable to par-
ticipate actively in the affairs of the household and village, she
slowly took over the roles formerly performed by her mothers and
maternal grandmothers. A woman would normally be participating
actively in the Goose society by this time.

164 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

The Hidatsa showed great respect for age. They recognized
that each person was an individual with his or her own distinctive
characteristics and achievements. The rules dealing with the care
of the aged and unfortunate of the clan, and the special respect
shown to people of the father’s clan, largely set patterns for the care
of the aged within one’s own immediate family. There was no such
thing as abandonment of the aged and the infirm, for young people
were taught early in life to respect the aged; even the least dis-
tinguished old people ought not to be neglected. There are many
references in Hidatsa mythology dealing with this matter. A promi-
nent theme of Hidatsa mythology told how some old people with
little visible evidence of wealth or supernatural powers brought
misfortune upon others by magical means when they were neglected
—or unusual good fortune when they were treated well. The Hidatsa
associated age with wisdom. They spoke well of those middle-aged
people who were caring for a number of their old relatives. People
would say that those lodges were occupied by generous and wise
people. There, old people of the lodge, both men and women, would
tell their young grandchildren of times as they used to be, teach them
the sacred and traditional myths, and advise them in various matters
so that when they grew up they would be of great help to the people.

An old woman without meat would go out to the edge of the village
to await the return of the hunters. It was her right to demand meat
of any man, regardless of his age, if he stood in the grandson-grand-
mother relationship to her. By the numerous extensions of the
Hidatsa kinship system, a woman would normally have many grand-
sons in the community and none should deny her meat or hides if she
so requested. Old men would not customarily do this. Instead, an
old man would attend ceremonial and social functions, sitting in the
honored section of the lodge, and receive gifts of many sorts from
those performing the rites. In the Northern Plains where the Hidatsa
lived, largely surrounded by the nomadic tribes such as the Crow
and Assiniboin, they had an opportunity to observe the care of the
old people of those tribes. They were well aware that both the
Crow and the Assiniboin sometimes abandoned their old people
when traveling. It was possible under the semisedentary life of
the Hidatsa to provide much better care for their old people than
those wandering tribes living near them. The result was that
Hidatsa households frequently cared for the aged, widowed mothers
and very young orphans from these and other nomadic tribes which
came to the villages to trade for corn. The Hidatsa never seemed
to have considered caring for these unfortunate people an undue
hardship and my Hidatsa informants spoke highly of people who
cared for the unfortunate of other tribes.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 165

A few old couples or a single old woman who preferred to get along
alone usually were to be found in all the Hidatsa villages. In some
instances they were left without younger sons, daughters, or grand-
children, or they might have been childless themselves. If the old
couple or old woman, as the case might be, were the survivors of a
large household once living in the usual-sized earth lodge, the task of
keeping the lodge in repair would be too great for them as years
passed. In this instance, when the lodge needed extensive repairs,
it was customary to tear down the old lodge, preserving the stronger
timbers, and erect on the same ground a much smaller one built on a
four-post foundation without the peripheral posts. This lodge, when
covered with earth, resembled the tipi made of hides and was identical
to those constructed at the eagle trapping sites. Surface outlines of
ancient villages of the Hidatsa along the Missouri River frequently
reveal the location of these little lodges.

Hidatsa informants were in agreement that some older couples prac-
ticing special arts and crafts found it more convenient to live apart
from their extended relatives. An example of this would be an old
couple, man and wife or wives, specializing in pottery making. Pot-
tery making for the Hidatsa was a secret and sacred activity. The old
woman who had bought rights in pottery making, usually from her
mother’s or father’s sisters, would practice her skills more energetically
as she grew older. She bought this right from one having ceremonial
rights coming to her from the snakes. It was believed by the Hidatsa
that only the snakes made pottery in former times. One day the
snakes took an old couple out on the prairie where they had been
working. They showed this old couple piles of dirt scattered about
and explained to them that in making pottery one must mix certain
clays with sand or the grit produced by crushing certain stones long
used around the fires. The husband would assist his wife in the heavier
operations of pottery-making such as securing the clay and pad-
dling out the vessel forms. ‘There were many exposed clay banks in
the neighborhood of the various Hidatsa villages. The potters would
test the clay to find those deposits that had the proper qualities. Near
Fishhook Village, about 4 miles to the northwest, there was an exposed
vein of lignite coal. The potters of Fishhook Village secured all their
pottery clay from the beds immediately above and below this coal
layer. The men would sack up the clay and either carry it on their
backs or pack it on horseback to the village. The old men would also
gather the fired stones from about the village and take them to their
lodges.

Pottery making was a secret rite and one should not visit or stand
around talking with those making vessels. It was customary to
perform secret rites directed to the snakes and sing the appropriate

710-195—65——12

166 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

sacred songs while shaping the vessels. Women were considered more
skillful in impressing into the damp walls of the vessels the various
designs and patterns which they had bought the right to use either at
the time when the initial rights were purchased or at a later time
when a particular design owned by other women met their fancy. So
they would bar the door to their lodge, pass the word about through
the village that they were making pottery, and work in secret. It
was necessary to keep off drafts from the wet clay and the newly
shaped vessels.

Most of these finished vessels were given to their own immediate
relatives as gifts, knowing that the receivers were looking after their
welfare. In other instances, the vessels were traded directly with
women desiring pots for those things which the family did not already
have. It is not known today how many pottery makers there were
in the Hidatsa villages, but informants believed that only a few
families made pottery.

Another category of specialists who preferred to live alone because
of the nature of their activities were those who worked with flints
and other stones. The Hidatsa secured most of their flint from the
higher buttes and uplands west of the Missouri River. Here, ir-
regular layers of flint were exposed and they had a number of tradi-
tional places where they quarried the stone. The best stone was
that which was covered with dirt and had to be exposed, using hard-
ened ash poles as digging sticks to break off the layers. Working of
chipped stone was a ceremonial activity, and goes back to two ancient
traditional systems; one derived from the large birds, such as the
eagles, hawks, owls, and thunderbirds, and the other derived from
the beavers. Concerning the latter system, little is known today
other than what has been passed on traditionally. The former
system was connected with the sacred arrows of which there were a
number of bundle owners living at the time my informants were
young men. Even so, they no longer practiced their skills of stone
flaking. It is said that in former times a man working at stone
flaking operated in a closed lodge using the light from the fireplace
and, like the potters who kept their clays stored away in cache pits
or shallow pits near the inner edge of the lodge, the stoneworkers
likewise kept their flints moistened and covered until used. It was
believed that the stone would fracture irregularly if people stood
around watching and, like pottery making, stonework was done in
secret.

Another organized group was that of the berdaches. These people
were men who, during their late teens and after many dreams from
the Holy-Woman-Above, changed their clothing to that worn by
women and assumed special roles in the community. They usually

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 167

formed attachments to older men, generally men without children
and having trouble keeping their wives, and set up separate house-
holds. At the time this study was made, informants could remember
two such people in the generation above them, but they had heard
that in former times there were sometimes as many as 15 to 25 ber-
daches in their villages.

Since the berdaches were viewed as mystic possessors of unique
ritual instructions secured directly from the mysterious Holy Woman,
they were treated as a special class of religious leaders. Although a
berdache might have lived within an extended household as one of the
cowives, informants thought that separate households more commonly
were maintained. According to tradition, these were well-to-do
households. The ‘“man-woman’”’ worked in the garden, did bead
work, and butchered as did the women. Being stronger and more
active than the women, the berdache could do many things more
efficiently and was never burdened down with childbearing. Ac-
counts we have of the berdaches tell of industrious individuals work-
ing harder than the women of the village and exceeding the women
in many common activities. Informants felt that separate house-
holds established around the berdache were very often better fixed
than those where the men carried on active military duties.

The berdache performed many ceremonial roles. When the Sun
Dance ceremonies (Naxpikr) were to be performed, it was the ber-
dache’s duty to locate the log for the central post from driftwood in
the river. Whenever a major ceremony was being given, the berd-
ache would dress like the other members of the Holy Woman Society
and receive gifts as an equal member with the women of the society.

The berdaches comprised the most active ceremonial class in the
village. Their roles in ceremonies were many and exceeded those of
the most distinguished tribal ceremonial leaders. There was an
atmosphere of mystery about them. Not being bound as firmly by
traditional teachings coming down from the older generations through
the ceremonies, but more as a result of their own individual and
unique experiences with the supernatural, their conduct was less
traditional than that of the other ceremonial leaders.

The berdache was a brother or the son of a man holding tribal
ceremonial rights in the Woman Above and Holy Woman bundles.
There are no known instances of exceptions to this rule and the
Hidatsa believed that only persons standing in these relationships to
those bundles ever assumed the woman’s role. The berdache com-
monly adopted orphans from the village or secured young daughters
and sons through the capture of prisoners by their relatives, transmit-
ting their property and their ceremonial knowledge to their younger
adopted children. Like certain male medicine men, they sur-

168 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

rounded themselves with many individual rules of conduct for guests
in the lodge. This limited the activities of people associating with
them and, like several outstanding male medicine men surrounded by
these many rules, people tended to fear, respect, and avoid them.
In this sense they resembled in their social position males possessing
unique and special mysterious supernatural powers. Berdaches
tended to disappear once warfare had ceased and their ceremonial
system had collapsed.

LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH

Whether a doctor was called in when a member of the household
became ill was largely a family matter. When it was known that
an individual possessed ceremonial rights dealing with some common-
place illness, such an individual would normally be called in and paid
for his services. In general, it would seem that the household more
commonly relied on the supernatural powers of its own members at
first. For most illnesses, help was not solicited beyond the immed iate
household and other near relatives. If a doctor was called in and
agreed to assist after a preliminary examination, the price for his
services being already determined, and it was evident that the patient
would not recover, it was customary to ask the doctor to remain
until death and to give comfort to the sick person. This was
especially true when the doctor belonged to the sick person’s father’s
clan for the father’s clansmen had particular roles to perform at the
death of their sons and daughters. Many individuals never sought
aid of a doctor as they had faith in their own ceremonial bundles to
carry them through life.

Most people reaching middle age and older had the clothing they
were to be put away in set aside and ready for the moment of death.
Since many lived many years after initial preparation of their clothing,
from time to time they would substitute new items, and either wear
out or give away those which they formerly had kept. Each individual
at some time also indicated the person who was to “bring the robe” and
had instructed him or her on how his body was to be prepared and
the manner of disposal that was to be employed. Some individuals
long outlived those first selected and named new ones throughout
the years.

In the event of the illness of a young married person, it was customary
to return to the mother’s lodge. In the case of a young married man
it was rather difficult to look after him in a lodge with parents-in-law
since the young man’s brothers and sisters would be the ones most
concerned about his welfare. Thus a young man when ill would
return to his mother’s lodge where those coming in to look after him

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 169

would have greater freedom of action. The same applied to a young
married woman living in her husband’s lodge.

The Hidatsa tried to anticipate the moment of death and to have the
person painted in his distinctive designs and dressed in his burial
clothing before death. The duty of attending to this fell to the
members of the father’s clan. In the case of little children, this duty
usually fell to some well-known father’s clans-woman selected by
the child’s mother. There was a formal way of addressing the woman
so selected in which the mother would go to her and say “your
brother’s child is about to die. You are to bring the robe.”” When
this was done, no one could refuse. It was her duty to select a robe
in good repair, one of the best that she had, or go out through the
village and find a well-decorated robe that she thought the child
would have liked. She would then go to the lodge, dress the child in
appropriate clothing, and wrap him tightly in the robe. Other
brothers and sisters or clan brothers and sisters might bring additional
robes and ask that the child be buried in them or give them to some
member of the father’s clan who in turn was expected to provide an
additional robe. Whether child or adult, it was customary, if
possible, to bury or to place the dead on a scaffold or in a tree during
the day of death. If, however, the person died late in the day and
it was not possible to complete the burial arrangements that day,
it was customary toleave thecorpsein the lodge overnight. Old mocca-
sins with hot coals in them were placed in the entrance of the lodge to
keep away the evil spirits and to protect the people from the ill-effects
of having a dead person in the lodge overnight. When this happened
people would stay up all night awaiting the break of day for the
funeral services.

It was the duty of the people of the father’s clan to take care of and
handle all of the funeral arrangements. First of all there was the
preparation of the body. The manner of disposal was largely a family
custom inherited from their family lines going back to the three
original village groups on the Knife River. The Hidatsa recognized
that there were a number of different traditional methods of disposing
of the dead. They were well aware of the fact that more people were
buried in the ground at Hidatsa village on the Knife River than at the
other villages. This was evident to the Hidatsa themselves for, after
leaving the Knife River and up until a few years ago, the Hidatsa
commonly made trips downriver to their ancient villages. They had
seen the many burial mounds and depressions at Knife River, at
Hidatsa village, and the few that were found around Awatixa and
Awaxawi villages. The Hidatsa-proper claimed that this difference in
disposal practices dated back to their first appearance on the Missouri
River and they have many traditions dealing with burial in the ground.

170 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

There were some who believed that Hidatsa earth burials were
adopted from the Arikara. However, this position cannot be held
in light of other evidence. In the first place, it is inconsistent with
the evidence to maintain Arikara origin of earth burials since both the
Hidatsa and Awatixa villages were contemporaneous and situated
less than a mile apart. Further evidence is the fact that in 1837 when
smallpox broke out in the Hidatsa and Mandan villages, the people
of Hidatsa village moved upstream a few miles below Lucky Mound
Creek and lived in the woods apart from the other people. Neverthe-
less the smallpox did reach them at this village known today as ‘“‘Where
People Died of Smallpox.’’ Several informants mentioned this village
also and the many burial pits of that date were still to be seen in 1932.
Old Hidatsa informants who had been to the shoreline areas of Devils
Lake to the east where they formerly lived, claimed that they had
seen the burial mounds of their old people who formerly lived there.

The other method of disposal was above ground in trees, on scaffolds,
or under overhanging rocks. When living in winter camps, it was
common to place the dead in trees. During the summer months,
while occupying the permanent villages, scaffolds were erected on a
four-post frame at the edge of the village. The area might contain
both burials and scaffolds. In some instances all the members of
some households would be placed on scaffolds, while all the members
of other households would be buried in the ground. In other instances
a household might practice both scaffold disposal and interment.
When a person died away from the village, it was usually impossible
to bring him back. If his brothers and sisters wanted his bones
brought back to the village, it was then the duty of some female
standing in the relationship of father’s sister to the deceased to make
the arrangements for the return of the skull a year later. She would
then communicate with various people going out in that direction and
provide them with a bag in which to place the man’s skull. When it
was returned to the village, it was customary to rewrap it and place
it on one of the existing scaffolds with his relatives or, in the event of
interment, to bury it just below the surface, over the body of one of
his close relatives.

Another closely related practice was to paint the skull and set it
on a nest of soft sage in one of the skull circles near the village.
These skull circles were customary fasting places for those seeking
dreams. When Fishhook Village was abandoned and the Hidatsa
moved out on the reservation, one such skull circle was maintained
on the hills northeast of Elbowoods. People coming primarily from
Awatixa and Awaxawi villages on the Knife River were wrapped and
set on the ground at this place. When the wrapping had deteriorated
and the flesh had decayed, close relatives would remove the skulls

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 171

and set them in a rough circle surrounded by buffalo skulls. This
practice was abandoned a few years prior to 1932.

Occasionally a small child was buried at the outer edge of the
lodge, believing that a child would be lonely away from his close
relatives. In other instances, children were placed in bundles beside
their relatives on scaffolds. ‘The Hidatsa appear to have no traditions
of cache-pit burials within the village. They do, however, have
references to the separation of the skull and the other bones, the
skull becoming a part of a skull circle while the other bones, wrapped
in a bundle, were buried in a soft place along the river bank or within
the fortification. There are also traditions of earth burials made in
mounds or mounds built over the burial in the outline of the indi-
vidual’s ‘spirit god.”

Regardless of the method of disposal employed, the same sets of
relatives participated. The principal official was the one designated
to ‘“‘bring the robe.’’ Other people of the father’s clan assisted in
building the scaffold or digging the grave. Both men and women
assisted and received generous payment for their services. They
likewise were viewed as the principal mourners. When a person
died, most of his personal property usually was already willed away
and it was the duty of the relatives to see that those promised different
things received them. A man might promise his favorite buffalo
horse to his “‘pal’’ or his gun to another person. When death occurred,
it was the right of the brothers and sisters and the closer members of
the person’s clan to come in and take possession of his unwilled
personal property. They, however, were obliged to put up the
goods to pay those of the father’s clan who had performed various
services and/or others of the father’s clan and certain distinguished
people of the village whom they felt were entitled to special recognition.

A man’s ceremonial bundles were treated in two ways. ‘Those that
were of a personal nature and that had been established by the
deceased on the basis of his dreams or as gifts from a near relative were
generally wrapped in the bundle with the body or hung on one of the
posts of the scaffold. In no instance were they kept around the
lodge or treated lightly by the survivors. Tribal bundles associated
with the long-standing ceremonies were viewed as tribal property and
were kept by the nearest relative. Here two subpatterns prevailed.
A widow who had participated with her husband in the initial acquiring
of the bundle usually held custodianship of it until it was either sold
to someone in the village standing in the “son” relationship to the
deceased or it was preserved and kept until the man’s own sons reached
proper age.

The Hidatsa did not tend to place much personal property with
the bodies; a man’s favorite firearms, bow and arrows, pipe, personal
sacred bundle, and paints of various colors were the most common

172 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

articles. When the individual was placed on a scaffold, it was com-
mon for those having distinctive military records to request that the
symbols associated with these records be painted on the posts.
Food of the type a man would carry on a long journey was usually
placed in a dish or bag with the body.

The mourners and the participants would meet at the deceased’s
lodge and move to the burial grounds in a procession. At the head
would be those carrying the body, immediately followed by the
nearest relatives. For a man these relatives would be his sisters,
mothers and father, brothers, and wife in that order.

Prior to the removal of the body from the lodge and usually imme-
diately after the moment of death, it was the custom for the sisters
and mother to prepare their mourning clothing and hair. First of
all, they would cut their hair short and jagged. Then they would
cut off the lower section of some old dress and remove the sleeves.
A woman was expected to cut off a section of a finger for anyone
who had given her a horse on returning from a successful war expe-
dition. Since a man normally gave horses only to mothers and
sisters, these generally were the ones who cut off fingertips. Men
rarely cut off the tips of their fingers in mourning; they, however, did
do this when fasting for visions and supernatural powers.

For distinguished men and women, the amount of goods given to the
mourners was often very great. Most of the goods was secured as
gifts from members of the clan. However, a man’s age-grade society
would frequently contribute goods to be given to various distinguished
persons. No two individuals tended to have exactly the same kinship
ties and relationships. One individual, whether male or female,
might during his lifetime adopt many sons and daughters and be
adopted as son by many others, even of alien tribes. When such a
person died, it was expected that the brothers and sisters and all these
sons and daughters would present gifts to distinguished people in the
deceased person’s name.

My informants were all in agreement that the fires in the lodges
were all extinguished on the death of a great chief. However, my
informants could not agree on the particular categories of chiefs in-
volved. All agreed that the head chief of the village, commonly
known as the Village or Peace Chief, the principal War Chief, and the
four men “protecting the four directions’ would be so honored.
It may well be that the lack of agreement after the Hidatsa moved to
Fishhook Village was because there was not the same cultural unity
within the village that there had formerly been when they lived in
separate villages.

When it was learned in the village that someone was about to die,
it was customary for those who had lost loved ones shortly before to

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 173

come to him with messages to be carried to their dead in the spirit
world. One about to die sometimes had many of these messages to
deliver. A mother would send word to a recently deceased child,
giving it instructions and advice of one sort or another.

In no area of Hidatsa culture were there so many diverse views as in
that pertaining to the hereafter. All informants agreed that life in the
hereafter was very much like that on earth. Murderers were excluded
from the villages of the dead and became aimless wanderers much as
in life when, after committing a murder, the individual, should he suc-
ceed in escaping the wrath of the victim’s clansmen and sons, was
excluded thereafter from the social life of his community There was
disagreement among informants relative to suicides. Some informants
thought that suicides never reached the land of the dead but wandered
about much as murderers did. However, since most suicides were
committed by females, the views of women in this matter probably
more correctly reflect the views of the Hidatsa. All my female in-
formants believed that no distinction was made between suicide and
natural death; that people did not commit suicide except during epi-
demics; and that in those days the Hidatsa did not believe that any
people would survive. Therefore, these women claimed, people com-
mitted suicide during the periods of epidemics simply to catch up
with and rejoin their recently deceased relatives, at a time when the
household was largely destroyed by these newly introduced diseases.

Hidatsa beliefs relative to the hereafter are based on two bodies of
data, their ancient traditions and mythologies and recent dreams and
visions. Numerous informants spoke of the return and reunion of
their people with those who were once left behind in very early times
when the Hidatsa came up out of the ground at some place to the south-
east. According to this tradition, the Hidatsa and all other Indians
were at that time living underground. Finding an opening reaching
to the land above, the people began moving upward to the surface of
the earth. One woman heavy with child broke the vine by which they
were ascending, separating the people. Many people believe that on
death the individual returns to this land below. It was Mrs. White
Duck’s opinion, given her by her father Poor Wolf, that this village
of the dead was downriver and underground. Bears Arm, one of my
principal informants, also believed that there was a reunion of the
dead with those who were divided when the vine broke. He thought
that the land below and the land above the earth constituted the first
and third levels of the universe. He stated that the land below and
the land above were identical to the land on which they were now liv-
ing. ‘To the west were high mountains and to the east were the wood-
lands.

174 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Another view held by other informants was that many others were
the descendants of the 13 initial family groups from the sky who estab-
lished a village on Charred Body Creek below the present town of
Washburn, N. Dak., led by Charred Body who had first discovered
this land below. Mrs. Good Bear, whose husband was one of the Sun
Dance makers, believed that on death they returned to the sky.
This view was shared by Wolf Chief whose father held one of the
Waterbuster clan bundles consisting of two human skulls believed to
have once been of two eagles who transformed themselves into men;
one man came from their village at the headwaters of the Missouri
River, where the sky and land meet, to live in Awatixa village.

Another view, held by Four Dancers, was that the village of the
dead was on the earth. He based his views on instructions and in-
formation given by the owners of the Earthnaming bundles. Other
older informants believed that when they died they would return
downstream to the mouth of the Knife River or to Devils Lake and
join their deceased relatives there.

Another view held was that when a prominent medicine man died,
his spirit father would come to meet him and escort him to the
village of his spirit people. In addition to these views, there were
individual views not generally shared by very many people and which
were based on individual visions and dream experiences in which
they had seen their deceased relatives living in earth lodges, practicing
agriculture, hunting buffaloes, and conducting warfare with their
enemies in much the same manner as when they lived.

Tur AGE-GRADE SYSTEM

The Hidatsa placed great importance on relative age in determining
behavior between individuals. The same concepts were extended to
include status of the members of the organized societal and religious
groups. Theoretically, the entire male and female population was
arranged in a series of groupings based on age. For the greater
part of the population, these groups were formally organized with
names, symbols of membership, songs, and prescribed rights and
rules of behavior. The system for men was more complexly devel-
oped into a series of age-graded military societies. Individuals were
not organized into formal societies during two periods in their lives:
prior to reaching the age of 12 (depending upon the village group),
and after they had achieved old age and had passed through the
age-grade system. The social and ceremonial system imposed so
many burdens and obligations on the individual that it was prac-
tically impossible to fulfill his traditional roles and assume his cus-
tomary positions in the village life except with the assistance of the

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 175

organized groups to which he belonged, chief of which were his clan
and the age-grade societies.

MEN’S SOCIETIES

The Hidatsa do not consider the men’s societies as sacred, and speak
freely of their participation in society activities or even of societies
to which they never belonged—unlike the sacred ceremonies which
are never discussed except under rigidly prescribed conditions. Still,
the men’s societies have many patterns characteristic of the sacred
ceremonies. The societies have traditional and mythological origins,
as do the sacred ceremonies, and when no myth was known and the
symbols of the society did not conform to the general cultural pat-
terns, the Hidatsa invariably ascribed the presence of the society to
recent borrowing from alien groups.

TaBLE 4,—Age-grade societies by villages

Society Hidatsa Awatixa | Awaxawi

SLoloviamrors | SiR PT ers ei phere), i ch Lae x SAL ee i
JOT EGS SoTL SE Re a a a Re 2 SORE (YT oo ee | (PS ane <
i GS hy (0 137 aie LS ha et fc Nall a 3 ARR Ae ae x x ?
Crimgidogese Juhu: Ba Oo ee Or fea oe Phat x x ?
LITLE C500) 0 Dae aan ONY ed MS ae el Peer SOO es eee Xx
Crow MmLnlONs= eee eet tee eee oe Wee ele 2 eae Gh dices hs te dated
eG iO see te ees OO tlie, Jarotiny peel es patie fe
Digit aiavems Wen 22 EE Lae el x x x
PCO Up Nae A een, on Se ue x x x

Oe eae ESE 2 Se EE ah Pa ae eh ek x Xx x
CUES 0) IR, RRS GE SE is NE arse RINE: oO ERS EES in x ?
PRE ere ee oom Sette. Wnt Se Se er x Xx Xx

The age-grade grouping seems to have been characteristic of all
Hidatsa village groups for some time prior to A.D. 1800. Since most
of the societies comprising the system were also represented by the
Mandan village groups, there existed an area along the Missouri
River from the vicinity of the Knife River to the region of the Can-
nonball River occupied solely by Mandan and Hidatsa village groups,
comprising in all about 13 distinct and permanent village groups, in
which age-grade groupings occurred. As late as 1833, Maximilian
(1906) recognized slight cultural differences between these village
groups, although a basic social and economic pattern prevailed which
distinguished them from even the culturally related Arikara and the
linguistically related Crow.

The smallpox epidemics which began in the last quarter of the 18th
century sharply reduced the total population of these peoples and
the number of village groups. This tended to introduce inconsisten-
cies into the system and to introduce competition between some so-

176 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

cieties for position in the system. Since competition is not charac-
teristic of the Hidatsa age-grade system, they temporarily reconciled
these conflicts by providing two “routes” to the Black Mouth society
until one “route”? became more popular than the other, with the
resultant cessation of the unpopular societies.

There is historic and traditional evidence that not only were new
societies added to the age-grade system from time to time but that
the existing societies changed their relative positions. This is con-
sistent with native traditions of cultural differences between inde-
pendent villages. Union of two or more village groups, or the break-
ing up of an existing village group into two or more groups, affected
the number and order of the societies in the system. Since a member
retained his membership until bought out, any undue delay in pur-
chase by the younger men would tend to shift the position of the
society in the age-grade sequence. It is of historic record that the
village groups bought additional dances such as the Hot Dance,
Grass Dance, Big Grass Dance, and Night Grass Dance during the
19th century. In addition, a number of societies (such as the Black
Mouth, Bull, and Kit Fox) are of traditional Mandan origin and are
not believed to have been of very great antiquity with the Hidatsa.
The preservation of Mandan origin myths for these three societies and
the absence of comparable myths for the Hidatsa further strengthens
native beliefs of their recent introduction.

Of the Hidatsa age-grade series, the Stone Hammer and the various
Dog societies are frequently mentioned in their sacred myths. In
fact, variations in the origin myths as related today suggest former
village differences or versions. The Hidatsa, informed in the sacred
myths referring to the various Dog societies, speak of the common
bond uniting these four societies: the Little Dog, Crazy Dog, Dog,
and Old Dog.

In the old villages at Knife River, the order of purchase preliminary
to entrance into the Dog societies differed. The Awaxawi, who
during the 18th century were closely associated with the northern
Mandan and the Nuptadi Mandan, had no Stone Hammer society.
Boys entered the age-grade system by joining the Notched Stick so-
ciety, whereas young Mandans of the same age had a Magpie society
in some villages, while those villages having the Corn Bundle rites of
Good-Furred-Robe had a similar Notched Stick society believed to
have supernatural powers over the rains.

The Crow Imitator society, which was found only at Awatixa and
at the Mandan villages, was of late introduction, coming from the
Crow Indians. This society was never important after 1837.

The absence of an origin myth, together with native beliefs that the
Half-Shaved Heads were of Crow origin, leads me to believe that this

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 177

society was not of long standing among either the Hidatsa or Mandan
village groups. During the last century (1832-1932) the society has
been closely associated with the next higher society, the Black Mouths,
and it acted as a check in the upward advancement of the lower age-
groups to Black Mouth status.

The position of the Black Mouths just above the Half-Shaved
Heads seems to have been a universal Hidatsa and Mandan char-
acteristic prior to 1837. After that date, when the survivors of the
smaJ]pox epidemic united into a smaller number of villages, the
number of societies situated in the age-grade sequence below the Black
Mouth status increased and the Half-Shaved Head society became
extinct. Although the role of the societies prior to attaining Black
Mouth status—preparation to police and supérvise—was identical
for all villages, the actual order of advancement through the system
varied due to a slight difference in the actual societies through which
one passed. This situation seems to have introduced into the system
competition not characteristic of the age-grade system, particularly
for the societies characteristic of the younger men.

From what I was able to determine from genealogies and tradi-
tions, the Hidatsa-proper and the Awatixa more closely resembled
each other in number and order of purchases during the first quarter
of the 19th century than did the Awaxawi. This may be due, in
part, to their closer residence during the preceding century in adjacent
villages less than a mile apart. The Awaxawi, on the other hand,
were farther removed during the last half of the 18th century, living
downstream near Painted Woods where they had intimate contacts
with Mandan groups.

The Notched Stick society at Awaxawi had no Hidatsa or Awatixa
equivalents, but the symbols and rites closely parallel religious rites
performed both by the Awaxawi and certain Mandan groups. I
could find evidence at the Awaxawi village only of the Notched Stick,
Kit Fox, Lumpwood, and Half-Shaved Head societies for men who
had not yet reached the proper age for entering the Black Mouth
society. There was no evidence of the Stone Hammer, Crazy Dog,
or Crow Imitator societies. This does not mean that these societies
had never been present with the Awaxawi. It is very possible that
some of these, particularly the Little Dog and Crazy Dog, were
formerly represented there. It is of historic record that the Awaxawi
suffered extreme losses when their village was destroyed by the enemy
during the last half of the 18th century. Being more sedentary than
the Hidatsa-proper, they also suffered more severely from smallpox
and other epidemics. Their small numbers may account for some of
the differences reported by Bears Arm, whose father came from that

178 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

village. On the whole, the Awaxawi show many similarities to the
Mandan system.

The close similarity of the Hidatsa-proper to the Awatixa is signifi-
cant in view of their traditional short residence in adjacent villages.
If traditions of the long residence of the Awatixa group on the Missouri
at Painted Woods and even as far south as the Heart River as an
agricultural group, with their earliest contacts with the Mandan after
their separation from the Mountain Crow and prior to the appearance
of the Awaxawi and Hidatsa—River Crow are correct, one would
expect greater similarities to the Mandan than to the Hidatsa-proper.

The order of buying and selling is nearly identical for all Mandan
and Hidatsa after reaching the Half-Shaved Head and Black Mouth
societies. The exceptions for the Mandan were the Black-Tail Deer
society, which was represented in only the westside village groups at
the Heart River prior to 1785, and the Raven society (?) for one of
the Hidatsa villages. Both societies were of limited distribution
even in their own tribes and died out about 1837. The order of pur-
chase from Black Mouth to Dog to Old Dog to Bulls was characteris-
tic of all Hidatsa and Mandan village groups and seems to have been
fixed for a considerable time. Instability of purchase order was at the
lower half of the series. It was also at this point that innovations
crept in with supplementary purchases of new societies. Older
people were probably more conservative than the younger men.

Prior to the union of the three Hidatsa groups into one village in
1845, each village endeavored to maintain an independent age-grade
series and membership was regulated largely by residence. Even
for those societies common to all villages, one bought and sold with
his own group and membership rarely extended beyond village limits.
When a society was not represented in a village, as in the case of the
Stone Hammer found only at Hidatsa and Awatixa or the Notched
Stick and Kit-Fox societies of Awaxawi, there was an occasional
participation in society purchase with one’s age group of another
village. According to native informants, this was more common after
the epidemic of the 1780’s when the Hidatsa village groups moved
into the three villages near the mouth of the Knife River. Since
there was a great deal of rivalry among villages, informants did not
think joining a society from a different village was a common oc-
currence until after the epidemic of 1837, when conditions fostered
further union of village groups for mutual defense.

In the light of village traditions that the Awatixa represent the
oldest Hidatsa village group on the Missouri with long residence at
the mouth of the Knife River, whereas the Hidatsa-proper and
River Crow were late arrivals on the Missouri, living largely upstream
from the Knife River, the greater similarity of the Hidatsa—Awatixa

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 179

societies suggests a recent development based on an older pattern
embracing the Awatixa, Awaxawi, and the Mandan village groups.
Those Hidatsa—River Crow who moved farther upstream developed a
system such as was found among the Crow in the 19th century.
Those who stayed on the Missouri and took over the earth lodge
culture drew heavily from the Awatixa, their nearest neighbors
downstream. The smallest village group, the Awaxawi, had the
Half-Shaved Head, Black Mouth, Dog, Old Dog (?), and Bull societies
as did the other Hidatsa and Mandan village groups. The series
for younger men at Awaxawi resembled the Mandan more closely
than did the other two Hidatsa villages. In light of the intermediate
position of the Awatixa with both “father-son” and clan inheritance
of sacred bundle rites, the former pattern being characteristic of the
Hidatsa-Awaxawi and the latter pattern that of the Mandan, it
would appear that the age-grade sequences as reported by my oldest
informants had changed, at least for the younger men, during the
last half of the 18th century.

During the 19th century, and prior to the dispersal of the native
population from Fishhook Village onto the reservation, further
changes occurred in the societies although the age-grade pattern
persisted. The union of villages caused a bunching of societies at
the bottom of the series. At the same time, societies and dances
bought from the Sioux and Arikara had wide popularity because
persons of both sexes were admitted without regard to age. During
this period the position and importance of the Black Mouth society
remained unchanged. The Notched Stick society of Awaxawi was
never popular after the three village groups united. There were
religious taboos associated with a rainmaking ceremony, Tying-the-
Pots, that had died out with the death of the bundle owners and with
their death there were none to serve as singers. Shortly after 1837
the Awaxawi abandoned their independent village and united with
the Awatixa and those Hidatsa who had remained at the mouth of
the Knife River. The young boys then entered the Stone Hammer
society with boys from the other two villages.

Although the Hidatsa recognized the Notched Stick and Stone
Hammer societies as the first ones entered by boys, there were numer-
ous informal societies organized by older men which boys could join.
Any older man, seeing a number of young boys watching the dances
or remarking that they wished they had a dancing society, might
organize a dancing club. He would suggest various forms of dress and
serve as the singer for the boys. These informal societies usually con-
sisted of little boys 4 to 6 or 7 years of age who usually played together.
Frequently the leader was some old man of the household who was
interested in the boys sufficiently to relate war accounts and show an

180 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

interest in their training. If the number of boys in the household
was small, boys of related households frequently were invited to
participate. When my informants were children (about 1865)
one group of boys dressed in small robes with magpie feathers in
their hair, and were frequently nicknamed Magpies. The man
who served as singer owned a sacred bundle of Woman Above who
was believed to wear magpie feathers. Another group of boys
dressed as buffaloes, suggested by their singer’s sacred bundle. This
group was frequently called Mangy Buffaloes since the youngest
member of the club wore a poor robe to impersonate a mangy buffalo.
The people would remark that when the buffaloes came to the river
to drink, there was always among them a lean mangy buffalo calf
that had wintered badly. From time to time new societies for small
boys would appear. They would be invited to meet and sing in
imitation of their elders. Whenever they danced, spectators were
sure to appear to give them presents, to invite them in to eat, and to
urge them to follow the example of their elders so that they would
be brave and strike the enemy when they grew up. According to
informants, the number of these small informal societies varied from
time to time. Wolf Chief thought that there were probably a dozen
or more of these informal dancing groups. The number was always
changing according to the inclination of their leaders.

Stone HAMMER SOCIETY

The Stone Hammer was the first organized society at Awatixa
and Hidatsa villages, and was bought by the young boys before
they were old enough to become Little Dogs. When the population
of the three Hidatsa villages and the Mandan of Mitutanku built
Fishhook Village, this was a popular society. There are frequent
references to the society and its traditional origin in the sacred myths
of Two Men and Charred Body. In these sacred myths relating to
events occurring near Painted Woods, Grandson is said to have
founded the society, drawing its emblems from his stock of sacred
objects. The principal symbol of the society was the carved stone
hammer which was designed by Grandson during mythological times.
The society was psychologically associated with the Naxpikr or
Sun Dance which had as its principal sacred object a stone ax carried
by the person impersonating Long Arm.

Boys were 12 years and older when entering the society. When
the number of available boys was large enough to form a society of
30 or more members, the older people would encourage the boys to
meet and plan the purchase from those who had owned the society
for a few years. It was customary for young men when joining the
Stone Hammer society to go together as a group to the Sun Dance

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 181

shelter to fast during the next performance of the Naxpikr. Purchase
was by an organized group from an organized group, the relationship
between the two groups being that of “father-son.” The buyers
were encouraged and assisted by their respective households. Not all
boys joined the Stone Hammer society. Some families were not
interested in assisting their sons. There was a reluctance for boys
to join when the household had recently quarreled with another
household or a close relative leading a war party had returned in
mourning from an unsuccessful war expedition. Some boys were
bashful or were reluctant to ask help of their relatives. Not un-
commonly, a family would refuse to assist a close relative because
people had criticized them unfairly. There was no ceremonial
offering of wives for, theoretically, boys of this age had not married.

Purchase into the Stone Hammers introduced new rights and obli-
gations. ‘The society had the right collectively to steal food for their
meetings, but they were obligated individually to appear on each
ceremonial occasion providing group fasting and to make efforts to
secure supernatural instructions. One gets the opinion from native
informants that there were those who were indifferent to these instruc-
tions to seek visions and that others, having no particular desire to be
brave, did not join the Stone Hammers. We have here the weeding
out of the cowardly and indifferent individuals.

Kir Fox Society

Since 1837 the order of purchase of the Kit Fox, Crazy Dog, and
Little Dog societies has not greatly concerned the Hidatsa. This is
due, it seems to me, to the reconciliation of different village systems
inherited from the first part of the century when three village groups
were in existence. The Hidatsa interpret the societies bought and
sold before reaching the status of police or Black Mouths as prepara-
tory steps toward entrance into this important society with its many
police and governing functions. The Kit Fox society, as far as I
could determine, was not present at the old villages of Hidatsa and
Awatixa. Mandan traditions state that this society was one of the
numerous ones organized by the Mandan culture hero Good-Furred-
Robe to dance whenever the corn rites associated with certain bundles
were celebrated. This was also the basis for the practice of inviting
one with Corn rites to officiate as one of the singers for the men of the
Fox society; Moves Slowly was a singer for the Mandan and Bear-
Looks-Out served as singer for the Awaxawi about A.D. 1870. Good-
Furred-Robe founded two sacred bundles whose owners were singers
for the Kit Foxes. In late historic times one of these bundles was
sold to an Awaxawi married to a Mandan woman, at which time young
men of Awaxawi bought the society from the Mandan. Bear-Looks-

710-195—65—18

182 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Out was owner of the bundle at Awaxawi where the Kit Fox society
was organized and served as one of the singers. He was the only
member of the society to survive the epidemic of 1837. He sold the
society to a group of young married men at Fishhook Village after the
society had been inactive for a number of years. Because of the
‘friendship’ bond between this society and the women’s Goose
society, owners of this society were reluctant to sell until the members
of the buying group had married, since women of the Goose society
were married. Instead, when the selling society thought that the
prospective buyers were too young, the price was set high enough to
discourage purchase. This practice tended to slow up purchase,
during which time the younger groups would generally buy into either
the Crazy Dog or Little Dog societies. It was customary for young
men of Hidatsa and Awatixa to move from the Stone Hammer to the
Little Dog while waiting to reach the age for entering either the Kit
Fox or the Crazy Dog. During the 19th century, after the union of
the three groups at Fishhook Village, the Little Dog and the Kit Fox
were in competition for position intermediate to the Crazy Dog and
Lumpwood societies. In spite of the prominent role of the dog in the
sacred myths and rites, the Little Dog society lost popularity as the
Kit Fox society expanded its membership with each successive sale.
At present (1932), the Kit Fox society is one of the few surviving
societies.

Of the entire series for the three original villages, the Notched
Stick, Stone Hammer, and Crazy Dog societies were owned by boys
and young men whose members were predominantly unmarried.
There was no ceremonial surrender of wives even when some of the
members of the purchasing group had already married. Another
feature of these societies reserved to younger men was the practice
of employing singers of the older age-grade societies. As a rule,
the society paid its singers to officiate until either they learned the
songs and dances or the singers and members tired of each other.

The purchase pattern for societies higher in the age-grade structure
than the Crazy Dog society was essentially the same as for the
younger men except that surrender of wives to the buyers became the
rule. Those who were unmarried but otherwise qualified and accepted
by the purchasing group were not, however, disqualified since it was
the duty of any clansman asked to supply a wife for the occasion.
The Hidatsa interpret age-grade purchase from an older age group
as a means of acquiring additional supernatural powers through
participation in various ceremonial activities not a part of the age-
grade series. The purchase provided an opportunity for an older
man to “bless” his “sons’’? by means of ceremonial sexual licenses
with the giver’s wife. This practice is not unique to age-grade

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 183

transfers but is a general pattern characteristic of numerous ceremonies
performed for calling the buffaloes near the village. An ambitious
young man wishing to get ahead might, before undertaking a perilous
mission, invite a prominent ceremonial leader to accept his wife.

LUMPWOOD SOCIETY

By the time young men had reached the age when they should
normally purchase the Lumpwood society, they should have married
and participated in several war expeditions. ‘The Lumpwood symbols
of membership, the painted and carved staffs, resemble closely those
used in the Painted Red Stick ceremony performed for the calling
of the buffaloes. Although decorated and carved sticks are found in
the Eagle Trapping, Big Bird, and Thunder bundles, it was with the
Painted Wood sacred sticks that the staffs belonging to the Lumpwood
society showed closest similarity. According to tradition, the Lump-
wood society was found only at Hidatsa and Awaxawi villages at
the Knife River; the Awatixa did not have the associated Painted
Red Stick ceremony. The Hidatsa recognized the society as one of
the age-grade series but attributed to it the supernatural power of
attracting the buffalo to the villages. The drum was believed to
have the power to bring rains. The Awatixa had other buffalo-
calling rites but no associated Lumpwood society.

HauFr-SHAVED HEAD Socrirty

The Half-Shaved Head society was closely associated with the
Black Mouth society. It served as a buffer society to protect the
Black Mouths from premature purchase until the younger men had
sufficiently distinguished themselves in warfare, ceremonial activities
and fasting, and had shown evidence of good judgment so that the
group could be entrusted to fulfill the many social obligations and
responsibilities of the Black Mouth society. The Half-Shaved Head
society is traditionally of Crow origin. Although the same society
is known to have existed at the Mandan village of Mitutanku in
Maximilian’s time, my Mandan informants knew of the society only
from traditions, as it apparently died out there in 1837. According
to the Maximilian accounts and Hidatsa informants, the society was
bought immediately preceding entrance into the Black Mouths.
Poor Wolf was 27 when, with other young men, he bought into the
society and remained a member of it for 9 years (Lowie, 1913). One
year after the purchase, the same body bought the Black Mouths.
Thus, the same men held simultaneous memberships in both societies
for 8 years.

184 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Biack Movurs Society

Unlike some Plains tribes where the responsibilities of group
management were passed around from society to society, the Hidatsa
and Mandan village groups entrusted police duties to one society,
the Black Mouths. Curtis (1907 a) lists two societies with police
duties; the Black Mouths and the Wood-roots. The names actually
refer to a single society. The name “black mouth” refers to the
particular painting of the members of this society, whereas ‘‘wood-
root” refers to the clubs carried by the members. The society is of
Mandan traditional origin, according to the Hidatsa. My Mandan
informants claimed that the society was organized by Good-Furred-
Robe to protect the Corn People. For that reason, the Black Mouth
society had the right to meet whenever the feasts were given for
the Goose society. The Mandan claim that the society was borrowed
by the various Hidatsa village groups and, in light of Hidatsa tra-
ditions that the society is of recent introduction from the Mandan,
we can assume this to be the correct order of diffusion. The Mandan
have sacred origin myths relative to the founding of the society,
which I was unable to discover for the Hidatsa.

The Hidatsa comprehended the Black Mouth society as occupying
an intermediate and transitional position between the lower societies
(whose members had recently begun their first fasts, ceremonial ad-
ventures, ritualistic feasting, and participation in the war expeditions
as beginners and immature men) and those older males who had
attained the principal objectives prescribed by the culture. In the
process of society purchases, the individuals comprising the various
groups were tested. Those who failed to measure up to the highest
standards of the society dropped from the system. In the process of
advancing through the lower societies, recognition was given to those
showing special skills when officers were selected to wear the badges
of the society or to perform certain honored roles. Young men who
had advanced to the point of buying into the Black Mouth society,
were frequently stopped at that point for a number of years. When
the Black Mouths were asked to sell by a younger group, they would
invariably present the matter to the two older Dog and the Bull
societies for their approval. If the older and better-informed men
felt that the younger men were moving along too fast and were not
ready to assume such important obligations, or if conditions in the
village or relations with neighboring tribes were not right, the sale
was delayed. Opposition to sale usually took the form of individual
advice from one’s own relatives. The Hidatsa were very sensitive to
public opinion, whether in the purchase of age-grade societies, sacred
bundles, or other activities. When public opinion was against a

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 185

group, assistance was denied them. Occasionally, however, young
men would speak of their accomplishments as collectively exceeding
those of the existing Black Mouths and persist in their ambitions to
complete the purchase. In such instances, exorbitant demands or
downright refusal halted the negotiations. About 1872 the Crow-
Flies-High band separated because sale by the Black Mouths was
refused. There are numerous references to the bypassing of younger
men’s societies. This was impossible in the higher societies because
the Dog, Old Dog, and Bull societies were reserved for older men who
had had wide experiences in warfare, ceremonies, and group leader-
ship of one form or another. The Hidatsa think of these older
societies as the policy makers for the village. The Black Mouths
served as executors to enforce the policies of the older men and the
customs of the village.

Prior to the union of the three Hidatsa village groups when Fish-
hook Village was built in 1845, each village had an independent
police or Black Mouth society. Each society was organized in the
same manner as the others with the same number of officers, the
same symbols of authority, and the same relative position in the
age-grade structure. Collectively, each society addressed the same
society of the other Hidatsa or the Mandan villages as wakwiu in
Hidatsa or kotomanaku in Mandan, the kinship term for “pal.”
A society had no authority except with its own village group until
after 1845 when the union of three village groups brought together
three independent Black Mouth societies. The three societies
functioned as one during the summer months, but during those winters
when the population broke up into separate camps based on the
original village lines, the police societies likewise dispersed according
to former village affiliations. This was a common practice until well
into the 1850’s when, as a result of intermarriage, the original village
lines were blurred.

The Black Mouths’ duties fell into a number of categories. In-
variably the group met whenever a major ceremony was performed.
The Black Mouths were concerned only with those public matters
which involved the entire village population and they had no authority
to interfere in factional or personal matters unlikely to involve the
entire population. Thus stealing, whether of meat and corn from a
household or of another man’s wife, were matters for the clans and
households to handle. In fact, a Black Mouth might often be in-
volved in such matters himself without materially affecting the status
of his own society.

Probably the most important duty of the Black Mouths was to
enforce the orders of the council of older men. Whenever any im-
portant decisions were under discussion, the Black Mouths would

186 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

meet with the council. As soon as a matter had been settled, the
announcer for the Black Mouths went through the village informing
the people of the decision. News of important village matters
quickly spread, for those of the council were widely scattered through
the village and invariably discussed the matters with their own
households. When people heard the announcer call through the
village, they would listen. The council’s duties were broad and
involved matters concerning the people at large: moving the village;
the time of leaving for the summer buffalo hunt and the various
camping places along the way; the prohibition on leaving the village
for warfare; peace treaties with neighboring tribes; and, more re-
cently, policies with respect to the White traders and Government
officials.

On other occasions, the Black Mouths enforced the regulations of
other leaders such as the Winter Camp leader or the Summer Hunt
leader. The Hidatsa elected each fall a Winter Chief who was
responsible for the welfare of the group during the time they were
organized under his leadership. It was customary for the winter
leader to make frequent offerings to his sacred bundles and to seek
the assistance of other distinguished sacred bundle owners for success.
Should the enemy attack the camp and kill some of the people or
steal horses, hunters be injured when running buffaloes, or other
misfortune strike, the leader was held responsible and blamed for
these misfortunes. If there were many deaths or accidents, the
people would say that they made a poor selection. The Winter
Camp leader selected someone as his personal announcer to keep the
camp informed of his plans and to integrate the activities of the group.
The Black Mouths were in continuous session during most of the
winter and frequently behaved in what sometimes seemed to be a
very arbitrary manner. These camps being undefended, it was
necessary to send scouts out continuously to note the movements of
enemy groups and to see that the horses were brought in quickly in
case of an impending attack. Since the purpose of these winter
camps was to move some distance from the summer village in order
to conserve wood and to spare the game ranging near the summer
villages, great reliance was placed on the game killed during the
winter both for food at the time and for a surplus supply to be taken
back to the villages in the spring when normally the herds were away
from the river on the summer range. The importance of these winter
herds in Hidatsa economy is indicated by the number of formal group
rituals for the winter buffalo and native statements of intensive
individual fasting for the return of the herds to the river bottoms
during the shortest and coldest days. Boller (1868) has given us an
excellent account of the role of the Black Mouths in organizing the

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 187

group for the performance of winter buffalo-calling rites, the prohibi-
tions against premature hunting, firing of guns, and noise around the
village, and even the prohibition of kindling fires, when the herds
were observed approaching the camp.

Frequently no leader was selected to supervise the winter camp
when the people could not agree in council. In case of disagreement,
the conflict was resolved by these alternatives: no leader was selected
and the population was at liberty to move out in small groups under
individual leaders of their own choosing, generally eagle-trapping
leaders (this was the custom before enemies were numerous); the
population remained in the summer villages under the existing leader-
ship; or the Black Mouth society was selected to assume the role of
Winter Camp leader and police. This latter alternative was of
common occurrence when the Black Mouths had individually dis-
tinguished themselves and the people thought that one or more of
their members would have good luck as Winter Camp leaders.

When the summer village had been organized by the council under
the leadership of one or two outstanding chiefs for a number of years,
the people frequently had relied so heavily on their good judgment
that when their chiefs died or were killed, a period of disorganization
followed while minor leaders competed for top positions in the council.
The council then frequently found it convenient to avoid rivalry and
hard feelings in selecting a Winter Camp leader by delegating the
authority and responsibility to the Black Mouths at large. On such
occasions, the Black Mouths selected the campsites, set the date for
moving from the summer village, supervised the party when moving
to camp, and kept in continuous session with a separate council lodge
for their meetings during the winter. They assumed collectively the
duties and responsibilities of camp leader. In case of misfortunes
during the winter, the entire group was criticized but the two leaders
of the society, representing the two moieties, were chiefly blamed
because of their positions in the society. It was such a camp organized
under the Black Mouths that Boller described.

The Black Mouths performed comparable services when, after the
corn had been hoed for the last time, the village organized a summer
buffalo hunt. In this instance, the council selected a leader who
had taken part in numerous ceremonies, particularly those concerned
with the buffalo or with sacred bundles containing buffalo skulls.
He was responsible for the activities of the group; he selected the
various camping points along the way and announced them in advance;
he selected the scouts to travel ahead to watch for enemy war parties
or camps and to keep track of the herds and note their size and general
movements. These scouts were selected from organized men’s so-
cieties inferior to Black Mouth status. In recent years the Kit-.

188 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Foxes were generally assigned this duty, chiefly because of the size
of the society. It is said that formerly different societies for young
men were selected, according to the leader’s inclinations. Apparently
some rivalry existed between these younger men’s societies when
members of more than one society were selected as scouts. This is
a rather unusual situation since the societies were generally non-
competitive, and suggests to me that this is a recent phenomenon
arising from the union of several villages and the subsequent competi-
tion among these younger men’s societies for positions and members.
The Black Mouths performed much the same roles as when moving
to Winter Camp. They enforced regulations against straying away
from the main body, prohibited premature attacks on the herds,
and defended the group from attack. There are instances when,
in spite of the widespread practice of seeking vision instructions
from sacred things not believed to send dreams to those fasting at
the summer villages, the Black Mouths even prohibited fasting outside
of the camp when there was danger from enemy raiding parties.
In all their activities, the Black Mouths worked to protect the repu-
tation of the leader. Being on continuous watch for infractions of
customs and armed to meet an attack of enemy raiding parties, the
Black Mouths took no active part in the buffalo surround but de-
pended on others to provide the meat for their households.
Occasionally some families would feel that the Black Mouths
had acted in an arbitrary manner. In general, however, the people
felt that the society performed a definite social function which the
households and clans could not undertake. Had they acted out of
revenge, the social group would not have supported them and they
would have lost individual status with the village. When a man
fired a gun or went hunting when the village group was ordered
neither to make a noise about the village nor to hunt, the Black
Mouths invariably took his weapons away from him and broke up
his arrows, cut up his clothing, and even killed his horse and destroyed
the meat he was bringing back. The individual’s reactions to punish-
ment largely determined the next steps taken by the police. If the
man admitted his error and was repentant, he was invariably repaid
for his personal loss many times over in comparable goods. If, on
the other hand, he resisted the police or persisted in disregarding their
prohibitions, he was severely beaten. In two instances in the memory
of the older Hidatsa at the time this study was made, the violators
(alien visitors) were beaten and killed without any adverse reaction
by the group as a whole. In general, it can be said that the Black
Mouths had definite duties to perform for mutual harmony and well-
being but they were expected to use good judgment in attaining these
objectives. This was the principal reason why the Hidatsa, like the

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 189

Mandan, were reluctant to permit young men to advance through the
age-grade series to Black Mouth status until they had demonstrated
mature judgment. Entrusting village police functions to a society
of men of all ages, as observed by them when neighboring tribes
visited them, was considered to be a poor way of handling people.

The Black Mouths were expected to act with discretion and not
in anger. A number of years after 1845, the three Hidatsa village
groups were in separate winter camps along the Missouri. At that
time scouts from the most northern group discovered buffaloes ap-
proaching their village, drifting along with a strong north wind.
Orders were immediately given in the village that the dogs should
be tied up, woodcutting stopped, and fires extinguished. Until
that time no buffalo had been on the river bottoms and the people
were short of meat. While the people were awaiting the arrival
of the herds and waiting for them to fan out in the timber and brush
along the river bottoms, a Black Mouth was told that someone had
fired a gun just below the village and around a bend in the river.
Several Black Mouths ran out and found a man from the next village
downstream who was just starting to butcher a buffalo which he
had killed. As the Black Mouths ran up they called UUJI and the
hunter knew that the Black Mouths were angry; that call was given
only when someone’s actions had met with their displeasure. He
looked toward the village but could not see it for the bend in the
river nor could he hear the sound of barking dogs or of axes in the
woodlots. He suspected then that the village was quiet because
herds had been discovered approaching. When he was told that
hunting was prohibited, he expressed regrets even though his weapons
had already been taken from him. He explained that he had been
sent up from the next village to see how the upper camp was faring,
that he had seen many buffaloes as he walked along, and that he had
concluded that the upper village had already been hunting. Seeing
that the man meant no harm, his weapons were returned to him and
the men butchered the buffalo before returning to camp. At the
camp he was rewarded with goods for his “good behavior” in admitting
his error and offering appropriate apologies.

In dealing with infractions, the clan had its role in the practice
of using as spokesman for the Black Mouths, one of the same clan
as the individual who had committed the infraction. When a conflict
situation developed and the village leaders resolved to settle the matter
lest permanent differences arise, the spokesman for the Black Mouths
would take a pipe belonging to the moiety of the offender and ask
him to smoke the pipe and forget his grievance. The same procedure
was followed when addressing the leader of the opposing side. When
individual Black Mouths in the performance of their duty acted

190 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

with what the offender considered bad judgment, there were numerous
recourses that could be used later against him. He could be denied
property for use in a ceremony or be blocked in his ambitions by the
aggrieved person’s relatives who had social and ceremonial rights
for sale. Gossip and ridicule could be employed. Women who had
a grievance might withhold aid to the individual of the Black Mouths
who had acted unfairly. As a joking relative, if such relationship
existed between them, she might even go to considerable trouble to
embarrass him publicly or dig up things in his past that he would
prefer to forget. A common practice was to make him a decorated
shirt for which he would be obliged to give her his favorite buffalo-
hunting horse. This could be an extreme sacrifice. Although the
Black Mouths collectively had such authority as the clans and
households allowed them, at all times they were individuals in daily
contacts with the group, and the culture provided numerous checks
to their authority.

The Black Mouths of the various villages performed important roles
in preserving peace and reconciling conflict situations between differ-
ent Hidatsa and Mandan groups. This was an important function
of the Black Mouths, for it was imperative that the various village
groups live together peacefully during the past two centuries when
pressure of enemy groups was great and continuous. In these early
times, if native traditions are correct, the clans of different villages
had not been completely equated nor had they assumed the important
roles manifested in the 19th century. Each village, however, had an
identical police organization believed to have been derived from a
common founder, the Mandan culture hero Good-Furred-Robe.
Thus, when a theft in one village was committed by a member of a
different village, the Black Mouths of the former reported the matter
to the Black Mouths of the latter. The suspect’s lodge or person
was then searched and the property, if found, was returned to the
Black Mouths of the village where the theft occurred. Although
thefts of small items might be easily overlooked, taking horses belong-
ing to another person, even though they had strayed away from the
rightful owner, could have had serious consequences if left to the
rightful owner and his village relatives to come into another village
to lay claim to his property. Village loyalty obviously was very
strong at that time.

The Black Mouths had no authority over the movements and
actions of neighboring village groups of their own tribe as long as
their common interests did not clash. If, however, one village group
had imposed restrictions on its people because of the impending
approach of the winter buffalo herds, the other groups living nearby

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 191

were expected to do likewise. This was, however, a matter for the
intervillage council to handle and not the Black Mouths.

The Black Mouths were also responsible for the safety of the people
and their good conduct whenever visiting tribes were in the village.
This was an important role prior to the middle of the 19th century
since many tribes came to the Hidatsa villages to trade for garden
products. As soon as word reached the village by advanced runners
that people were coming for the purpose of trade or to visit, the
council and police met to arrange the reception. Very often those
families who had recently lost members of their related households
in warfare with the visiting band announced that they would not be
received. ‘This was their socially recognized right even though in the
long run they could lose prestige with those families anticipating a
profitable trade with the enemy. The culture, however, provided
numerous methods of satisfying those who recently had lost relatives.
In some instances the grievance was not actually toward the enemy
but with the Hidatsa war leader who had not inflicted sufficient self-
torture or had not fasted long enough after the loss of young men of
his party; the relatives had thought that he had failed to show proper
respect for their relatives and had treated their young men’s lives
lightly. Whatever the circumstances, it was the right of families in
mourning to refuse to admit the enemy band even for trading purposes.
This left the council one of two alternatives: buy off the mourners with
horses and other valuable things, or refuse to admit the enemy band.
The mourners were generally paid off unless they had very strong
feelings in the matter. It was the duty of the Black Mouths to put
up the goods and horses and carry the society pipe to them.

The Black Mouths met continuously when an enemy band was in
the village to forestall trouble. In historic times, each visiting group
had an organized police to work with the Black Mouths. Should a
fight break out between two individuals of opposite groups, each
policeman would seize his own tribesman but refuse to touch one of
the other group. In general, unless there was a great disparity in
numbers, and one group could be taken by surprise, conflicts rarely
got out of hand. It was an established rule that once an outside
group or an individual had been taken in and fed, peace should pre-
vail. According to a long-standing custom, a visiting group assisted
its hosts in repelling any attack from outside. Thus we find refer-
ences to one Sioux band, enjoying Mandan-—Hidatsa hospitality, being
obliged to assist in repelling another Sioux band, their own tribesmen.
We also find references in their traditions to admitting to Fishhook
Village war parties of Assiniboin bent on attacking the Mandan at the
Knife River. Those Mandan with lodges in the Village assumed the
position of ‘‘guests” and were refused permission to make an attack

192 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

on this enemy group; custom required that the Black Mouths afford
the Assiniboin protection as long as they were in the village. However,
in at least one case, the Hidatsa advised the Knife River Mandan
of the impending attack, informed the Mandan in Fishhook Village
of the enemy’s proposed course, and entertained the enemy while
warriors sneaked out of the village to prepare a trap for the Assiniboin.

From earliest times, the Black Mouths served an important role
in preserving good feelings and relations with the White trades.
Chardon (1932, p. 125) mentions that the society had found horses
belonging to the traders and had offered to return them. In another
instance he refers to sending tobacco to the Black Mouths and ad-
vising them to keep the village quarantined as smallpox had not
broken out there (ibid., p. 129). We also find references in traders’
accounts to the practice of employing a member of the Black Mouths
as policeman around the trading post, serving as an intermediary
between the traders and the Indians in preserving order. On the
other hand, when traders went into the winter camps to live or had
their trading posts near the summer villages, they were restricted in
their movements just the same as the Indians were. They learned
very quickly that when orders were given out that no hunting or
woodcutting was permitted while the herds moved into the river
bottoms, it was to their best interest to comply, and that the Indian
police meant business when they said ‘‘no hunting.”

From the foregoing discussion of the functions of the Black Mouth
society, we see that they performed roles not characteristic of the
lower societies. 1 have not indicated the roles of the Black Mouths
in the ceremonies since a section of this study is concerned with
Hidatsa ceremonial organization. It is needless to say that the
Hidatsa, like the Mandan, were unwilling to entrust so important a
matter as police functions to inexperienced youths. Instead they
reserved those functions for mature men who had been to war, had
participated in numerous ceremonies, had given many feasts, and
understood tribal history and values. In their advancement, they
had eliminated the cowardly, the lazy, and the incompetent.

The Hidatsa placed the duties of the Black Mouths in the same
class as other services performed for the good of the society at large.
They emphasized the importance of fasting for the younger men of
the Stone Hammer and Crazy Dog societies to be followed by general
participation in the buffalo-calling ceremonies or those formal rites
providing group fasting and individual purchases of sacred bundles
for males of the Kit Fox, Little Dog, and Lumpwood societies.
In general, the Hidatsa disapproved of young men assuming the
leadership of war expeditions until they had reached the Half-Shaved
Head and Black Mouth societies. My case histories show numerous

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 193

exceptions to this rule, however. It was one of the Black Mouth
society’s duties to forbid the young men to leave the village on un-
authorized expeditions. In some instances, horses brought back
from a successful raid were killed by the Black Mouths when they had
been ordered by the council to forbid the raid. These unauthorized
raids could start a great deal of trouble when the raid was made
against a band with whom peace negotiations were being conducted
by the council. In such instances the young men were frequently
severely whipped and their weapons destroyed. On other occasions,
when enemy war parties were near and the young men succeeded in
getting away from the village undetected to return with war honors,
victory dances were celebrated and the Black Mouths overlooked the
matter.

These unauthorized war expeditions were a constant cause of
friction between age-groups in the Hidatsa villages. The culture
provided formal patterns whereby those showing promise as leaders
could advance by steps to the status of war leaders, and shortcuts
were not sanctioned. Nevertheless, there were those who took short-
cuts by organizing war expeditions of their own age-group and were
successful. Parents—particularly the older and more conservative
people—disapproved strongly of these unauthorized expeditions and
endeavored to keep their boys at home by denying them sacred objects
to take along. The group feelings toward these unauthorized ex-
peditions were reflected in the actions of the Black Mouths. Even
in these conflict situations the Black Mouths preferred to avoid
displays of force. Learning of some ambitious young man with ideas
of organizing an expedition, a member of the Black Mouths standing
in the relationship of ‘father’ would go to the young man and talk
to him, telling him of the dangers he would encounter, particularly
if those he met in battle were older, skilled in warfare, and had many
sacred gods protecting them. He would refer to the fasting and
ceremonial participation of those in the tribe who had good reputations
as war leaders. He would emphasize the self-punishment on return-
ing from an unsuccessful expedition he must endure to regain the respect
of those whose young men had been killed. He would point out men
who had ‘‘kicked the stone,’ a term used to designate those unsuccess-
ful leaders who had lost men and were scorned until proper restitution
was made. Those who persisted in their ambitions generally met
disaster sooner or later, and their military ambitions were no longer
supported even by their own age-group. The unsuccessful war leader
usually dropped his society membership after ‘kicking the stone” a
second time and took little or no interest in other social or ceremonial
functions.

194 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

The Hidatsa praised those who aspired to be leaders and followed
the pattern set before them of rising to the top by stages. They
believed that a young man should follow the prescribed course,
gaining experience and supernatural powers as he went along, and
that the major positions of responsibility should not be assumed
until he had demonstrated ability. In the process of his training
he was assisted by his relatives and his societies. Many males never
aspired to top positions in either war or village matters and did not
care to assume the responsibilities of leadership. Although the
majority of the village leaders were in the higher societies, many of
them had never personally organized and directed a war expedition,
being content with striking coup, capturing horses, or giving feasts.
Even among the Black Mouth membership composed of middle-aged
men between 30 and 45 years ot age, probably less than half had
ever attained war leader status chiefly because the culture provided
other and equally effective outlets for leadership.

Doe Societies

After selling out to younger men, the Black Mouths bought into
the next higher society of Dogs known by both the Mandan and
Hidatsa as the ‘‘Real Dogs” (pl. 3) to distinguish them from three
other Dog societies; the Crazy Dogs, Little Dogs sometimes called
“‘Dogs-Whose-Names-Are-Unknown,”’ and the Old Dogs. The order
of purchase into the Dog society was the same for all Hidatsa and
Mandan villages, as far as information could determine. The mem-
bers of this society were expected to be brave and to have a good
reputation in warfare; those who had not shown good judgment in
handling police matters or who had shown cowardice in warfare would
have become the object of ridicule of their joking-relatives had
they attempted to buy into the society. Thus the same screening
and dropping-out characteristic of the lower societies continued.

Origin myths of the various Dog societies are numerous for both
the Hidatsa and Mandan and are so interwoven into their myth-
ology that it is to be presumed that these societies were of long stand-
ing in both tribes. The wide distribution of the Dog society in the
Plains suggests considerable antiquity as well as popularity. On
the basis of the integration of the Dog myths into the sacred myths
of the Hidatsa, my informants and those Mandan who have lived
longest with the Hidatsa believed that the Dog societies were of
Hidatsa origin. However, the Mandan have identical myths inter-
woven in their sacred legends which suggests to the other Mandan
that the societies were of Mandan origin.

The Dog myths suggest Mandan origin to me chiefly because the
theme—‘‘imprisoning the animals’—is common to Mandan sacred

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 195

rites but is rarely found in Hidatsa mythology. Nor does one find
frequent reference in other Hidatsa myths to the Dog Den Buttes,
an important region in Mandan mythology.

In the Hidatsa myth, a beautiful young woman refused to marry
or to have sexual intercourse with any man, and her people said
that it was her prerogative. One hot night she could not sleep until
early morning, after the lodge had cooled off. When she awoke,
she saw a man put his white robe around him and leave her bed.
This happened 3 nights in a row. On the fourth visit she threw red
paint which hit him between the shoulders. When she looked for
the paint mark among her tribesmen she found instead a white dog
sleeping in her own lodge with the red paint on his shoulders. He
ran out of the lodge and 2 months later she discovered that she was
pregnant.

When the time came to deliver the child, she went to a washout
beyond the village limits and there gave birth to nine pups. The
first eight were males and the youngest was a female. The oldest
was named Black Wolf or Cedar-Between-the-Eyes; the next oldest
was Blows-Through-a-Hole. The youngest male was named Brisket
or Last Male; the others were Little-Dogs-Whose-Names-Were-Not-
Known. She left the pups in the dry washout and would return now
and then to nurse them. One night there was thunder and lightning
with rain. When she returned, her babies were gone. She followed
them to a tipi and there found the pups with their father and was
invited in by Brisket. In the morning she was alone. She followed
their trail. This happened three times and on the fourth day they
reached Dog Dens. Again Brisket invited her in and she went into
Dog Dens which she discovered to be a large earth lodge. Last
Male or Brisket warned his mother to tell her people that they should
not come to Dog Dens for his brothers would cause all except dogs
to freeze their feet if they came there. (From this warning those
of the Dog society would afterward go around in the village without
moccasins to show that they were the Real Dogs.) Brisket’s brothers
would also cause people to go insane; hence the name of Crazy Dogs
for some people. Brisket agreed to return home with his mother,
transformed into the small wood owl named Little Owl. Today
the Hidatsa say the seven stars of the dipper are Little Owl’s seven
brothers.

At this point the Dog myth takes up the theme of the Mandan
Snow Owl sacred myth. An eagle trapper imprisoned in his trapping
pit, dug out and found himself at the lodge of Big Owl and his servant,
Little Owl. He was sent out to capture an elk that had many
guardians. He succeeded in killing the elk. Then Big Owl sent
him out to get Striped Scalp and he secured the help of Old-Woman-

196 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Who-Never-Dies, for Striped Scalp was very holy. He took the
scalp to Big Owl. For helping Big Owl the young man named Black
Wolf was given an owl skin to wear in the dances and 10 sacred
arrows to protect him on his way home. Big Owl warned him of
dangers along the way. After passing four dangerous persons, he
met a young woman who lived in Dog Den with her brothers. Big
Owl told him that when he told this evil woman of his exploits she
would be afraid of him and her brothers would be afraid of the owl
skin.

He met this Woman in Dog Den and she took him inside the butte.
Here some of the dogs were foolish or crazy; they would take their
feet, arms, and even their heads off when they danced. Black Wolf
frightened them with the owl skin and they ran out without their
limbs. Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies used her whistle to send a
blizzard, and they begged to get back into the butte. When they
came in they were afraid of Black Wolf. Black Wolf married this
Woman in Dog Den and he knew that she was the daughter of a Hidat-
sa woman and White Dog.

Some time later they returned to Black Wolf’s lodge, which was
in the same village where Grandson, who established the Stone
Hammer society, lived. Black Wolf announced that his wife was a
supernatural woman and that she forbad anyone to touch him. One
day his brother’s wife touched his robe and his wife became angry.
Fearing that she would leave the people, they sat up watching her
for 4 nights when all fell asleep. Then she returned to Dog Den.
He followed her and found the entrance and smokehole had been
closed over.

Later a man in the village announced that he was a dog and that
his fathers were the dogs who had lived in Dog Den Butte. He told
how his fathers had gone to the sky to make up the dipper. The
people would see him looking toward the sky at night and talking
to his fathers living above. This Yellow Dog announced that he
would organize four societies: Little Dogs, Crazy Dogs, Dog, and Old
Dogs. He announced that he would sing the songs that belonged
to the Dog society, for they would do most of the fighting for the
people in the future. He gave owl feathers to the dog societies
to wear during the dances. Then he announced the decorations they
should wear and sang the songs of the various dog societies. He
told them that these four societies were related but that one must
wait until he had reached the proper age before joining.

At this point in the sacred myths, two versions are given. In one
version Grandson becomes angry because Yellow Dog has intercourse
with his wife and retaliates by imprisoning the animals in Dog Den.
In the other version it is the Sun who imprisoned the animals. In

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 197

both versions, First Creator—the coyote—assisted in freeing the
animals. In the Grandson version he returned to the sky when his
efforts failed. He warned the people that, although he did many
things for them and founded the Stone Hammer society while on
earth, should they make offerings to him or pray to him, they would
be unsuccessful. In the Sun version, the animals merely became
hungry and refused to stay imprisoned in the butte. Both versions
have widespread distribution among the Hidatsa but the Grandson
version seems to have wider distribution since it is the only version
I was able to record for the Mandan. In the Mandan version,
however, there is no reference to the founding of the Stone Hammer
society nor is there the prohibition of praying to Grandson.

The concept of age-grading runs through the dog myths in spite
of the fact that the supernatural dogs founding the society were
brothers. This is not unusual, for the Hidatsa distinguish age
even in twins; the first born being older brother or sister depending
on the sex. The psychological relationships between the various
dog societies are based on common parents and are expressed by
numerous common symbols, particularly dress and ornaments.
Maximilian stated that Mandan informants said the Crazy Dogs
were higher up in the series formerly, but this seems to be based
on an interpretation of the myth rather than actual memory of their
former higher place in the series.

We find in the myth the native beliefs about the Dog societies.
The Crazy Dogs bring bad luck and insanity to those who get lost
near Dog Den; the Little Dogs are an abbreviation of their full name
of “Little-Dogs-Whose-Names-Are-Unknown”’ because in the myth
only the two oldest dogs and the youngest male dog were named;
the Dogs were brave and could not retreat; and finally the Old Dogs
were the bravest of all and painted their bodies white to represent
their father, White Dog.

The Dog society was popular in all of the Mandan and Hidatsa
villages and continued so until the aboriginal culture broke down.
The Old Dog society was less popular in the Hidatsa villages than with
the Mandan. Maximilian does not list an Old Dog society for the
Hidatsa—unless the society Waschu’kke-Achke, meaning Dog society
but which he translates as “Old Dog,’ should be so considered.
The Old Dog societies died out at the Mandan villages after the
smallpox epidemic of 1837 and must have been even less popular
with the Hidatsa for, in spite of native traditions, I could find no
knowledge of the society either at Hidatsa or Awaxawi prior to 1837
although it was reported to be an important society at Awatixa.
This is not unusual in view of the other cultural similarities between
this village group and the Mandan.

710-195—65——14

198 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

However unimportant the Old Dog society may have been in recent
time, the Dog society was an important one to which the chiefs or
leaders of various subgroups of the village belonged. They were
mature men who had distinguished themselves in many ways. In-
formants would say, “That is the society that all of the greatest
leaders belonged to.”” When buying into the Dog society, the Black
Mouths relinquished their wives as in other society purchases, but
there was less inclination to avail themselves of that privilege. As a
man grew older, having prayed often for younger men, it was believed
that his supernatural powers given to him from time to time during
his lifetime by fasting, supernatural experiences, bundle purchases,
and feasts for the older people, were running low. Those who were
still sexually active attributed this situation to possession still of great
supernatural powers, and they sometimes availed themselves of the
“son’s” wife. By the time the Dog society bought out the Bulls,
the latter society members rarely availed themselves of that privilege,
although their ‘“‘sons’’ still continued to go through the formality.

Buiut Socrery

The Bull society was fast going out of existence after 1837; none of
my informants had ever belonged to the society or observed its sale
and transfer. After 1837, this was the highest society in both the
Mandan and Hidatsa series. Traditionally it was always at or near
the top by virtue of certain ceremonial attaimments prerequisite to
membership. The society in both the Mandan and Hidatsa villages
was limited to those males who had purchased sacred bundles con-
taining sacred buffalo skulls together with the right to instruct
younger men in the ceremonial painting of these skulls. Membership
in the society was a reward for village major bundle purchases. This
placed a premium on ownership of hereditary bundles and bundle
rites rather than on personal bundles based on vision experiences.
We find that both the Mandan and Hidatsa continued to recognize
the superiority of those bundles containing sacred buffalo skulls even
after the Bull society died out. Whenever a ceremonial feast was
given, all those having these sacred bundles were expected to attend
without formal invitation.

The Bulls were expected to meet and dance in public four times
each year, at which time theyrepresented the buffaloes of the particular
season and direction when the performance was being given (pl. 4).
Both the Mandan and Hidatsa sacred and origin myths make common
reference to the buffaloes of the four seasons and directions, so on this
basis one would not be able to determine which group first organized
the society. Although Lowie (1913) suggested a few minor differ-
ences in the society of the two tribes, my informants explained that

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 199

these were not important. This society differed somewhat from the
others of the age-grade series in the acceptance of junior members to
represent mythological characters associated with the buffaloes. In
this respect, the society is patterned closely after the White Buffalo
society owned by the women. In both instances they dramatized
the return of the buffaloes to the village to dance and visit their junior
members. The Bull society also included in its membership a number
of young girls whose duty it was to ‘‘bring water for the buffaloes”’
when the society met. Whenever the Bull society was painting
its members preparatory to making a public appearance, their
announcer would go through the village and call ‘“The buffalo herds
are coming to the Missouri. Everyone come out and see them drink.”

The similarity of masks and the popularity of the buffalo dance in
the Mandan Okipa suggest, in light of the numerous references in
the Okipa rites to the buffalo dances, a greater antiquity of the Bull
society for the Mandan. However, the Bull dance was of wide dis-
tribution in the Plains and may well be a cultural feature that sub-
sequently affected the Okipa. The Bull society seems to have lost
its popularity after 1837 due to a change in the Hidatsa and the
Mandan system of grouping sacred bundle owners. Formerly, owing
to the greater village and tribal size, it was customary to subdivide
the major bundle owners possessing sacred buffalo skulls according to
related ceremonies. Thus, when a rain, wolf, or other ceremony was
given, only those who owned rights in the particular ceremony met
to receive goods and honors. The population was so small after 1837
that, generally, all those who possessed sacred buffalo skulls came
irrespective of the bundles of which the sacred skulls were a part.
In this internal tribal adjustment, an organization of sacred buffalo
skull owners replaced the Bull society.

WOMEN’S SOCIETIES

If one excluded those women’s societies recently adopted from the
Mandan, little would remain to indicate an age-grade series for
females. Both the White Buffalo and Goose societies were reportedly
bought from the Mandan during the early 19th century. Both groups
equate the Hidatsa Enemy society with the Mandan River society,
although there are features not common to both tribes. The Mandan
explain the differences as due to imitation of the River society rather
than actual purchase. The Hidatsa, on the other hand, consider the
Enemy society one of their age-grade series. After the building of
Fishhook Village there was considerable crossing of tribal lines into
the lower societies of the series, but each tribe maintained separate
Goose and White Buffalo societies for several years after moving out
onto the reservation.

200 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

SKUNK SocrEty

The lowest of the Hidatsa societies, the Skunks, seems to have
had no Mandan equivalent. The Skunk society consisted of young
women from 15 to 20 years of age and a male singer selected by the
society. Their ‘friends’ were the men’s Stone Hammer society;
they assisted each other on various social occasions and for society
purchases. Although purchases were made collectively, each woman
of the society standing in the ‘father’s sister-daughter” or “mother—
daughter’ relationship, it was not considered improper for others to
paint themselves in the same manner and dance when the men re-
turned from a successful war expedition. They were entitled to
presents from those who had just returned with war honors. This
was not an exclusive privilege of the society; frequently on such oc-
casions others also took the victor’s weapons and required payment
for their return. Individuals were taken into the society from time
to time by individual purchase and were considered full-fledged

members thereafter.
ENEMY SOCIETY

Lowie (1913) gives a full account of the women’s Enemy society.
This was second in the series of Hidatsa age-grade societies and its
members were ‘friends’ of the Foolish [Crazy] Dogs. The society
was composed of young married women who met whenever the men
returned from a successful war expedition and took an important part
in the victory parades. Although the Mandan think of this Hidatsa
society as a poor imitation of the River society, the Hidatsa ascribe
its origin to First Creator who organized the society for the purpose
of dancing during the victory celebrations. Singers for the society
were men of “friendly” societies and held their positions on invitation

of the women.
GoosE SOCIETY

The Goose society was of Mandan origin according to all of my
informants, in spite of the fact that Maximilian (1906) lists it only
for the Hidatsa. According to Mandan traditions, this society was
of long standing with them and even preceded their arrival upstream
to the Heart River. The society was associated with agriculture and
had as its principal singers men who held rights in various corn
ceremonies. This society differed from the societies of younger women
by being concerned exclusively with rites for insuring good crops.
According to Hidatsa traditions, the Awatixa were longest to have
this society and, since this Hidatsa village group has the longest
traditional history on the Missouri, it would appear that as each
Hidatsa group settled on the Missouri, this society became a part of

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 201

their society system. In the Mandan villages, the male singers were
bundle owners who managed the garden and fertility rites. These
sacred bundles were of two categories: those originating with the
culture hero, Good-Furred-Robe, and those originating with Old-
Woman-Who-Never-Dies. There were two bundles relating to the
Good-Furred-Robe: the Medicine Robe and the Skull bundles. In
early historic times, at least, these bundles were kept in different
villages. Villages not represented by these two bundles had Goose
societies whose singers were holders of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies
bundles. Itis with the latter pattern that the Hidatsa Goose societies
were associated until 1837 at which time Bear-Looks-Out, an Awaxawi
and owner of an Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies bundle, received the
Skull bundle through his wife, a Mandan. Her father contemplated
putting it away since his family had experienced bad luck during the
smallpox epidemic. He sold the bundle to his son-in-law, a normal
transfer pattern for the Mandan who practiced clan-inheritance of
tribal bundles, and thus the bundle passed to the Awaxawi village of
Hidatsa. At that time both the Hidatsa and Awatixa had Goose
societies associated with male singers owning rights in Old-Woman-
Who-Never-Dies bundles. In 1845, when the three Hidatsa villages
united, the three Goose societies were united into a single organization.

The purchase of the society was a group transaction. Young
women who had belonged to the Enemy society, and any others who
might wish to belong to the Goose society, met with the Goose society
members to obtain their permission to buy. Since the society was
chiefly concerned with agricultural pursuits, those showing little
interest in the gardens generally did not care to buy. Meetings were
held at the principal male singer’s lodge. At Fishhook Village the
Hidatsa met at Bear-Looks-Out’s lodge until he transferred his Sacred
Skull bundle to Poor Wolf, after which the meetings were held at
the latter’s lodge. During this period, the Mandans met at the
lodge of Moves Slowly, he being the principal singer for the Mandan
Goose society and the owner of the Good-Furred-Robe bundle. When
one group was buying, they brought in food for 60 consecutive nights
and placed it in rows inside the lodge. Young men who had been
successful in war, two from each society, were selected to run toward
the meat while the women cried. Afterward food was passed around
to the selling group.

Women were usually between the ages of 30 and 40 when they
entered the society. In addition to this age-grade group, one young
girl was selected by the principal singer to carry their pipe on certain
occasions and to present the pipe and dried meat to the principal
singer. The younger member represented the duck and smaller
water birds while the other female members represented geese. The

202 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

selling group selected ‘‘daughters’”—younger clan members or
“brothers’ daughters’”—for each of whom they prepared an ear of
white or yellow corn wrapped in white sage, a headband of goose-
skin with the head attached,” and a complete set of clothing consisting
of a buffalo robe, dress, leggings, and moccasins. A woman could
select as many as four women standing in the relationship of
“daughter.”’ During the 60-day period of feasting, the younger
women were taught the songs and rites of the society and received
instruction in the traditional origin of the society and its relationship
to other corn rites. In return for this instruction and the ceremonial
paraphernalia, each younger woman paid her individual ‘‘mother”’ or
‘father’s sister,” according to the relationship that existed between
them. At the end of the period, the society was surrendered to the
younger women. However, there was not the same clear-cut separa-
tion from the society by the sellers as was practiced by the men
buying into the men’s societies.

Members of the Goose society frequently received supernatural
experiences, associated with Corn rites, in which the individual was
instructed in a vision to make feasts to the society or to various
sacred bundles concerned with the corn. Some women also bought
the right to have ‘‘corn spirits’? come up in their throats on certain
public occasions. These women were retained by the buyers as
honored life members of the Goose society. They met with the
society of younger women and on all other occasions when public
rites were being performed by bundle owners having supernatural
powers over the garden crops. These women might even retain their
rights in the Goose society while buying into the next higher society,
the White Buffalo Cows, with their own age group.

The most important meeting of the Goose society was held in the
spring when the first water birds arrived from the south. Usually
someone dreamed during the winter of the return of the water birds and
asked permission of the society to prepare a feast for the geese when
they returned so the Goose women could pray for good crops. Fre-
quently, several people who had dreamed of the geese would go together
and give the feast, otherwise a series of ceremonies were given indi-
vidually by those receiving supernatural instruction. The women
would meet with their singers at the appointed time and go to a
point just outside the village where the rites were performed. This
was the largest and most important ceremony heralding the first
arrival of the water birds and the end of winter.

During the summer, individuals would frequently prepare feasts
and ask the women of the Goose society to dance. At planting time

25 The Hidatsa Goose society formerly did not have the headband. See Lowie, 1913, p. 335.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 203

the women of the village would come to the singer who was perform-
ing the “fertility”? rites on his earth lodge to receive a few kernels
of each variety of corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers. Moves
Slowly held superior status to Bear-Looks-Out in Fertility rites. It
was believed that the corn spirits went south with the water birds
in the fall and were cared for by Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies until
spring when they were sent northward again. As the geese were the
messengers of the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, so were the women
of the Goose society the messengers of the sacred bundle owners.

When droughts threatened, the people would go to the sacred corn
bundle owners who would invite the Goose society to dance. If the
drought was prolonged, the Goose society members would invite
others having rain ceremonial rights to perform their Rainmaking
rites and pay them for their services. When a rainmaker failed to
bring rain within a definite number of days, he would terminate his
rites and direct them to take the goods to another rainmaker. If
Hidatsa interpretations of the role of the Goose society are correct,
all rainmaking rites were undertaken on the initiative of this society.
There were a number of bundles that could be classified primarily
as rainmaking bundles, but anyone who had fasted much and had
demonstrated supernatural powers might be asked.

On one occasion during the 1860’s, the Goose society took their
goods to various men each of whom tried for a day or two, giving
up when rain did not come. At last they asked help of Broken Ax,
a Mandan noted for his numerous performances of the Okipa, and
the rains came, penetrating the soil to the depth of a hand’s width.
Broken Ax did not think it would look proper for him to keep as
personal possessions all of the goods contributed by the Goose soci-
ety, so he shared everything with other ‘holy’ men who had tribal
bundles and with those who had fasted much during their youth.
In gratitude for services rendered, the people of the village materially
thanked the Goose society.

Slightly later, grasshoppers were numerous and flew into the river
valley from the adjacent prairies, attacking the corn silk as fast as
it appeared. The women of the Goose society again met to select
“holy men” to help drive away the insects. Crows Heart, who
observed the activities of the Goose society at that time, tells us that

The women were crying, for the grasshoppers were eating up their corn plants
before the kernels could form. The Goose women were invited by those who
had gardens to meet and see if something could be done to drive the insects
away. Each day grasshoppers flying in the air near the sun would settle in
the trees as the sun went down until they were so numerous that even the leaves
were nearly all gone. The Goose women went to various men to ask their help;

these men tried because they were asked and goods were promised to them.
But the men were soon discouraged and quit. At last the women went to Bro-

204 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Bull. 194

ken Ax who had brought the rain, and put things before him. Broken Ax
laughed when they came to him and said, “I can’t do anything; no one ever
heard of holy men driving away grasshoppers. I do not think grasshoppers
would listen to me. Since you brought these things, I will try.”

The women placed their goods in front of his medicine bundle with the pipe
on top of the goods. He lit the pipe and prayed to his gods to help the women.
The day turned out very hot; the grasshoppers rose up into the air in swarms
as though going towards the sun. When night came, not a grasshopper was in
the gardens. All this I saw as they went up toward the sun and we never
knew what became of them. The people were all happy and thought that
Broken Ax was surely a great medicine man.

The fall migration of the water birds was commemorated with
ceremonial offerings by the Goose society. These rites were usually
performed by the Goose society on invitation of some household as
thanks for a good crop. It was believed that the geese and other
water birds, as they traveled southward, participated in the feast
and took the spirits of the corn and other garden crops with them
to the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies who spent the winter months in a
large earth lodge on an island near the mouth of the Mississippi
River. As a rule, the Goose society did not meet during the late
fall and winter months although, occasionally, someone would ask
that they attend a feast and pray for good crops the succeeding
season.

Some women were believed to have corn spirits in their body.
These women were respected members of the society, for the appear-
ance of an ear of corn in their throats might occur at any time of the
year, particularly whenever a number of hungry people were sitting
around a fire waiting to be fed. On these social occasions, the woman
invariably had numerous “‘attacks” before the corn actually appeared
in her mouth. Those sitting near her were expected to give her
presents so that the corn would go back down. My informants
claimed that after the woman received the goods and some of the food
cooking at the fire, the ear of corn went back into place and did not
pain her any more.

Although there was no objection to meetings of a social nature
during the winter months if someone wanted to feed the members of
the society, rites practiced at that time were not considered especially
effective since the corn spirits were believed to be far away in the
care of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies. For that reason, once the fall
ceremony was completed, the Goose society was normally inactive

until spring approached.
Wuirt Burrato Cow Socretry

Beginning with the approach of winter, the women of the next
older group, the White Buffalo Cow society, would talk of meeting

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 205

for the purpose of bringing the winter buffaloes to the village. This
was the highest of the organized age-grade women’s societies known
to the Hidatsa and Mandan. The society was of Mandan origin,
according to both Mandan and Hidatsa informants, and does not
appear to have been of long existence with the Hidatsa. Although
Maximilian did not include the society in his Hidatsa series, Matthews
(1877) listed it in his Hidatsa series as of Mandan origin. Boller gave
a detailed eyewitness account of the winter buffalo-calling rites
belonging to this society which is essentially the same as that furnished
me by the older Hidatsa who recalled the particular winter and in-
cidents mentioned by Boller (1868).

According to traditions, a Mandan was fasting on a high hill during
the shortest and coldest nights of the winter. Each night he heard
a voice above the noise of the wind and drifting snow. On the fourth
night the voice was so near and distinct that he could distinguish
the words. The voice kept repeating, ‘Put a child with them.”

Soon a man came carrying two children. The man said to the
faster, “I am going to give you these children. Prepare a feast
of corn and I will come. Iam the buffalo. When the feast is ready,
I will come and then you will have winter buffaloes with you always.”

The faster returned to the village and told the people of his ex-
periences. He asked that a feast be prepared, using all the dif-
ferent kinds of corn, and he selected two old women to care for the
small children. Soon a party of strange women arrived and showed
the people how to perform the dance. Then the strange women ate
the food prepared for them. When these buffalo women left, the
two buffalo children struggled to free themselves to accompany
their mothers. One escaped and the other was raised in the village
as an Indian. Hach year when the women dressed up and danced, the
buffaloes would come back to see the little child who danced with
them. The buffalo women would bring the winter buffalo herds with
them.

Women not yet through the menopause were not permitted to
join the society as it was believed that menstrual blood would drive
the buffaloes away. This was in direct contrast to the belief that
menstrual flows were ‘‘good” for the gardens. After the existing
group had owned the society for 8 or 10 years, and the membership
of the society was getting small from the death of its members,
women who had belonged to the Goose society and such others as
wished to belong to the White Buffalo Cow society, met and organized
a temporary society for the purpose of negotiating for the purchase
of the society rights from the older women. All ceremonies and
negotiations were conducted after the gardens had been harvested
in the fall and prior to the normal time for the return of the water

206 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

birds. Since even talking of the society was believed to bring cold
weather, women were reluctant even to think of the society or to
hum its songs during the growing season lest frosts come and destroy
their crops. Even as late as 1932, Calf Women and Scattercorn,
representing the Hidatsa and Mandan societies respectively, who
had entered the society as representatives of the buffalo calf left
with the tribe, were reluctant to relate the myth or discuss the society
with me during the month of August lest frosts destroy their gardens.

The actual sale of the society occurred in the late fall after the
village had gone into winter camp. The purchasing group first
made their intentions known to the older group; a sale price was
agreed upon; and a date for the commencement of the instructions
and meetings was set. In the meantime, each older woman selected
from among the buying group those whom she addressed as “‘daughter”’
and for whom she prepared the clothing and other society para-
phernalia. One could select as many as four “daughters,” but ordin-
arily fewer were selected. The women built a sweat lodge frame
at their meeting place and the purchasing group provided five or
six robes for the covering. Each buyer gave a wooden bowl and
robes to the individual from whom instructions, paraphernalia, and
rights were obtained. The buying group selected one of their number
to take the white robe and to occupy the leading position during the
dances. She was one whose husband had an important role in other
buffalo-calling rites. The child representing the buffalo calf of the
origin myth was a girl 2 to 9 years of age. It was her duty to stand
in the center of the line when dancing, with the hair of her tiny robe
on the outside. A woman standing at the end of the line wore the
robe of a summer buffalo and was known as Summer Buffalo. A
woman standing next to the child wore her robe with the hairside
out and attended to the incense as waiter for the group. All the
other members wore robes with the skin side out. The special officers
were females who either possessed buffalo bundles in their own right
or were married to men with such rights. The child representative
likewise came of a household possessing buffalo-calling rights. For
the Mandan, Scattercorn was selected for this office because her father
was the Hoita in the Okipa and possessed one of the sacred turtle
drums used in that ceremony. When the last Hidatsa group pur-
chased the White Buffalo Cow society, Calf Woman was selected by
the older Hidatsa women because her father lived in the Mandan
ceremonial lodge with his Mandan wives and was custodian of the
buffalo masks worn by the Mandan during their Okipa performances.

In the purchase of this society, the Hidatsa adopted many features
of the Mandan ceremonial system. The male singers for the Mandan
were men who possessed ceremonial rights in the Okipa. The Hi-

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 207

datsa, having no comparable ceremony, selected men who had rights
in existing buffalo ceremonies. The same association of male sacred
bundle owners and a woman’s society existing for the Goose society
followed for the White Buffalo Cow society. Because of this associ-
ation, when one group of women sold out, the sale did not affect the
male singers whose positions were held by virtue of their rights
in other ceremonies. The songs and rites were identical to those
of the Mandan which suggests recent adoption from the Mandan.
On the other hand, the Goose society differed slightly in parapher-
nalia, songs, and rites from the Mandan—consistent with native
traditions that this society was adopted from the Mandan long before
the White Buffalo society was purchased.

According to Mandan accounts, the Bull society formerly met
with the White Buffalo Cow society during the winter observances,
but in later years this men’s society had died out. During the 19th
century the Black Mouths met with the women since one of the
important duties of this society was to organize the village for fasting
when the days were shortest to bring the buffalo herds to the river
bottoms near the village. When it was announced that the society
was to meet on the invitation of some individual—frequently the
man selected as Winter Camp leader—and that goods had been put
up for the rites, it was the duty of the Black Mouths to enforce the
quiet order in the village. Then the dogs were taken into the lodge;
premature and individual hunting was prohibited; women remained
near their lodges and cut no wood; and fires were frequently extin-
guished unless a strong wind was blowing from the direction the ani-
mals were taking. The women met each day at the lodge selected
for the rites. During this time other individuals brought goods or
horses and asked the women or the singers to pray to the buffaloes,
telling them that the society was dancing and that they should come
to see their ‘‘child.”” The robes belonging to the special officers, the
sacred pipe, and the white headbands were smoked in the fumes
from wild peppermint stems. If the buffalo herds were late arriving,
the women would sometimes meet daily for quite a while. Usually
their first meeting was when large herds were observed at a distance
and the storms had begun.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE HIDATSA AGE-GRADE STRUCTURE

The Hidatsa age-grade societies were organized and named groups
comprising, with a few exceptions, persons of approximately the same
age and sex. The few exceptions were older men retained as singers
by those recently buying a new society, young women engaged by
the Bull society to bring them water during public displays, male

208 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

singers for the women’s societies, young girls selected to represent
the water birds in the Goose society, and the buffalo calf in the White
Buffalo Cow society. These societies cut across clan and moiety lines,
dividing the population of the village into a number of organized
groups. In earlier times, when the Hidatsa lived in three or more
villages, the societies were limited by village bounds and member-
ship in a society of a different village was unusual except in those
instances when one having rights in a particular society married
and moved to another village. In these instances the individual
sold out his rights with his own group and participated subsequently
with the society of his new residence.

In organization, all societies followed a characteristic pattern.
There were officers who were distinguished from the rank and file
members by special paraphernalia, face painting, and duties. These
invariably had distinguished themselves in various socially approved
ways. Men were usually selected by the group for bravery or other
manifestations of military skill while women were selected for industry
and participation in specific ritualistic activities. Each society had
a male announcer or crier whose duty it was to inform the village at
large of the activities of the society. He could be one of the regular
membership or an older and respected person selected for his kindness
to certain members of the society.

With regard to origin, the Hidatsa recognized two groups or so-
cieties; those for which no tribal origin myths were known, and which
are therefore presumed to be of foreign origin, and those having tribal
origin myths which they believed their ancestors founded. Each
society had prescribed rites and dances which in some way distin-
guished it from all other societies, while those societies having simi-
larities were believed to be ‘‘related” to each other. Each group had
periodic meetings according to the traditional customs of the group
and extra meetings whenever one of its members had distinguished
himself in warfare. The men’s societies all placed great emphasis on
warfare but had other functions as well. Certain societies had ritual-
istic aspects and conceptual ties with bundle rites. The Notched
Stick was related to Corn rites at Awaxawi and it was believed that
whenever the young boys of this society danced, rains were certain
to fall. The Lumpwood society used staffs resembling those of the
Painted Red Stick and Thunder rites for buffalo calling and rainmaking
respectively. The Stone Hammer society was related to the Sun,
Moon, and Woman Above rites. The Dog societies were related to
Earthnaming rites due to the use of owl feathers by both groups.
The Bull society dances during the four seasons were symbolic of the
buffaloes of the four seasons and directions.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 209

Although the secrecy of the sacred rites did not apply to the age-
grade societies, each society was clothed in a certain amount of
sacredness by virtue of individual membership in various ceremonies.
Each society was thought to possess collectively more supernatural
power than the preceding one because individuals continuously sought
supernatural powers until past middle age. Thus Stone Hammers
were not thought to have collectively very much supernatural power
since they had just begun their fasting, whereas members of the higher
societies had individually fasted a great deal, participated in many
ceremonies, and had given many feasts to older persons recognized
as holy men.

The role of the age-grade system in providing a mechanism for the
acquisition of supernatural powers is indicated by the similarity of the
purchase to ceremonial purchases. With a few exceptions, the cere-
monial purchase was by a “‘son”’ from his “father.” The same pattern
prevailed for age-grade purchases. Another feature of the ritualistic
quest of supernatural power was that of the relinquishment of one’s
wife to the ceremonial ‘father.’

The Hidatsa do not think of the societies in themselves as sacred,
and informants offered no objections to discussing details concerned
exclusively with the societies. Nevertheless, the Hidatsa think of a
society purchase as a mode of acquiring supernatural power. A
male secured this power during the purchase from individuals stand-
ing in a “father” relationship who prayed for their “sons,” “walked”
with their sons’ “wives,” and received various goods. Although the
purchase was made as a group, it was essentially an individual affair
between a man and one or more “‘sons.”’ Some men preferred to have
the same “‘father’’ for each successive society purchase while others
thought more supernatural powers would be obtained if different
“fathers” were selected for successive purchases. The concept of
age-grade purchases as organized activities designed to acquire super-
natural power is further indicated by the reluctance of a buyer to
select as “father”? one who had suffered repeated misfortunes or had
a poor reputation. In fact, such unfortunate individuals frequently
relinquished their sacred bundles or completely dropped out of the
age-grade societies. Others took no part in age-grade activities until
they had overcome their bad luck by successes in warfare, rain-
making, or “calling the buffaloes.”

This feature of acquiring individual supernatural powers within
an organized group does not seem to be characteristic of the women’s
groups. The societies for younger women were concerned exclusively
with warfare. Each of the Goose and White Buffalo Cow societies
collectively purchased rights in specific ceremonies: agricultural and
winter buffalo-calling rites. Men, on the other hand, did not acquire

210 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

specific ceremonial rites through purchase of an age-grade society
nor did they secure the right to participate in the “father’s” cere-
monies. Instead, they received only such supernatural power and
assurances as the “fathers” offered them.

Societies were cooperating groups. Whenever an individual
suffered misfortune, his society should help him. Men would help
each other in warfare, assist in the recovery of stolen horses, and
put up goods if one of their number was making important ceremonial
purchases. Women would assist a sick member with food and
clothing, and plant or care for her gardens. If a member died, the
society would supply food and gifts to the relatives of the deceased
for the funeral rites. On occasions when a member of the society
returned with war honors, the society would dance and put up goods
for the victory rites. Other men’s groups, two societies removed,
would likewise assist on these occasions.

The concept of group cooperation extended to the opposite sex
as well. Each men’s society usually enlisted the assistance of a
women’s society composed of individuals of the same age and known
as ‘friends.” This “friend” relationship between societies of opposite
sex does not seem to be integrated into the traditions and sacred
myths of the tribe nor was there agreement among informants as
to “friend” groups of the opposite sex. This suggests that, due to
recent borrowing of the River, Goose, and White Buffalo Cow societies
from the Mandan, the Hidatsa had not established a fixed system
of correlations strengthened by custom. Informants all agreed that
the Stone Hammer and Skunk societies were ‘‘friends,” but this may
be due to the fact that these societies are of Hidatsa origin and
of long traditional existence in the tribe. The Enemy Women are
usually associated with the Crazy Dogs but sometimes selected
the Lumpwoods as “friends.’’ Likewise the Goose society some-
times had either the Crazy Dogs or the Lumpwoods as “friends.”
But the selection was largely a matter of age. The women of the
Mandan Goose society had the Fox or the Black Mouths for their
“friends” because, as they said, this association was based on the
creation of these three societies by Good-Furred-Robe. The White
Buffalo Cow society was the ‘friend’ of the Black Mouth society.
It seems probable that they formerly were also “friends” of the Bull
society, as with the Mandan for whom traditions and customs are
more definite, and that the Bull society was not associated with
them in later years chiefly because the Bulls died out early with the
Hidatsa. The record indicates that ‘friends’ were established
societies of opposite sex based chiefly on relative age rather than on
any preconceived ideas of societies belonging together.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION Qt

Theoretically, everyone ought to belong to a society—in practice,
many did not join in or were in and out through life. If an individual
belonged to a society, both he and his society members were subject
to the ridicule of his “joking relatives.’ The societies reached a
smaller percentage of women. Although theoretically noncompeti-
tive, some evidence of rivalry for position existed among the societies
after 1845 due to the union of the remnants of three village groups
with slightly different age-grade systems.

One owned rights in a society until he sold out. If regular purchases
were not made, accumulation of ceremonies occurred. For instance,
if the Half-Shaved Heads bought the Black Mouth society before
selling their rights to the Lumpwoods, they would own two societies.
Temporarily, the Half-Shaved Head dances would not be performed
since a group expressed its position in the system by the highest
society owned. ‘The same situation frequently developed when the
Dogs bought the Old Dog society before selling out to the Black
Mouths. If a society was not bought by the younger group, owner-
ship was retained by the existing members as long as they lived. In
recent years, societies went together to purchase other dances such
as the Grass and Night Grass dances brought to the tribe by the
Sioux. This destroyed the age-grade character of the system and the
societies quickly died out through failure of the younger men to
continue the purchases.

Each village group had independent societies and, as seen in table
4 (p. 175), slight differences existed between villages because of their
different histories and group contacts. Although the membership
of a society was limited to the village group, a “friend’’ relationship
existed between the same societies of different villages. 'There were
two Hidatsa concepts of property transfer. The first, or ‘father-son’
transfer, provided for an actual transfer and relinquishment of rights
(as when one organized group sold to a group of ‘‘sons’’) and was the
pattern of society sales within the village. The second transfer
pattern was known as “taking in friends’ and was the method of
transferring society rights to another village or tribe without relin-
quishing original ownership. Thus, if a group from another village
or tribe wished to buy a society owned by the Hidatsa, after the
details of the purchase price and time for the sale had been arranged,
the buying group was considered ‘‘friends.’’ The buying group then
selected individual ‘‘friends’’ of the sellers who were, in the case of
two groups having common clans, individuals of the same or related
clans. There was nothing unique in this system since Hidatsa
commonly adopted either a “son” or a ‘friend’ of other village or
tribal groups. The buying group paid their individual “friends”

212 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

for the paraphernalia and the right to own the society in the same
manner as when the buying group was of the same village.

The ‘friend’ relationship established during the sale of society
rights was a permanent one between groups of individuals. While
visiting neighboring villages or tribes, these “friends” treated each
other as brothers or, in the case of the women’s societies, as sisters.
They were invited to live with a “friend,’’ usually a clansman, for
the duration of the visit. Although an individual had rights only in
the particular society of the village where he bought, the concept of
group assistance to an unfortunate member extended to other
villages as well. When a man undertook to avenge a brother killed
by the enemy, society members of other villages frequently volun-
teered to give military aid. In light of the wide territory occupied
by the various Hidatsa village groups prior to 1785, the diffusion of
many common age-grade societies to all village groups no doubt
strengthened the ties between the different village groups when they
moved to the Knife River region. The establishment of common
societies with the Mandan likewise probably contributed much to
peaceful relations with that tribe.

Although the Hidatsa think of age-grading as an institution of
considerable antiquity, they think of the number of societies making
up the series as increasing through the years. A parallel situation
prevailed in regard to the ceremonies. They speak of ancient times
when the people had few skills, few ceremonies, and much hunger.
To them, their golden age was prior to the appearance of the Whites
and their diseases; an age of many societies and ceremonies. Of the
numerous societies found among the Hidatsa, the Stone Hammer
and various Dog societies have the best claim for respectable an-
tiquity since they are of traditional antiquity and are frequently
mentioned in their origin and sacred myths. If we eliminate the
women’s societies of traditional Mandan origin, we have remaining
nothing of a women’s age-grade system. Thus, it would appear
that the Hidatsa have borrowed more from the Mandan than they
have given in return.

WARFARE

INTERTRIBAL RELATIONS

Military activities had social, ceremonial, and economic aspects
which affected the entire population. There was scarcely any aspect
of their cultural life left unaffected by the intensive warfare that
ranged about them on the Plains during the period for which we have
documentary accounts and traditional information of Hidatsa in-
formants. Nor was the prehorse period one of peace between
tribes; there are numerous traditional accounts of expeditions far

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 213

into the eastern woods or into the valleys of the Rockies even before
the horse reached them. Although the Thompson accounts speak
of their former residence on the Red River and its tributaries, until
driven out by the Chippewa who first obtained guns, most Hidatsa
traditions refer to an even earlier residence on the Missouri by some
groups. Thus, it is to be presumed that formerly, as given by the
traditions, the Hidatsa and Crow groups as we know them today
were scattered along the lower portion of the Yellowstone, the Little
Missouri, the Missouri from the mouth of the Yellowstone to Square
Buttes and then eastward into the Devils Lake, Red River, and
Sheyenne River regions. Archeological evidence indicates that those
groups living on the Missouri practiced agriculture and held firmly,
in cooperation with the Mandan, a considerable section of the Missouri
from the Knife River to the Cannonball. So far as we know today,
the larger area claimed by the Hidatsa as the exclusive territory of
the Crow, Hidatsa, and Mandan groups was formerly uncontested
by other groups with a peripheral area into which many groups
occasionally penetrated.

Numerous efforts have been made to interpret Hidatsa migra-
tions in terms of an old Mandan tradition that tells of the first arrival
of the Hidatsa-proper on the Missouri at a point a short distance
above the mouth of Heart River where they were named by the Man-
dan who gave them their first corn. This tradition, however, is not
consistent with the general traditions of the various Hidatsa groups
which operated independently, nor with the archeological evidence of
the area. The Mandan have made a great deal of their traditions
of teaching corn growing to the Hidatsa-proper, but this is in direct
contradiction to the Thompson-supported Awaxawi traditions of an
agricultural economy on the tributaries of the Red River and in the
Devils Lake region (Thompson, 1916, pp. 225-237) and the archeo-
logical record for the Schultz sites on the lower Sheyenne which tie up
very closely with the oldest traditional Awaxawi sites on the Missouri.
Although my researches do not reveal any evidence that the Awaxawi
abandoned the eastern region because of the pressure of enemy groups
equipped with firearms, their former residence there is indicated by
traditions and the custom of the older people even within the memory
of living informants to return to their later village sites around Devils
Lake. Jnstead, the Awaxawi traditions speak of a former prehistoric
agricultural life on the streams to the east and at Devils Lake prior
to a “continental flood’”’ which drove them westward onto the Missouri
where they found related groups already established in earth lodge
villages.

The Awatixa village group had lived so long on the Missouri that
even in Lewis and Clark’s time they had no traditions of residence

710-195—65——15

214 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

elsewhere. Their large traditional village at the mouth of the Knife
River indicates a period of long residence; probably since 1550 or 1600.
Their traditions are largely concerned with the later settlement of the
other Hidatsa groups on the Missouri River, and the Crow groups on
the adjacent Plains. Neither does the Hidatsa—River Crow migra-
tion tradition supply us with positive evidence of pressure from eastern
groups as the basis for their westward movement. However, the
traditionally late westward movement of the Awaxawi and the
Hidatsa—River Crow indicates a general abandonment of the territory
east and northeast of the Missouri about the time firearms were first
introduced to tribes in the Winnipeg and Great Lakes area.

Except for the traditional village site of the Awatixa at the mouth
of the Knife River, none of the traditional Hidatsa-proper or Awaxawi
sites on the Missouri show evidence of great antiquity. On the
basis of pottery types represented in these sites, it has been possible
to distinguish them from those of the adjacent Mandan and to indicate
that during their residence on the Missouri these Hidatsa village
groups were both sedentary and agricultural. Except for short
periods, their agricultural villages were at or below the mouth of
the Knife River, although the same pottery complex is widely distrib-
uted in hunting camp sites upstream along the Missouri and the
Lower Yellowstone as well as on tributaries (such as the Little
Missouri and the Powder Rivers) wherever a quantity of wood was
available. The basic similarity of the pottery types and frequency
of types over a wide area extending westward from the Sheyenne
and Devils Lake area to the Yellowstone suggests that there were
continuous contacts between the various Hidatsa-Crow groups and
that the abandonment of the eastern wooded section of their terri-
tory was rather late, but that it preceded the introduction of the horse.

A significant feature of the Hidatsa position upstream from the
large concentrated Mandan population below Painted Woods and the
Crow position to the west of the Mandan is the fact that they lived
here together in a weak confederation of independent village groups.
With one exception, a short war between the Hidatsa-proper living
above the Knife and the Awaxawi living farther downstream who
undertook to establish a permanent village above the Hidatsa, there
are no traditional accounts of warfare among these three tribes.
With the final abandonment of the region east of the Missouri, this
cluster of friendly tribes controlled an area from the mouth of the
Cannonball to the mouth of the Yellowstone thence upstream to the
Powder River and eastward across the Little Missouri with the
course of the Cannonball as their southern limits. The three tribes
held a commanding position in this region until 1780, living peacefully
and assisting each other in conducting offensive warfare against those

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 215

groups which attempted to penetrate the region. Prior to 1780 the
Assiniboin pressure to the north had scarcely been felt (in 1738, La
Vérendrye found them living back from the Missouri farther to the
northeast), but the Sioux had already moved into the Red River,
James River, and Devils Lake regions. Even as late as 1797,
Thompson found the Assiniboin northeast of the Hidatsa on the
Mouse River, in the Turtle Mountains and northward, with the
Sioux as far west as the Dog Dens and in general control of the tall
grass east of the Missouri.

After 1780 the Hidatsa, together with the Mandan and Arikara,
were under constant pressure from mounted nomadic groups fre-
quently better equipped with firearms. This was also the period of
devastating smallpox epidemics. Both these factors materially
affected them. Before 1780, having the powerful Mandan village
groups to the south in the direction of the Sioux and Arikara, the
Hidatsa showed little inclination to fortify their villages or even
place them for defense or the easier and safer herding of the horses.
There is no archeological evidence that ditch and wall fortifications
were constructed at their principal villages prior to 1780 although
the Mandans to the south had been fortifying strongly since before
A.D. 1500. However, the Mandan situation was somewhat different;
their pressure was as great during later years from the Arikara living
below them on the Missouri as from the nomadic groups, particularly
the Sioux and Cheyenne.

The epidemics of the 1780’s materially changed the picture on the
Missouri, for the sedentary bands usually lived together in large
agricultural groups during the summer and in somewhat smaller
winter camps situated close to each other. The nomadic bands
rarely came together as large social groups for longer than a few
weeks during the summer, thus contagious diseases weakened them
less than the sedentary groups. The losses of the latter are painfully
evident when a comparison is made between the large Mandan village
sites with European trade material near the Heart River, abandoned
after this epidemic, and the two small villages of survivors reported
by Lewis and Clark to be living near Fort Clark in 1804. Of the
Hidatsa groups, the Awatixa and Awaxawi suffered most, probably
due to their custom of going into winter camp as a village unit. In
contrast, the Hidatsa-proper, then consisting of organized bands
which sometimes practiced agriculture, broke up into smaller winter
hunting camps much as did the Assiniboin described by Thompson
in 1797.

A further factor affecting the Hidatsa village groups was their posi-
tion on the Plains. To the northeast, the Assiniboin and Chippewa
had permanent trading posts situated near them at a much earlier

216 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

date and were better armed than their western neighbors. To the
south, the Sioux (Dakota) had immediate access to trading posts on
the Missouri and Mississippi and endeavored to prevent trade with the
earth lodge groups. Other Siouan (Dakota) groups traded regularly
with the posts in Minnesota. Even as late as 1800 traders found it
difficult to reach the Missouri to trade with the Hidatsa and Mandan.
On the other hand, due to their northern and eastern position in the
Plains, the horse reached them rather late; raids by mounted Indians
from the southwest were of common occurrence by 1780 although the
Hidatsa were probably not completely mounted by that time. The
first result of these factors—horses and White trade—was a concentra-
tion of the population into compact villages. Whereas their village
sites of prehorse times, with the exception of the Awatixa, were com-
posed of widely scattered lodges and small clusters of lodges (as seen
at the Upper Sanger, Gaines, and Fort Clark Station sites below the
Knife) or the temporary campsites (as the Energy or Stanton Ferry
sites, and elsewhere to the mouth of the Yellowstone River), the
population now either went into strongly fortified sites (Big Hidatsa
35, Lower Hidatsa 34, Rock Village 53, or Awaxawi 32), or completely
abandoned the region above the Knife River for summer villages and
united with the River Crow. Not only were the post-1780 villages
reduced in size by compactly arranging the lodges, but they were
very strongly fortified with ditches and walls. After one attempt to
maintain a village—Rock Village—some miles north of the Knife
River, the population united at the mouth of the Knife River and
built the three villages observed by Lewis and Clark in 1804.

There was a comparable concentration of the Mandan population
a few miles downstream from the Hidatsa villages. When the Mandan
originally abandoned the Heart River region, the east side or Nuptadi
Mandan sought to move above the Hidatsa on the Missouri and thus
violate a long-standing arrangement of village groups. These Mandan
had been intimately associated with the Awaxawi and the Mandan of
Painted Woods while living farther downstream and had intermarried
with them. Nevertheless, the Hidatsa refused them permission to
move above the mouth of the Knife River in territory claimed as
exclusive Hidatsa hunting territory. The Hidatsa welcomed the
Mandans, however, as close neighbors and the entire Mandan popu-
lation finally united into two village groups downstream from the
Hidatsa where they were found by Lewis and Clark in 1804. A period
of close cooperation between these village groups in all matters of
common interest followed. They assisted each other in warfare at
a time when the Crow had moved so far west as to afford little aid.
Although permanent ties with the Crow were now severed, Hidatsa

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION DTZ

war parties and visiting groups often went to the Crow and assisted
them in stealing horses until the aboriginal culture broke down.
Whereas during the 18th century, the Arikara were in conflict with
the Mandan and Hidatsa in their northward penetration of the
Missouri River valley, by the close of the century they were willing
to cooperate with their northern earth lodge neighbors against a
common enemy—the Sioux. Peace between the Arikara and their
northern agricultural neighbors developed slowly due to old griev-
ances—chiefly competition for agricultural grounds—and trouble
frequently broke out during the period prior to 1837. As the pressure
of the Sioux increased, numerous efforts were made to bring the
Arikara into the earth lodge federation. In 1836, after a few years
of nomadic life when their corn crops failed, the Arikara came north
with the intention of rebuilding (Greenshield site) near Painted
Woods. This region had been abandoned by the Hidatsa and Mandan
eroups in their northward migration along the Missouri and one
village group of Arikara from the Grand River had, on several occa-
sions, settled there temporarily. This arrangement was generally
accepted by the Hidatsa and Mandan, now greatly reduced in num-
bers, for it offered protection on the south from the Sioux who had
meanwhile hunted in the Heart and Cannonball River regions
abandoned by the Mandan a half century earlier. So the Arikara came
to the trading post at Fort Clark in the late winter of 1837 and were
received by the Hidatsa and Mandan (Chardon, 1932, p.100). During
the late winter, one Arikara band went out hunting with the Hidatsa
onto the Upper Missouri and the other remained with the Mandan.”
When spring came they did not separate to build a separate village
as had been planned, and when smallpox broke out that summer, the
three tribes suffered so severely that the Arikara took over and
occupied the Mandan village at Fort Clark. From that time on, the
Arikara were accepted as friends;?’ they assisted the Hidatsa and
Mandan when attacked. After 1837 there was growing evidence
that, due to increased pressure by the Sioux, the Assiniboin should
be included in this federation. Whereas the Arikara had carried on
continuous warfare with the Crow on every occasion, with the estab-
lishment of friendly relations with the Hidatsa, warfare with the
Crow was discontinued. The Hidatsa had established permanent
friendly relations with a few Assiniboin bands after a century or
more of conflict with them over the control of the Missouri upstream

26 They probably represented the two separate village groups reported by Maximilian and others during
the period 1810-34.

27 Occasionally, quarrels occurred which demanded prompt action by the respective police and councils.
For procedures in resolving these differences before the entire groups became involved, see Chardon, 1932,
p. 188,

218 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

from the Knife. These cooperating groups camped together during
the winter and went out on friendly hunting expeditions together.
This friendship had never extended to the entire Assiniboin tribe, for
the western Assiniboin were in constant conflict with the Crow and
those Hidatsa living with the Crow after 1845. Likewise, there was
a great deal of hard feeling toward the western Assiniboin bands for
their attacks on that northernmost Hidatsa group which had at-
tempted to establish a village above the Big Bend after the epidemic
of 1837. On the other hand, marriage, adoption rites, and temporary
winter residence worked to bring about a federation with friendly
eastern Assiniboin bands. During the Sioux wars, the Assiniboin
often left old people or widows with small children unable to travel
or to stand the rigors of winter with the Hidatsa when leaving for
the winter villages after coming to the Hidatsa to trade for corn.
During the 19th century, a number of people were adopted into the
tribe and married Hidatsas or Mandans. In addition, small children
sometimes were left in alien villages—while their parents were trading
for corn—to be raised by the inhabitants of that village. On a few
occasions shortly after 1800, when the Assiniboin were contesting
the Hidatsa for the Missouri River region, the latter destroyed
Assiniboin winter hunting camps, taking the women and children as
captives. Once taken into the tribe, these captives maintained a
dual citizenship which was acceptable to the Hidatsa. Assiniboin
coming to trade would visit their relatives in the village and, as far
as can be determined, once a female had married and had children
by a Hidatsa father, her position was more secure than with her own
group. In several instances, however, where the Hidatsa husband
had died, no objection was raised when she returned with her children
to her own people. These were household decisions over which the
council had no authority. Her children were related to groups of
individuals in both tribes and could and did move back and forth
between both tribes without risk of their lives as long as they were
recognized.

The practice of intergroup visiting and ‘‘adoption” had made great
progress toward terminating warfare between the Hidatsa and certain
bands of Assiniboin, Chippewa, and Sioux even before the aboriginal
culture broke down. ‘These alien groups came to the Hidatsa villages
for prolonged annual visits and, on several occasions, assisted the
Hidatsa when attacks were made on the village. Groups of aliens
sometimes went into winter camp with the Hidatsa and got along very
well.

A man organizing a war party invariably avoided attacks on those
bands with which he was related by blood (in much the same manner
as did Medicine Bear of the Sioux, whose mother was from the Mandan

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 219

village of Nuptadi). In the case of a few alien bands of small size
that had maintained frequent contacts with the Hidatsa and were
known individually to all of the young Hidatsa, learning that an en-
campment was of their acquaintances, they went into the camp to
visit rather than to steal their horses. In one instance, a war party
of young Hidatsas went to Devils Lake to steal horses from the Sioux.
Discovering that the horses stolen during the night were those which
their people had given to a band of Chippewas a few weeks before to
send them away happy, and knowing that their relatives would
disapprove of stealing horses from their friends, they drove the horses
back into the Chippewa camp, telling them of their mistake. The
young men of the two tribes then organized a common raid on a distant
Sioux camp. Even as late as the 1850’s, warriors of friendly bands
would come to Fishhook Village to visit when on the way to the Arikara
village at Fort Clark to steal horses.

TRAINING

No other aspect of the culture received as much attention as warfare.
As soon as a boy was old enough to walk, he was given a bow and ar-
rows; childhood games emphasized military adventures in imitation
of their elders. Observing the behavior of the older people as they
danced and sang the victory songs when a successful war party re-
turned, or wept when the party was unsuccessful, the small children
would, with the encouragement of their elders, go on imaginary war
expeditions although the enemy defeated was often only a young
gopher or rabbit. Waving the dead animal, and with their faces
blackened with the dirt from a pocket gopher’s mound, they would
come into the village or a make-believe village consisting of old
hides hung over bushes, singing the victory songs and waving their
trophies. The little girls, pretending to be the sisters or the wives of
the warriors, would paint up, often with the help of their older rela-
tives, and dance as the young women of the Enemy, River, or other
societies did.

As children grew older they could observe the preparation of young
men for military careers: the, at first, brief attempts to endure the
tortures of the 4-day fasts during the Sun Dance or the Wolf ceremony;
the prolonged fasts during the ceremonies providing opportunities
for self-torture or the organized fasts under the supervision of old war
leaders; and, finally, long sustained fasting either alone on the prairies,
at the skull circles, or about the village when thongs were inserted
into their flesh by which they were suspended or buffalo skulls were
dragged. Equally important in molding the young man’s character
were the visible positive awards by which the society recognized
military achievements; the public parade with the victor mounted

220 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

on a horse; the bestowal of a new name and the privilege of making
a public display of giving away goods; the praises of the relatives;
the right to wear emblems, symbolic of military accomplishments,
on public occasions and particularly when visiting tribes came; or
the right to assume an important role in rites reserved for the brave.
Wolf Chief described the training of the young men as equivalent to
a wagon drawn along a deeply rutted road; there was no way to get
out of the road except by going forward in the same path as others
had done before—one could make no progress backing up, and the
depth of the ruts prevented one from taking a different course. A
young man, according to Wolf Chief, got along very well as long as
he performed in exactly the same way as his elders had; he was des-
tined to be very unhappy if he attempted to stray the least bit from
the beaten path. The only effective alternate was to become a
berdache. As a boy grew up, the culture provided him with many
opportunities to prepare for a military career; there were the organized
footraces and military games supervised by the older men, horse
racing and contests on horseback, and shooting contests of various
sorts.

The ritualistic aspects of warfare were highly developed. Young
people were encouraged to fast to secure supernatural powers so that
their lives would be saved when they went to war or when the village
was attacked. Supervision was the duty of the older members of
the clan, but it was from the father and the members of the father’s clan
that one secured most of his ritualistic training. The older men
would endeavor to prevent unauthorized war or horse raiding parties
from leaving the village. The Hidatsa were realistic about military
training, for they mixed a bit of both ritualistic and technical training
and never confused the two. One ought to have a considerable
knowledge of both. The successful war leaders would watch the
young men at their games or at their fasting and encourage them to
make even greater efforts with a promise that they would soon be
ready for war, but the society frowned on efforts of the young men to
shortcut the established procedures. An older clan member would
often bring together a number of his ‘‘younger brothers” and send them
out to some spot a distance from the village. There, under the super-
vision of a recognized war leader, the young men fasted with the
promise that those who had successful dreams and fasted faithfully
would be taken on the next horse-stealing expedition. This super-
visor was paid for his services by the young men’s households and
even by those young men who had secured appropriate visions.
In return for the goods, the “leader of the fast”? prayed for the success
of the giver.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 221

The Hidatsa were continuously plagued with unauthorized mili-
tary expeditions led by irresponsible young men. The weight of
disapproval rested primarily with the “father” of the young man
indicating a desire to go out, and it was his duty to cancel these so-
cially disapproved expeditions. In these matters, the father should
be obeyed. The Hidatsa villages were not so large that news of a
contemplated expedition did not spread quickly. Collectively, the
fathers of all of the boys carried considerable prestige. Although the
Black Mouths enforced the edict against war parties leaving on
occasions when the public welfare required that all remain in the
village for the mutual defense of the group, such crises generally were
met successfully by the prestige relatives, the “fathers.”” The various
families, however, were greatly concerned for the safety of their
untrained youths. Since a leader must have warriors to make up his
party, the older people usually were successful in breaking up any plans
of an ambitious but unqualified leader simply by securing invitations
for their young men from recognized successful leaders leaving soon
on araid. Nevertheless, young men did, from time to time, bypass
most of the requirements for military leadership.

When a competent war leader was in the territory where an un-
authorized group of young men was looking for horses, it was common
practice to waylay them and embarrass them before their relatives and
friends at home. The most common way of doing this was to observe
the young men from a distance until they had tied up their horses for
the night and had put their arms aside to eat and sing about their girls.
Then, during the night, one group would steal the horses while others
sneaked up to the camp, rushed the unsuspecting fellows, and struck
them with whips or seized them as though they were enemies, all the
while calling to each other “‘I have struck one Sioux” or “this Sioux
was not very smart; he doesn’t know how to protect himself.” By
calling out when making the charge, the young men were informed
that the attacking party was of their own tribesmen. Nevertheless,
the attacking group endeavored to inflict severe beatings on the young
fellows and to frighten them so that in the future they would avoid
surprise attacks.

About 1872 a war party was out under the leadership of Kidney in
the Devils Lake region when the scouts reported seeing two men
approaching driving two horses. The leader directed the party to
wait until late in the evening when the two men would be engaged
preparing their meal as the best time to make the attack. Kidney’s
men crept in close and led the stolen horses away from the camp.
One large horse was gentle and Crows Heart recognized it in the dark
by its large joints as belonging to Bear Necklace. Kidney did not
believe him so the horse was taken back to their camp and examined

222 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

in the light of their own campfire. Knowing then that the party was
from Fishhook Village, Kidney announced that they would have some
fun with them and “strike them” while they slept. They sneaked in
close and listened to the young fellows talk, not knowing that their
horses had been taken from them and that ‘‘enemies” were in the
neighborhood. Kidney’s party rushed them so fast that it was not
possible to tell who had “struck the coups.”” The boys were without
food as the enemy had been close on their tracks. Nevertheless, they
had permitted their own people to sneak into their camp, steal their
horses, and strike coups on them. The boys were fed and their
horses were returned to them in the morning. Their credit for stealing
two horses was somewhat dampened when Kidney’s party returned
and told the young men’s joking relatives of striking coup on them
in the night.

The Hidatsa endeavored to organize their military activities so that
the warriors advanced in status by degrees in much the same manner
as advancements were made through the age-grade series. Boys 14
or 15 years of age who had done some fasting, were skilled with
weapons, and were handy around horses, were selected as camp tenders
as rewards for effective and faithful fasting or for caring for the older
men’s horses. On these military expeditions, the boys waited on the
leader and the older men of Old Wolf status, bringing wood for the
fires, preparing the food, and attending to the horses. On these trips,
the boys were given few opportunities to leave the main party either
to steal horses or to engage in fighting: The leader kept them near him
all the time. They assisted the leader by bringing things needed in
the rites—wood, branches, or dried buffalo manure—and usually
served as waiter in passing the ceremonial pipes around to the warriors.
Whenever the leader called for assistance, the camp tenders were
expected to jump up and perform the duty requested, even though one
could do the job as well as several. Camp tenders cared for the horses,
seeing that they got water and grass, and generally made themselves
useful wherever they could. In case a member was wounded in
battle, they cared for him. The military pattern provided public
recognition for their services and those who performed faithfully were
praised publicly when the party returned to the village. Even in
later life, as a distinguished war leader, one would often relate publicly
his exploits as a boy when he built a travois on which to bring back to
the village those wounded in battle, feeding and watching over them all
the time, and thus saving their lives.

Even as those who had shown interest and obedience while serving
as camp tenders were praised publicly by the leader, names of those
who were lazy and wanted to sleep all the time were omitted. The
tribe would listen during the Victory dances for the names of those who

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 223

had distinguished themselves, and repeat the names of relatives who
had contributed to the success of the military expedition. The men-
tion of a relative’s name was an occasion to bring forth presents to be
given away in the name of the one so distinguishing himself. Hearing
that a young man had distinguished himself as a camp tender and had
shown great interest in getting a good reputation, other war leaders
would compete for his services, even promising him a higher position

as a scout.
OFFENSIVE WARFARE

Offensive warfare was primarily pursued as a result of a vision in
which one was instructed to go out im a particular direction or to a
certain spot where honors would come to the one following all the
prescribed rules set down by the guardian spirit. In one instance the
vision recipient would be promised a specified number of horses to be
distinguished by distinctive features, such as color or the manner in
which they were grazing. In other instances, a specified number of
enemy lodges or households were “‘seen”’ in the vision. However, the
Hidatsa did not approve of young untrained men’s expeditions away
from the village. When a young man reported his vision to his
household, particularly the father or an older brother-in-law occupying
the position of father, he was advised to accompany an older and
better-trained leader in the hope that the things revealed to him in the
vision would come true, or to forego taking possession of that which
had been promised him in the vision until a later time. So, at any
time, there would be many individuals claiming ownership of horses or
scalps of which they had never been able to take possession. Frequent-
ly, in the social and ceremonial activities of the village, an older man
too feeble to go out on military expeditions ‘‘gave’’ to a “son” his
rights to certain horses encountered under the conditions described in
his earlier dreams. Then, regardless of the person first seeing a
peculiarly marked horse, the horse was delivered to the one having
prior right to it by vision or purchase from this ‘father.”’

A young man who had given numerous feasts to the older men of
the father’s clan frequently had a number of these claims to complete.
If one was anxious to go out to take possession of these animals, the
older people of the household and of the clan benefiting most by the
completion of the claim were the first to discourage individual ini-
tiative by young men, or someone of the household skilled in warfare
would volunteer to serve as military leader and invite others to assist
him in making up the war party. Offensive warfare was conducted
entirely on the basis of vision instructions either as the result of one’s
own visions or the visions bought from another who had never com-
pleted his prior claims. These visions were received during the priva-

224 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

tions of one of the formal ceremonies or as a result of prolonged fasting;
but, more often, after pledging to purchase the father’s ceremonial
rites when the young man had already distinguished himself in war-
fare and had consequently married.

When a person signified his intentions of leading a war party, he
undertook to make up his expedition by invitation. As he went from
household to household, inviting various young men to accompany
him, approval or disapproval was given by the older men. If the
older people thought he was not ready to go out, they would dis-
courage their young men; if they thought the visions were genuine,
they would encourage their young men by providing sacred objects
to be worn during the trip. A young man leading his first military
expedition invariably endeavored to give the organization dignity by
inviting as coleaders individuals who had formerly distinguished
themselves in warfare so that the personnel of the party would be
composed of experienced persons as well as beginners. Theoretically,
the party was invited to meet at a place outside the village at a certain
time. In practice, however, it was not uncommon for others to go
along without invitation. Those who had already distinguished them-
selves were welcome additions to the party while beginners were
tolerated. Informants could not remember any instances when un-
welcome individuals were refused permission to go along.

When the party had assembled at the predetermined meeting place,
usually a day’s journey from the village, the leader selected the various
officers: the coleaders or Old Wolves were selected on the basis of
their ceremonial membership and previous military record; the Young
Wolves comprised the remainder of the party which was, in turn,
subdivided into scouts, warriors, and camp tenders, depending on
the size of the party. If the party was small and carefully selected,
the group consisted only of Old Wolves led by the military leader and
the scouts under a leader selected by the leader of the Old Wolves.
The position of leader of the scouts was given to one of wide military
experience, frequently one who had come up through the ranks and
had been a war party leader in charge of the rites on other occasions.
He organized and directed the other scouts working with him and
determined whether an attack should be made in the event the enemy
was found. Frequently the scouts were the only ones to meet the
enemy since, once having fulfilled the objectives of the expedition
without loss of men, the expedition was terminated and the party
returned to the village. The Hidatsa endeavored to find the horses
promised or the enemy as seen in the dream and, once these objectives
had been attained, the leader’s mission was completed. He had
succeeded in establishing the potency of his sacred bundle.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 225

Hidatsa offensive warfare was normally highly ritualistic in char-
acter, particularly as practiced by those who held rights in the estab-
lished ceremonies. For that reason, the older people endeavored to
keep their sons associated with these recognized leaders rather than
with young aspiring men whose sole claim to distinction was based
on personal vision experiences not immediately associated with the
long-established bundle rites. Personal vision experiences were con-
sidered adequate for membership and participation in military adven-
tures under a highly successful leader whose authority stemmed from
wide participation in the tribal rites. To be successful as a war
leader, however, it was believed that, in addition to property rights
in well-established sacred bundles, one should fast to the limits of
one’s endurance, give freely to other recognized holy men, and assist
a great deal in the performance of village rites, particularly those
concerned with buffalo calling.

If we are to believe native traditions, there was a greater tendency
among the population of Hidatsa village to organize war expeditions
on the basis of supernatural experiences outside of the formalized
village ceremonialism—and with public approval—than there was
among the Awatixa and Awaxawi who conformed more closely to the
Mandan pattern that war leadership should be restricted to those who
had pledged or had performed public ceremonies. From our knowl-
edge of the history of the Hidatsa in relation to their neighbors, this
would suggest that they more closely conformed to the Crow pattern
than to that of the more sedentary Awatixa, Awaxawi, and Mandan.
With the union of the Hidatsa village units, this tendency of certain
groups to initiate military expeditions on the basis of a personal
vision, although approved by a portion of the population, was a source
of friction with the more conservative Awatixa and Awaxawi. After
1860, Crow-Flies-High more or less represented the progressive element,
and his unusual military successes outside of the formal pattern of
the Awatixa and Awaxawi eventually lead to internal friction which
was not reconciled until the progressive group broke away under his
and Bobtail Bull’s leadership.

Although the rituals performed while on the military expeditions
vary slightly according to the rules belonging to the bundles and
bundle lines, the general organization and practices were essentially
the same. The following narrative by Wolf Chief indicates many of
the basic features of the Hidatsa warfare pattern:

Kidney gave the Wolf Ceremony in May to buy his father’s Wolf bundle. He
had a dream just after giving the ceremony so he decided to go out to war to try
out the powers of his new bundle. I went along with him from Fishhook Village.
There were nearly 40 men and large boys selected by Kidney.

He selected a place to stop near the present town of Stanton where he said he
would try that night to find out what was going to happen. In the morning he

226 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

said that he was going to appoint the scouts to go out ahead on horseback. He
picked up the sacred bundle and walked a few yards from us, spread it out and
said, ‘‘Crows Breast, step forward; also Red Robe, Rabbit Head, Crazy Raven,
Wolf Chief, Old Dog, and Good Bear. Crows Breast will be the leader of the
scouts for he is already a headman. You will go over towards Wolf Den Buttes
and see if there are any enemies. We will follow you over that way and build the
fire and you will come back and meet us. Crows Breast, I want you to stand in
front of me; I will paint you just as I saw things in my dream right after giving
the Wolf Ceremony. I will paint you with white clay first, for you are the leader
of the scouts; then I will paint the other scouts. I will sing a holy song.”’

He wet the white clay but before he painted us, he sang one of the Wolf songs.
As he painted, he sang and talked to his gods saying, ‘‘You are our leaders and
we want you to give us good luck.”

Then he sang, ‘‘When I look for a horse, I always say this.’”” He sang this song
because he wanted to get a horse.

As he painted the foreheads of the young wolves or scouts, he said to the wolf
hide, ‘‘I want you to save their lives when they strike the enemy; I want to see
them all have good luck.”” He sang again; then he picked up the wolf hide from
his sacred bundle and put it around Crows Breast’s neck saying, ‘‘You men go a
long distance on horseback; then if you think it best, you can go the rest of the
way afoot.”

Whenever the chief of the scouts or young wolves wanted us to go faster he
always said Hutiii, We rode nearly 60 miles that day, going to the tops of the
hills to look around with a telescope. By evening, since we had not seen any
signs of the enemy, Crows Breast sent two young wolves out to kill antelopes for
our evening meals and they brought in three while the rest of the scouts watched
for the enemy.

After the scouts had been selected that morning, Kidney named four men to be
his assistants or coleaders, for they were very holy and could be of much help to
him. All were older men who had important sacred bundles and had lead success-
ful war expeditions. Spotted Horn was selected because he had a Creek bundle;
Loud Walker because he had fasted often in the Mandan Okipa and had many
dreams from the buffaloes; Moves Slowly because he was the Hoita in the Okipa,
and Porcupine Pemmican because he represented Long Arm whenever the NaxpikE
ceremony was given.

We scouts had just finished eating when the others reached camp. We were
sitting in a circle singing about our girls and having a good time teasing each other
when Kidney told us to be quiet. Then we knew that the time had come to find
out what Kidney was after on this expedition.

He said, “I want to learn what is going to happen; if we are going to be success-
ful, I want to know that beforehand. All you men sit facing the south. One of
you young men go out, cut a chokecherry branch, and bring it here.”’

It was the custom on a trip like this for the camp tenders to be alert and to
jump up whenever the Old Wolf asked for something. If one failed to do that,
the older men would see it and say that he was lazy and no good. As soon as he
mentioned the branch, from fear of being called worthless, several of them went,
although one could have done it.

Kidney put his saddle blanket down in front of him with the sacred bundle on
it. Hestuck the branch in the ground in front of the bundle. He took a stuffed
hawk, one of his personal sacred objects, lifted it toward the south, sang a sacred
song belonging to the bird, and tossed the bird towards the branch. It stuck to
the branch and hung there.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 227

Then he took out a little black bear skin that belonged in his eagle trapping
bundle and spread it out on the ground under the hawk; then he took out the wolf
hide and smoked it with ‘“‘sweetgrass’”’ while he held it toward the west.

We waited to hear what would happen. He sat there for some time and then
he said, ‘‘I have had a sign and I think we will be lucky. I was told by my gods
that there would be a sign of the future; even though there are no clouds now, the
hawk says that after sundown a small cloud will go over and it will sprinkle for a
little while. Another sign tells me that tomorrow we will finda horse. The sign
is that it will be a cripple. If you scouts find it, you must look for paint for the
one who finds it will conquer the enemy. In the morning you scouts will go to
Wolf Den Buttes (about a mile southeast of the present town of Dickinson,
N. Dak.) and wait for us.’”” So we knew now what the gods had planned for us.

Next day we went toward Wolf Den Buttes, going to the high places to look
around as we traveled. We reached the buttes at noon and hid our horses while
we looked around. Some killed antelopes, others of us watched for the main
party, and I looked for a good place to camp. Soon the main party came along
and Kidney sent us scouts on ahead toward Rainy Buttes to find a good place
to camp for the night. It was hard to find a good camping place there but we
finally found a good camping place and spring on the east side. We came to-
gether there late that night.

Crows Breast had had his foot injured in a former battle and the stirrup caused
it to swell, so he told Kidney of it and asked that he be relieved. Kidney ap-
pointed me leader of the scouts. Kidney instructed me to take the scouts to
the east side of Buffalo Home Butte. I thought that if I did not take too large
a party, we could travel faster. So Old Dog, Rabbit Head, Red Robe, and I
started ahead thinking that we would get there before the sun came up. We
did not get there that early for on the way Rabbit Head and Red Robe wanted
to stop to smoke and rest. At the same time we saw many Juneberries. There
were some high rocks where we stopped and Old Dog, who was on guard while
we stopped, came running howling like a coyote and we knew he had found
something. He stopped and said that there was a horse not far away.

When we went toward the horse there was not much wind so we thought that
it would be a good idea to burn some buffalo manure to make it easier to catch.
The wind went down so we decided to surround the animal instead. I said to
the others, ‘‘We have already found the horse that our leader saw in his sacred
signs. Now we should try hard to catch him.”

As we came close, we saw that the horse had hobbles on that had cut into its
skin. We knew then that it belonged to the enemy. One said to me, “Kidney
saw a crippled horse in his dream. This one is not crippled. It must be that
our leader does not have a sharp eye.”’

There was spring water on the north side of Buffalo Home Butte so we picketed
the horse there and climbed the butte to look around with the telescope. Old
Dog saw something in the distance; we thought it might be a bear, elk, or buffalo
and kept turning to it. At last we saw that it was a buffalo going to water.
Two stayed back on the butte while the rest of us went for the buffalo. By leaving
our blankets and leggings we were able to travel as fast afoot as a horse galloping.
There seemed no place to approach the animal for it was flat there so I, being the
leader, told the others to go to the other side of the buffalo and crawl toward it.
If it came my way I would head it off so that someone would get a shot at it.
This way we killed it but we teased one warrior because he jumped up when a
cactus stuck into his leg. This was the best time for hunting buffalo for they are
fatin the summer. We took the best meat and piled it to one side. We took the
paunch for a bucket, cleaned out the inwards, and drank the blood that accumu-

228 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

lated on the inside for we were hungry. Then we went back to our camp with
meat for the others.

When almost to the butte, the rain predicted by Kidney came and we were
soaked. It was dark so I called like a coyote and the others answered so we
went to the east side where the leader told us we would meet. When we went
down to the foot of the hill, we heard them singing and knew that they had arrived.
We saw their fire and called like the coyote and they answered. They had found
the horse that we had left picketed. That made Kidney happy, even though the
horse was not a very good one, for it proved that Kidney’s bundle had great
powers.

We had gone a long distance from home and I did not know the country but
the older men like Kidney did. He said, “I think we will move tomorrow to the
place where you killed the buffalo and stored the meat, for there is a stream at
that place that flows towards Powder River.”

After supper Hard Horn said to me, ‘‘ Wolf Chief, my father, I want you to cut
my skin; there is a hawk’s nest here; I want to fast near it tonight. I have a
horse and some blankets at home that I will give you for doing this.”

When he said that, I did not know what to do for I did not have much to pray
to. Even Hard Horn had more bundles than I did and had often been out to
war. I thought that it would be better to ask one of my older clan brothers
named Dancing Flag.?® I went to Dancing Flag and said, «‘My brother, our
son wants me to cut his skin but you are older and have more gods and power
than I have. He is going to give a horse and blankets. I will return the arrow
to him.”

Dancing Flag said, ‘That is right; you are younger than I am. Since you
want me to, I will take the arrow.”

Hard Horn furnished two sharpened sticks and three or four heavy stakes to
fasten into the bank. It was too steep where the nest was and there was no place
to drive in the stakes for it was toorocky. Dancing Flag found a place where he
could drive the stakes in the ground nearby. Dancing Flag put the sticks through
Hard Horn’s skin and let him down. We had an extra rope fastened to him lest
the sticks pull out of his flesh allowing him to fall and be killed. About midnight
we thought he would be exhausted so Dancing Flag and I went back, pulled him
up, and took the sticks out.

Next morning I thought that by custom I really owned the horse because I
was leader of the scouts when it was found, but others thought it belonged to
Kidney because he had actually seen it first when he had his bundle predict the
future. Kidney was happy when I said to him ‘‘You should take the horse, for
you saw it when you sang the holy song.’’

We moved to the place where we had killed the buffalo and had the meat piled
with our shirts arranged around it to keep the wolves and coyotes away. We
stayed there several days enjoying ourselves and examining the butte from which
the buffaloes were said to come. While we were there two other war parties of
our people arrived looking for the enemy. Hairy Coat was one leader who had
with him Scattered Village and Takes-the-Gun. Shortly afterward, Iron Eyes
came with Big Bull, Bears Teeth, Red Leaf, Wolf Ghost, High Eagle, Bear Chief,
and Coyote Necklace. We stayed together for a few days and then decided to
unite and go west in search of the enemy.

The three war parties united and then we had three leaders, Kidney, Hairy Coat,
and Iron Eyes. We traveled as before with the scouts out to the front. The

38 Dancing Flag was a Mandan of the Speckled Eagle clan; Wolf Chief was of the Hidatsa Prairie Chicken
clan.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 229

first day we found some old horse tracks and came back in the middle of the day
to eat and to report. Kidney had selected a good place to camp in high cotton-
woods for we were now in enemy territory.

After we ate we talked to our gods, asking for good Juck and advised the younger
fellows to do likewise. Hach war party had its separate fire about 100 feet apart
so that each group could hold its separate ceremonies. Kidney instructed our
group to cut some cottonwoods and construct a Jodge tipi with the door facing
the southeast. It did not take us long to stand the logs up like a tipi for it was
really a corral of posts standing upright. When Kindey completed building it,
we saw that it was a symbol of the Walking-with-Woman [Painted Red Stick
ceremony, see pp. 451—463] that the people gave for the buffaloes back at the
village. Then Kidney told us to scrape the ground smooth, leaving no grass
standing on the floor, and we did.

When the lodge was ready, Kidney went inside with his sacred bundles and
began to sing. He asked us to bring him a cottonwood branch sharpened so that
he could stick it into the ground. The leader stuck the branch into the ground
in front of his sacred bundles. Then he called for us to bring some coals and place
them in front of his bundles. He was then ready to perform the rites so he called
to us “Come in and gather around me; sit in a circle and be quiet. One of you
draw a human foot on the ground and have the tracks reach up to my bundles;
draw a bear’s foot on top of the human tracks. Each of you others draw a
bear’s foot on each side of the human foot. The last one will draw a mark of
a bear seizing a human.”

He had the painted hawk on the stick, the bear skin beneath it, and the wolf
hide lying on the ground nearby. He said, ‘‘My gods, this will be the last chance
you will have to tell us whether we are going to discover anything or not.”

He picked up the painted hawk and lifted it toward the south, sang the holy
songs belonging to the hawk, and said, “Everything is all right for us.’”’ Then
he picked up the bear and pointed it to the south and said that it was going to
be all right.

Then he picked up the wolf hide and said, “It is all right; it will be ready
tomorrow. While I was singing these holy songs, I saw off in the distance on
Powder River a flat place and on it was a dead human. The wolves and ravens
were eating the body; all that will be happening tomorrow. As its head was to
the east and the animals were eating, it means that it will be tomorrow. Get
ready, for tomorrow you will need to be prepared. Take your paint along.’

Kidney stood up and called to Hairy Coat and Iron Eyes who were at their
fires and when they answered he said, ‘‘There will be the three of us leaders.
The leader of the man who kills the enemy, will get the credit. All you scouts do
the best you can to discover this enemy tomorrow and don’t miss the place I
described to you.”

By this time Crows Breast’s foot was well again so he took his place as head of
the scouts. Crows Breast said, ‘‘Do the best you can to kill that enemy given to
Kidney but if you can’t, we will all have to go together and kill him.”

Before daylight we scouts went out. We climbed each high butte we came to
and looked around. At last we saw the place Kidney spoke of and from a dis-
tance it looked just like the place he had described to us. The others came up
and we stopped to eat. Porcupine Pemmican had walked off a short distance.
He saw a rider coming towards him. He ran back to us and reported. We
stopped eating and prepared to attack but when we went out, the enemy had
run away. We should not have gone into the low place but should have stayed
on the high ridges. We had been in too great a hurry to eat.

710-195—65——_16

230 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Kidney told us that he was picking out five men to go out and see if there were
any more. When the five scouts left, the rest of us rode on. Soon we saw one
rider but when we looked in the opposite direction we saw a number of riders
coming toward us. We fought them while the five scouts went after the lone
man whom they killed. So the five scouts got the best of us. Before they left
that morning, Flying Eagle asked Crows Breast to pray for him so that he would
be successful when he met the enemy. Crows Breast sang his holy songs and
said, ‘‘My son will get the best of the enemy”’ and he let Flying Eagle carry his
medicine bundle.

In the battle, Flying Eagle was ahead, carrying Crows Breast’s sacred bundle,
so he killed the enemy and was first to strike him. Then came One Wing and
after him came Red Robe. The other scouts rushed in; Hard Horn claimed he
hit with his gun on the man’s head and Good Bear claimed that place too so no
honors were given for the fourth coup since none could be certain.

While the scouts were killing and striking the single enemy, the rest of us fought
with the other enemies. There were about 30 of them. We shouted, sang our
medicine songs, and rattled our tongues so that the enemy could not shoot straight
and they did the same. When they heard our scouts singing the victory songs,
the enemy rode away. We came together singing and all had a good time, for
we knew what Crows Breast had promised before the battle had come true.
When Hard Horn fasted by the hawk’s nest, Dancing Flag and I prayed for him;
nevertheless, he did not get the best record. He struck fourth with others,
however, so we did not get credit for our prayers in his behalf.

The credit went to Kidney for one of his men killed the enemy. These enemies
were Hunkpapa; afterwards we used to visit them often. Shortly afterward
we discovered 20 tipis and farther on there were hundreds of tipis. We knew
that we had been reported so our leader thought that we should go west as the
enemy would think that we had left for home. We learned afterwards that the
Sioux thought that we were Crows and that it would do no good to follow us,
not knowing that we were Mandans and Hidatsas.

We traveled long hours until we reached the Little Missouri west of the Killdeer
Mountains where it is rough. We found a good place to rest the horses. While
we camped there, Kidney fixed the scalp; he cleaned the flesh off it, stretched it
on a circular stick, and dried it over the fire. The hair was long; it was divided
between Kidney and the four leaders he appointed to assist him when we camped
the first day. We were tired so we stopped to hunt while the older men sang
their victory songs at the camp.

When we got back to the village, we painted our faces black, and ran betweep
the lodges shouting and firing our guns. Then the people brought out the big
drums and all the people danced. Everyone was happy, for Kidney had proved
that the ceremony that he had just performed had great supernatural powers.

The above narrative by Wolf Chief brings out numerous significant
behavior patterns. Wolf Chief first emphasized that Kidney was
instructed to organize a military expedition in a dream he had shortly
after he bought rights in the Wolf ceremony owned by his father.
We see that the expedition was socially approved by the acceptance
of invitations by numerous individuals highly respected for their
own military achievements; in fact, Kidney’s status at that time
was not as high as several of his party. When the party first left,
it was not known whether he would select coleaders or assume the

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 231

responsibilities himself nor were there any understandings with others
that they would assist him. He recognized the good reputation of
others by selecting four of them as coleaders and Crows Breast as
leader of the scouts although, at this time, Crows Breast held the
highest military position in the village, being the village war chief.
We see that one ritual activity after another was performed while
out from the village. At first the party knew nothing about his
plans other than that he had a dream shortly after giving the Wolf
ceremony. Their confidence in his leadership and supernatural powers
was indicated by the size of the party. Although the others assumed
that the purpose of the expedition was to test the supernatural powers
of his recently acquired bundle, in his first ritualistic performance,
we find him first employing the painted hawk, then the little black
bear belonging to his eagle trapping bundle before introducing the
wolf hide to the party gathered around him. Thus, he expressed
his wealth of supernatural property which should collectively add to
his supernatural powers. We see that the scouts have the most
difficult duty, traveling far out ahead of the main party, but that they
have prior claim to all the horses they first see. In this case, however,
the scouts interpret Kidney’s “sign” in which he saw a crippled horse
as a prior claim. In this connection also, it would be well to note
that very specific rules defined ownership of horses taken on these
raids. The horses belonged to the first person seeing them, irrespective
of the persons executing the capture of them. This was an incentive
to those who were active in getting about and finding horses. Occa-
sionally this rule did not work; one might have discovered fresh tracks
and be following them only to meet one of the party in actual possession
of the horses. It was then necessary for the leader to decide whether
the man finding the horses had seen them before the other had discoy-
ered their tracks, for the discovery of fresh tracks was equivalent to
seeing the horses. On one occasion, the possessor of the horse proved
that the tracks were not made by the horses he brought back because
one of them had a broken hoof which did not show in the tracks
the other was following.

Note that Hard Horn called on Wolf Chief to supply thongs so
that he might be tortured near a hawk’s nest, hoping that he would
get a vision from that bird. We have here a case of deliberate effort
to acquire this particular bird as a guardian spirit. By the clan
kinship extension, Wolf Chief was Hard Horn’s “father.” Wolf
Chief, due to closer relationships with the Mandan, considered
Dancing Flag of the Mandan Speckled Eagle clan, which was at this
time being absorbed by the larger Mandan Prairie Chicken clan, his
“brother.”’ So he invites Dancing Flag, an older person, to assist him.
The two men assisted Hard Horn in his self-torturing and prayed for

232 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

him, but we see that Hard Horn got only a questionable fourth coup
when the enemy was killed. Therefore, Wolf Chief and Dancing
Flag did not get credit for their prayers and could not enumerate this
honor on public occasions at home.

We saw the partial union of three war parties because of the danger
that one group would reach the enemy first and thus cause the others
risk of detection when they arrived. So the leaders of the three
groups planned for the future by agreeing on the division of the honors.
Each group had its own campfire and performed its own rituals
independently of the other. When they stopped in the timber before
reaching the enemy, Kidney introduced a new ceremonial feature;
the temporary shelter erected in the village when he formerly had
given the Painted Red Stick ceremony and had called the old buffalo
impersonators in to exercise ceremonial sexual license with his wives.

Crows Breast succeeded in demonstrating his supernatural powers
by praying for a “son,” Flying Eagle, who killed one enemy and was
first to strike coup on the body. By doing this, Crows Breast came
out ahead of Wolf Chief and Dancing Flag. Although Wolf Chief
did not say so in the narrative, other ‘‘sons’’ would thereafter pay
Crows Breast to pray for them whenever they undertook dangerous
missions.

It is important for an understanding of Plains warfare to note
that, although the enemy was greatly outnumbered and there was a
fine opportunity to kill a great many of them, the battle was stopped
and both groups retired once the scouts had killed one man sep-
arated from his group. Kidney had fulfilled his mission—to possess
one crippled horse and one enemy who would be found on a flat
near Powder River. Since his honors were expressed in the number
of his successful military expeditions without loss or injury to his
party, nothing further was to be gained by continuing the battle.

This military expedition led by Kidney was only one of a number
of successful ones which he directed. He provided an opportunity
for various households to obtain horses and for the young men to
win military honors. In time, as he supplemented his military activ-
ities with frequent feasts for the older people, he grew in social stat-
ure. The older people subsequently met to reorganize the village
leadership and he was selected as “protector of the people’ to
represent one of the cardinal points.

Although the Hidatsa had a rather clear-cut dual division of vil-
lage leadership into war and peace or village roles, some military
honors were expected of the peace or village chief. The village
functions for the Hidatsa-proper and Awaxawi were normally inher-
ited with EKarthnaming bundle ownership and as long as the village
groups were independent it made little difference what the military

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 233

record of the village chief was as long as he gave an adequate per-
formance of this rite. If he were successful in warfare, that was so
much to the good. When the Hidatsa-proper and Awaxawi united
with the Awatixa to build Fishhook Village, we find duplicate and
competing bundles and chieftainship. Guts represented the Hidatsa-
proper and Poor Wolf the Awaxawi. They were equally proficient
in the performance of the rites. Poor Wolf had a good military
record but Guts was accused of bringing endless misfortune to any
war party that he accompanied.

Four Dancers supplied the following account of his paternal grand-
father, Guts, which is reproduced here in condensed form to show
the group attitude toward one who was entitled to a high position
in the ceremonial life of the people but who had suffered considerable
embarrassment because of his bad luck in warfare.

My grandfather, Guts, inherited the Earthnaming bundle while he was living
in Hidatsa village on the Knife River before the smallpox of 1837. Because he
got the bundle of his parents, he had the right to pray to all of the living things
on the earth. He was taught that in the beginning all the gods would meet at
the hole on top of Killdeer Mountains to sing. But he was never lucky in war-
fare; nine times he went out and succeeded in killing the enemy but nine times
when he was out, someone was killed by the enemies. It was not that he did
not try. During his earlier years he was one who wanted to succeed but later
when his son, Bobtail Bull, was old enough he sold his rights to my father for
my father was lucky at everything he did even though he followed the same
rules my grandfather gave him. Then the people looked to my father, for he
could pray to all the living things, and did not pay so much attention to Guts
when he talked for he had been unlucky. The people respected my father because
he could pray to all the living things. Poor Wolf was jealous and tried to find
something wrong with my father’s record. The only thing he could find wrong
with my father was that he was younger than Poor Wolf. I think it would
have been better if there had been two villages; then there would not have been
this trouble between the two Earthnaming bundle owners. At last there was
so much jealousy that some of the people told my father that they would follow
him if he would find a new place to build. That was when we went to Fort
Buford about 1870.

Guts liked to go on war expeditions, but it was strange—every time he went
out with a bunch, they always had bad luck. The others were afraid to go out
if he came along. So he would not be invited but he would wait 2 or 3 days
after the others had left and then he would join them. The others would not
like that but each time they would think that his bad luck must surely come to
an end sometime.

One time 10 men went out with Big Bull as leader; this was from Knife River.
They went west and crossed the Badlands and Yellowstone River. They had a
good time eating the meat the scouts brought in. One day the scouts saw two
riders and came back to report. They painted up, fixed their sacred objects,
and then killed the two enemies. Hight men struck honors on the two enemies.
Big Bull was very happy and as they rode along, coming home, they sang the vic-
tory songs.

They had killed the enemies early in the morning; at noon they stopped to fix
the scalps and eat. While the leader fixed the scalps on long poles, singing the

234. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

victory songs, he called the names of those who had struck the enemy and said
that they would be chiefs. Hesaid to the young men when they stopped to camp
that evening, ‘‘About this time at the village the young women are out playing
games.”

They camped in the timber on the Yellowstone. They built two fires, one for
the leader and his assistants and the other forthe youngermen. They surrounded
the old men’s fire with a fort made of logs. Guts was at the shelter set up for the
young men for it had begun to rain. The young men were sitting around the
fire with their robes over each other and their guns between them when someone
fired a shot into the camp. All the young men ran and jumped into the river
except Guts, whose finger was caught in his robe. While shaking loose of his
robe he aimed quickly towards a flash from a gun, calling to his friends, “I am
the only one who came to fight; you should come back and fight too.”’

By that time the Old Wolves came running over to the young men’s camp,
firing their guns, so the Cheyenne ran away. Guts found that the two who lay
next to him ‘had been killed; there were three others dead near the fire; one was
missing and none knew what had happened to him. At last they found the body
of the missing man who had run in the wrong direction and had been caught and
mutilated by the Cheyenne. The dead man was Guts’ ‘‘friend’s’”’ brother-in-law.
The “friend”? wanted to take the body back to the place where the other five
were but he was afraid, so Guts carried the body while the other brought the gun
that the enemy had missed in the night. Guts did two honorable things: he
carried the dead man that the other should have since they were brothers-in-law;
he stopped to shoot at the enemy when the others ran away. They piled the six
bodies together and covered them with their robes and sticks. Then the party
started for home.

They ran afoot all night toward home. The leader had been nicely dressed
before but in the night as they ran, the others did not know what he was doing
for in the morning they found that he had cut his hair all off; he had taken off
his leggings and moccasins and was running bare naked he was so sad; he had
cut himself in many places with his knife and had cut off the ends of two fingers.
The others begged him at least to wear moccasins but he refused, he was so sad.
The others begged him again as they ran along crying, and at last he consented
to put on moccasins and a shirt.

They came to Hidatsa village on the Knife River but he refused to go into the
village. He was so sad because he had lost six men. So Big Bull stayed outside
fasting and crying, thinking that he would be paid back in the future. For a
year he would fast for a few days; then he would rest a few days before fasting
again.

While he fasted he thought that he would go back in 1 year to see the young
men who had been killed. He thought that this time he would take along the
greatest medicine men of the five villages of Hidatsa and Mandan. He went
through the other four villages thinking of the different men he could ask until
he came to the south village of the Mandans where the highest war record was
held by Four Bears.

When he came to that village he saw Four Bears sitting on his earth lodge.
Four Bears came down and they went into his lodge, for he saw that Big Bull
was carrying his medicine pipe. He set the pipe before Four Bears and, tapping
him on the head, said, “I am looking for my gods; I want to get even with the
Cheyenne who killed my six young men; I have thought of all of the great men
and my thoughts always come back to you. I have decided that you are the one
who can help me do it.”’

Then Four Bears said, ‘What do you want to do?”

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 235

Big Bull said, “I want to go out to see my six young men and to kill the enemy
and even things up. I want you to go as leader of the scouts to be out in front to
find the enemy.”’

Four Bears agreed and they set the date to leave 4 days later. This time Guts
went along. Some did not like it but they said nothing for Four Bears, the great-
est war chief of that time, was along. As they went along Four Bears served as
leader of the scouts, going out each morning before daylight ahead of the main
party. At last they came to the bones of the six men where Big Bull cried for a
long time. Then they went on. Evenings they would stop to eat and sing the
war songs. Everyone had a good time.

One morning Four Bears was out with his scouts. When the sun was up to the
height of a man, a small cloud came over and it rained. They came to a gumbo
flat and the buffalo wallows were full of water. This was a good sign, for Four
Bears’ god was the medicine robe with a rainbow painted on it. He got this
sacred robe at the time he fasted beneath an oak tree in which a large hawk had
its nest after his brother had been killed by the Arikara several years before.
Four Bears opened his sacred bundle and unwrapped the robe; he placed it before
his scouts and asked someone to volunteer to make a mark on it. One young man
volunteered and asked what he should paint on it. Four Bears told the young
man to paint a rainbow on it.

When the young man painted the rainbow on the robe, Four Bears looked at the
signs on the robe, thought of the shower that had just come because he had wanted
such a sign as an indication of the time when the enemy would be found, and said,
“I do not think we will be going very much farther for my gods have sent the
shower to tell me they are thinking of us just as they do in the village when the
weather is too dry for the corn. I think we will find what we are looking for
today.”

When they finished the painting of the robe, Four Bears put the robe around
his shoulders and they went on into hilly country. They discovered seven horse-
men and met them on top of a high hill. One enemy was dressed in a fine red
shirt and beautiful leggings; he was carrying a good gun. This enemy was killed
even though he was very brave; then the others ran away. Four Bear’s party took
his fine clothing, his scalp, and gun. No Tears was first to strike the enemy. The
second honors went to a Mandan who was with the party. I forgot who hit third
and fourth.

They returned to the main party, running in single file and howling like the
coyote. The main party put a robe down for them to jump over and they came
into camp howling. Four Bears gave the scalp and other things taken from the
enemy to Big Bull. Four Bears announced, ‘‘The man we killed was the leader
when you lost the six men a year ago.”

Big Bull was even, for he had now succeeded in killing the one who had brought
bad luck to him a year before. Guts also got credit for he had lost his friend a
year before.

Big Bull was one who fasted much. Formerly he had been lucky in stealing
horses and killing the enemy. Now he had overcome the handicap of losing six
men by fasting long and then going out to prove that his sacred powers had been
restored to him. His god was the Prairie Wolf that he saw in a dream but he
never put up the village ceremony for his bundle. Instead he made it up him-
self from what he had dreamed.

The above narrative brings out some additional behavior patterns

not indicated by the Wolf Chief account. He speaks as a relative of
one who should have had good luck by virtue of the Earthnaming

236 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

bundle from Hidatsa village, which he had acquired by normal tribal
inheritance from his father. Having fulfilled all the obligations to
acquire the bundle, he should have, according to the previous records
of former bundle holders, been highly esteemed by his village group.
His principal duty as bundle owner was to organize the various
Buffalo Calling rites and to serve as the authority in matters involving
village traditional actions. As long as he performed these duties
well and showed bravery about the village, the group did not expect
more. Nevertheless, he liked to go out to war. So far as we know,
he never acted as leader himself; this was not expected of the Earth-
naming bundle owner. Still, he would accompany others on what
generally proved to be unsuccessful expeditions until he had the
reputation of being unlucky for any group he accompanied. A
sequel to this narrative is indicated by Four Dancers’ statement that
Poor Wolf got ahead of Guts. Here we have a conflicting situation
involving village bundles. Prior to 1845 there was one Earthnaming
bundle for the Hidatsa village group and another for the Awaxawi,
but in 1845, when the Hidatsa village groups united, two separate
and competing bundle lines existed. Poor Wolf, in addition to in-
heriting the Earthnaming and several other village bundles, also
found time to accompany or lead numerous war parties without
suffering the embarrassments of bad luck. Thus, Poor Wolf occupied
a higher status than Guts who, when his son named Bobtail Bull
grew up, passed the bundle on to him in an effort to reestablish the
family’s rightful position. Four Dancers volunteered the opinion
that his grandfather’s reputation was beyond repair by that time.
Bobtail Bull proved a worthy competitor to Poor Wolf. Four
Dancers brought out the point that the people took sides according
to previous village affiliation, and that this division continued until
the building of a Government fort at Fort Buford provided an outlet
for one group by separation which was otherwise impossible due to
the pressure of the Sioux.

In describing the organization of the war party under Big Bull, we
see no essential difference from that of the previous account. Formal
rites as practiced by Kidney were simpler because One Bull’s authority
was based on the personal vision patterns. Even though Guts shot
only because he was tangled in his robe and could not escape quickly,
it was a recognized form of bravery; and even though the Cheyenne
had the advantage of surprising their adversaries, still they did not
press the attack, being content to kill six men in the initial attack and
to scalp one. Here we find the same pattern as in the Wolf Chief
account where the fight was terminated when one enemy fell. Four
Dancers brought out the point that it was obligatory for one to look
after his brother-in-law since they were related through the wife and

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 237

sister. Since a man brought the horses taken to his sisters whose
husband was the principal benefactor, so must he in return look after
his wife’s brother even as he would protect his own wife. In fact,
the brother-in-law was often jokingly referred to as ‘‘my wife.”

The self-inflicted torture and behavior of Big Bull was normal and
customary. We find that members of his party think he is under-
taking too severe punishment and interfere, insisting that he wear
moccasins and a shirt. Here we have an example of interference by
his kin groups, his father’s clansmen, and his society members. We
are told that he refused to go back into the village. Instead he fasted
and continued self-torture. Although Four Dancers did not say so,
in other comparable situations he and other informants emphasized
that Big Bull was watched by his society members. Seeing that he
was endangering his life, they went to the relatives of those killed and
asked them to take the pipe to Big Bull and beg him to terminate his
suffering. The “ong period” of mourning, in contrast to the 4-day
period, was normal when one had “kicked the stone” as the Hidatsa
say of a leader who has returned from an unsuccessful military ad-
venture. Big Bull dressed in mourning and fasted frequently for 1
year, during which time he received a new personal guardian spirit—
but Four Dancers knew few details about it for, in contrast to a sacred
bundle acquired by formal public purchase, personal supernatual ex-
periences tended to be forgotten.

Four Dancers indicated the degree of cooperation that existed at
this time between the various earth lodge village groups living near
Knife River by relating how Big Bull walked through the other four
villages with his sacred pipe searching for some distinguished warrior
leader who was willing to serve as “‘chief of the scouts” on the con-
templated expedition to see the bodies of those who were killed a year
earlier. Having enlisted the most distinguished Mandan chief” of
that time, the narrative from that point on is chiefly an account of
Four Bears’ role. The situation in which Four Bears served under
another of recognized inferior status is not unusual, but it does throw
a great deal of light on the widely diffused character of the social con-
trol mechanism of an earth lodge village population.

Four Dancers had a considerable knowledge of Four Bear’s sacred
bundle rites, for this bundle, although obtained after fasting beneath
an oak tree at the time his brother was killed by the Arikara, had
been assembled by his elders according to established tribal custom
and publicly transferred to Four Bears at a ceremonial feast. Four
Dancers knew little about Big Bull’s bundle which had been made
up personally without the formality of a ceremonial feast. It was

29 When Four Bears died of smallpox, Guts married the widow and reared Four Bears’ son, Charging
Eagle,

238 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

widely known that Four Bears’ bundle was primarily connected with
rain calling; hence, when a shower fell, it was thought that the bundle
had not lost its “powers.” Four Bears read the ‘signs’? when the
robe was painted, just as Kidney did in the previous narrative, but
nowhere do we find reference to rites by Big Bull.

Four Bears’ scouts concentrated their attack on the best-dressed
enemy who was assumed to be the chief of the party. Still there
was no inclination to continue the engagement once one enemy had
been killed and struck coup upon. The manner of approaching the
main party after a successful engagement was the same as in the
Kidney account. (Note that the traditional accounts of the behavior
of the scouts when approaching the main party after striking the
enemy belong to the Hidatsa Wolf ceremony while the same procedure
was followed in this instance by the Mandan scout leader, even
though that tribe had no known comparable tribal Wolf rites.)

The killing of one enemy was considered adequate compensation
for the six of their own men killed a year before; numbers apparently
did not count. The object of an expedition was to strike the enemy
without loss to one’s own group. Four Dancers shows awareness of
the conflict of opinion in the village as to whether military leadership
should be sanctioned by virtue of vision or vision plus formal purchase
of the bundle:

It was strange that Guts had so much bad luck. While living at Knife River
he went out again with Three Coyotes as leader. Three Coyotes had the coyote
as his god. I think what one dreams is more important than what one buys
through his fathers, even though he dreams of it first, because after our group
moved to Fort Buford, we did not have many of the ceremonies that the others
had at Fishhook, still our men had good luck. Crow-Flies-High did not buy
his father’s gods until he was old—still, he was a very successful leader.

When Three Coyotes went out, there were 32 men in his party. They did
not want Guts along but he went anyway. He was tall and strong; he liked
to go on these trips. They traveled to the southwest until they had passed the
Black Hills. All the time the scouts were out ahead looking around but the
enemy saw them before the scouts did. There was a large camp and soon the
enemy drove them into a washout. The enemy came in great numbers on horse-
back so that the Hidatsa were unable to run away. When the enemy attacked,
one Hidatsa took a red shirt out of a bundle and Guts said to him, ‘‘You should
not put it on or they will see you. I will put it on. I always seem to bring bad
luck. If they kill me they will think that I am a great chief. Then they may
stop fighting and let the rest of you go away.”

The Sioux did not start the fight right away. First they surrounded the
Hidatsa so they could not get away and then the women and children came along
bringing their tipis and setting them up nearby where they could watch the fight.
They must have sent messages out for soon another large group came up and
began setting up their tipis too. While this was going on, the Hidatsa painted
up and put on their sacred objects. The Sioux did likewise. The young Sioux
boys rode back and forth practicing with their horses, riding so that their bodies
did not show, stopping their horses quickly and pretending that they were fighting

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 239

the enemy. This they did to frighten the Hidatsa boys so that they would not
be brave. The Hidatsa all thought that they would surely not be able to save
their lives.

When the Sioux were all properly painted to show their honors and medicines,
the battle began. Three Coyotes picked out his two best men to be at the corners.
One was Black Shield; he was a good shot. His medicine was the gun and when-
ever he fired it, he was sure to get something. The arrows flew toward the wash-
out in great curves like grasshoppers dropping into the grass.

Before the battle, Black Shield wet some gunpowder and painted his face;
he put white cloth on his head and white paint on his lips and eyes just as he had
seen these things in his dream. He had a young man beside him who loaded
the gun each time. They agreed to make a great noise each time an enemy was
killed so that the enemy would be afraid to come into the fort. Each time Black
Shield shot, an enemy was killed; then they came closer to get their dead for fear
the Hidatsa would go out and scalp them. After a while, one of the Hidatsa
would go out of the fort, shoot an enemy, and run back. Just as he went out, a
Prairie Dog Owl flew above him and the others knew that he was not shot because
this bird was his god.

When the dead were taken back to camp, the Hidatsa could hear the relatives
crying. All the while the older Hidatsa would repeat to the young men who had
not been out before, ‘‘They will cut your scalps off, but be brave and do not ery.”

While the Sioux were taking back their dead, the Hidatsa painted themselves
anew for they knew that the enemy were not done fighting. They could not
leave the fort or the Sioux would run them down. During the lull in the fighting,
Guts said to a friend, “Let’s go up on top of the hill and sing our war songs. I
think there are some Sioux women who can hear us from there.’’

So they went up on the hill and sang their war songs and when they had finished,
the Sioux howled in recognition of their bravery. Then the Sioux sang their war
songs for the Hidatsa who were showing such bravery.

Then the two Sioux bands went together. They knew then that their enemy
was brave so the Sioux selected a man who impersonated a bear, and could not
be shot through, to lead for he was so brave. He was their greatest medicine
man. The Bear man was ahead and Black Shield would shoot at him but he
would not fall down. Then Black Shield knew that the Bear man really had
great supernatural powers. When Black Shield had dreamed of the gun, his gods
had told him if his life was ever in extreme danger he should hold the gun to the
north, pour powder from his left ear, shot from the right ear, and put the powder
and shot in the gun while he sang the song that should be used only in extremely
critical situations.

So Black Shield did. He shot at the Bear medicine man who fell down. Black
Shield shouted so the enemy could hear, ‘‘You were foolish; you didn’t have any
power. You should have known that mine was greater.”

When the Bear man fell, the Sioux stopped fighting and took his body away, for
they did not want to give the Hidatsa the honor of scalping their holiest man.
Then the Sioux set the prairie on fire so that the smoke would cover their advance.
Some of the enemy went onto the hill where Guts had sung the war songs. They
hit the sickly young man who had been filling Black Shield’s gun and one other
but the Sioux would not attack the fort. Again the fighting stopped. The
Sioux dragged their dead away so that they could not be scalped and as word got
around in their camp, the women set up a loud howl as they cried for their dead
relatives.

The Hidatsa were tired and thought that they would surely lose their lives the
next time. There was brush about a mile away. Some thought they could run

240 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

for it, but others thought that it was too far. Three Coyotes and his coleaders
decided to run for the brush, fighting their way through the Sioux lines. He
selected Guts, who was a great medicine man, and Black Shield, who was a good
shot, to take the two ends while the others sneaked out, following a narrow coulee
part of the way. The two went onto the hill to attract the Sioux’s attention
and when the others were on the flat, they ran too. When all were near the brush,
the Sioux rode in front of them but they were not prepared for the attack and were
easily driven out of the way. When they got into the brush, the Sioux returned
to their camp and did not try to follow them further.

The two on the corners were the ones who saved them, one a great medicine
man, the other a good shot. The sickly one had been killed at the fort and one
other was lost running towards the brush.

Because they lost two, even though killing many of the enemy that they could
not strike, the party came back in mourning. But the Sioux kept Three Coyotes
from dancing the victory dances for they kept their dead out of reach of the
Hidatsa. It was too bad that he could not possess any of them for the Sioux
camp was in mourning when they left from losing so many young men. If Three
Coyotes had taken even one scalp, the relatives of the two dead men would have
called for the victory dances after a period of mourning.

The above narrative by Four Dancers of the Three Coyote military
expedition imparts a number of factors not included in previous
accounts. He emphasized that what one dreamed was more important
than what one got through public purchase from the father. He
rationalized the war record of Crow-Flies-High who did not, even
though receiving the appropriate dreams, buy his deceased father’s
ceremonial bundle rites until he was along in years. Instead, he made
up personal bundles based on vision experiences without the benefit
of public performances. He stated that the people who split away
did not have as many tribal ceremonies but that their men were just
as successful as those who stayed in Fishhook because they fasted to
compensate for ceremonies which the Fort Buford group did not own.
In this respect, the Crow-Flies-High band showed strong similarity
to the Crow religious pattern. By contrast, the other Hidatsa groups
preserved more of the formal pattern of ceremonial transfer whereby
vision experiences were organized and classified in terms of existing
tribal rites.

We note that Guts showed his bravery by asking to wear a red
shirt so that the enemy would think he was chief and that by killing
him, the enemy might call off the attack. One often wonders to what
extent behavior is affected by confidence in supernatural powers.
Here we have an instance in which, in selecting the men to occupy the
end positions in the line, Guts was selected for his supernatural
powers while Black Shield was selected because he was a good shot.
When this narrative was recorded, after hearing of Black Shield’s
rites of “pouring powder and shot” out of his ears, I presumed that
Four Dancers was referring to him as the possessor of great super-
natural powers. He explained, however, that it was Guts who was

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 241

selected as the great medicine man in spite of his repeated military
reverses because the Earthnaming bundle had great potential powers
even though Guts had not heretofore been able to manipulate them.
Nevertheless, the powers were there according to tribal traditions.

We find the leaders instructing the younger men to make trilling
noises, whenever an enemy was killed, to prove their bravery. The
Gun rites performed by Black Shield are interesting because the same
rites were frequently practiced in exactly the same manner by others
as a result of identical vision experiences and were bought and sold in
a “father-son” relationship as were the long-established tribal rites.
The only reference Four Dancers makes to ‘‘signs” is in the case of
one man who, when he saw a prairie dog owl flying over him, was
prompted to manifest unusual bravery since the bird was his god.
We are told something of the formal character of Plains warfare ex-
pressed in the desire of Guts and his friend to sing their war songs for
the benefit of the Sioux women and the prompt response by the Sioux
women who sang their victory songs for the Hidatsa because of their
bravery.

A significant role of Hidatsa offensive warfare was expressed by
the reaction of the Hidatsa to the appearance of the Bear medicine
man. Here we find revealed the concept of the measurability of
supernatural power. Each side believed its supernatural power to be
greater and endeavored to test this power by a contest. One wonders
if the Bear impersonator was actually the Bear medicine man or some
young man selected to play the role. If the same pattern prevailed as
with the Hidatsa, we would more likely find the Bear bundle owner
dressing some young man, addressed as ‘‘son,” in the paraphernalia,
singing the sacred songs for the young man, and sending him forward
with the assurance that when the battle was over his honors would
elevate him to chief. We see the demoralization of the Sioux when
their Bear impersonator was killed and their unwillingness to engage
in hand-to-hand combat by overrunning the Hidatsa defenses in a
gully. Four Dancers expressed regrets that no scalps were taken as
proof of an engagement with the enemy and symbols to be carried
during the victory dances. He indicated that even when a war leader
lost a man, the victory dance was sometimes performed after an ap-
propriate period of mourning. He does not say so, but we know from
other case histories that the relatives were compensated with property
and other valuables, after which the dances were given. In this in-
stance it was not possible because no scalps were taken and no coups
were struck.

Even though Guts was believed to possess potential supernatural
powers by virtue of his inheritance of the Earthnaming bundle, bad
luck continued to plague him. In his village duties he showed

242 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

‘“‘power’’ to bring the buffalo herds near the village but he liked to
fight so he taught his sons that warfare was an honorable life. In
the following narrative, Four Dancers traces out his grandfather’s
later activities relative to the training of his sons and his eventual
relinquishment of the bundle when two of his sons are killed while
following his instructions.

Guts got his Earthnaming rites from his parents and had the right to pray to
all of the gods. Guts would say to his sons, “When you are out looking for the
enemy, you must be brave. Fast often and buy many gods; they will assist you
when you are out against the enemy. If you have something to worship in the
ceremonies, then you will be a head man and the people will look up to you. If
there is a fight and the enemy surrounds any of your relatives, do not be afraid
to go to their help. Then you will have a good record. If you don’t do that,
your misfortunes will reflect unfavorably against me for I am expected to give
you all of these instructions.”

His son, Never-Runs-Away, was one who liked to put on the ceremonies for the
buffalo so he had his wives “walk” four times with the old men. Charging
Eagle’s real father was the Mandan Four Bears but Guts adopted him as his son
when he married Four Bear’s widow after the smallpox. Charging Eagle fasted
much like his father, Four Bears, did and got the medicine robe like his father
had in a public ceremony. Sitting Owl was one who fasted much but he never
got to 7 days. The youngest was Bobtail Bull, my father. He dreamed of the
‘walking ceremony” just as Never-Runs-Away did.

At the winter camp called Killed-the-Bent-Enemy [1854], Never-Runs-Away
and Sitting Owl followed two enemies who had stolen horses and struck an
enemy first and second. Guts followed behind because he was interested in
seeing what his sons would do when they first met the enemy. When he found
that his sons were ahead of the others tracking the enemy, he was proud of his
sons. Back at the camp when the victory dances were held, Guts took out his
large rattles for the Earthnaming ceremony and sang publicly, ““My sons said
they would be brave in the future and it is so.”

Then the two sons were recognized as leaders and the people began to respect
them. Then they got new names.

Another time the enemy came and stole horses but the people crowded them so
hard that they went into the brush. Wolf Eyes told the younger men not to go
into the brush or some would be killed. Just at that time a Mandan named
Three Rabbits came up and said, ‘““What are you people waiting for? You
Hidatsas are always going far down the river looking for your enemies but now
they have come to you. When you are around in the village you are always
showing off before the women pretending you are brave.”

The enemy had already shot a Hidatsa in the mouth and the others had with-
drawn. The Mandan went in and was killed. Sitting Owl, Bobtail Bull,
Never-Runs-Away, and Guts came along at this time and announced that they
were going to jump into the fort while the others rattled their tongues to confuse
the enemy, but the enemy ran away instead and jumped into the river. The
people praised the brothers because they had volunteered to go into the brush.

Shortly afterward, the Sioux attacked the village of Fishhook and the men got
ready to fight. The Sioux ran to save their lives when the Hidatsa came out.
Bobtail Bull said to his brothers while they were painting for the battle, “Let’s
each catch a Sioux.”’ They came to a creek where there was a large bunch of

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 243

Sioux and one shot down Sitting Owl; Never-Runs-Away thought he would get
ahold of one but when he crossed the creek, the enemy knocked him down also.

Someone asked Sitting Owl how he was and he said, “I am not suffering.”
His father came up and Sitting Owl said, “You have always told us to be brave
andnowlamallin. I am going now and I think my brother, Never-Runs-Away,
is on the way and waiting for me. Ido not want any doctor. Cover up my face
with my robe.’”’ And when they took it off again, he was dead.

At the village, Guts tore his mouth in mourning for his two sons who were so
brave that they did not have long to live. He took off his clothing and threw
it away. He cut deep gashes in his body and cut out pieces of flesh. He cut
off his hair and went about through the village in mourning for a year. He
would go out onto the hills or near the graves and scaffolds to cry and fast.
Their brothers did the same. Guts would go out at night in the winter and cry
through the village. One night when he was crying that way Different Wolf
called him in and told him that he had fasted long enough.

Different Wolf said, ‘‘You will get even. I have been fasting because I have
felt so sorry for you. My gods called me Medicine Chief and offered me five
squash to eat. When I had finished eating, they had turned into five enemy
skulls. That means that you will get five enemies for the two sons you have
lost. I dreamt that while you were mourning, so you should stop now. You
have been sad long enough. When you get the five enemies, you will enjoy
yourself again. I have had this dream for you.”

About a month later he still had not stopped crying when some men saw the
tracks of five men. The enemy had come to the outskirts of the village looking
for horses. Crow-Flies-High was first to find the tracks. The men all went
after the enemy and camped out on the prairies. When morning came they saw
the enemy. The men painted and put on their holy things before fighting them.
Four of the enemy were killed. The fifth enemy had a beautiful necklace that
a Crow Indian wanted. In the battle he struck the enemy in the eye with his
hand for he was very brave. Then the enemy ran. Ten “brothers’”’ ran after
the enemy and cut his head off and broke it up with their axes.

Guts was very happy for now he was even with the enemy for killing his two
sons. No longer did he fast. He painted his body black and rubbed off the
white paint. He brought out the large rattles belonging to his Earthnaming
bundle and sang the victory songs for Different Wolf saying ‘‘What Different
Wolf said was right; what he promised to give he has given.”

Because Crow-Flies-High found the tracks and was always to the front where
he struck the enemy, the people praised him and gave him a new name.

Then Bobtail Bull, whose two brothers had been revenged, began to plan his
life. He fasted 4 nights in the Naxpikn and did not eat. He dreamed of Guts’
Earthnaming bundle and that he was out to war and was bringing back the
scalps from two men. He notified his ‘‘fathers’’ of his dream and they said that
the bundle was instructing him to take over his father’s place. So the young
men he invited to go out with him came to his father’s lodge, and there Guts
opened and hung up the sacred bundle before them and prayed that they would
have good luck. Guts promised that they would strike three enemies. The
men went out and found two enemies and killed them without losing any of their
own. Because Bobtail Bull was the leader he got credit for the two men and
now the people said he was on the right path; he had revenged his older brothers’
deaths and he was a war leader.

Because they honored him, the old men came often to his lodge to eat and
smoke. There were old people there eating and smoking all the time. Bobtail
Bull said to them, “I claim nothing for myself; it was my father’s gods who did it.”’

244 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

But the people did not pay so much attention to Guts any longer for so often
he had brought bad luck. Guts told theold men that since his son had dreamed
of the Earthnaming bundle, he should put on the ceremony and possess it since
he was now a head man. So Bobtail Bull pledged the ceremony and right away
he dreamed of one tipi and the old men told him that one enemy family was given
to him by his gods. He gave the four day ceremony of the Red Sticks to bring
the buffaloes and the old men ‘‘walked”’ with his wives. Then he went out and
took possession of the family, killing all of them and taking their horses.

The old men came as before and said that since he had killed a whole family
and had possessed their horses, he was even a greater chief. All the time there
were old men at his lodge eating, for they liked to eat with and help an ambitious
and lucky man. His wives worked hard preparing nice things for the old men.
The old men told him many things he should know to be a great chief of the
village because this knowledge was expected of him. Now Bobtail Bull thought
he would surely get ahead of Poor Wolf who had the reputation of knowing
many sacred traditions and stories of the olden times. So he invited the old
men in often and gave them good meals and the old men would tell him of the
olden times even back when the people first came on the earth. At this time
one of his wives went off with another man and he found out about it. He was
very angry at her, for she did not take care of their children. He sent two old
men to bring ber back.

The two men went to her and said, “‘Your husband is calling for you.”

They took her back to her husband’s lodge and Bobtail Bull sat down beside
her; he painted her face black as she would have had the right to do if she had
been beside him when he came back from a successful war expedition. He
dressed her in good leggings, moccasins, dress, and robe, and put her on his best
horse and told the two men to take her to her new husband saying, ‘‘Take her
away from here.”

Not long afterward the other wife ran away with another man and her children
were going about through the village looking for their mother. The children were
having a hard time, for they had no mother to take care of them. Bobtail Bull
was angry because his wife had left him and he could no longer invite in the older
men. So he resolved to go to war again. His younger brother, Charging Eagle,
offered to help him for that was much better than fighting with one’s own people.
His clansmen and friends volunteered to help him when they learned he was going
to war again. Not far from the village they found an enemy with one foot and
killed him. Now Bobtail Bull was a bigger chief, the others in the party said.
Then they found an enemy going along a dry creek and Charging Eagle killed him.
The people praised Bobtail Bull and Charging Eagle when they came back into
the village with the two scalps and the horses.

Bobtail Bull had done this because another had gone off with his wife. He
sent two men to bring his second wife back and when she was with him again she
began to cry but he painted her up, dressed her in good things, mounted her on
his best horse, and sent her back to her husband. All this he did because he was
a chief. Then his brother-in-law gave Bobtail Bull a different sister for the one
who ran away. This was good, for then he had his children with him and the old
men were welcomed once more.

Again he gave the Walking ceremony and the old men “‘walked”’ with his new
wife. Then he went out to war again and his young men killed and struck three
enemies. Soon the younger men were giving him presents in the ceremonies and
he was living a good life. Others asked him to assist when the buffaloes were called

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 245

to the village One day a Crow Indian visiting at the village wanted Bobtail
Bull as his father and he went west to the Crow to adopt his ‘‘son.’”” While they
were there, the ‘‘son”’ asked Bobtail Bull to go with him on the warpath and to
carry the medicine pipe. They went west as far as the Rocky Mountains and had
a good time, for there were many buffaloes farther west. Bobtail Bull and his “‘son”’
were the leaders, for he was training his ‘‘son”’ to be a great war leader. One day
the scouts came back howling and Bobtail Bull put the robe out for them to jump
over. The scouts reported three enemies at a distance shooting buffaloes.

Everyone painted up and took out his medicines to wear during the battle.
Because Bobtail Bull carried the pipe, the three enemies were killed. When they
returned to the Crow camp, they painted their faces black and rode in between
the lodges firing off their guns and making a great noise. The Crows honored
Bobtail Bull shouting, ‘‘What he said is true; his arrows are holy; his gods, the
swallow and the hawk *! have supernatural powers.”

Then the people gave him horses and many other valuable things. When
he returned to Fishhook with the scalps and the fine things, the people saw
them and knew that what he said was true. He gave the goods and horses to his
brothers and sisters and they helped him put up feasts for the old men. Poor
Wolf and Crows Paunch did not say much, but Bobtail Bull knew they were
jealous because he was coming along so fast.

Bobtail Bull and Crow-Flies-High were younger than the other chiefs but
they had done more in battle than Crows Paunch and Poor Wolf who then selected
four assistants (village protectors) and left Bobtail Bull and Crow-Flies-High out
because they were younger.

One day Bobtail Bull and Crow-Flies-High came back from hunting to learn
that their friends did not approve of the way Government rations were being
distributed. Crow-Flies-High was angry and mounted his pink horse. He
rode through the village with a war bonnet on his head following the interpreter
wherever he went, telling him that the old chiefs were selfish, that the people
needed new chiefs who would look out for them. The young men whose old
people had been accused of selfishness were angry and threatened to kill Crow-
Flies-High if he did not stop, for quarrels would bring bad luck to the village.

It was at this time that my father, Bobtail Bull, was sent for by his friends
and the pipe belonging to the Earthnaming bundle was lit. Then Bobtail Bull
took the pipe to Crow-Flies-High and told him to go back to his lodge. Crow-
Flies-High was very angry at first and threatened to kill the first person who
attempted to interfere with his division of the 50 cattle the Government was
furnishing for rations. He was telling the interpreter how selfish the chiefs
were and that he was going to see that the people got a fair division when Bobtail
Bull put the pipe before him. Because Bobtail Bull was his “friend”? and they
worked together, he lit the pipe and announced that he was leaving. That
night the people met in two different earth lodges. Those who followed Bobtail
Bull met in his lodge and Guts, my grandfather, was there, for he was an older
man and could talk better for the Earthnaming bundle. Most of the people
in that lodge were those who had formerly lived at Hidatsa village on the Knife
but there were a few others from the other villages because they too were not
satisfied with the chiefs. The others met at Poor Wolf’s lodge. Most of those
were from Awaxawi and Awatixa and from the Mandan villages.

Even the Black Mouths split up according to the way their relatives went.
During the night the two groups discussed their grievances separately while some

30 See the ‘‘Earthnaming Ceremony,” pp. 433-438.
81 See the myths of Woman Above (pp. 323-333) and Earthnaming sacred rites (pp. 433-438).

710-195— 64 17

246 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

of the older men who were respected by both groups went back and forth between
the groups trying to work out a solution. The young men of Bobtail Bull’s
group thought that the other chiefs kept them back, even though they had more
horses and war honors than the others who were always giving medicine feasts.
They thought that it would be better to live by themselves.

During the night, Bobtail Bull agreed to be their chief in another village if
they would move peacefully, but he would not serve as their leader if any fights
broke out to discredit his Earthnaming bundle or the other tribal bundles containing
the sacred objects. He told the people that once before in their history most of
the people were destroyed by fire when two brothers quarreled * and that there
was no place that he could take them safely if war broke out, for it would be
like brothers fighting since the clans were all mixed up in the village.

That night he walked through the village with his medicine pipe and reassured
the people. When morning came the people packed their things and prepared
for the long march to the mouth of the Yellowstone. Those who had more
things than they could carry left them in the care of their relatives. Even the
lodges were given to their relatives. Some even borrowed horses of relatives
at Fishhook.

When the time came to leave, some families decided to remain at Fishhook
while others decided at the last minute to go along. Those who went west lived
well, for there were many buffaloes and the young men were hired by the Army
to be scouts. The two village groups visited back and forth a great deal and
helped each other in the ceremonies. Some families would live in one village
for a while and then they would go back to the other one to live. They got along
well together. Even today we live on this end of the reservation apart from the
others but we visit back and forth and our young people marry into the other
group. Still we think of ourselves as a separate group and have our own leaders.

When we left the old village, we did not have so many of the old ceremonies,
for most of the people with the rights stayed back. The old people thought we
would have bad luck. The young men fasted much and had their own bundles.
Some would go back to the old village to buy bundles. But, in time, we thought
that the gods one got fasting were as powerful as those one bought through the
fathers, for our young men got more horses and war honors than the young men
of the other village. ‘Then we would tease our joking relatives in the other village.

Crow-Flies-High became the head war chief without owning any of the tribal
bundles. His father owned an Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies bundle at Hidatsa
but the bundle was put away when he died of smallpox in 1837. Crow-Flies-High
was reared by relatives but he never undertook to take up his father’s gods until
he was an old man and after he had won his position. As a young man he fasted
one night at Short Missouri where he dreamed of the eastern Old-Woman-Who-
Never-Dies. His clan fathers told him that she was instructing him to give the
4-day rites to take up his father’s gods but he did not follow their instructions for
he was poor and did not have many relatives to assist him. Instead he made up
a personal bundle of the things he saw in his dream.

Another time during the winter he fasted at Sack Butte on the Big Bend. At
that time some buffaloes were crossing the Missouri with their calves following
behind. In his dreams he saw that the calves could not get up onto the bank
so he went to help. At first the calves were afraid of him. He pushed each one
up over the bank out of the water and then he went back to his fasting. Then
the buffaloes came and took him to Porcupine Butte on the Little Missouri near

8 See ‘The Legendary Period” (pp. 297-308) for this incident.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 247

Medora and taught him how to bring the rain. Later, when the gardens dried up,
he brought rains for the women at Fort Buford.

Another time he fasted above the spring near Percy Baker’s place at the grave
of a Crow Indian. Whenever anyone went there, this Crow would send a high
wind and frighten the faster away. This time the wind came but he was not
afraid. Then the wind went down and someone stood on the hill and sang a
sacred song. He had never seen the Crow but he thought the person standing
there must have been the Crow whose grave was nearby.

He would stay out fasting for 7 days at a time but he did not put on the public
ceremonies. In his sacred bundle he had two dresses made of hides and painted
yellow. This was what he saw when the buffaloes took him to Porcupine Butte.
When he was old he gave them to his sons to use for calling the rains.

He was always successful in leading war parties; that is the way he became
the war chief and the people respected him.

The above narrative further elucidates the relationship of military
adventures to village behavior. Although Four Dancers spoke of the
right of the owner of the Earthnaming bundle to pray to all of the
gods collectively, there were specific gods and associated rites over
which the bundle owner had no definite authority. In the ritual, the
gods were believed to assemble and come to the village as a group to
bring good luck to the giver of the ceremony. One should note that
while Guts’ own sons performed those rites controlled by their father,
Charging Eagle, the stepson, received visions of the Mandan Four
Bear’s, his own father’s bundle even though the father had died nearly
a quarter of a century earlier.

We see Guts checking up on his sons to see if they had performed
bravely and urging them to participate in the battles. When they
perform bravely, he brings out his rattles from the Earthnaming
bundle and sings the victory songs, thus identifying their bravery
with his sacred bundle. Again the sons show bravery, when the enemy
build a fort in the heavy timber to protect themselves, by volunteering
to go into the brush when others have had bad luck. Associating
their good fortune on numerous occasions with the supernatural
powers of the bundle, we find them daring each other to ‘‘catch a
Sioux”’ and, while distinguishing themselves for unusual bravery, they
are killed. Had they succeeded in their mission, not only would
Sitting Owl and Never-Runs-Away have been highly respected, but
Guts would have succeeded in removing much of the mistrust and
lack of confidence the people had for him. His reputation would then
have been as great as Poor Wolf’s, the rival bundle owner from
Awaxawi village.

Guts’ self-torture was greater than that normally practiced by a
war leader losing young men in battle, but this was probably due to
both the loss of prestige and of his sons; normally a war leader did
not take his own sons to war. The dream by Different Wolf, in which
five squash change into five enemy heads, is interpreted to mean that

248 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

his “brother,” Guts, will get even. Here Different Wolf thinks of
Guts as a brother although actually the relationship is quite extended:
Man-With-Long-Hair and Different Wolf belong to the same clan,
the Prairie Chickens, and both came from Hidatsa village while Man-
With-Long-Hair and Guts had the same father; therefore they are
brothers, although Guts belonged to the Maxoxati clan. At any rate,
however extended the relation may be, an ‘older brother” comes to
the aid of Guts and directs him to stop his mourning, saying that he
has suffered long enough. Note that the obligations of brothers to
avenge the death of one of their number is expressed by cutting off the
head of one enemy and breaking it up. Four Dancers uses the kinship
term here in its broader meaning to include clan members and others
so classified.

Four Dancers introduces the concept that, at this point, Bobtail
Bull begins to plan his life. This is not a unique situation, for, in
recording the biographies of various Hidatsas, the informant invari-
ably stated that “it was at this time he began to plan his life.” We
see that he initiated his plan by fasting during the Sun Dance while
another was buying the rights from a father, but that the vision he
received was of his own father’s Earthnaming bundle. Here we see
unfolding the tribal bundle purchase pattern: regardless of the cere-
mony being performed during fasting, it is of one’s father’s bundle
rites that one normally dreams. When he tells the “fathers,” including
his biological father, that when dreaming of the bundle, he was also
promised two enemies, Guts says that he will get three. His reputation
is not improved when Bobtail Bull successfully kills two instead of the
three enemies his father predicted he would get.

We see that as Bobtail Bull’s reputation grew, the number of older
men who came to his lodge to eat and smoke increased. Guts then
realized that although the bundle has supernatural powers, he has
not succeeded in controlling this power and is, therefore, avoided.
At this point he decides to relinquish the bundle to his son although
it was customary for one to keep this bundle until his death. Closely
associated with his initiation into the bundle rites were his perform-
ances of the ‘‘Walking’”’ ceremonies when his wives were ceremonially
“‘oiven’”’ to the fathers. But the path to eminence was not an easy
one. While the old men were instructing Bobtail Bull in tribal lore,
the wives worked hard preparing feasts for the old men. It was
during this instruction that the first wife eloped with another man,
abandoning her children to the other women of the lodge. The
husband had the legal right to take her back or to destroy his rival’s
or the rival’s relatives’ property, but to do that would bring the
ridicule of his joking relatives upon him. Although he could take
her back, the honorable thing to do was to pay no attention to the

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 249

matter or he could go further by using the occasion to embarrass
both the wife and her eloper by casting her off with an elaborate
public display of gifts. This Bobtail Bull does to the embarrassment
of the elopers and the ridicule of their joking relatives who tease
the eloper by saying that his new wife is so poor “that he has been
paid to take her.’”’ When a second wife elopes, Bobtail Bull was
frustrated in his chiefly ambitions; no longer could he invite the old
men to his lodge, for he has only his mother-in-law and a young
unmarried sister-in-law in the lodge. By this time it is evident
that a conspiracy exists to hold him back by depriving him of the
assistance of his wives. He resolves to take out his anger on the
tribe’s enemies rather than on his own group, and at the same time
humiliate the elopers by adding further military honors. We see
that his brothers, clansmen, and friends volunteer to assist him.
Returning with military honors, he sends for his second wife and again
embarrasses her and her new husband by dressing her in good clothing
and sending her back with a good horse. The only thing that the
wife’s brother could do to resolve the situation was to provide another
wife. In this case another sister was substituted; the children
remained in the household under the care of their grandmother and
the new mother.

Village cleavage was then complete; those who had come from
Hidatsa village and a few Mandan families looked to Bobtail Bull,
owner of the Earthnaming bundle from Hidatsa village; the Awaxawi
and Awatixa were represented by Poor Wolf, the bundle owner from
Awaxawi. There was little that the former could do to extend his
authority within the village. Poor Wolf’s faction held intact. It
was at this time that a Crow Indian visiting at the village indicated
a desire to become Bobtail Bull’s “son” through the medium of the
medicine pipe. To complete the ceremony, Bobtail Bull and a few
of his friends went to the Crow camp where his “‘son”’ indicated a
desire to go on the warpath with Bobtail Bull as leader. Again he
won military honors, extended his kin to include many Crows, and
returned to Fishhook with scalps, fine goods, and many horses. At
this point Four Dancers remarks that Bobtail Bull does not keep
the things he received of the Crows. Instead, he passes the things
on to his ‘“‘brothers and sisters” as payment for past help and future
assistance when he gives further feasts to the older men. This point
brings out the advantage one with many brothers and sisters and
membership in a large clan enjoys. Here we have one of the factors
giving rise to the rapid reduction and assimilation of clans occurring
among the Mandan and Hidatsa during the 19th century.

Probably the most significant feature of this conflict was the opposi-
tion of the next older age-group headed by Poor Wolf which should have

250 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

been a respect group according to traditional behavior. In this
crisis situation, Bobtail Bull alines with Crow-Flies-High who,
although entitled to enter the fraternity of traditional bundle owners
by virture of descent from one owning rights in the Old-Woman-Who-
Never-Dies rites, flaunts tradition and establishes a personal bundle
without the benefit of public ceremonies. Orphaned by the smallpox
epidemic of 1837 and poor in his youth, he followed a different course
from that of most of the other young men; when his age-grade group
fasted during the organized rites, having no close relative to put up
goods, he could not compete with the larger households. He avoided
fasting on these occasions to seek visions alone on the prairies. But he
often went out with others on the war path, winning more honors than
those who had followed the traditional course. Like others of his
age-erade group who had won honors without the benefit of public
rites and many who had come from Hidatsa village and had been
in closer contacts with the River Crow from whom they were recently
separated, they shared the belief that personal and individual fasting
was as effective in bringing good luck as fasting during the formalized
rites or the purchase of tribal bundles.

Crow-Flies-High’s action in assuming authority against the re-
spected older age-grade group was equivalent to overthrowing the
entire traditional system, and has been largely explained by the
more conservative element as ignorance due to his early training
without the benefit of close relatives to advise him. However, the
conflict as I see it was more deep-seated than that; the village group
from which he came traditionally conformed more closely to the
Crow pattern, being more closely associated physically with that
group. His actions on the occasion of the division of the 50 cattle
would have been normal for the Crow but were outside the pattern
of group behavior for either of the other two Hidatsa village groups
or the Mandan.

A significant aspect of the conflict was the new role that Bobtail
Bull assumed as Earthnaming bundle owner and symbol of the
traditional peace role of this bundle owner. Note how he first ordered
Crow-Flies-High to return to his lodge; this is indeed a demonstration
of authority rarely manifested. We see the authority and symbolic
significance of the bundles manifested in the orientation of the popula-
tion according to allegiance to one or the other of the two competing
Earthnaming bundles. Even the police authority was immobilized
because the Black Mouths membership took sides individually.

At this time, Bobtail Bull and Crow-Flies-High both belonged to
the police society while the chiefs whom they wished to replace were
in the next older age-group. This was a distinct revolt against the
established age-grade structure. The instructions in traditional lore,

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 251

which Bobtail Bull had previously received from the old men, proved
timely. We find him referring to the Creation Myth in which most
of the tribe was once destroyed by fire because Hungry Wolf and
High Bird, brothers having the same mother and father, once
quarreled.*

The establishment of an Army post at Fort Buford provided a
ready outlet and easy solution to the problem. Since 1837, the com-
bined numbers of the three villages had barely been able to defend
themselves from the Sioux. Now it was possible for a faction to
break away much as must have been the case in earlier times, if I
correctly interpret the archeological evidence of the numerous small
village settlements in their traditional territory, and without the
danger of destruction by overwhelming attacks from their nomadic
neighbors. Bobtail Bull agrees to be their leader provided there is
no bloodshed, for he was unwilling to assume the responsibility for
the group if brothers fought. So he walked through the village
throughout the night in his peace role, just as Poor Wolf as owner
of the other bundle did, to see that no quarrels occurred. It is signifi-
cant to note that when a crisis arose, these two bundle owners
stood as the top authority and the customary police authority was
missing.

The division was a peaceful one; most families had made a decision
long before the final crisis occurred. Those who were remaining
behind assisted their relatives who were leaving, even providing
them with extra horses for the trip. Arrangements were made for
the use of abandoned lodges by relatives and clan members. There
was never a thought of continuing the conflict once the issue was
decided and the separation was completed. The two populations
visited back and forth even though they lived 150 miles apart; each
group assisted the other in the performance of ceremonies and rejoiced
when the other had won military honors; individuals moved from
one group to the other to live without discrimination. Fewer tribal
bundle rites were owned by those moving away, and the ceremonial
life suffered by comparison with the Fishhook Village group. In
time, the Fort Buford group came to look to Crow-Flies-High as
the leader and less was heard of Bobtail Bull, chiefly because of the
shift in emphasis from the formal ceremonies to individual fasting.
With these comments we close the Four Dancers’ narrative.

It was customary for one to enumerate his military honors and
the details of his various military exploits on numerous social and
ceremonial occasions and to depict them by dress and painting.
For many individuals, and on most public occasions, one’s status

33 See ‘‘ The Legendary Period” (pp. 297-308) for details of this incident.

252 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

could be determined largely by his display of these honors. It
was customary for the younger married men to invite those possessing
good military records to eat with them and to relate their military
achievements. This had become a ritual with the Hidatsa and
followed a set pattern; one would select a “father” or a group of
“fathers” to come eat with him when he had enjoyed good luck in
hunting and had an abundant supply of fresh meat. Usually the
“fathers” received a few presents consisting of new robes on which
they were invited to sit while partaking of the meal. On approaching
the lodge where the feast had been prepared, the fathers would
invariably indicate how much they had craved fresh meat and now
thanked their “son” for thinking of them. As they ate, the young
man would ask them to tell stories of the olden times or of their
military adventures. The old men would tell a younger man that
this was the way to get ahead and then pray to their sacred bundles
for the ‘‘son’s’’ success.

These feasts to the older men provided one mechanism for the
perpetuation of the military record of many individuals. Some-
times a young man wanted to learn more of his own father who had
died years before; these feasts provided a means of acquiring this
information. For the acquisition of knowledge about one’s own
clan members there was less formality; older brothers as disciplinary
officers usually provided that information as a part of the training
of the younger brothers. Older clan members belonging to the
household would, from time to time, undertake to transmit their
knowledge of the clan informally while assembled around the lodge
fire during long evenings. This was done without thought of pay,
since one enjoyed rights in the property of his clan members. The
personal achievements of those who attained universal respect of the
entire group became a part of the traditions of the group long after
their deaths.

The Hidatsa had produced a number of leaders during the last
century whose record has become a part of the traditional lore of
the people and is repeated to the young and discussed among the
old whenever a few gather for a feast or to smoke. Four Bears,
son of Two Tails who was one of the war chiefs at Knife River, rose
to eminence as one of the war chiefs after 1837 and is distinguished
principally for his part in signing the Fort Laramie Treaty in 1851.
Bears Arm supplies the following narratives of Four Bears’ life,
securing the information from his father, Old-Woman-Crawling, who
at one time served as an Old Wolf on one of the military expeditions
undertaken by Four Bears.

When Four Bears was giving the Wolf Ceremony to get his father’s rights,
while the people were still living at Knife River, he dreamed that he was going out

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 253

to the northwest to get six men and one white horse. He thought that he was
well paid for his efforts in putting on the ceremony. Then he went to several
holy men who had gods that had come down to them generation by generation
from the olden times and asked them to be his helpers. There were eight of these
holy men who were to help him: Raven Bear had the Big Bird bundle; Crows
Paunch had a Long Arm bundle; Bears Heart, Old-Woman-Crawling, Marries-
by-Carrying-Water, and Edge-of-Stone had Grizzly Bear bundles; Red-Buffalo-
Cow had a People Above (Mandan) bundle; and Boy had a Hawk (Arikara)
bundle.

He invited these and enough young men to make up a party of about 40. As
was the custom, he did not announce what he was looking for until they went into
camp 1 day’s distance from the villages. Then he told them that he was out
looking for the six men and a white horse promised by the Wolves. They went
on and passed the mouth of the Yellowstone, traveling westward. Raven Bear
and Marries-by-Carrying-Water were appointed leaders of the scouts to take
young men and go ahead to look for the enemies. Just before they came to their
trail, they camped, and Raven Bear stood up with the sword that belonged to the
Big Bird ceremony and began to cry. He said to the Big Birds, “Have pity on
me. When we surround an enemy, I want to strike one.”’

The scouts went ahead and saw the trail which the Assiniboin had followed.
They reported to Four Bears and the next day the party followed the trail until
they came to a post with a sign carved on it. There was a picture of the Rocky
Mountains with an arrow showing that they were going there; Sitting Wolf as
leader with the pipe was shown; the moon with 15 cuts below it showed that they
had left on the 15th day after the new moon; the human head with 100 gashes
told that there were 100 in the party. Four Bears came to the post and saw that
it had been put there by the Assiniboin. They followed the trail, watching both
ways, for they knew that the sign had been put there so another band of Assin-
iboin would know where to find the head band. In 3 days, the scouts reported
that they had found the camp. Seeing the scouts coming back howling, the Old
Wolves put out a robe for them to jump over. Sometimes they put up a mound
of dirt, buffalo manure, or a robe to jump over. When they had done this and
then kicked the mound down, it was a sign that they would overcome their
enemies.

Then Four Bears stood, holding the wolf hide which he had given to the leader
of the scouts to carry, saying, ‘My father’s gods, when I had your ceremony, I
stood before the four holy women of the four winds * suffering while thinking
that someday I would meet my enemies. I became dizzy and fell to the ground;
then I saw a trail leading westward and I saw six persons and a white horse at
the end of that trail. For that reason, the scouts have seen the camp and I want
to take what has been promised me. I want you to lead off six men from that
camp so my men can get them without any bad luck coming to us. I want that
white horse you promised me too.”’

Raven Bear stood up and told what he had seen in his dreams. He said,
“My gods, the eagles, the big birds, and thunder, you came to me from my
father and I have taken good care of you. When we have those enemies sur-
rounded, I want you to help me to be the first to strike one of them. I have
come to the enemy this day and I want to hit that man you promised me.”

Bears Heart stood up and said, ‘“‘My god, the yellow grizzly bear, I got you
from my father. I got the arrow that came from Two Men back at the beginning

84 See ‘* Wolf Ceremonies,’’ given below, for their role in this ceremony.

254 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

of times. I want to hit one enemy with that holy arrow and I want to strike
one enemy myself.’

Then Married-by-Carrying-Water took out his sacred lance and addressing
the silver grizzly bear, told the men that he was supposed to cut 3 inches from
the end of the lance each time he struck anenemy. One time he had been walking
along the edge of the timber at Shell Creek when a bear attacked him. They
were so close together that there was not room to use an arrow so he took up his
stone ax. When the bear was about to seize him, he hit the bear on the head
and the Bear said, ‘‘Don’t hit me again,’”’ so he drew back the stone ax. The
bear reached over back of his head and took out a red feather, handed it to the
man and said, ‘‘Whenever you meet an enemy, put this on your head. Make a
long lance and paint it red; when you meet the enemy, take out the stick and hit
the enemy with it. Even if they are aiming their guns at you, they will not
be able to hit you. Whenever anyone asks for the stick to strike the enemy,
give him both the stick and the feather for he will be successful. When you strike
the enemy, cut off a piece of the stick and take it to the west side of the camp and
point to the west as an offering to me.’’%

Boy was the next to get up. His god was the hawk that he got from his Arikara
father. He had the tail feathers and a red feather that he held up as he called
his son, Bear-Comes-Out, to stand before him. Boy prayed, “‘I want my boy to
be one of the first to strike one of the enemies.”

Raven Paunch had the Long Arm bundle but he prayed to the horse instead.
He told how he had fasted 4 days and nights out on the prairies with his horse
which he led during the daytime by means of thongs in the arms. The fourth
night he had a dream in which he saw the horse decorated with grass on top of
the head. The horse said, ‘“‘Do like that with me when you go out against the
enemy; whether you take me or some other horse, paint us with white clay on the
shoulders in four places. The four white spots represent the 4 days you fasted
with the horse; it also represents the four legs I run with, for the four spots will
give my legs strength so that I can run without stumbling.’”’ He was riding
that horse then.

Each of the other Old Wolves told of their dreams and ambitions. Four
Bears said to the scouts, ‘‘Go out and see if the six men and the white horse have
left the camp.”

The scouts crept close to the camp and saw the six men and the white horse
leave the camp with dogs trailing along, so they came back and reported to Four
Bears. When the enemy was some distance from the camp, Four Bears’ men
surrounded and closedin on them. Bear-Comes-Out was first to strike the enemy
that his father had asked the hawk to give him. They killed the six men and took
the white horse, giving the scalps and horse to Four Bears who had a prior claim
to them since he had seen them in his dream. Then they hurried back to the
villages to dance the Victory dances. Four Bears called out the names of those
who had struck the enemy so that all would hear.

Again Four Bears had a dream from the Wolves who gave him one enemy so he
organized a party to go out for that which had been promised him. This man was
an Assiniboin who would be found alone far to the north. They traveled north
until they came to the lake region. There was alone tree by a lake and Bluestone
asked Four Bears to camp there as he wanted to fast under the nest occupied by
young eagles. Four Bears thought that it was a good idea. Bluestone’s chest
skin was cut and he was hung from a limb so that his feet could scarcely touch the
ground,

85 The west side of the eagle trapping lodge is holy.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 255

In the morning, Four Bears inquired if Bluestone had been given a dream and he
said that he had the same dream as his clan brother, Four Bears, except that it
was the eagle in the tree that told him instead of the wolves. In the dream he
saw an old man standing by the tree with an eagle feather in his hair and this old
man told him that they would see one enemy and that Bluestone would be the
first one to strike this enemy.

When Bluestone said that he would be the first to strike the enemy, there were
faster young men in the party who did not believe that. They went on until they
found an old Assiniboin man picking up duck eggs near a lake. Bluestone was
next to the lead but when the Assiniboin was about to shoot, the front man stum-
bled and fell so Bluestone struck the enemy someone farther back had shot. The
second man to strike was the one who had shot the enemy.

Four Bears went out again along the White Earth Creek looking for the two
enemies he had been promised. He got both of them, women this time, making
nine enemies in all that his sacred bundles had “given” him. The people said that
if he could go to four times without ‘‘kicking the stone’ he would be a great man,
so he fasted much and gave liberally to the older people.

One time shortly afterward, the enemy came to the village and stole horses. One
Buffalo, who also had a Wolf bundle, organized a party to go after them. When
they were a short distance from the village, One Buffalo stopped to select the
scouts. He selected, in this order, Raven Bear as leader, Owns-Many-Spotted
Horses, and Lifts Heart. When the leader saw Four Bears get up, he named him
to be fourth. Four Bears said, “I was expecting to be called first.’’

The scouts went out and Four Bears got ahead of the others, finding an Assini-
boin sleeping. He had not found any horses. Four Bears killed and scalped him
before the others came, but the other scouts went to the place and struck him
second, third, and fourth. The war expedition was called off and they went back
to the village to dance.

Four Bears decided to go out again soon afterward to get one enemy and a
horse. Since he had been out so often, he thought that his supernatural power
might be running out, so he decided to enlist the assistance of some other holy
men. Finally he selected his clan brother, One Buffalo, who agreed to help him.
They made up a party of 32 men. They traveled southwestward until they came
to Buffalo Lodge (Home) Butte. Since it was quite a large party and the hunting
was poor, they were soon out of food. Usually buffaloes could be found around
this butte, for that was a home of the buffalo spirits. The young men thought they
would surely starve and the older men thought they might die, too.

Two scouts went out ahead and soon afterward the others saw a buffalo running
about 2 miles away. One Buffalo said to the others, ‘‘We are all in; we can’t run
that far. We will have to find some other way to get that buffalo.”

One Buffalo seated his party ina row. Then he held his braid to one side and
hit his head; powder came out of the ear; from the other ear he took a bullet.
He put the powder in the gun, using soft sage as the wad; then he put in the bullet
with sage on top of that. All the while he sang a holy song. He directed Four
Bears to fill the pipe and start it at the opposite end saying, ‘“‘As soon as I see
smoke coming out of the pipe, I am going to fire the gun.”

They lit the pipe and began to smoke. One of the Old Wolves said, ‘‘They are
smoking now,” so he fired the gun. They continued to smoke and pass the pipe
along the line. There were 30 men in the row and when the pipe was to the
middle of the line, some claimed a little further, they saw the buffalo fall over
nearly 2 miles away.

After they had enough to eat, the party decided to turn back towards the
Missouri at the mouth of Heart River. One day the scouts found a horse, so the

256 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

two leaders rode double. One day they found two women and a berdache digging
wild turnips on the prairie. Until they were near they thought they were women,
for all three Sioux were dressed alike. Before making the attack, Four Bears told
his party that they would strike coups on the women but spare their lives. Four
Bears got ahead of the others and struck both but the berdache was brave, saying,
“You can’t kill me for I am holy. I will strike coups on you with my digging
stick.”

Then the berdache sang a sacred song and chased them. Four Bears shot an
arrow at the berdache but it would not penetrate the robe. Then he knew that
the berdache had great supernatural powers. Since he had been successful on
all other military expeditions and did not want to spoil his luck, he called his
party back. The expedition was successful, for they got the horse. Four Bears
used good judgment, for it was hard to kill a berdache since they were holy.
Later Poor Wolf bought his clan brother’s Bullet rites.

Later the Assiniboin learned from the Whites that the Hidatsa were dying of
smallpox and decided to come and kill off the Hidatsa, for then they would have a
large territory on the Missouri River. At that time the Awatixa and Awaxawi
were at Snake Creek on the bend above the mouth of Knife River and many of
the Hidatsa-proper were around Sanish where they went to escape the smallpox.
The head men selected Raven Paunch as chief of the scouts to locate and watch
the movements of the Assiniboin camp, for they had their women and children
along. He found the Assiniboin on Stevenson Flats. The police were on guard
all night, and in the morning the men, numbering about 50 and constituting all
who had survived the smallpox, hid near the trail the Assiniboin would take.

Seven Bears told the men that they should kill all the Assiniboin men and older
boys they could, but to spare the women and children for many of the Awaxawi
and Awatixa had lost their wives and families with smallpox. If they could take
the women prisoners, there would soon be many children in the tribe again. In
the battle, taking the Assiniboin by surprise, the men were all killed off and about
50 women and children were taken. They were taken back to the village and
traded around so that all the single men had wives. Some escaped from time to
time but the people never looked for them, thinking that they had children at
home they wanted to see. Many of the people in the tribe today are the descen-
dants of these women and children taken at that time, but the people never tell
if a person is the descendant of a captive for it would hurt his record in the tribe.
In this way, young male descendants of captives and Hidatsa fathers have the
same chance as the other boys.

When they got back to camp, they found that Four Bears had been shot through
the body. His clan brother, One Buffalo, went among his clans-people asking
assistance so they could engage a doctor. They gave robes, war bonnets, guns,
and one horse. Then One Buffalo went to Cherry Necklace with the pipe and
asked him to doctor Four Bears. Cherry Necklace instructed One Buffalo to
bring in four of the round hand-drums. Then he dressed in his medicine objects,
the otter, and went to Four Bear’s lodge where all the people were gathered. He
said to the people, “Do not let any dogs into the lodge for that is a rule when I
doctor. If a dog gets in, my patient will die. The Waterbusters selected one
of their members to sit at the door and keep the dogs out.

Four young men were selected to use the round hand-drums and sing the holy
songs with Cherry Necklace. Then he said to the people, ‘‘Go over to the river
bank and see how I am going to do this.”’

Cherry Necklace and Four Bears were naked with only an otter skin on Cherry
Necklace’s head. They went to the river where Four Bears was led into the water
until they were in the water to the depth of Four Bear’s belt where he was wounded.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 257.

Cherry Necklace took down the otter skin and wet it all over and said to the
people, “I am not holy at all; I can’t do anything by myself. But the otter is
the one I get my powers from.”

Cherry Necklace spoke to the otter saying, “It is you who has the powers.
You should cure this man so the people can see with their own eyes what you can
do.”’ Then he sang the Otter songs.

He dipped the otter skin under the water and when he took his hand away the
second time the otter came up on the other side of Cherry Necklace and swam
over to Four Bears, touching the spot where he was wounded. When the otter
backed away from the wound, blood came out. Then the otter swam to Four
Bear’s back and did the same thing. The otter did that four times and then
Cherry Necklace said, ‘‘I am glad that this wounded man is going to be healed.”

Cherry Necklace instructed Four Bears to wash his head in the river and drink
a little water. Then the clansmen helped him back to his lodge where Cherry
Necklace continued to sing the holy songs. It was not long until he was walking
about again. Cherry Necklace was highly respected, for he had succeeded in
saving the life of a great war leader.

Four Bears was consulted when the people were looking for a new village site
and because the people were accustomed to put up offerings for the buffaloes at
Fishhook Bend, he thought it would be a good place to build, but he did not take
part in the ceremonies when the village was built.

The above describes warfare of the first half of the 19th century.
Unlike the Four Dancers narratives of his own father, in which he
explains each event in terms of his father’s ambitions to eminence
traditionally enjoyed by the owner of the Earthnaming bundle, Bears
Arm relates the principal military adventures of one who was destined
to attain top rank as war chief during the critical years of village dis-
organization following the smallpox epidemic of 1837. While Four
Dancers belabors the misfortunes of his grandfather, Guts, who
eventually relinquished the bundle to his son, Bobtail Bull, he says
little of other ceremonial roles which the bundle owner traditionally
enjoyed. Perhaps initial interest in the Poor Wolf bundle stems from
the fact that, during the period of village disorganization between
1837 and 1845, the Hidatsa-proper had indicated the intention of re-
joining the River Crow from whom they had separated not long before.
In fact, many Hidatsa families had actually gone west and were en-
couraging the rest of the village to join them. At this time the
Awatixa and Awaxawi, whose separation from the western Crow had
occurred long before, decided to remain on the Missouri and live much
as they had before the epidemic.

In the Bears Arm narrative of Four Bears, we are concerned with
the life history of one who, through inheritance of Wolf bundles from
his father, Two Tails, received his principal distinctions as a military
leader rather than as the director and supervisor of certain aspects of
the village ceremonial life. We find that after giving the Wolf
ceremony to acquire his father’s bundlerights, he dreamed of six enemies
and a white horse, thus establishing prior rights to them. Bears Arm

258 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

lists the Old Wolves whom Four Bears invited to assist him. They
are selected entirely from his own, the Four-clan moiety, and hold
rights in several of the tribal bundles. By means of drawings on a
post, the Hidatsa learn that one band of Assiniboin under Sitting
Wolf has gone farther west.

The purpose of the expedition, as explained by Four Bears after
the party has left the village, was to take possession of the six enemies
and the white horse which his gods had promised him. Had he failed
to take possession of his rightful property at that time, we learn from
other case histories that his claim still stood. Should he have been
unable on this or subsequent trips to have taken possession of them he
could have sold or given his rights to another as in the following
narrative by Wolf Chief.

The recitation of one’s bundle rights before going into battle has
been described before. It served a useful purpose in stimulating
young men to buy their fathers’ bundles and to give them courage in
the immediate battle. In this instance, the Old Wolves reciting their
ritualistic rites are of both the Mandan and Hidatsa villages, although
at this time the union of the population into a single village had not
occurred. In selecting coleaders, he has selected from the equivalent
moiety as well.

In this instance we find a group of “brothers” cooperating to bring
honor to one of their number. Four Bears took possession of the six
scalps and white horse for which he received credit, while the others
shared the 24 honors of striking coup. This raises the question of the
disposal of other honors, had the group been able to kill and strike
additional enemies or possess additional horses. By the rules, Four
Bears would have taken only those horses which he saw first, since
additional horses went to those first seeing them. As leader of the
war party, he would have received credit for all additional enemies
killed and struck, with the right to show this accomplishment on his
clothing. Those who struck the enemy could wear feathers. One
seeing a number of horses rarely took possession of them, for he was
expected to make gifts according to the membership of the group.

Four Bears’ second expedition to the north for one enemy promised
to him brings out the point that the Hidatsa fasted in many situations.
Here a clan brother assisting him finds an eagle nest under which he
decides to fast. Some of the young men think it very funny when
Bluestone tells how in his dream he has been promised the first honor
of striking the enemy Four Bears is seeking, since Bluestone was not
a fast runner. One wonders if fear caused the one in the lead to
stumble, permitting Bluestone to strike first. Crows Heart told the
writer of an instance when young men going into battle found it

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 259

convenient to get off to fix their saddles, thus permitting others to
do the actual fighting.

We see that after Four Bears has been out several times, the old
men tell him that if he can go out as leader four times without “kicking
the stone” he will be agreat man. This imparts that even the greatest
military leaders gave but a small amount of time to actual military
campaigns of their own. When the men go out to look for their
horses stolen by the Assiniboin, we see a war party being organized
sometime after leaving the village and Four Bears is not pleased
because he is not selected to be the leader of the scouts. Why?
The informant did not know what One Buffalo had in mind but, in
any case, he was shown to be in error since Four Bears was first to
win the honors. We see in this account how quickly the Hidatsa
terminated a military expedition once they had the better of the
enemy. Once an enemy is killed and coups struck on his body, the
search for the horses is called off.

When Four Bears planned a fourth expedition, he acknowledged
that his sacred bundles had brought him good luck to that time and
wondered if they had begun to lose their supernatural powers. Thus,
he selects a clan brother, One Buffalo, to be his assistant and they
strike out afoot toward the Black Hills until they come to Buffalo
Lodge (Home) Butte, the home of the buffalo spirits. We see that
when the young men complain of being hungry, the Old Wolves seem to
agree with them, thus setting the stage for the magical Bullet rites
by One Buffalo. Here we have a variant of a ritual which Four
Dancers described above when his grandfather accompanied Three
Coyotes. In the former case, a similar ritual was employed to kill
the Sioux Bear medicine man. The two scouts were out when the
buffalo was seen about 2 miles ahead, so the reader must suspect
that, since guns did not shoot 2 miles at that time, the appearance
of the two scouts on the scene at the time the buffalo was killed was
scarcely accidental.

The encounter with the two Sioux women and a berdache discloses
interesting reactions by the party. In the first place, Four Bears was
not looking for women, so they are content to strike coup on them
and let them go. This was commonly done and is not unique in
itself, but the recognition of one as a berdache altered the situation.
The Hidatsa berdaches, although considered to be somewhat queer,
were also possessed of great supernatural powers and customarily
carried digging sticks as a part of their ritualistic paraphernalia during
certain tribal rites. Here they encounter a Sioux berdache carrying
a digging stick which was being used for digging wild turnips. When
the berdache said, ‘“‘You can’t kill me for I am holy. I will strike
you with my digging stick,’’ he was repeating a ritual similar to one

260 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

used in the Hidatsa rite in which the berdache said, ‘I am holy; I
can do anything.’”’. When the arrow Four Bears shot at the berdache
bounced off the robe, they were convinced of his supernatural powers
and called off the fight. Having been successful on all other military
expeditions, he was not taking chances. Although his vision had
only been fulfilled in part, this was accomplished without the loss of
any members of his party. His claim to the enemy remained; he
could go out again or transfer this claim to another, preferably a
“son.’”’ In the sale of the Bullet rites to Poor Wolf, a younger clan
brother, One Buffalo follows an inheritance pattern not so common
with the Hidatsa but highly developed with the Mandan.

In the final account of the slaughter of the men and the capture of
the women and smaller children, the arguments offered for waylaying
this party of Assiniboin are scarcely convincing. In the first place,
a small party of Assiniboin would never have attempted to storm these
strongly fortified Awatixa and Awaxawi villages, and, in the second
place, it was not customary to take women and children out on military
expeditions. The argument served a useful purpose, however, in
justifying their actions in the face of White critics, although we know
that at this time there was a high degree of cooperation with the
Mandan and Arikara who would have come quickly to their assistance.
The Hidatsa had customarily raided small hunting bands, going to
the Rocky Mountains even before the advent of the horse. That
this attack provided an opportunity to replenish the population cannot
be denied, and the people quickly took advantage of this small band
to take possession of the women and small children. In the Hidatsa
society, a man who had many “children” lived materially better than
one with few or no children.

Since this event occurred after 1837, one would expect genealogies
of the tribe to show many of these captives, which is not the case.
Actually, these captives were quickly integrated into the household
and clan system and are rarely mentioned as captives. Although
genealogies supplied by one person for other family lines do not reveal
this Assiniboin blood, I did not find the Hidatsas reluctant to speak
of their own foreign blood, although they would not freely reveal such
information about others. Bears Arm speaks of the escape of captive
women and relates that nothing was done about it when it was known
that they had children with the Assiniboin. I found numerous
instances when the Hidatsa provided captives with opportunities to
return to their tribes because they had small children living there,
as well as instances in which members of neighboring tribes came to
the Hidatsa and claimed their families taken captive.

The curing rites for Four Bears followed a common pattern when
a doctor outside of the family was employed. Note that the clan

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 26]

took the initiative; they collected the goods and selected the doctor.
When the doctor saw that the case was not hopeless, he dressed in his
ceremonial garb and took over the curing. Although the super-
natural depicted in the rites did not always “‘come to life,”’ this was
believed to be a common experience when the greater doctors per-
formed. We see the employment of sacred songs, the public display,
and river bathing.** This curing rite expresses significant societal
values; in spite of all of the fanfare when the military leader returned
successfully, or the deep sorrow and loud wailing when he “kicked
the stone,” the real authority and confidence rested with a restricted
number of village sacred bundle owners whose authority came to them
out of the traditions and sacred rites of the past. Although the
highest acclaim and respect was shown those who pursued a military
career, in crisis situations, such as the doctoring of the military leaders
or the establishment of a new village, the people looked to the older
men whose sacred bundle rites were of traditional great antiquity,
and the military leaders played no significant role. A review of the
first building of Fishhook Village will show that in the rites on this
important occasion, Four Bears, who then occupied the top military
position, was not mentioned.

We close these case histories of military and related activities with
a summary of Wolf Chief’s experiences. Born in 1850 into one of the
respected households, he well represents the culture of his generation
(pl. 5). His father, Small Ankles, was the owner of Woman Above,
Waterbuster Clan Skulls, Eagle Trapping, and Wolf Ceremony
village sacred bundles. Rarely were so many sacred bundles owned
by one man. In Wolf Chief, we have an individual who lived an easy
life; the father was a distinguished bundle owner and Wolf Chief had
several brothers who were good hunters. Wolf Chief’s interest in the
opposite sex was of wide knowledge in the tribe and his love affairs are
given in detail under ‘‘The Life Cycle.”

The following abbreviated narrative covers the significant points in
his preparation for a military career:

My father was one of the real medicine men and fasted often. My maternal
grandfather, Big Cloud, was also a great medicine man and gave me much advice.
He had cut off his fingers in the Mandan Okipa and I saw the wounds on his chest
and arms. Even my older brothers talked to me often and told me that I should
take fasting seriously. When I was young I got most of my advice from Big Cloud,
for he was getting along in years and was around the village more than my brothers
and father who were busy hunting and working for a living. Big Cloud told me
how after the smallpox only 10 families stayed at Hidatsa village on Knife River,

so they went out west and camped on Rose Creek with the Crows for a while. He
went out with another to fast on a high hill; during the day they would stand on the

% River bathing was universally associated with those bundles containing objects from creatures com-
monly inhabiting the streams and lakes.

710-195—65——_18

262 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

hill and cry and stay in a cave nearby at night. A rain came and they went under
the rocks; it turned hot as though they were near a fire. They saw a bird as large
as a bullboat with the head as large as a human’s; something shiny-looking like
silk was hanging down from the bill.

Because they were frightened, they ran back into camp and the people closed
the tent flaps. When I was born, he gave me a name and said that I would live to
old age. He called me He Comes, for when the clouds and thunder come from the
west, they make a loud noise.

When I was 7 or 8 years old, Big Cloud made up a cloth of this big bird with a
round clamshell bead and said that if I wore it, I would live to be anold man. I
was 15 when he was taken ill; I stayed near him because he had been so good to me.
One day he asked me to sit by him and he said, ““My grandson, I am getting old
and I think it is the best time to go. When I die, you will know where they bury
me; you come there to fast. If I remember, I will give you a holy song or mention
something so that your wishes will come true. If I can’t do it, it will still be all
right.”’

They buried him where some others were buried. J remembered how he had
treated me and wascrying. My father said to me “Don’t forget what your grand-
father said to you before he died. He was a great man and struck many enemies;
he fasted much; you must do the same. You should go out there where he is
buried; he may be able to help you. You could go out there evenings for 30 days.
If you do not get a dream, you might try another 30 days.”’

Because my father asked me to go out, I went out there for part of the night for 1
month. I rested and then went out 30 nights again. I would cry and say that I
was poor and wanted a god so that I would have a good living. I tried it 30 days
but no dream came. I went to 90 nights when the weather was getting cold so
I gave it up.

The next spring J tried it again. My father talked to me and said, “If you go
out again, you should stick to it. There are some bodies on scaffolds out there.
You might go to those scaffolds and hold onto the posts while fasting. Perhaps
that will help you.”

I was a little frightened out there with the human bones scattered around from
the fallen scaffolds, the circles of skulls, and the skulls and other bones sticking out
of the sunken graves. I thought, too, of our enemies who might come and attack
me. I would stay around there until late in the night and then go back home.
Once the men told of seeing enemies about but I went out to fast. One night I had
the sensation that something was seizing me and at the same time I heard a
“‘Wwoosh” from my grandfather’s grave. Then all the bodies made the same noise;
I was so frightened that I nearly ran away.

That night when I came back and went to bed, my grandfather came back. I
saw my grandfather standing on a high hill about 30 miles downstream from Fish-
hook. His hair was white ard he was smiling.

The next year my father went out west to Shot in Nose Creek. There were
many young men fasting on the side of a high hill with sticks put through their
skin. Because I was not among them, my father’s joking relatives teased him
about his worthless son who did nothing but eat and chase the girls. This made
my father very angry so he came to me while other men in the camp were crying to
their gods to send their sons good dreams, saying, ‘‘You should not sit around here
and do nothing but eat all the time. You should follow the example of the other
young men and fast for a god so that you will be successful.”

Takes-the-Gun [Three-clan moiety] and Moccasin Carrier [Waterbuster clan]
came to take me out without asking if I wanted to go and said, “We are glad that
you are going to do this so that you will get a god.”

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 263

They made two thongs from a Juneberry branch; by this time it was so dark
that they lit a fire to see to insert the sticks. First they told what they had seen
when they suffered, and then they put the sticks through. It felt as though I
was burning in the fire. They tied me to an overhanging tree and I could hardly
breathe. They noticed my trouble and said, ‘‘He has had enough; we better take
him down.”

All this time my father had been shaking his medicine rattles, praying, and sing-
ing the holy songs of the eagle-trapping rites. But I did not get a dream for my
breath would not come when they tortured me.

The next summer, when I was 17, the people went to Bear Den Creek hunting.
There were many high rocks and two hawks were flying about above the cliffs.
We were enjoying ourselves, for the buffaloes were plentiful. I thought of the
things people had said about me and resolved to fast in the rocks near those hawks.
I went to Wolf Grass and Coyote, who belonged to my fathers’ clan, and asked
them to help me. Because the bank was so steep at the place I wanted to hang,
they put an extra rope around me so that I would not be killed if the thongs pulled
out of the flesh. All the time my two fathers were praying to the hawks to send
meadream. I stayed there until after sundown and then my fathers came for me.

That night I dreamt of a man who came and asked me to stand beside him on
the right side saying, ‘““Look to the west.”

I looked and saw a thunder cloud coming. He was carrying burning cedar on a
plate. He said, ‘See how I burn this cedar while facing the west and the rain
comes. Someday you will do the same as I am.”

Then he sang this sacred song, ‘‘Birds are coming from the clouds; they bring
rain.” He told me that when I wanted to bring the rain I should do as he had
done, but I never did try it.

When I was 18, my father was appointed to lead the winter camp. That
winter we went to Blue Buttes just above Independence in the deep timber. I
had often seen the dark spot on the moon and the old people had told me that the
moon was a human. I went out every night to cry, asking the moon Lo help me.
After the 120th night I had a dream again, hearing someone speaking from the
sky, ‘‘Look to the east; there is a boat coming.”

In my dream I wished for a cord of wood. I saw a log house here where I later
built and a steamboat near Lucky Mound Creek. I saw a large stone on a hill
and then I walked into a log house. I awoke and thought of my silly dream and
of the silly dreams the other young men often told of getting. Then I went to
sleep again and a man came, saying, ‘‘They want you over there.”’

I came to a high hill and saw a man sitting facing the north. He had his face
painted below the nose; he had an eagle feather in his hair and scalps hanging on
his leggings. He asked me to sit on his right side. He had a pile of buffalo
manure before him and a pipe. While he smoked I thought, ‘‘Anytime I go out
for the enemy I am supposed to go against the wind for he is facing the wind.”

He handed me the pipe to smoke and said, ‘‘Son, look towards the south.”” I
saw great mountains and large herds of horses; I thought that it meant that I
was to own many horses.

That year I also had a dream of four frames surrounding my father’s sacred
bundles, the outer one being old and broken down. My father interpreted this
dream to mean that I would give the Walking ceremony four times and make my
wives “granddaughters of the buffaloes,’ and that I would live to be an old man.
Shortly afterward the enemy came to fight near the village and, being brave, I
was to the front chasing them. One man turned and shot my horse, killing it.
My fathers of the Waterbuster clan sang the Victory songs for me. When I re-
turned to our lodge, Different Snake was at our lodge and wanted to marry me, for

264. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

it was the custom to marry when one had received first war honors. I did not
keep her but I married another shortly afterward.

When I was 21 I killed a fat deer while we were in winter camp and called in
two of my ‘fathers,’ Poor Wolf and Sack who belonged to my father’s clan.
Poor Wolf asked Sack to speak to me and he said, ‘‘There are many ways to become
a chief; some spend most of their time fasting and striking the enemy. When I
was a young man after the smallpox I went out fasting often. Once in my dreams
I saw a man so old that he could hardly get up and I expected to get that old.
Now that you have fed me, I would rather that you would be the old man instead
of me.”

I thanked him saying that I hoped I would be a lucky man, have a good home,
and live to become an old man.

When I was just past 22 I thought that since I had seen the man with the
scalps on his leggings, I ought to go out to war and get the horses I had seen,
but my father tried to discourage me. He said, ‘‘I do not see any wounds where
you have been fasting much; I think you ought to do a great deal more fasting
and torturing of your body before you go out after those horses.”

He urged me not to take young men out but I was insistent. I said, ‘I think
I have done enough fasting and suffering. When I was 18, I dreamt of a man
with scalps on his legs and he was smoking and facing the wind. I think I have
the power now to succeed. I fasted at different places; one time I went out 120
nights to cry.”

He was not convinced but I went anyway. I picked young fellows of my age,
but a number of them could not go as their fathers did not like the idea. I took
12 young men my age and appointed Son-of-Star the chief of the scouts and
Wolf Ghost, Dog Bear, and Bluebird scouts. We followed the east bank of the
Missouri going downstream. North of Washburn the scouts found some horses
and colts, and a mule. Wolf Ghost and Bluebird both claimed the horses and
they disputed each other’s claim to the first discovery so I said to them, ‘You
are trying to get ahead of each other; do not do that; in the future you will dis-
cover more horses.”’

We went on, and opposite Standing Rock we found a horse grazing, so I sent the
scouts to take possession. They crossed to the west side where the enemy dis-
covered them so they brought in only one horse. I kept the horse that had been
taken from the camp because the scouts did not see it first; by that time the two
men had agreed on the division of the other horses.

Not long afterwards I decided to go out for more of the horses that I had been
promised in my dreams. This time my father approved and said to me, “TI
think you will be successful for on your last trip you showed that you have powers
from your dreams. Do not take too many along, for some of them might be
careless. If you had to hide from the enemy, a large party would be a handicap.
This time take some of my Wolf medicines. Before sending your scouts out,
pray to the Wolf to help you.”

Before I left, my father took down his sacred Wolf bundle, tied it on a long pole,
and hung it up outside. 27 He wanted to find out what was going to happen.
He did this so he would get a dream that night. He burned some sweetgrass
and put the wolf hide in the smoke, singing this sacred Song of the Wolves,
‘‘Whenever I need anything, I always say this.”

He said to Sunrise Wolf, ‘‘I want you to lead my son who is going out after the
enemies,’”’ and he sang a second holy song, ‘‘You are the holy ones; that is why
I say so.”

37 See myth of the Wolf Woman (pp. 412-415) for native beliefs that wolves talk to the bundle owners.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 265

Then he instructed me, saying, ‘‘Start tomorrow evening; have your bullboats
ready. When you select the scouts, rub dirt on their legs just as Wolf instructed
and tell them not to touch each other or their legs will get weak. Sing these
two sacred songs before you send the scouts out. Do not travel until it is dark.”

Next morning my father said, ‘‘I had a dream of a man coming towards us with
a mule and a bay horse with a bald face. He had some meat, too. I am not sure
whether you killed him or not.

When it was getting dark, my father took his medicines all down and stood
before us, for we were meeting at my father’s lodge. He was praying to his
bundles when Poor Wolf, my father’s clansman, came in. My father asked him
to pray for me, his son, who was going out to seek the enemy.

Poor Wolf said, “I know that you have had pity on me and fed me when I
was short of meat; you are my son, too. In my early days I dreamed that I
was to get a roan horse but I never was able to take possession of it. Now I am
getting old so I will relinquish it to you.”

Then he prayed for me and told how he used to fast and pray in his younger
days.

My father said, “I am going to have my son take my wolf hide along. He
will see a rabbit run ahead of him. It willstop. That is the sign that they will
meet their enemies the same day.”’

It was close to midnight when we got into our bullboats and started downstream.
At noon we stopped to select the scouts. I took out my father’s sacred bundle,
prayed to it, and selected Wolf Ghost, One Buffalo, and Lean Bull to be the
scouts. I rubbed the dirt from the pocket gopher mound on their legs and
ordered them not to rub their legs together. Wolf Ghost carried the wolf hide.
I asked them to go along the rim of the valley not far from the river and we
would meet them farther down.

Before they discovered the horse, a jackrabbit jumped up in front of them and
they knew that something would happen that day. They went in the direction
the rabbit went and there found the horse. It was the roan horse that had been
given to me by Poor Wolf before we left. Wolf Ghost who found the animal
brought it down to the riverbank and said, ‘‘I have the horse that was already
given to you before this happened.”

I wondered how we would manage to float down the river and at the same time
look after the horse. I thought that Crows Breast, who had a bad foot, might
find it hard to travel if we did not find more horses farther on, so I gave him the
horse and told him to go back.

Our next stop was the big Mandan village ruins north of Bismarck. Then I
sent the scouts over to the other bank as we floated down to Bird Bill Butte.
The scouts came back and reported seeing three men riding north. They went
out again and found a man butchering an elk. He had a bald-faced horse and a
mule. They decided to wait until he had butchered before killing him, but,
in the meantime, two more came along on horseback so my scouts decided a
camp was nearby. They decided not to make the attack even though they
had found the bald-faced horse and mule that Small Ankles had seen in his dream.

Coming back to camp they found a horse which later fell into a ditch and was
killed. When they reported, I knew the enemy would learn we were out. Since
it was not possible to get the horse and mule, we cut up our bullboats and sank
them in the river, returning home afoot.

Another year passed and I was 24. I told my father that I was going to try
it again.

He replied, ‘“You have enough of it. If you try again, some of your men might
be killed; that way you would ‘kick the stone’ and undo all of your good luck.

266 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

It takes a man who does much fasting and buys many gods to go to war often
without losing his luck.”

I replied, “‘I had a dream from the time Sitting Elk gave the Naxpikr and I
believe that I will have good luck. In my dream I and one other went out looking
for the enemy. I killed one enemy but as we were coming back the enemy
attacked us and shot my partner through the bowels so that blood was flowing.
At that time a doctor came along and said, ‘It will not take long to cure that
man’ so I think it is all right for me to follow my dream.”

My father replied, “I do not think that was a very good dream. You say
that one was shot while still another came to do the doctoring. There are so
many instructions and you have to rely on so many others, I am afraid that you
will not be successful.”

After that I did not lead any war parties, for my father was skillful in those
things. ‘I do not want you to stop your fasting; you might get adream. Then
when the enemies attack the village, you might win over one of them,” he said.

When I was 28 or 29 my clan brother, Corn Smut, was giving the Naxpikr
[Sun Dance] so I fasted to help him out. When the third day was over nearly all
the fasters were gone, for it was hard to do. Two Bulls was hanging from the
buffalo hide tied at the top of the post and I thought what a hard thing it was to
suffer that way. All this time the older men were telling the young men to stick
to it and not leave until the ceremony was over, that it was their own fault if
they gave up and so were always poor. The old men would say, “Those who
fast much and are patient while they suffer are the ones who will be successful
and respected by the people. When you move to the winter camp you can see
many poor people walking and carrying their things on their backs; their children
are barefooted. We do not like to see that. If you young fellows stick to your
torturing, you will be successful, have many good horses, and plenty of food,
You will not have to suffer like those who have nothing and do nothing for the
people. You can tell those who have most patience by their property, fine wives
and healthy children, and their nice clothing.”

On the fourth day, Spotted Bear was to be tortured but when his fathers cut
the skin, he was afraid and in pain so they took the thongs out and sent him
home. Only Corn Smut, who was giving the ceremony, and I were left fasting.
Two of my fathers were singers so I went to them—Red Basket and Walking Chief
of the Waterbuster clan—and asked them to cut my skin. Red Basket said,
“That is the way to have a god. Run as fast as you can and pull hard on the
rope.”

He sang his holy songs of the Spotted Eagle, praying all the time that I would
be successful. He said to his gods, “I want you to give my son, Wolf Chief, a
good dream tonight.’”’ Then they put the thongs through my flesh. My clan
relatives paid him for his prayers.

Older men standing around said, ‘‘Put your head back and do not be afraid.”
Then the different men began to sing their sacred songs.

Then the singers for the Naxpiks sang the first song while I put my head back.
I pulled as hard as I could while I looked up at the buffalo head in the fork of the
post. At first it was hard to do; I had nothing in my stomach; I was dizzy. They
told me to get up and walk around while they sang the second song so I got up
from my hands and knees and began running around the pole. It seemed that my
throat was going to close and I could not walk I was so weak. I could hear the
holy songs but I could not distinguish one person from another. I sat still for a
while until I was able to breathe normally when my fathers came to me to remove
the sticks but I said to them, “I am going to try once more to go around that post.”

The singers said, ‘‘ We will go down to the river for a drink and a bath and leave

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 267

him until he is done suffering and has rested.”’ After a while they came back to
take the sticks out. They sang one sacred song but I could not jump for my legs
were toonumb. Then they took the sticks out. Porcupine Pemmican, who repre-
sented Long Arm, sprinkled Corn Smut and me with water, using sage to cleanse
us.
When I reached my father’s lodge he said, “I am glad that Red Basket used
those particular songs for you when he cut your flesh, for the sacred songs he sang
have always been lucky in conquering the enemy. Now you will surely have good
luck.”” After a while I went to the river and bathed. When I got back, I ate a
little too much and had terrible pains from it.

My father had been offering smoke to all of his medicines while I fasted and he
said to me when I came back from the river, “Put these sacred things beside you
when you go to bed. I have asked my gods to send you good dreams.” But
my wounds had swollen and my insides hurt from the food I had eaten after fasting
so long so that I was not able to go to sleep right away.

Toward daylight I went to sleep. I heard someone singing a song and saw a
man coming from the west. He was singing a new song in the Crow Indian
language. He sang, “There is plenty; I am satisfied.”

I could not understand what it meant, for in the earlier days when going for
the enemies, I had the best of success. I thought that since there were now no
enemies, it meant that I would have plenty of property. It seems that I was
right, for since that time I have had much property, once shipping 50 cattle in
a single year.

A few years before fasting in the Naxpikz, I missed an opportunity to get a
dream. Kidney was giving the Wolf ceremony and since he was a clan brother
I was fasting to help him. I asked the same fathers I used in the Naxpike fasting,
to put thongs through my back so I could lead my horse. Because the horse was
so high-lifed, they were afraid that the horse would drag and kill me. I said, ‘It
does not make any difference whether it kills me or not. I am not afraid. I want
to try to get a dream from the horse.”’

They begged me not to do it, but when they saw how determined I was they
put a bridle on the horse and tied the reins to the sticks so that I could stop the
horse. I walked around between the earth lodges; once in a while the horse would
knock me down. When the young men came out from fasting, I went among them
leading the horse, while the old men sang the medicine songs. But I did not have
any dream.

I often think how important it was in the olden days to do the same as the others
did and there was no way to get out of it.38 We fasted and we went to war because
our fathers did. The fathers took their ‘‘son’s’’ wives in the ceremonies. It was
like a deep trail; one had to follow the same path the others before had made and
deepened.

When I was 30 I dreamt of my father’s gods and I knew that the time had come to
put on the ceremonies to possess them. So I bought the Wolf and my brother,
Red Basket, bought the Old-Woman-Above. It was hard to do for the game was
scarce but our relatives helped us. But there were no enemies then so I never
tried it out as war leader as Kidney had done a few years earlier.

In the Wolf Chief narrative we have accounts of experiences during
that period between 1865 and 1880 when warfare rose to its highest
crescendo and then stopped abruptly with the establishment of
military posts, the building of railroads, successful military campaigns

38 The berdache was one outlet.

268 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

against the powerful Sioux, and the establishment of reservations.
Here and there in the narrative he refers to the older pattern and new
interpretations that were creeping in. No longer was fasting endured
or bundles purchased to lend supernatural assistance in overcoming
the enemy or capturing horses. The buffaloes were gone and concern
for the future was emphasized. So, we find his dreams later inter-
preted as assurances from the supernatural that he would have plenty
of food and a good home.

In the narrative he begins with an enumeration of his vision and
military experiences by referring affectionately to his step-grandfather,
Big Cloud, who had been kind to him and had awed him with numerous
marks of bravery on chest and arms. Big Cloud, being too old to
hunt, sets the stage for Wolf Chief’s fasting by providing the appro-
priate atmosphere: he tells of his people’s misfortunes from smallpox;
how the people feared the supernatural and closed their tipis; and how
the big bird came during a shower. Wolf Chief reviews his experi-
ences with the supernatural when Big Cloud made up a bundle
representing this bird, tied a clamshell to it, and gave it to him to
wear as assurance of a long life.

The indifference to death shown by Big Cloud was characteristic
of a brave man, but his death, as related by Wolf Chief, was not taken
lightly by his relatives. We see that at the age of 15, Wolf Chief
had not, yet, taken fasting seriously. Small Ankles reminds Wolf
Chief of the promises Big Cloud had made to him. This is a rather
extreme measure for a father to take, but he had been teased by his
joking relatives, other informants told me, because Wolf Chief’s
training had been neglected.*® There was a saying that a chief’s sons
were often spoiled. It was the clan’s duty, and particularly that of
the older brothers, to attend to such matters and to see that the
fasting was conducted faithfully. So we find Wolf Chief, at the
request of his father, undertaking to fast near the grandfather’s grave.
What he does not tell us is that during this time he met various girls
whom he took into the brush when his father presumed that he was
crying to the gods; that Wolf Chiet’s clansmen discovered him and
whipped him for deceiving his father; and that Small Ankles’ joking
relatives teased him for staying in his lodge singing his sacred songs
to bring a good dream to his son presumed to be fasting. These are
the things that Wolf Chief’s joking relatives told me at the time this
study was made. So we find that when Wolf Chief went out during
the succeeding spring to fast near his grandfather’s grave, Small
Ankles was prompted to say to his son, “If you go out again, you

39 Wolf Chief’s earlier indifference must have been the subject of widespread comment, for old people

mentioned the matter often when I made this study and would inquire whether Wolf Chief had mentioned
it to me.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 269

should stick to it. There are some bodies on scaffolds out there.
You might go to those scaffolds and hold onto the posts while fasting.
Perhaps that will help you.”

As far as Wolf Chief could recall, the dream of Big Cloud standing
on a hill downstream from the village was the first that he associated
with the supernatural. It is interesting to observe that in the
dream Wolf Chief saw his grandfather to the southeast, the direction
of the spirit villages.

The incident at Shot in Nose Creek during the following summer
brings out the role of the joking relatives in group behavior. Here
we have a boy of 16 who has made little progress in fasting at a
time when his age-group was seen making serious efforts to secure
desirable visions, with the result that the father was being severely
criticized by certain relatives. While other boys were fasting or
serving as camp-tenders during military adventures, Wolf Chief slept
late, dressed well, and kept his eyes on the girls. Even his brothers
who normally should have disciplined him could do nothing with him.
If they tried to shame him, he merely smiled; if they ducked him in
the river, he laughed about it. But the father’s moral weight, though
slow in being asserted, finally broke down his son’s indifference.
Both father and son felt the sting of their joking relatives. When
other young men were fasting while their fathers were singing their
sacred songs, Small Ankles could take no more criticism. Then he
scolded his son, saying, ‘‘You should not sit around here and do
nothing but eat all the time. You should follow the example of the
other young men and fast for a god so that you will be successful.”

Wolf Chief does not tell us what prompted Takes-the-Gun and
Moccasin Carrier, the father’s clansmen, to come for him. His
joking relatives know, and it was from them that the writer secured
the information, that Wolf Chief’s older brothers took robes to the
two ‘fathers’ and informed them that they should take their younger
brother out. We see that they supervised his suffering, inserted
the thongs, and repeated their vision experiences while Small Ankles
remained in camp, opened his bundle, and sang his sacred songs.
We note that once the thongs were inserted, Wolf Chief was im-
mediately overcome with pain and that they removed the thongs
at once. Nevertheless, a beginning was made; frequently this was as
far as the “fathers” could go when the first suffering was undertaken.

Even Wolf Chief was conscious of the fact that his record was in-
ferior to that of his brother, Red Basket, 6 years younger. While
recording the Wolf rites, he said of Red Basket, ‘‘He had been around
our father a great deal and knew many songs and stories about the
eagles. He was more interested in those things and braver than I

270 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

was, for he had struck the enemy, had fasted much, and had cut his
own fingers off.”

We find the weight of tradition and public opinion bearing so
heavily on Wolf Chief that on the following year at the age of 17,
while the village was on the summer hunt and camping near Bear
Den Creek, he took the initiative and asked two of his father’s clans-
men to officiate so that he could suffer near two hawks. His display
of bravery was commendable and the vision is understandable in
terms of native concepts of the rain-making role of the large birds
of prey. It is significant that under no situation did Wolf Chief
request assistance from his own father in inflicting self-torture.
Assumedly, one never tortured one’s own son.

The selection of Small Ankles as leader of the winter camp was an
important event for the Wolf Chief household. It was his father’s
reward for living a good life, fasting, bundle purchases, and generosity.
At the time of his selection, the households paid him to lead them.
In this position, his pay for past services came back to him. Again
Wolf Chief fasted, not from direct compulsion, but from ‘‘proof”’ that
it paid good dividends; his father was even living a better life now
that he was leader of the winter camp.

We find Wolf Chief addressing appeals to the moon because the
moon is one of the above-world spirits associated with the big birds
and the thunderbird appealed to on a former occasion when fasting
at Bear Den Creek. All of these spirits were associated with war-
fare through the sacred arrows and rainmaking rites associated
with thunder and lightning. Due to the severity of winter fasting,
a 4-month period of vision seeking at that time represented great
self-denial. Coming at a time when the father was winter camp
leader, he contributed immensely to his father’s status; still he could
not remember that his father had assisted him in interpreting his
dreams. We find his dreams reflecting his personal ambitions to own
many horses and to be a war leader. Without the aid of others, he
interpreted the vision of a man with feathers and scalps to signify
that he would strike his enemies (from the presence of the feathers),
and that he would be a war leader (because he had seen scalps).

The next year Wolf Chief dreamed, without fasting, of four concentric
frames surrounding his father’s sacred bundles. At a loss to under-
stand the dream’s meaning, although he believed there was some
sacred significance attached to it, he called on his father for an inter-
pretation. Although Wolf Chief described the wooden fence as
similar to the enclosure for the fishtrap, his father interpreted the
fence to be that of the temporary enclosure erected for the ‘‘walking”’
ceremony. This dream greatly influenced Wolf Chief’s later behavior,
for Small Ankles further interpreted the dream as meaning that Wolf

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 271

Chief would give the ‘‘walking”’ ceremony four times with the promise
of a long life. No doubt the promise of a long life in return for a
pledge to give the ‘walking’ ceremony greatly encouraged Wolf
Chief when the village was attacked—he fought at the front of the
line where his horse was shot from under him, and his life was saved
only because others rode between him and the enemy. To be wounded
or to have a horse killed or wounded was recognized by certain symbols
of dress and painting, and by public acclaim during the victory dances.

After this public acclaim, a young woman, formerly married, moves
into the lodge with him without a formal ceremony. From other
studies we find that an individual did not long remain single once
he had won war honors, but to marry earlier was the grounds for
considerable teasing by the couple’s joking relatives. A young man
without war honors would be teased as though he were a small boy
who had married his grandmother; the woman would be teased by
her joking relatives for marrying a baby so she would bave a husband
when he grew up ‘“‘because she was so homely none of the men would
have her.’”’ Thus, a young man arrived at the marrying age when
he had won first war honors. Nevertheless, the Hidatsa were realists
in the matter of selecting mates for their children, and the concept
of first marrying age was modified by other factors such as industry.
A young man who was a good hunter and provided well for his parents
was in great demand as a son-in-law. One who was a good hunter
and provider, while at the same time winning military honors—if no
more than striking fourth or assisting around camp—was likely to
have offers of marriage from the best families of the village. Wolf
Chief, who was shiftless and lazy, was able to capitalize on a first
military honor and the respect that the village had for his parents.
Whereas prior to winning first war honors Wolf Chief had had many
clandestine love affairs by his own admission—some even during his
presumed fasting periods—and had caused his father’s joking relatives
to criticize him, he could now marry without fear of his own joking
relatives. Thus he accepted Different Snake for a few days immedi-
ately after winning first military honors for it made him feel grown
up, but she was not the woman of his choice and he cast her off shortly
afterward for another.

We see that at the age of 21 and married, Wolf Chief killed a fat
deer in order to invite in two members of his father’s clan for a feast.
On such occasions the “‘fathers’”’ were expected to contribute important
advice or to pray to their gods for their son’s well-being. In this
instance a ‘father’ told Wolf Chief that he wanted to share the
promise of a long life with him. As far as we know, Wolf Chief never
invited in a ‘‘father’’ for ceremonial sexual intercourse with his wife.
Wolf Chief preferred to offer his wives publicly during the formal

272 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

ceremonies according to the pattern indicated by his father when
interpreting the dream of the wood frames. Others under similar
circumstances regularly sent their wives to a ‘father’ during the feast
and asked that he have intercourse with one of them. Under these
circumstances, the “father”? was not permitted to buy himself out by
praying to his bundles.

Wolf Chief, at the age of 22, organized a war party to go out and
take possession of the horses claimed by virtue of an earlier dream.
He did not mention former expeditions which he accompanied as a
camp tender. From other informants it was learned that he had been
criticized for laziness, staying around camp, eating, and loafing all the
time. Late arrivals joining the war party on another occasion teased
him by saying that his girl was seen with another man, causing him
to sneak away and return home. His father knew all these things
and attempted to discourage his son, but we find no evidence of
repression by the police society; instead, the various households im-
posed their own controls when the fathers stepped in and checked their
sons. He was able, however, to get together a small war party from
which he selected scouts who had a considerable knowledge of warfare.
It is interesting to note that, in spite of the higher military status of
his scouts, when a dispute developed over the division of the horses,
they accepted Wolf Chief’s advice. The expedition was considered
successful when the objectives of the trip were attained without the
loss of any men. Wolf Chief had established the reality of his dream.

When Wolf Chief announced his intentions of going out a second
time for horses, we find complete acceptance of the plan by his own
household; his father lent ritual assistance and advice. Anticipating
that his approval would be reflected in the number of young men
seeking permission to attend, he advised his son not to take too many
along. For the first time, Wolf Chief was permitted to use his father’s
bundles as a recognized war leader and to perform rites for the success
of the undertaking. We find that the “signs” predicted by the
father—the appearance of a rabbit—were followed and the roan horse
“siven” to Wolf Chief by Poor Wolf was captured. Although the
scouts found the horse, it was delivered to Wolf Chief who had a
prior claim by virtue of Poor Wolf’s assignment of his original rights
to Wolf Chief. The immediate disposal of the horse by gift to Crows
Breast, an older man of the opposite moiety, emphasizes quite defi-
nitely the fact that the rewards of warfare were not measured in
material property values; a man’s status was measured by his gen-
erosity. In this instance Wolf Chief established the potency of his
dream and his ability to conduct successful military expeditions which,
in itself, enhanced his standing with the people. He could have kept
the horse and nothing would have been thought of it; by relinquishing

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 273

his horse, he indicated that his acts were for the welfare of the group
and not for personal gain.

When the party found the mule and bay horse ‘seen’? by Small
Ankles when he hung the Wolf bundle outside his lodge in the evening,
it was decided not to attack the enemy. This indicated the nature of
Plains warfare; do not expose yourself or your party to unnecessary
risks. Since Wolf Chief could not take possession of the property
“siven”’ to him by the father, his claim still stood. Wolf Chief often
spoke of the mule and roan horse as his legitimate property which
he was never able to possess because warfare terminated shortly
thereafter.

We see from the narrative that, when Wolf Chief had reached 24
years of age, he indicated his intention of going out again. On the
former expedition he had the ritual assistance of his father’s Wolf
bundle. Although Wolf Chief does not say so, from other and
similar case studies we learn that having returned from a successful
military expedition in which the father’s bundle was used, the son
invariably had a vision to buy rights in the bundle. He was then
expected to go out on subsequent occasions as the full owner of a
bundle, but during the intervening year Wolf Chief took no steps
to perform the rites and secure a bundle. Now the father said,
“You have enough of it. If you try again, some of your men might
be killed; that way you would ‘kick the stone’ and undo all of your
good luck. It takes a man who does much fasting and buys many
gods to go to war often without losing his luck.”

Small Ankles discounted the value of a dream because too many
persons were depended upon; if one participant failed in his role,
the entire venture failed. Moreover, paying these assistants was
costly. It is important for an understanding of village organization
and policing to note that restraints were imposed by selected individuals
of the household rather than the police. In a former situation we
found that numerous households denied their young men permission
to accompany Wolf Chief. We must assume that on neither occasion
was the village in danger of attack, otherwise the older men would
have forbidden war parties the right to go out. Restraints would
have come first from the household itself, as in the case of Small
Ankles’ denial of permission, and then from the police, in situations
where the households failed in their role.

In 1876 the Government undertook to enlist scouts from the
village for the Custer campaign. The councils of the Arikara,
Hidatsa, and Mandan met separately to discuss the matter since
many families disapproved of the idea, feeling that the young people
were needed to protect the village and the horses. The Arikara
decided not to impose restrictions, but the Hidatsa and Mandan,

274 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Bull. 194

weakened by the removal of the Bobtail Bull band to Fort Buford,
voted to impose restrictions on leaving the village. During the late
winter and early spring of 1876 the Hidatsa and Mandan Black
Mouth societies were in continuous session to see that none went with
Custer. The real and effective sanctions were imposed, however, by
the households. The older men of the households advised their
young men that they should not go with Custer because of their
small numbers and the risk that those Sioux not participating in the
campaign might attack the village and murder the women and
children, leaving no one to perform the Victory dances if the young
men did return successful. I was unable to find a single instance of
physical restraint by the Black Mouths—the households had performed
their roles effectively.

In spite of his early indifference to fasting, we find Wolf Chief as
clan assistant to Corn Smuts performing an honorable role by staying
near his clan brother to the end of the Naxpikr ceremony and sub-
mitting to final torture after all others had terminated their fasting.
He cites the indoctrination of the young with promises of a good
life and wealth in contrast to those about them who were poor.
The reference to Spotted Bear’s inability to endure the ordeal brings
out the point that, in status seeking, the torture feature was an
effective screen to eliminate some aspirants to high positions; by
displaying fear and pain, Spotted Bear unquestionably eliminated
himself as a war leader, irrespective of the dream he might have
obtained during the ceremony. We see Wolf Chief’s “fathers” at
this point praying to their own sacred bundles, not to the Naxpiks
bundle. Wolf Chief’s description of the ordeal, the weakness of the
faster after 4 days without food and water during the hottest part of
the summer, and the role of his ceremonial fathers might well apply
to any other Hidatsa ceremony during which fasting was customary.
Obviously, Small Ankles did not at this time realize the extent of
changed conditions when he said, ‘“‘I am glad that Red Basket used
those ... songs for you when he cut your flesh, for the sacred songs he
sang have always been lucky in conquering the enemy. Now you
will surely have good luck.”” By this time (1879) there was little
warfare. It appears that Wolf Chief was aware of the changing times
for he interpreted the dream to mean that he would have much
property. We find that later events were interpreted as being
predicted by previous dreams; as he accumulated more property,
particularly cattle, he believed that his future had been previously
revealed to him.

Had aboriginal warfare continued, Wolf Chief’s bravery in requesting
that his fathers tie him to a horse would have provided him great
prestige in military and social activities. Unfortunately for him,

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 975

it was not long after this that warfare was suppressed by the Govern-
ment and the buffaloes were exterminated. The old values were no
longer recognized. He was 30 years of age before buying his father’s
Wolf bundle.*° There was no attempt to lead a war party as Kidney
had done a few years earlier when he purchased his father’s bundle.

DEFENSIVE WARFARE

Defensive warfare introduced a different set of responsibilities.
The basic concepts of village protection were symbolized by the four
“protectors of the people” representing the four sacred directions.
These spiritual defenders of the people represented symbolic defenses
established during the mythological period to protect the people
from the attacks of various evil spirits who conspired to destroy the
villages. Their role in the physical defense of a village, however,
was of importance only to inspire confidence in the defenders. When
a new village was built, the ‘“‘Protectors’”’ selected the sites for their
four lodges first and conducted the appropriate ceremonies at each
spot, after which the other households selected lodge sites within a
prescribed area according to household, kinship, and other ties.

When Fishhook Village was built, new “‘protectors of the people’’
were selected by the council from the survivors of the three inde-
pendent Knife River village groups who were joining together for
common defense. The Awatixa and Awaxawi assumed the principal
ceremonial role as builders of the site since the Hidatsa-proper were
at that time contemplating reunion with the River Crow. In fact, a
number of the Hidatsa households had already moved to Crow terri-
tory when the site was laid out. These ‘protectors of the people’’
were males past middle age who already occupied eminent positions
in the hierarchy of traditional bundle owners. In a society organized
for both offensive and defensive warfare, living in an area where
pacifism meant quick extermination, consideration was also given to
one’s position with respect to established ceremonies, generosity and
personal qualities, and knowledge of tribal sacred and secular lore.

The physical defense of the village was entrusted to the police
society which received its instructions from the council composed of
an indefinite number of members representing the various households.
The war chief was the principal military executive while some highly
respected older man was his announcer. Whenever reports of im-
pending enemy attacks reached the village, the older men distin-
guished either as warriors or ritual leaders, assembled to discuss the
situation and to define group action. The first concern was to protect
the women and children inside the stockade. The horses were brought

40 This purchase is detailed under ‘‘ Wolf Ceremonies,”

276 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

in from pasture immediately upon word that strangers were approach-
ing. Herders and hunters kept an eye out for strange movements on
the prairie or reported signs of enemies lurking in the neighborhood.
Fishhook Village was protected by a wall with a gate until the later
years of its occupation. A bell signaled the opening of the gate in
the morning, after which the horses were taken to pasture and the
people went about their duties in the gardens and on the prairie.
One of the important duties of the announcer was to ring the bell to
indicate the time for opening and closing the gate and to warn the
people whenever scouts or herders signaled the presence of potential
enemies.

Direct attacks on the village were few indeed, chiefly because of
the character of Plains warfare; one gained little by killing and strik-
ing the enemy if he, in turn, lost several of his own party. But there
were several instances of attacks in which efforts were made to burn
the village. Lewis and Clark report the near extinction of the Awaxawi
prior to 1804 when a surprise attack was made by the Assiniboin.
Henry speaks of an attack made on one of the Knife River villages
about 1790 in which 600 tents of Sioux cut off the village from water
and besieged it for 15 days. In this attack, the Mandan and Awaxawi
remained neutral. The village was able to supply itself with water
during the night, so the Sioux, after losing 300 men in the various
engagements and seeing that the population could not be driven from
the village, called off the seige (Henry, 1897, pp. 358-359).

When Fishhook Village was built, large mounted war parties
frequently attacked the village from the north or land side which was
protected by a wall. When these failed, as all attacks did due to the
strength of the wall, the Sioux tried various devices to entice the
Hidatsa from the village to fight in the open. Whether or not the
enemy was engaged outside of the village was a matter to be decided
by the council and war chief. During the deliberations and, in fact,
whenever war parties were near the village or the village was under
attack, it was the duty of the “protectors of the village”’ to open their
respective sacred bundles and perform magical acts designed to give
the Hidatsa mastery over the enemy. When the council of older men
decided that the group would remain within the village lest the enemy
have a trap set for them outside, it was the Black Mouths’ duty to
see that all obeyed. Disobedience could have led to extreme measures,
even the clubbing or killing of an offender. Nor were war honors
accumulated when disobeying council orders publicly recognized.

In later years, with improved guns, the Sioux would often appear
on the opposite bank of the Missouri and fire into the village in an
effort to entice the Hidatsa to cross in their bullboats. These invita-
tions were usually rejected or the Hidatsa went out and, in a round-

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION Tar

about way, crossed the river unobserved by the enemy. The head
chief and council seemingly were in no way held responsible for losses
suffered in defensive warfare to the extent of extreme personal torture
such as the leader of an offensive war party inflicted on himself.
Such loss of prestige as did occur was individual in character; a father
would urge his son to go out with those pursuing the enemy and pray
for his son’s success. If his son was killed or severely injured, the
prestige the father enjoyed, by virtue of the possession of presumed
important bundles, was lowered.

Alien groups frequently were visiting at the Hidatsa villages when
an attack was made on the village by one of their own bands. On
such occasions, visiting groups invariably assisted in the defense of
the village, even against their own poeple. In recent years, the
Sioux conducted warfare against all of the other tribal groups who
normally came to the Hidatsa to trade and visit or to assist in ritual
practices. Keen rivalry often developed between the Hidasta and
their visitors for principal war honors in battles fought near Fishhook
Village. They fought together and afterward danced together when
war honors were won; they even mourned for each other’s dead, made
offerings to the mourners, and exchanged names.

CANNIBALISM

Although the Hidatsa claim never to have eaten the flesh of their
enemies, they did mutilate them, and they carried scalps, hands,
feet, and skulls during the Sun Dance. By contrast, informants
frequently mentioned the practice of cannibalism by the Chippewa
and Cree after assisting them in warfare near the village. Palliser
(1853, p. 286) wrote of cannibalism at Fishhook Village:

The skirmish now terminated; the Sioux retired, and the Minitarees returned
to their village in triumph, dragging the body of their unfortunate victim along
with them. Then commenced a truly disgusting sight; the boys shot arrows into
the carcass of their fallen enemy while their women with knives cut out pieces of
the flesh, which they broiled and ate.

The Hidatsa claim that this battle occurred during a visit of the
Chippewa.

Several informants referred to cannibalistic practices by the Chip-
pewa and Cree although they had no knowledge of its practice by
other Plains groups. Concerning an incident that occurred at Fish-
hook Village a few years before Crows Heart’s birth, and was related
to him by his relatives, he said:

The Sioux attacked the village and the men went out to chase the Sioux away.
Some Chippewas were at the village visiting and their men came out to help.
Some of the Sioux were killed near the present Nishu School and the others jumped
into the river. Our men took their clothes off, held their knives in their mouths;

710—195—65—_19

278 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

and went into the water after them. They would stab them in the back or cut
the cord on the heel. One Sioux, a good swimmer, got across and Young Eagle
overtook him in a mudhole. When they came back, they found the Chippewas
had lit a fire and were roasting the meat of their enemies. They had taken the
flesh from the legs and the heel cords, for that gave one the power to run fast,
they said. They had cut the ears off, which they roasted and ate. Our
people were afraid and stood back at a distance.

In another instance, Crows Heart mentioned a personal experience
near Devils Lake at the scaffold of a Sioux who had just died. During
one of his horse-stealing raids, Crows Heart looked for food around
the body during the night, thinking that the Sioux relatives might
have put out something edible when the body was disposed of. Even
the thought of eating a piece of the Sioux was revolting to him,
although in his famished situation and far from home, he was willing to
partake of the dead Sioux’s funeral feast had he been able to find any.
I doubt that the Hidatsa practiced cannibalism, at least during the
19th century, although Wolf Chief thought that a number of young
men visiting the Chippewa would probably have eaten enemy flesh
had they been asked to, and if none of the older people were around.

MILITARY HONORS

When an attack was made on the village, any military honors
were individual in character. Unlike the organized military expedi-
tions in which the leader afterward wore scalps on his clothing to
indicate that men under him had distinguished themselves, there was
no leadership recognition other than social approval of the top village
authority. Individual awards were the same as for offensive warfare.
However, a defensive organization often quickly changed into an
offensive one. Someone would announce, as soon as the enemy moved
off, that he was organizing a party to meet them farther away from the
village at a time and place when they could be taken by surprise. In
this event, the leader took the same risks as on other offensive expedi-
tions and enjoyed the same honors if they returned successfully. To
succeed in offensive warfare, one needed a great deal of skill, familiarity
with the country, and leisure from other activities. Some young men,
particularly those training for a career in the tribal ceremonies, rarely
went out with war parties, for their time and interests were directed
toward village matters. It is suggested that this selective factor
contributed, in part, to the cleavage of the male population into two
overlapping groups; the warriors and the village leaders. This does
not mean that each group did not participate in the activities of the
other. In general, however, most of the military honors of the village
leaders were acquired as a result of skirmishes at or near the village.

The Hidatsa and Mandan recognized the same military honors.
The highest honors were shown to one who went out alone far from

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 279

home to kill and scalp an enemy unassisted. This honor was chiefly
reserved for those who went out to avenge a sibling or clan member,
particularly a blood brother. One was not made ineligible for the
honor when a group of friends went along, provided the individual
who had vowed to revenge the brother’s death did the actual killing
and scalping unassisted. In such cases, others of the party also were
not near enough to strike coup. According to native accounts, the
honors were sometimes won by going undetected into the enemy camp
at night to kill a particular person known to be the brother’s slayer.
A variant to this form of brother-revenge occurred when one who had
recently had his wife stolen from him by a tribesman went out un-
observed by his tribesmen to vent his anger on the enemy. Usually
one announced his plans to a brother or sister but, not uncommonly,
he just disappeared and the group speculated on his whereabouts.
When one wished to embarrass his rival or his wife’s people suspected
of encouraging the elopement, he often went alone far from the village,
even in the dead of winter, to kill and scalp an enemy. Sometimes a
man would announce his decision to his closest male friend or siblings,
saying that if he stayed around the village, he might do something
foolish—that it would be better to take out his anger on their enemies.
One showed these honors by painting one legging and the correspond-
ing side of the shirt and sleeve black, and the other side yellow or white.
He wore a coyote tail at each ankle to show that he saw the enemy first
and struck him and wore one eagle tail feather. He was expected to
dress in this manner whenever leading the fasters during ceremonies.

When several went out and participated in the killing and striking
of the coups, the first to strike painted one side of his shirt and leggings
black, wore one coyote tail, and one eagle tail feather. The second,
dressed and painted in the same manner except that he painted one
red band on the eagle tail. The third and fourth to strike painted
only the leggings black; the third wore a feather with two stripes and
the fourth wore a feather with three stripes. For the first time on
an expedition, when only one enemy was seen and has coups struck
on him, each warrior counting coup put two X’s on one of his leggings.
For the second such honor, one put another pair of X’s either on a
shirt sleeve or the other legging. If one struck four times when only
one enemy was seen, he put X’s on both sleeves and leggings.

The coyote tail was worn if one struck an enemy far from home.
Two tails were worn if one struck an enemy on two different trips or
on one enemy when one went out alone. The feather of a crow or
raven worn in the hair signified that one was first to see the enemy
while serving as scout. The leader of a war party was entitled to
carry a scalp stick with as many scalp segments as scalps taken by
the men under his leadership. ‘The war leader could also wear as

280 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

many scalp segments on his shirt or leggings as enemies scalped by
warriors under his leadership. ‘These scalp segments were bunched
and placed on different parts of the clothing. One scalp on each
legging and sleeve signified that the wearer had been out as leader
on four occasions when an enemy was scalped. ‘The war leader did
not wear feathers or paint his leggings and shirt unless he participated
in the killing and striking of the enemies on his own or others’ ex-
peditions. For being first to strike three enemies, one painted the
entire left legging red; one who struck three enemies, second in order
of coup counting, painted the left legging red above the knee; the
third to strike painted three stripes on the left legging and the fourth
to strike painted four stripes.

The first to strike the enemy in a battle during which several
enemies were killed, painted three black stripes on one legging; the
next three to strike the same enemy painted three red stripes. It
was considered an even higher honor to strike coup on the last enemy
killed. The first to strike coup wore black double stripes the full
length of the legging and four pairs of equally spaced horizontal
stripes. The second, third, and fourth to strike coup wore only the
four pairs of black stripes.

The four striking a slain woman or one whose life was spared, as in
the case of women found out on the prairie away from camp, wore a
short carved stick decorated with porcupine quills and feathers.
The legging or shirt decorations were not employed; the leader was
entitled to carry a scalp.

Striking a live enemy was considered a higher honor than striking
one who had been killed. One could paint two hands on one side of
the chest to show that a live enemy had been struck or one could
have two hands tattooed on his chest. If the horse had participated
in striking the live enemy by hitting him with the legs or body, one
could likewise paint two hands on the horse for each enemy so struck.
One who had been shot could wear a stick painted red with a knot
carved on it; if one’s horse was shot and wounded, the carved stick
could be tied to the horse’s mane or foretop. One who had been
stabbed by a knife or spear could wear as a hair ornament a stick
carved to resemble a knife. The one reporting the first tipi when on
a war expedition was entitled to wear a white swan feather in his
hair. One hit by a bullet was entitled to paint a red spot on the
shirt with lines running down from it to represent blood. One could
exhibit his successes on horse-stealing raids by painting horse tracks
on his robe, bunching the tracks to represent separate raids which he
had directed.

These honors, together with other visual representations of sacred
bundle rights, gifts, and ceremonial participations, expressed one’s

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 281

age-group status when displayed on important social and ceremonial
occasions. Since no two individuals participated equally in recog-
nized status-building activities, rarely was the social personality of
two males identical. In a tribe actively engaged in both offensive
and defensive warfare, and in a region where social values were
primarily determined by military accomplishments, it is somewhat
surprising to discover that other values played an important part in
the makeup of the social personality and status of many Hidatsas
whose military contributions were not significant. In spite of the
military ‘‘veneer,’”’ there existed a central core of societal values
based on other significant aspects of their culture. In this respect,
it appears that the Hidatsa and their neighbors, the Mandan and
Arikara, differed from the nomadic groups of the Plains who, in the
years preceding the Reservation Period, measured social status largely
on military records.

HIDATSA CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION

Tue INDIVIDUAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL

Hidatsa ceremonial organization was highly formalized and exceed-
ingly complex. In theory, all supernatural powers have their origin
at the beginning of time when the earth or “in between” land was
made over by the mythological beings for man’s occupation. At
that time First Creator, with the assistance of other mysterious
persons, created numerous gods from whom the Hidatsa could acquire
supernatural powers and thus survive by performing various rites.
In the beginning all of nature was created for the benefit of the people
but certain rules were laid down which the people must obey if they
were to survive. The society theoretically survived by virtue of
the supernatural powers acquired by various means: fasting; ritual
performances; feasts; ceremonial purchases from other tribes; and
rigid conformance to the tribal rules of individual and group conduct.
At the base of all Hidatsa religious activities and concepts is the
belief in individual and group-owned supernatural powers which are
controlled according to long-standing rules.

Supernatural power was thought of as a ‘‘force’”’ above and beyond
the physical capacities of man. When a man lost his supernatural
powers, death occurred; contests were won by those with the greatest
supernatural powers. All death, however, was not the result of such
loss. In the beginning of time, when the land was first created by
virtue of a contest between Lone Man and the First Creator and the
latter established his immortality for all time, it was decreed that
in the future people would live no more than one hundred years after
which they would leave for the Village of the Dead where they would
live the same life and with the same status and honors as when they
died. So we observe, as I have on a number of occasions, old people
still able to get around quite well praying to their sacred bundles
that the long life promised them be given to younger people, and
accepting approaching death calmly, their chief concern being that
their bodies be properly dressed and painted, and that adequate
goods and food be collected for the funeral feast.

The death of younger males actively engaged in military or eco-
nomic pursuits, or of younger females occupied with the rearing of little
children or providing for the wants of their old people, had a more
282

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 283

disruptive effect on the social order. Although people felt badly
and mourned their deaths, there was always the tendency to ascribe
death to supernatural causes and to look into their record and to
interpret events in terms of the supernatural. Convenient excuses
were to say that: he must have fasted wrong; his dream instructions
either must not have been genuine or were improperly interpreted
by the older people; he must have violated some tribal rule; he must
have spoken unkindly to or mistreated someone possessing unrevealed
supernatural powers; or his supernatural guardian must have sub-
sequently blessed the enemy and he had not reestablished his priority
with the same supernatural being by medicine feasts and renewal rites.
Even minor accidents were interpreted either in terms of loss or
lack of supernatural power.

Ridicule or question of the potency of ritual acts was liable to result
in minor injury—at least to the disbeliever. On one occasion, not
long before the old village life was abandoned, a Crow Indian observ-
ing a Thunder rite expressed doubt that thunder was a large bird.
A few hours later, while sitting on an earth lodge, he was hit and
severely burned by lightning although none of the other young men
sitting nearby were injured.

An individual should perform any rites for which he was otherwise
qualified by inheritance, or at least pledge the ceremony when he
received repeated vision instructions. On one occasion a Hidatsa
had received numerous visions instructing him to perform the Horse
ceremony, but he never got around to making the pledge to perform
the rites. One day while he sat talking with some of his friends, a
horse strayed by and kicked him, severely injuring him. Since his
father owned a Horse sacred bundle, the others inquired whether he
had ever had visions sent by the horse and, being answered in the
affirmative, it was concluded that the kicking was merely another
effort by the supernatual acting through the horse to induce him to
purchase a Horse sacred bundle. On still another occasion, about
1878, a party of Mandan and Hidatsa were traveling to the Crow to
sell them one of the Grass Dances. In the party were some young
Crow Indians. As they passed the scaffold on which a Sioux had
been placed, the young Crow men shook the bones from the scaffold,
rolled the skull down the bank into the Yellowstone River, and ap-
propriated the pipe for their own use. The older Mandan and Hi-
datsa called their young men back, saying that once bodies had been
put away that way, they should not be disturbed. While cooking
their evening meal that day, the women accidentally set fire to the
prairie and the fine ceremonial paraphernalia they were taking to the
Crow Indians were burned.

284 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Native concepts of supernatural power affected and shaped their
behavior. A child normally had no supernatural power except as a
member of a household whose members provided both physical and
supernatural protection. Women had less supernatural powers than
men because they needed less in their daily activities than did men
who were always facing danger in hunting or in military engagements.
Men were not normally born with supernatural powers. Until they
were old enough to seek visions and to obtain supernatural powers by
other means, the supernatural powers of their relatives’ sacred bundles
protected them. Children were given some sacred objects when 5 or
6 years of age and were taught how to perform simple rites for their
own protection. This instruction was usually given by some older
male of the household other than the father, who contributed ritualistic
training only when the child was old enough to seek actively a sacred
bundle or dream of his own.

Ordinarily, the older brothers took the younger ones to the fasting
centers when rites including fasting and personal torture were prac-
ticed—but the members of the father’s clan inflicted the actual cutting
for the torture ordeal. At least in later times it was not customary to
inflict tortures except at the request of the individual desiring that it
be done to him. On some occasions, when the child was very young
and not well acquainted with the males of the father’s clan, he might
ask one of his own clansmen or his own father to perform the act. I
found no evidence that one was ever forcibly tortured and the thought
of physical compulsion was contrary to native beliefs that vision quests
should be sought voluntarily. Informants were in agreement that
men formerly submitted to physical torture more frequently and
began at an earlier age, citing the greater number of weals observed
on their older relatives.

While living at Fishhook Village, small children not more than 5
or 6 years of age were taken to the fasting rites with older brothers
and looked after until hunger and thirst could no longer be endured.
Rivalry between age-groups was encouraged but one was free to
abandon fasting whenever he so desired. Usually first fasting was
for a day or two. When one was able to fast for 3 days, he was
considered qualified to endure further personal torture. It appears
from accounts that a century ago physical torture was inflicted at
an earlier age. Maximilian (1906, vol. 23, p. 378), in speaking of
the Hidatsa Naxpikr ceremony (Sun Dance), advises us that—

None but the candidates dance, and the only music is striking a dried buffalo’s
hide with willow rods. There have been instances of fathers subjecting their
children, only six or seven years of age to these tortures. We ourselves saw
one suspended by the muscles of the back, after having been compelled to fast

four days. No application whatever is subsequently made for the cure of the
wounds, which leave large swollen weals, and are much more conspicuous among

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 285

the Manitaries than the Mandans. Most of the Manitaries have three or four
of these weals, in parallel semicircular lines, almost an inch thick, which cover
the entire breast. Similar transverse and longitudinal lines, arising from the
same Cause, are seen upon the arms, nay, the whole length of the limb is often
disfigured by them.

Although supernatural power was usually manifested by visions,
it was believed that those who fasted often or performed other power-
seeking activities without the benefit of visions also were possessors
of this power even though they had no symbols to show for their
efforts. Thus a child who fasted often without having visions was
believed to possess more powers than one who had not fasted at all.
Supernatural power was viewed as variable and measurable but the
limits were defined in terms of ultimate success; results were what
counted. One who purposely sought supernatural power and later
performed dangerous acts without injury to himself or those under
him was believed to have found a genuine guardian. One would
rarely entrust his welfare to those who had shown little interest in
obtaining supernatural power.

Since the vision quest was a common way of obtaining super-
natural power, the novice had little capacity for interpreting dreams.
Instead, the Hidatsa pattern provided for organized fasting and
the quest of visions under the supervision of a ceremonial ‘‘father.”’
The young were encouraged to relate their dreams to their ‘‘fathers.”

The formal character of Hidatsa fasting resembled closely the
Mandan pattern and differed sharply from that of the Crow where
fasting was largely an individual matter. Hidatsa fasting efforts
were constantly being channeled into formalized and preexisting
ceremonial patterns, most of which they believed had existed since
the beginning of time. It was thought that a male child eventually
ought to receive vision instructions to take over his father’s cere-
monial bundles and rites. Living in the atmosphere of the father’s
sacred bundles, it was believed inevitable that what one saw and
heard in the lodge would eventually affect his dreams. Nevertheless
it was impossible to learn of a single instance where a youth’s first
vision was interpreted by his elders as an instruction to perform his
father’s rites. Those case histories which I recorded indicated that
the first dreams of the very young never became an important part
of an individual’s sacred lore. At the time they were considered
valued property but as one pursued further fasting under more severe
conditions with greater knowledge of ritual seeking, the early visions
were generally forgotten or disregarded as more specific instructions
were received.

The concept of quantitative supernatural power, capable of
being added to or subtracted from, was indicated by numerous

286 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

social practices; one should not undertake many military adventures
unless he fasted frequently or continued to add to his supernatural
powers by ritual purchases, informal feasts, bundle renewals, or
other power-seeking activities ; one who had been leader of the summer
buffalo hunt or the winter camp should not accept another similar
appointment too soon as such responsibilities drew heavily on one’s
supernatural powers. Here we see this concept of the variability
of supernatural power expressed in social behavior, that is, the rota-
tion of the personnel entrusted to group leadership. As another
example, because the same bundle is used for fish trapping and eagle
trapping and because a great deal of supernatural power is necessary
to catch fish, the manager of a fishtrap during the summer should
not supervise the fall eagle traps—he would bring poor luck to his
eagle trappers. Similarly, one should not too frequently accept
invitations for sex expression in the “walking”? ceremonies. The
custom of inviting other recognized possessors of great supernatural
powers to assist as coleaders on hazardous military expeditions
further expressed native concepts of the quantitative character of
supernatural powers.

Similar grading of the supernatural existed in the sacred myths:
Packs Antelope, although having great supernatural powers as a
hunter by virtue of the powers given him by the Eagles, is drawn
under the Missouri waters by Grandfather Snake who once was
one of the Sacred Arrows; Two Men are made to suffer hunger be-
cause, during the ceremonies at Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies’ lodge,
Grandson selects the arrows having the greatest supernatural powers
and thus secures for himself the supernatural powers formerly pos-
sessed only by Two Men. The same concepts are expressed in other
instances. The Woman Above blesses a Hidatsa and promises him
seven enemies; before he can take possession of them, however, the
enemy makes greater sacrifices to her and she gives him even stronger
supernatural powers so that he is able to overcome and kill seven
Hidatsa men instead.

According to Hidatsa concepts, all of the supernatural has existed
from the beginning of time and various aspects of the supernatural
have been revealed to them from time to time during the history of
the tribe. As new revelations were revealed in visions, “seeing with
their own eyes,’”’ purchases from other tribes who had similar revela-
tions, or the appearance of certain culture heroes who came to live
with them, the people were given instructions in the establishment
and performance of the various formal ceremonies. Thus, the exist-
ing ceremonial structure continued only as long as the younger
generation was given appropriate visions to continue the various
rites. This is somewhat at variance with the Mandan pattern

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 287

where one bought because he was the proper relative to inherit the
bundle and to perform the rites, and vision instructions were not
necessarily prerequisite to all bundle purchases. In fact, as often
as not, when a Mandan grew old and feeble, he would request that
the proper relative learn the rites and accomplish the transfer. Hi-
datsa vision experiences provided the sole motive for bundle transfer
or, if not eligible according to “father-son” inheritance, provided
appropriate substitutes such as feasts to existing bundles.

The Hidatsa ceremonial system was ‘‘open at the top,” my inform-
ants would say, to provide for the occasional introduction of new
bundle rites. The Hidatsa were reluctant to accept vision experi-
ences as ends in themselves but rather as the first steps toward tribal
bundle rites. They were equally reluctant to elevate to a high
position any individual who had not been active in the long established
rites or had not been closely associated with someone who held
important tribal ceremonial functions. Many of my informants were
aware of the greater informality of the vision experiences of their
close associates, the River Crows. The Awatixa and Awaxawi seem
to have been conservative, like the Mandan, and to have interpreted
vision experiences in terms of existing tribal rites. The Hidatsa-
proper were intermediate between the other two Hidatsa village
groups and the Crow. This intermediate cultural position was also
indicated by their frequent abandonment of agriculture for a few
seasons at a time to go out onto the Plains as true nomads. They
were away on one of these periodic migrations in 1837, thus partially
avoiding the devastating smallpox losses suffered by the other two
village groups and the Mandan.

The extent to which Hidatsa concepts of supernatural powers had
been institutionalized and channeled into fixed patterns is indicated
by the custom of explaining most institutions and behavior, as well
as the natural environment, by means of origin myths. Even such
recent events as the first introduction of the horse is now a part of
the magical practices and mythology relating to the Earthnaming
ceremony. Concepts of the role of visions have influenced cultural
borrowing. Recently a Horse ceremony was introduced into the
tribe by individuals who had adopted Assiniboin ‘fathers’? who
practiced the Horse rites. Afterward these Hidatsa buyers’ ‘“‘sons”’
dreamed of their ‘‘fathers,’’ Horse bundles and purchased the ceremonial
bundles and rites of them.

The Hidatsa reconize two general groups of sacred bundles: the
tribal bundles acquired by vision and subsequent purchase, and
personal bundles acquired by vision. Those in the latter group are
informally prepared without the benefit of group participation and
the incidents relative to their preparation are not widely known

288 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

except as the individual owners choose to speak of them during social
or ceremonial gatherings. The bundle was prepared in the manner
prescribed by the supernatural spirit and the songs and ritual were
privately owned. The guardian spirit could be any creature in
nature not specifically associated with a particular tribal bundle as
long as the proper name of a spirit of one of the established bundles
was not used nor the songs recognized to be identical or similar to
existing sacred songs.

When the similarities in the vision experiences were so great that
people associated them with existing rites, one making up a personal
bundle was in danger of public condemnation, not for stealing another’s
ceremony, but for failing to call on his “fathers” for an interpretation
which would have led to a medicine feast and public approval of his
association with existing ceremonies. But all personal vision rites
were not sufficiently similar to be associated with existing ceremonies.
The owner would include the various personal bundles in his total
repertoire of sacred objects, periodically “feed” the objects of the
various bundles, and even mention them as contributors to his
numerous successes whenever called upon to assume various roles
on social and ceremonial occasions. The bundles were personal in
character and acquired privately, so they had no important rites or
traditions associated with them. ‘They were symbols of the individ-
ual’s social personality during his life and usually were placed with
his body when he died.

Occasionally a grandfather would make up a separate bundle for a
grandchild, or an elder would buy the right to doctor minor ailments,
but the real authority for various tribal practices was derived from
the sacred tribal myths. No doubt most personal bundle rites were
conditioned by the culture of the group, but the Hidatsa do not admit
that; instead they say that one dreams as he does because partic-
ular gods have selected him. It was considered good luck to dream
of spirits or incidents from the sacred traditions. Nowhere do they
admit that one’s visions were conditioned by the culture. Never-
theless, we find “father-to-son” inheritance of tribal bundles and
rites occurring generation after generation.

A common belief of the social effect of possessing great supernatural
powers was expressed by native utterances such as “because he was
now a holy man he conducted himself with dignity, and people,
watching him as he went about the village discussing matters and
advising younger ‘brothers,’ could see that a great change had come
over him. He dressed well and gave more attentiom to his appear-
ance. He had an air of confidence that people liked to see, for all this
had come from his suffering.” By contrast, one who believed that
he had lost his supernatural powers went about dejectedly and was

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 289

the object of pity by all he met. Some who had never partaken of
rites to obtain good dreams or had no important dreams to show for
their efforts often, as in the case of Old-White-Man, accepted the
situation with indifference or a happy-go-lucky attitude. They
rarely offered advice or imposed their opinions on other people,
particularly outside their own households. Even as a man was
expected to behave in such a manner as to reflect his group’s esti-
mation of him, the ‘joking relatives” were first to criticize one whom
they believed was carrying things too far.

One was never measured by his wealth in personal property; those
highest in the regard of the group were likely to be relatively poor
because of their numerous social obligations. A man’s position in
the tribe could also be measured by the amount of goods that he had
given away publicly and privately as well as the amount that he had
received as gifts from others in similar situations. All through life
there were important formal events when one was expected to give
property to one’s older tribesmen, those who possessed superior super-
natural powers, and those who were objects of pity—particularly of
the father’s and of one’s own clan. Otherwise most gifts were to
persons, both male and female, of the father’s clan from whom most
supernatural powers and authority were derived. On the occasions
of birth, vision experiences, first military successes, and ceremonial
purchases, one presented valued things to the members of the tribe,
especially the members of the father’s clan—and occasionally to the
entire membership of the father’s moiety when the father and son
were of opposite moieties. ven as one worked hard with the assist-
ance of the household and clan to accumulate goods and horses to
use during the various crisis periods of youth to middle age, so did
one who had advanced in status in this way get it all back several
times over in the years after middle age.

So we find older men advising their “sons” to fast often and to
buy many ceremonial rites in order to live a good life in their later
years. But one’s position as the receiver of honors from the younger
men also imposed restrictions; one would have quickly lost prestige
had he, in the position of ceremonial father, kept for himself all the
goods presented to him on such occasions. While a man endeavored
to show his status among his cooperating relatives by providing great
quantities of valuable things for disposal on the occasion of the pur-
chase of the father’s bundle rites, hoarding of the goods so received
would have brought forth criticism from the whole tribe but more
particularly the joking relatives. As ceremonial father he might keep
only what he needed for his own use and distribute the surplus to
his friends and old people in need. He benefited both by receiving
and giving. He could enumerate publicly the goods and horses he

290 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

had received from others as symbols of their estimation of his emi-
nence; he could, by means of certain designs worn on his clothing,
show people the extent of his ceremonial giving. Social values did
not sanction the accumulation of wealth for wealth’s sake. Except
that the household was well organized and neat because people came
there a great deal to eat and discuss group matters, a chief’s lodge
differed not at all from that of his neighbors.

A woman’s position was somewhat different. There was no
organized fasting at puberty and rarely did a woman seek to build up
personal vision bundles. They were never tortured during ceremonies
by having thongs inserted in their flesh although they might fast
and cry to seek certain ends such as good health, successful return
of a close relative from war, or the avenging of an enemy. Women
aided their brothers in the purchase of sacred bundles, held rights in
certain bundles, and participated in the “walking rites” of the hus-
band’s Buffalo Calling ceremonies and age-grade purchases.

Hidatsa concepts of the supernatural are highly formalized and
institutionalized, and are drawn chiefly from two sacred narratives
which deal with (1) the creation of the earth by First Creator and
Lone Man for man’s occupation and (2) the exploits of the Sacred
Arrows.

The Creation myth is concerned chiefly with the accounts of the
making of the land from bogs and swamps by First Creator and Lone
Man. This myth relates the details of the shaping of the land and
three river systems, the Missouri, Red, and the Mississippi; the
creation of both animate and inanimate things and various sacred
beings whom the people learned to worship to obtain supernatural
powers; the bringing of the people to the surface of the earth, where
they were to live, and their final separation from those living below;
the dispersal of the population all over the lands; the separation into
diverse tribes and related bands based on language; the independent
movements of different Hidatsa-Crow bands; the conflict between
brothers for which the people are punished by a great celestial fire;
the early separation of the Hidatsa-proper and River Crow from the
Awaxawi somewhere to the east of the Missouri; the preservation of
corn by the Awaxawi who escape to the Missouri and its loss by the
Hidatsa—River Crow when they go north to the land of the moose
and polar climate to escape the flood; the return of the Hidatsa—River
Crow to the south where they build at Devils Lake and discover that
the Mandan are living on the Heart River; the appearance of Two
Men with elements of the Sacred Arrow rites at the villages on the
southern shore of Devils Lake; the migration of the Hidatsa—River
Crow to the Missouri where they quarrel and separate, with the
River Crow taking the Tobacco rites away with them; and finally,

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 291

the recovery of the corn from the Mandan and the ensuing close
relations of the Hidatsa-proper and the other Hidatsa groups and
Mandan villages. It is from this sacred tradition that the Hidatsa
have drawn in the reconstruction of the early history of two groups:
the Hidatsa-proper and the Awaxawi. The myth also provides the
basis for the meaning of numerous customs, ceremonials, and features
of the natural environment.

In contrast to the traditional experiences of the Hidatsa—River
Crow and Awaxawi, part of which can be substantiated with archeo-
logical evidence on the Missouri River and elsewhere, the myths of
the Sacred Arrows provide quite contradictory accounts of the
creation of the earth and its occupation by certain Hidatsa groups.
In this myth, which provides traditional accounts of the origin of
most formal tribal bundle rites, the earth was prepared for occupation
by First Creator and other supernatural beings for the future home
of the Hidatsa but the details of its creation are generally passed over
lightly. Instead, the people later making up the 13 clans resided in
the sky in earth lodge villages extending from the zenith to each
horizon and lived much as those who came down to the earth did in
later years except that the society above was better regulated with
no death or evil spirits to bother the people. Charred Body discovered
this land below and came down from the sky as an arrow, for the
people above were “at heart”? arrows because of their methods of
travel. He found the earth occupied by many evil spirits who
resisted intruders from above. Recognizing that life below would
be difficult, he selected 13 young married couples to accompany him
below where each established a separate household from which the
13 clans were ultimately derived. Each household was symbolically
represented by some part of the arrow (fig. 1).

They reached the earth at Charred Body Creek, a few miles down-
stream from the present town of Washburn, N. Dak., where they
immediately encountered numerous evil beings who resisted their
efforts to settle there. Because Charred Body had the spirit of the
Sacred Arrows with which to protect the people, the population
increased and 13 villages representing the 13 clans were later estab-
lished from the descendants of the 13 unnamed household groups.

Meanwhile, unborn twins were torn from their mother by an evil
monster who threw one into a spring nearby and the other to the
inner edge of her earth lodge. With the help of First Creator and
Charred Body, the two boys, now named Spring Boy and Lodge
Boy, grew quickly and undertook to annihilate the evil spirits which
surrounded them. Since Spring Boy was the leader in destroying
these evil spirits, he was captured and taken above to be tortured by
Long Arm—at this point the Sun Dance (Naxpikr) began. The

[Bull. 194

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

292

(wy sivog Aq uMvIG) ‘mOsIY palo¥s oY} Jo syed ¢] OY, —T] aunoIg

89A00IS) Sl-cl-l1
Yoon Ol
SMOUIS 6
Susyuf{d94 8-1-9
SMOUIS S
4}DUS 14
Buoy C2
|

diy

1 eso) |

FALLS
—<—e

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 293

myth then went on to explain the origin of Holy Women partici-
pation in the various ceremonies, certain Buffalo Calling rites, Snake
Curing rites, Black Medicine rites with the red baneberry root, and
the institution of village police.

At this point in the sacred narrative Moon caused an Awatixa
village woman to follow a porcupine into a high cottonwood tree.
She found herself on the land above where she married Moon for
whom she bore his son, later to be named Grandson. Because Grand-
son was the son of one of the sky people he was very holy even as a
small child. When his mother was killed by a stone thrown down as
she attempted to escape from Moon, Grandson fell into Old-Woman-
Who-Never-Dies’ garden. *

The exploits of Grandson form the basis for the introduction of
additional sacred rites and practices, chief of which are the Old-
Woman-Who-Never-Dies rites, Snake Curing rites, altar rites of
Eagle Trapping, Sacred Arrow rites, Bear with Arrow rites, Eagle
Trapping rites, Fish Trapping rites, Buffalo Corral rites, the Stone
Hammer society, and Star Bundle rites.

Grandson’s quarrel with Yellow Dog also laid the traditional
foundation for the origin of the four Dog Societies. Then, in anger
towards the people for whom he had done so much but from whom he
had received so little, he returned to the sky after announcing that
he would destroy any village that thereafter made sacred offerings
to him.

After the return of Grandson to the sky, the two myths converge
into a single one involving the more recent traditional and mythological
history of the three village groups still recognized. The various
gods formerly living with the people are believed to have then moved
to various places in the universe to assume protective roles for the
people by means of the many major and minor rites and ceremonies.

In native theory, all of the Hidatsa village groups had by then
taken their relative positions on the Missouri; the former village groups
originating with Charred Body had been named and, through inter-
mixture in a reduced number of villages, had become the clans. Six
clans later went back to the sky to become one of the constellations,
leaving seven clans and one lineage of the Xura at the Awatixa
villages. When the Hidatsa-proper and Awaxawi came to the
Missouri to live, they traditionally adopted the seven clans of the
Awatixa.

According to native concepts, the two principal sacred narratives
were associated with two different ethnic groups of the Hidatsa and
Crow: (1) the Awatixa and Crow, who represented an early popu-

41 This garden and lodge were situated near the Holding Eagle home in the southeastern edge of the Fort
Berthold Reservation. For an archeological study of the lodge, see Woolworth, 1956.

710-195—65——20

294. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

lation on the Missouri above the Heart River and on the tributary
streams to the southwest and who had enjoyed a long period of
friendship with some Mandan groups; and (2) the eastern Hidatsa—
Crow groups who lived on the Sheyenne River, other western tribu-
taries of the Red River northward, and across into southern Canada
until late in the prehistoric period when they moved onto the Missouri
as the Awaxawi, Hidatsa, and River Crow. That these native
concepts of migrations and ethnic relationships may have some authen-
ticity is suggested by the archeological situation in these traditional
regions: At Lower Hidatsa site 34, the traditional home of the Awatixa
at the mouth of Knife River, the deep refuse accumulations indicate
a long occupation.

The Hidatsa think of the ceremonies deriving from the two sacred
myths as knots on a string. The string represents a sequence of
events and the knots, the various ceremonies. No individual or small
group of individuals knew all of the parts of either the myths or the
ceremonies deriving from them. Instead, a bundle owner would know
all of the details of the particular ceremony in which he held rights
and its position in the series with respect to the ceremonies immedi-
ately preceding and succeeding his own. Thus, the entire sacred
myth was divided into segments which were entrusted for preservation
to various individuals of the group. Those ceremonies which were
derived from the same sacred myth or similar situations involving
the same culture heroes or mythological characters were felt to belong
together. The authority for certain individuals to attend whenever
a related ceremony was being performed was derived from these
relationships. It is usually difficult to understand by what right
certain individuals were permitted or expected to attend ceremonies
until one knows the details of the sacred myth from which each
authority was derived.

We find the two sacred myths merging at the point where the
Thunderbird bundles were founded and Grandson returned to the
sky. Two Men, the founders of the Sun Dance, traveled out from
the Missouri and found other Hidatsa—River Crow living at Devils
Lake. Thereafter we see an intermixture of scenes, both on the
Missouri and at Devils Lake, after which the population gathers along
the Missouri, the River Crows move away and take with them the
Tobacco rites, and a new series of rites is founded by some village
groups and borrowed by the others.

According to native beliefs, the ceremonial life continued to be
enriched until about A.D. 1875. The older rites of this series had
been integrated into the culture pattern so effectively that if they
were borrowed from other tribes this fact was no longer recognized by
my informants. There is an intermediate series, however, repre-

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 295

sented by the Sunrise Wolf, Wolf Woman, and certain Eagle Trapping
rites, that suggests borrowing from the Mandan during the 18th
century; the Goose Society is of traditional Mandan origin; the
White-Buffalo-Cow and Adoption Pipe rites were borrowed during
the first part of the 19th century; and, during the 19th century and
within the memory of living informants, the Horse rites were bought
from the Assiniboin.

We have seen that the Hidatsa ceremonial system is based on a
series of segmented rites originating through time. Each segment
was preserved by formal instructions to those making the ceremonial
purchase. ‘Those who had completed the preliminaries to ceremonial
participation and were admitted as legitimate custodians of various
segments of the ceremony were entrusted with the responsibility of
correct interpretation and performance of their parts. To deviate
from the ways laid down by the culture heroes was to invite bad luck
and to undo all of the promises the gods had made. The Hidatsa
speak freely of the virtues of seeking supernatural guidance but the
details of specific rites, practices, and songs are not freely given even
to individuals of their own household or village. It was believed
that one ought to be in a proper receptive mood to learn all of the
details correctly and to be able to repeat and interpret them accu-
rately before they were given. For that reason, the Hidatsa treated
all rites as sacred matter to be discussed only under prescribed situa-
tions. Variation from the traditional lines was to invite trouble.

One should not be entrusted with great supernatural powers unless
he knew the proper techniques for their control. Those who had
gone to great efforts to obtain important sacred bundles, only to be
plagued with bad luck, were believed to have somehow deviated from
custom even though the details of their errors were unknown. But
an individual owning rights and possessing precise information per-
taining to a particular ceremony did divulge a great deal of his knowl-
edge from time to time so that the rites were never entirely secret.
There were other situations, such as ceremonial feasts to which one
interested in segments of the sacred lore closely related to his own
bundles was invited, that provided formal transmission of the sacred
lore.

A man was expected to become informed in tribal lore as he advanced
instatus. Beyond what he knew of tribal lore from the sacred bundles
he had bought, he was expected to give feasts frequently to those
possessing other important sacred lore and to have these myths
related. A few individuals who were unusually ambitious and pos-
sessed good memories frequently knew most of the sacred myths of
the village. This knowledge was, in turn, expressed in social behavior
and recognition as councilmen or peace chiefs. One did not buy

296 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

myths belonging to another in order to sell them; one bought as a
cuide in offering wise judgment to younger people.

In addition to the central sacred myths which related ceremonies
to each other in time and space and provided a rudimentary history
of the various village groups, there were many myths of a semisacred
or sacred character which occupied an indefinite position; some were
freely told as good entertainment and often with a moral exalting
generosity, others were related to certain bundle rites without actually
comprising the central core of the rites.

First Creator stories were told freely by both men and women
and his magical acts were a constant source of entertainment. How-
ever important First Creator was in organizing the habitat for man’s
first existence, he was represented in certain rites only as the waiter.
In spite of his traditional role of creating many things, there was no
ceremony in which he occupied the principal position. Instead, he
is the trickster who entertained the people while those spirits he
created provided the psychological basis for the performance of the
various rites.

Bundle inheritance was by two distinct patterns. Most sacred
bundles were transmitted from father to son with wide leeway to
provide for ‘father and son” inheritance by clan as well as blood
relationships. This pattern included rites from both of the sacred
myth series. There were, however, a number of sacred bundles for-
merly kept at Awatixa village which were transmitted within the clan.
These were the Waterbuster bundle of human skulls said to represent
two eagles; the Knife bundle of two eagles; and the Holy Robe of the
Prairie Chicken clan. The other sacred bundles from Awatixa were
inherited in a father-to-son pattern as were all bundles at Hidatsa
and Awaxawi, so far as informants knew.” This deviation from the
normal pattern at Awatixa is significant since this group with its
long traditional residence on the Missouri River shows many features
of the Mandan clan-inheritance pattern not clearly indicated for the
other two Hidatsa groups who traditionally arrived much later on
the river.

Details of the Hidatsa ceremonial organization are given in the
chapters that follow. In organizing the great mass of materials at
my disposal, I have presented the material roughly in the order in
which my informants believed the sacred beliefs and rites were in-
troduced into the tribe. I could have presented the Buffalo Calling
rites in conjunction with the Rain rites but many natives think of
them as having separate origins. Some ceremonies are viewed by
the natives as of multiple origins and, in those cases, I have presented
them with closely related rites.

42 Genealogies, however, suggest possible clan inheritance for some of the Awaxawi Snake ceremonies.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 297

Tur LEGENDARY PERIOD

The Hidatsa legends of the creation of the earth as told today
differ somewhat in detail from those recorded by Henry in 1806 and
Maximilian in 1833, resembling in most details the Mandan myth,
whereas the older legends show greater similarities to the Crow
creation myths (Lowie, 1918). In the older myths, the creation of
the earth was chiefly the work of First Creator who secured the
mud from a diving bird. In the Mandan creation myth, through
which runs the moiety theme, the earth was made by two culture
heroes working on opposite sides of the Missouri. Further evidence
that the older creation myth has been modified by Mandan influence
is indicated by the general indifference the Hidatsa give to details
of man’s earlier existence. In the more recent accounts, the Hidatsa
myths state quite definitely that the people on the land below were
agriculturalists who brought corn and the other garden plants up
with them. The Hidatsa had not, however, gone as far as the
Mandan in founding sacred bundles and rites associated with the
principal leadership of those coming from the land below, although
they had made rapid changes in that direction during the 19th
century through marriage and sale, whereby the Mandan Corn
Skull bundle got into Awaxawi hands.

FIRST CREATOR MYTH

It would appear that the sacred myth of the creation of the earth
by First Creator, Coyote, from mud brought up by a diving bird
represented the older and more widespread version which the Mandan
had modified to fit their concepts of moiety or dual organization.
Further evidence that the Hidatsa creation myth was probably
modified through contacts with the Mandan is suggested by the fact
that, in the recent versions, the Hidatsa assign a significant role in
creation to Lone Man. He is not mentioned in any of the earlier
Hidatsa versions although with the Mandan he is considered one of
the principal deities who founded the Okipa, sacred cedar, sacred
turtles, and many other sacred objects and practices.

Matthews likewise assigned great prominence to the First Creator
as the maker of all things without mentioning Lone Man as the
comaker of the earth. My studies of many Hidatsa myths and
ceremonies did not confirm Matthews’ accounts that First Creator
created everything; there are many myths about spirits of the “sky
world” and the “underworld” that were in no way related to the
creation of the earth by First Creator. It would appear, instead,
that the beliefs relative to First Creator involve only the creation

298 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

of the “in between” land now known as the earth. Matthews
(1877, p. 47) wrote:

The object of their greatest reverence is, perhaps, Itsikamahidis, the First
Made, or First in Existence. They sometimes designate him as Itakatétas, or
Old Man Immortal. Some Indians say that itsikamahidis means he who first
made, but such a rendering is not in accordance with the present etymology of the
language. They assert that he made all things, the stars, the sun, the earth,
and the first representatives of each species of animals and plants, but that
no one made him.

The following abbreviated account provides the essential features
of the creation myth. My observations and analyses are given in
brackets.

The land was then chiefly under water. First Creator was alone and wandering
about by himself. He thought that he was the only one when he met another
person named Lone Man. They discussed their origin. Lone Man concluded
that he came from the western wheat grass, for in tracing his tracks he saw blood
on the grass, and that his father was the Stone Buffalo, an earth-colored wingless
grasshopper, for he saw its tracks near where he was born. First Creator did
not know who his father and mother were but he thought that he had come
from the water. The two men undertook to learn who was the older; Lone
Man stuck his staff in the ground while First Creator lay down as a coyote.
Years later Lone Man returned to the place where coyote was lying and, seeing
the bones scattered about, took up the staff, whereupon First Creator came
back to life and was declared the older.

First Creator and Lone Man decided to make the land inhabitable and, seeing
a goose, mallard, teal, and red-eyed mudhen, they asked the birds to lend assistance
by diving below for mud. [Note that there is no reference here to First Creator’s
creation of these water birds. Matthews is evidently in error in ascribing the
creation of all life to First Creator.] Goose, mallard, and teal failed; only the
mudhen succeeded in bringing earth from below. Lone Man divided the earth
and gave half to First Creator.

First Creator made the lands on the west side of the Missouri from the Rockies
to the ocean while Lone Man made the land on the other or east side, each using
half of the mud brought up by the mudhen. First Creator made many living
things later occupying the land and from the mud left over he made Heart Butte.
Lone Man made his side flat and with the mud left over he made Hill, a small
butte north of the present town of Bismarck, North Dakota. He made the
spotted cattle with long horns and the wolves.

First Creator caused the people who were living below to come above, bringing
with them their garden produce. The people continued to come up, following a
vine, until one woman heavy in pregnancy broke the vine.

When first encountered, Lone Man carried a wooden pipe but he did not know
what it was used for. First Creator then ordered Male Buffalo to produce tobacco
for Lone Man’s pipe. [This act explains the use of pipes in the various ceremonies,
which later were introduced, and the concept of tobacco as being sacred.]

First Creator decreed that people in seeking a living would scatter into small
groups all over the land and would fight. [This decree established the various
bands and linguistic groups.]

Because the spotted cattle could not stand the cold winters and the wolves
sometimes went mad, First Creator did not think they should be kept. So the

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 299

spotted cattle and the maggots around a dead wolf representing the White people
were thrown eastward across the waters until a later time when they would return
as the White men and their cattle. Finding the land to the east too level for
shelter from storms, they roughened it with their heels to form the land as it is
seen today. The people dispersed over the land into tribes and the two men
visited them in their villages and camps. At this time the people, called Mirokac
whom we know as River Crow, Hidatsa, and Awaxawi, moved northward toward
Devils Lake and lived together as a single group. There were many lakes where
they lived at that time.

Hungry Wolf of good reputation lived in the village with a younger brother
named High Bird. Young men would line up along the path taken by the young
women getting water to ask for a drink. When water was offered one, it indi-
cated that she was fond of him. High Bird’s friend, an orphan, lived with him.
Hungry Wolf’s wife offered High Bird water; he refused it because she was his
brother’s wife and she became angry. She told her husband that High Bird had
attacked her. Although witnesses denied the charge, Hungry Wolf did not
believe them. He announced that he was organizing a war party and High Bird
and the orphan decided to go along. To cross a large lake, 40 bullboats were
made to carry the 80 men. They traveled 4 days by water. High Bird as scout
brought in an enemy’s scalp for his brother but Hungry Wolf ordered his party
to leave quietly by water while his brother slept, leaving him no means of reaching
the mainland.

Hungry Wolf called back to his brother that the Water Buffalo, his “father,”
had ordered him to do this. High Bird was protected by his gods who ate those
who assisted Hungry Wolf. [The narrative here introduces the sun as a super-
natural guardian and also as a cannibal. The concept of the sun as a cannibal
appears throughout Hidatsa sacred mythology. See Woman Above rites for
additional references to Sun as a cannibal who causes bad luck so that he can
feast on the bodies.]

Hungry Wolf called back that if High Bird crossed the water, the Sharp Noses
would kill him so High Bird matched the supernatural powers of the Sharp Noses
with that of the Thunderbird, his supernatural father. [This conflict provides
the setting for at least one of the Thunderbird ceremonies performed by the
Hidatsa in recent years. When this study was made, White Fingernails had a
Thunder sacred bundle traditionally originating with High Bird. For the rites,
see pp. 358-363 which deal with the Thunder Ceremonies.]

Before the war party was out of sight, Hungry Wolf threatened that Owns-
Many-Dogs’ dogs would eat High Bird. [The narrative at this point describes
the penalties to the social group when brothers quarreled. Bears Arm said that
people were quick to put brothers aright if they showed a tendency to quarrel or
fight. This applied also to clan brothers. He explained that as a result of the
destruction of a large part of the population, people learned that brothers must
always aid and support each other, revenge the other’s death by the enemy, and
provide for those the brother loved and respected while he lived.]

Thunderbird came down from the sky, learned from High Bird the cause of
the quarrel, and gave High Bird advice on escaping from the island. High Bird
learned from Thunderbird that the water buffalo was in reality a large snake
living in the lake. [We find here introduced the conflict between the sky gods
represented by the big birds and the water gods represented by the snakes.
This conflict runs all through Hidatsa mythology.]

300 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

High Bird fed the large snake four corn balls to reach shore where the snake
was killed by Thunderbird. High Bird cut up the snake and Thunderbird called
the other large birds to a feast. [This feast is reenacted by those performing
rites to White Fingernails’ bundle.] These big birds then gave High Bird advice
on overcoming the magical powers of Owns-Many-Dogs and the Sharp Noses.
Thunderbird decreed that the village where the two young brothers lived would
be destroyed unless Hungry Wolf gave High Bird enough tobacco for one pipe’s
filling. Then High Bird started for home.

Northeast of Devils Lake he overcame the Sharp Noses and when he was
nearer to Devils Lake he encountered Owns-Many-Dogs and sent her northward
beyond the great fire which was to destroy the village. Far to the east, where
the rivers flow southward, High Bird heard a man weeping and discovered that
it was his friend, the orphan. They reached home and found that a Mourners
Camp has been set up, for his relatives had concluded that he was dead. Each
day the people from the other camp came there to mimic them by singing victory
songs. [The Mourners Camp was often set up by the Hidatsa and Awaxawi.
It was not customary for either the Mandan or Awatixa to establish a separate
camp of hide tipis as did the other village groups.]

High Bird sent his mother to Hungry Wolf four times for tobacco and each
time he refused so the people of the Mourners Camp dug deep holes in which
to protect themselves from the celestial flames. Each day the mourners would
go to Hungry Wolf’s camp to sing under the direction of seven singers. They
sang the Tobacco songs. [Here we find the first reference to an institution highly
developed with the Crows which also was traditionally a part of the original
Hidatsa and Awaxawi culture.]

One day a fire came down from the sky. High Bird’s people were in deep
cellars and were saved. All of the others were destroyed except Hungry Wolf’s
wife who was the cause of the quarrel. She was given the name Calf Woman
after the fire. She described the destruction by the fire and it was then decreed
that from this time there would always be women who would make trouble
between married couples. Because the seven Tobacco singers were with the
mourners, the Tobacco rites were saved. Even today one sees the results of this
fire, for there are no trees to the east except along the Red River and its tributaries
where the fire could not burn.

After this fire the survivors separated, the Awaxawi lived to the south of
Devils Lake where they planted corn while the Hidatsa and the Crow with their
Tobacco rites stayed farther north near the large lakes. There Magpie dis-
covered an approaching flood, the penalty for sticking a feather through Fat Bird’s
nostrils and ordering a buffalo calf to carry its mother’s entrails. Those Awaxawi
who believed Magpie escaped to Square Buttes on the Missouri River where they
were joined by Magpie, his mother named Yellow Woman who represented corn,
and Spring Buffalo. The buffaloes of the other three seasons drowned on the way
to establishing three important hunting areas between the Missouri and Devils
Lake. [Bears Arm explained that the linguistic differences between the Hidatsa—
River Crow and the Awaxawi developed as a result of the separation after the
celestial fire. He interpreted this flight from Devils Lake as evidence that the
Awaxawi brought gardening to the Missouri and did not adopt the practice from
the Mandan. He believed the flight northward to avoid destruction from the
flood involved only the Hidatsa and River Crow. We see that the traditional
migrations are intimately associated with magical beliefs. It would appear from

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 301

the accounts of David Thompson that these migration myths have at least some
historic validity.‘3]

These people who came to the Missouri in advance of the flood were the Awaxawi
who had separated sometime before from the Hidatsa and River Crow while still
living northeast of Devils Lake; those who were on lowlands were destroyed by
the flood. After the waters had subsided, the Awatixa were found living on the
Missouri also. [This is the first reference in this important sacred myth to the
Awatixa whose large village at the mouth of Knife River shows evidence of
longer occupation than the traditional villages of the Hidatsa and Awaxawi of
the same area.]

When the waters subsided, there were lakes and sloughs to the northeast where
First Creator and Lone Man had roughened the earth with their heels. Fish
became abundant in all of the lakes.

48 Manoah, who had lived in an Awaxawi-Mandan village after the smallpox epidemic of 1782, supplied
David Thompson with considerable information on the Awaxawi. In the following quotations, my com-
ments and notes are within parentheses; brackets are in accordance with the source. Thompson writes
that—

“The inhabitants of these Villages (obviously referring to the Awaxawi only), have not been many years
on the banks of the Missisourie River: their former residence was on the head waters of the southern
branches of the Red River; and also along its banks; where the soil is fertile and easily worked, with their
simple tools. Southward of them were the Villages of the Pawnees, with whom they were at peace, except
[for] occasional quarrels; south eastward of them were the Sieux Indians, although numerous, their stone
headed arrows could do little injury; on the north east were the Chippeways in possession of the Forests;
but equally weak until armed with Guns, iron headed arrows and spears: The Chippaways silently col-
lected in the Forests; and made war on the nearest Village, destroying it with fire, when the greater part of
the Men were hunting at some distance, or attacking the Men when hunting; and thus harassing them when
ever they thought proper. The mischief done, they retreated into the forests, where it was too dangerous
to search for them. 'The Chippaways had the policy to harrass and destroy the Villages nearest to them,
leaving the others in security. The people of this Village removed westward from them, and from stream
to stream, the Villages in succession, until they gained the banks of the Missisourie; where they have built
their Villages and remain in peace from the Chippaways, the open Plains being their defence.” (Thomp-
son, 1916, pp. 225-226.)

««” , . . AS Manoah was as a Native with them I enquired if they had any traditions of ancient times;
he said, he knew of none beyond the days of their great, great Grandfathers, who formerly possessed all the
Streams of the Red River, and head of the Mississippe, where the Wild Rice, and the Deer were plenty,
but then the Bison and the Horse were not known to them: On all these streams they had Villages and cul-
tivated the ground as now; they lived many years this way how many they do not know, at length the In-
dians of the Woods armed with guns which killed and frightened them, and iron weapons, frequently at-
tacked them, and against these they had no defence; . . . .”’ (ibid., pp. 230-231.)

David Thompson provides further information on the Hidatsa earth lodge village group and the Crow,
all of whom he calls Fall Indians:

“Fall Indians who also have Villages, are strictly confederate with the Mandanes, they speak a distinct
language; (This seems to be the first reference in the literature to earth lodge groups other than the Mandan
in this area.) .. . . The Fall Indians are now removed far from their original country, which was the
Rapids of the Saskatchewan river, northward of the Eagle Hill; A feud arose between them, and their then
neighbors, the Nahathaways (Crees) and the Stone Indians confederates (Assiniboin), and [they were] too
powerful for them, they then lived wholly in tents, and removed across the Plains to the Missisourie; be-
came confederate with the Mandanes, and from them have learned to build houses, form villages and cul-
tivate the ground. (Note that this is a contradiction of his earlier statement that the Falls were formerly
agricultural on the Red River and its tributaries. Obviously he is here referring to a southern group of
Falls who were agricultural and a northern nomadic group which he identifies with both Hidatsa and Crow
bands. This is in agreement with the sacred myth of both nomadic and agricultural groups of Hidatsa
moving westward and southwestward to the Missouri.) The architecture of their houses is in every respect
the same as that of the Mandanes, and their cultivation is the same: Some of them continue to live in tents
and are in friendship with the Cheyenne Indians, whose village was lately destroyed, and now live in tents
to the westward of them. Another band of these people now dwell in tents near the head of this River
(Missouri ?) in alliance with the Peeagans and their allies; . .. .’”’ (ibid., pp. 235-236.)

Note that Thompson refers to two distinct groups of Crows; one living farther west who are allied with
the Piegan, and another group to the west of the Missouri and nearer the Hidatsa villages who are allied
with the Cheyenne. The Hidatsa consider the more western one to be an early offshoot of the Awatixa
and the group allied to the Cheyenne as an offshoot of the Hidatsa-proper. It is the latter that is called by
the Hidatsa kizaicas which refers to ‘Separation due to a Quarrel.”

302 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

The Hidatsa and River Crow [collectively they are addressed by the term
mirokac which does not include the other Hidatsa—Crow groups as far as I was
able to determine; at least it refers to the population prior to the separation of
the two groups after which separate names were applied to each group], who had
gone far north to escape the flood, eventually returned southward to Devils Lake
and, finding the region uninhabited, concluded that the others had been destroyed
by the flood. [Note that by this time the original Hidatsa-Crow population
extended east and west from Devils Lake to the Missouri upstream from the
Mandan villages and onto the Plains west of the Missouri. Only the agricultural
groups were on the Missouri; the nomadic ones lived adjacent to the Missouri.]

A hunting party from the camp at Devils Lake discovered Mandan villages
near the Heart River and, because the Mandans could not understand exactly
what was said to them across the river from the opposite bank, they called them
Minitari by which name the people of Hidatsa village are known from that time.
[The older Mandan still used the same term in historic times. The Awaxawi are
called mazaxa and the Awatixa mitizata.] The hunters returned to Devils Lake,
after promising that they would return with their people in 4 days. But the 4
days became 4 years when the Hidatsa—River Crow appeared on the opposite
bank after abandoning the Devils Lake region.“

A quarrel developed over the division of a buffalo and one group moved farther
west, taking with them the seven Tobacco singers. The group leaving comprised
the kixaicas and those who remained behind to take up agriculture became the
Hidatsa. [Note that the Hidatsa account for the absence of the Tobacco rites
by the fact that the seven men possessing the rights in the ceremony happened
to be camped on the side which moved away.]

The Hidatsa were living in tipis near the Heart River when they became fright-
ened by two owl spirits held sacred by the Mandan so they moved upstream to
build north of the Knife River. Before they left, the Mandan gave them corn
and taught them the Corn rites which they had lost while in the northland.

This completes the first segment of the Hidatsa sacred narrative
and is concerned chiefly with the migration of the Hidatsa-proper,
River Crow, and the Awaxawi. We see that by 1932—the date of
this study—events such as warfare with armed tribes are not men-
tioned; instead, the incidents have been completely reinterpreted in
terms of the supernatural.

The Hidatsa, however, do not ascribe the foregoing legendary
history to the Awatixa who had separate traditions of long residence
on the Missouri. This is not a new native interpretation for, as
early as 1804, two distinct traditions were recorded by Lewis and
Clark although they failed to recognize the independent and separate
histories of the various Hidatsa villages. They recognized dialectic
differences between the Awaxawi and the other two Hidatsa villages
and spoke of the Awaxawi as an independent ‘nation,’ a difference
indicated by my informants in speaking of the separation of the
Awaxawi from the Hidatsa—River Crow while living east of the

44 For a similar account supplied by the Mandan in 1833, see Maximilian, 1906, vol. 23, pp. 315-317.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 303

Missouri. Speaking of the village groups of Hidatsa and Awatixa,
Lewis and Clark wrote, on November 21, 1804:
The Mandans say that this people came out of the water to the east and settled
near them in their former establishment in nine villages; ... The Minnetarees
[Awatixa] proper assert, on the contrary, that they grew where they nowlive.. . .
They also say that. . . the Minnetarees of the Willows [Hidatsa], whose lan-
guage with very little variation is their own, came many years ago from the
plains and settled near them. Perhaps the two traditions may be reconciled by
the natural presumption that these Minnetarees [Hidatsa] were the tribes known
to the Mandans below, and that they ascended the river for the purpose of re-
joining the Minnetarees proper. . . . [Lewis, 1893, vol. 1, pp. 198-199.]
These two traditions recorded by Lewis and Clark are essentially
the same as those which Hidatsa informants gave in 1932. For our
study it is important to note that the Hidatsa-proper-Awaxawi
sacred myth, although providing the traditional basis for numerous
simple household rites and beliefs, did not account for more than a
few of the formal tribal ceremonies. Corn was considered sacred
because it was brought above ground by the performance of certain
magical acts; corn was lost to the Hidatsa while escaping the flood;
thunder and snakes are mentioned and one bundle is believed to be
derived from the Thunderbirds at that time; the four buffaloes pro-
vided traditional hunting grounds east of the Missouri; Buffalo was
considered holy but none of the specific rites originated during that
time; tobacco and pipes were introduced for rituals.

SACRED ARROWS MYTH

The myth given above records traditional Hidatsa-proper and
Awaxawi legends of an Eastern origin. The second legend, accounting
for most of the formal rites, enumerates incidents on the Missouri
River, chiefly upstream from the mouth of the Heart River. This
myth is identified with the earliest Hidatsa population on the Missouri,
the Awatixa, who traditionally were agriculturalists during their
entire residence there. According to the myth, they were formerly
most closely related to a group of Crow Indians who separated at an
early time to become nomadic hunters west of the Missouri, and to
the Awaxawi, Hidatsa, and River Crow because of linguistic ties.

The second sacred myth complex could more properly be called the
“‘Myths of the Sacred Arrows” since culture heroes possessing the power
of flight like the arrow are so prominently mentioned. This complex
accounts for the origin of many ceremonies, most of which began on
the Missouri in a restricted area between the Knife and Heart Rivers.
Informants compare the ceremonies to knots on a string; all are inde-
pendent ceremonies just as each knot is independent of the other
knots but, at the same time, they are connected and related in the same

304 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

way that knots are related to each other by their order on the string.
The myth as summarized in this study has been assembled from many
informants. It has been rechecked with several informants and
represents, in my opinion, the best that can be done at this time to
organize and relate the various ceremonies. In only a few instances
were there disagreements between informants as to the order of origin.
No single individual ever held ceremonial rights in more than a few
of the formal rites of the series; nevertheless, each bundle owner knew
where his sacred myth and rights began and another’s terminated.
Likewise each individual would know whose sacred rites began where
his terminated. Generally, several individuals would own the pre-
ceding “knot”? and so on. The formal ceremonial pattern was
symbolized by strings with knots.

Bears Arm provided a unique design, an inverted Y, to illustrate
the pattern both in respect to time and space. The two forks of the
Y constituted: (1) the making of the earth, the creation of the living
things, and the exodus of the people from the underworld; and (2) the
sacred arrow legends of the settlement of the lands by people from the
sky. The convergence of the two lines represented the convergence
of the various Hidatsa village groups onto the Missouri River after
the Crow had moved away. The continuation of the base of the Y as
a single line represented the period of intervillage cooperation during
which a new series of ceremonies developed. He then proceeded to
make “knots” on the string to represent the points in the traditional
history of the tribe when the various ceremonies originated. A sum-
mary of the events of Myth of the Sacred Arrows of Awatixa village
follows:

Charred Body lived in a large village in the sky. All the people there were
living in four large earth lodge villages a day’s journey from each other. Charred
Body was a sacred arrow and, hearing the bellowing of the buffaloes which he did
not understand, he looked through a hole in the sky and found that a new land
existed below on which many buffaloes were walking. He liked the appearance
of this new land so he changed himself into an arrow and descended to the earth
near the present site of Washburn. The spirit people living below immediately
attempted to destroy him. A man named Fire-Around-his-Ankles encircled
Charred Body and burned the feathers from his arrow.

Charred Body made 13 earth lodges on a high bench overlooking a creek now
bearing his name and returned to the sky where he selected 13 young couples to
occupy the lodges he had made. Since they possessed the spirits of arrows,
all flew down tothe newland. These 13 households increased to 13 village groups,
for this was a rich land to which they had come. [These household groups are
named later and become the clans.]

First Creator found the village, visited Charred Body, and was invited to come
to the village to smoke with the men. Surrounded by various evil spirits who
were always attempting to drive them out, the people of Charred Body’s village
accepted First Creator’s offer of assistance. First Creator and Charred Body
went to the east to another village to see the chief’s daughter, thinking that if

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 305

she would marry Charred Body, her village group would come back with them and
help them repel the enemies. The chief’s daughter rejected him and insulted
him so Charred Body killed her. The chief called on Bear, Buffalo Bull, Man-
with-No-Head, Man-with-Fire-Around-his-Ankles, Old-Woman-with-Basket, White
Beaver, and all living things on the earth to assist him in destroying the
village and all agreed to assist him. [Wolf Chief explained that this fight between
villages was equivalent to interclan quarrels after these small village groups
united into large villages. The narrative illustrates the penalty for murder to
be the destruction of the group. Note above that a village group was also
destroyed when Hungry Wolf and his brother, High Bird, quarreled.]

First Creator visited the enemy village, learned their plans, and sent the meadow-
lark back with instructions. The chief’s gods, however, caused Charred Body to
forget what he had been told. Yellow Weasel decoyed Charred Body from the
village and First Creator concealed Charred Body’s sister in a corn chamber
before the attack on the village was to be made. The village was burned and the
people were killed.

After the battle, Charred Body rebuilt a lodge and the sister was called from
the corn chamber. The two men hunted game for her and discovered that the
enemy had stationed four spirit people, Man-witb-Fire-Around-his-Ankles, Man-
with-No-Head, Old-Woman-with-Basket, and White Beaver, around the lodge
to destroy them.

Charred Body built a sweat lodge and decreed that in the future the people
should use the sweatbaths when returning from hunting and they would keep in
good health. [Sweat lodge origin is at this time.]

The sister was told not to admit any strangers who might come to the lodge
when the two men were out hunting. Man-with-No-Head came to the lodge
while the men were away and she prepared roast meat for him. He declared
that he ate only when the meat was placed on the abdomen of a pregnant woman.
Since she was pregnant, she permitted him to eat from her abdomen; he used his
long nails to rip open her abdomen and pull out a baby which he cast towards a
pile of old moccasins near the edge of the lodge, giving the child to ‘‘edge of the
lodge’ as his servant. He became known as Lodge Boy. A second child was
ripped out and given to a spring near the lodge as the spring’s servant and became
known as Spring Boy. The mother was suspended between two forked poles and
made to appear to be laughing.

Charred Body returned and found his sister’s body, which he placed on a scaf-
fold, and Lodge Boy who was hiding in the dark under the inner edge of the lodge.
The two men performed rites and Lodge Boy grew to the size of a young man.
He asked for gambling sticks and a stone and First Creator made a set for him.
Returning from the hunt, First Creator discovered strange tooth marks in a
buffalo tongue and Lodge Boy admitted that he had been playing with a strange
fellow who lived in the spring. Spring Boy was captured and, after rites were
performed over him, he vomited out the shells of the clams he had been eating
and was made to look and behave like other Indians.

Since the mother came from the sky, the two boys had the supernatural powers
of the arrows. Spring Boy performed rites over the mother with his arrows and
she was brought back to life. In later times when these powers were trans-
mitted to the people, the Arrow ceremonies began. [Arrow rites began at this
point.]

The mother warned the two boys not to go near Man-with-Fire-Around-his-
Ankles but they visited him, borrowed his moccasins, ran around him, and thus
destroyed him with his own moccasins. They burned his lodge as was customary
after a successful battle.

306 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

The mother warned them of Old-Woman-With-Basket so they visited her,
borrowed her basket, pointed it at her, and destroyed her with fire. They gave
their mother the basket and she danced while singing the victory songs, in-
stituting the custom of dancing and singing when the enemy had been defeated.
[The previous myth claimed that the custom was instituted by Hungry Wolf
who sang victory songs at the Mourners Camp.]

When she warned them to stay away from No Head he insulted them by telling
them how he killed their mother and disposed of the two babies. Then the boys
killed him also by magical means. Then they killed the White Beaver.

Having killed one enemy each time out to war, they were now known as Two
Men. [The Hidatsa respected highly one who had led four successful war parties
even though only one enemy was killed each time out. One who had led four
successful expeditions, killing and scalping one man each time, was more highly
regarded than one who had led only one war party which had killed four enemies.
Also, higher honors were bestowed on one who had led four successive successful
expeditions than one who had gone out a greater number of times in order to win
four records. Because they had gone out only four times and were successful
each time, Two Men had attained the highest honors recognized.]

Charred Body warned Two Men always to be on their guard, using the sacred
arrows for protection, for the gods were all angry because of the holy things that
had been destroyed by them. When out hunting, Two Men would stick their
sacred arrows into the ground while sleeping and the arrows would fall over and
awaken them when in danger. One day the arrows did not warn them. Long
Arm had overcome the supernatural powers of the arrows, for he was the leader of
the People Above. He found the boys while they slept and took Spring Boy, who
was the principal offender, above for punishment. The people prepared a forked
post on which to torture Spring Boy. A brush shelter was built around the post
and the people came to sing and watch while Spring Boy died. Ten songs were
sung over and over while the men danced. Two mounds were built from earth
brought in from outside, between which Spring Boy would be placed and covered
with this earth when he died. All through the ceremony Long Arm stood watch-
ing, holding a stone ax.

Lodge Boy awoke, missed his brother, and traveled over all of the earth as an
arrow looking for Spring Boy. Returning to the place where they separated, he
discovered a hole in the sky above him. He changed into a sacred arrow and went
through the hole in the sky to the land above. There, changing himself into a
small boy, he was taken into the lodge of a very old woman living alone and fed.
She informed him that Spring Boy was being tortured in the brush shelter and took
him to see the ceremonies. He was recognized by Spring Boy and was obliged to
leave quickly when Long Arm suspected that Lodge Boy had come.

During the night, Lodge Boy freed his brother and they escaped towards the
hole in the sky, taking with them Long Arm’s ax with the watching eyes. Long
Arm awoke, discovered Spring Boy and his sacred ax with the watching eyes gone,
and ran to the hole in the sky. There he put his hands over the hole to prevent
Two Men from escaping to the land below. Now that they had Long Arm’s
sacred ax, which was his chief source of supernatural powers, they threatened to
cut off Long Arm’s hand if he attempted to prevent their return home. He agreed
to free them providing they performed rites on the earth in the same manner as
they had observed in the sky. Then he explained the ceremonial significance of
each article and rite of the Hidebeating ceremony which he was sending to the
land below.

Later, Two Men traveled over the earth and came to a village where rites
were being performed and decided to have a “son.” They caused a virgin to

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 307

become pregnant without intercourse and instructed the virgin’s mother to name
the child Unknown Man. The child’s mother died and he was cared for by his
mother’s brother and maternal grandmother. [Note how the pattern develops:
Two Men now have the supernatural powers and knowledge formerly possessed
by Long Arm. To transmit this power, they select a “son” thus establishing the
rule that rights in the ceremony are to be transmitted through ‘father-to-son”
relationships. ]

As a young man he was a good hunter for, in spirit, he was an arrow because
Two Men had taken him as their “son.” Upon leaving for the winter camp, he
went out ahead and found that game was scarce so he returned to the summer
village with his grandmother. They learned that one family did not go along
because the husband, a gambler, was too lame to travel. The old couple had a
daughter who went out a great deal with Unknown Man hunting and butchering
so the old people asked them to marry. [One of the requirements for tribal
ceremonial purchases is that one must be married.]

While out hunting shortly afterwards, Unknown Man met Two Men and in-
vited them to his camp where they promised him supernatural powers in hunting.
{Here the informants interpreted unusual skills in hunting as evidence that some
supernatural being was assisting him.]

Two Men doctored Unknown Man’s father-in-law for his lameness, using the
Black Medicine [red baneberry] root. They took out a bullsnake from each of
his legs, and instructed Unknown Man and his wife in doctoring. [Here again
we find the transfer of curing rites transmitted to a son and daughter-in-law.
Many of the snake curing rites went back to this incident; others owe their origin
to different traditional incidents. In either case, Black Medicine was used and
the methods differed little between bundle lines.]

Two Men sent the buffalo herds to the village, as they had promised, in return
for the feast which Unknown Man and his wife had prepared for them. The Holy
Women butchered and hung the meat on corn scaffolds during a fog. [Here the
narrative introduces the Holy Women, an organized group of individual bundle
owners who met on most ceremonial occasions. See the accounts below for
further references to this group.]

Scouts returned from the winter camp for corn since hunting was poor. They
discovered the meat on the various scaffolds of the village. They returned to the
winter camp and the people returned to the summer village. Sometime after-
ward, Unknown Man was sitting on his lodge when he was enticed from the village
by a buffalo which he followed. Each time he shot, the arrow was deflected
magically until he was taken into a large earth lodge occupied by a man, a large
snake, and the buffalo.

Unknown Man lost his memory and was forced to hunt and wait on the
mysterious man. While hunting one day he remembered who he was and called
for Two Men, his “fathers,” and they came immediately to help him. [This
pattern of action, calling for assistance of one’s supernatural ‘fathers’ was the
basis of Hidatsa rites.]

They killed the snake and mysterious man, and were about to kill Buffalo
when he said, “I am also a prisoner; I am the one who brought the buffaloes that
the Holy Women butchered for the village. If my life is spared there will always
be buffaloes.”

Buffalo then gave instructions in making offerings to the buffaloes. [This
instruction by the buffalo was considered the traditional basis for the widespread
practices of offering sage and speckled eagle feathers to buffalo skulls, both at
household shrines or out on the prairies even far from the villages, whenever one
wished to secure supernatural assistance.]

308 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Now Unknown Man was ready to give the Hidebeating Ceremony for he was
mature, had a good record, and had a wife to help him. Then Two Men came to
the village and directed him in the performance of the rites as Long Arm had
instructed them when they brought the sacred ax with the watching eyes down
from the land above.

HIDEBEATING CEREMONY

This ceremony, performed in order to acquire the father’s ceremonial
rights, is called Naz’ pikn’ by the Hidatsa. This is an abbreviation of
nax’pi meaning ‘hide,’ nz’ki which means to strike, and hz mean-
ing ‘this act or event.’ The ceremony generally has been known and
described as the Sun Dance. The Hidatsa think of these rites as
directed to the “people above’’ but more particularly to the Moon,
since a different ceremony with a different set of officers was performed
to the Sun. The rites were theoretically a dramatization of Spring
Boy’s suffering when he was taken above and tortured under the
supervision of Long Arm. At this time, Long Arm instructed Two
Men to have the ceremony performed by their son in order that the
supernatural powers for success in hunting and warfare possessed by
Two Men would be transmitted to the Hidatsa by means of the sacred
arrows and sacred ax.

The bundle rights were transmitted from father to son, all bundles
originating traditionally with Unknown Man who first bought from
his ceremonial fathers, Spring Boy and Lodge Boy. A father could
sell his rights in the ceremony four times. However, there was no
evidence that more than one sale had been made within the memory
of the oldest informants nor could any informant recall an instance of
multiple sales. It made no difference whether the father was living
or not when the ceremony was pledged since a member of the father’s
clan prepared duplicate bundles for all except the fourth sale. Per-
formance was not limited by clan membership although, because of
the small number of bundle lines in existence, all clans were not
represented. Since the father and son were of different clans, clan
membership of bundles changed with each succeeding sale. Due to
the predominantly matrilocal residence custom, new bundles were
continually being established in different households. In addition to
the Naxpikr sacred bundles owned by the givers of the ceremony,
persons ineligible to perform the rites, due to inheritance, would
frequently make up somewhat similar personal bundles according to
visions received.

There is no evidence that the performance of the rite was an annual
event. It was probably held most years prior to the epidemic of 1837.
Its occurrence, however, was based on bundle purchases of which
there were only seven lines after 1837: four from Hidatsa village and
three from Awatixa. Due to the limited number of bundle lines after

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 309

the epidemic, there usually were intervals of from 2 to 4 years between
successive performances. Good Bear was the last to perform the
ceremony in 1879.

Good Bear, Waterbuster clan, bought from his father, No Milk of
the AwaxEnawita clan from Hidatsa village; Rabbit Head, Prairie
Chicken clan, bought a year earlier from his stepfather Snake Cane,
AwaxeEnawita clan, of Hidatsa village (Rabbit Head’s own father
was a Mandan); Sitting Elk, Itisuku clan, bought a few years earlier
from his father, Narrow Nose of the AwaxEnawita clan of Hidatsa
village; Puts-Away-his-Hair, Itisuku clan, bought from his father,
Owns-Many-Spotted-Horses, Knife clan of Hidatsa village; Crows
Paunch, Prairie Chicken clan, bought from his father, Twisted Wood,
Knife clan of Awatixa village; Crying Dog, Awaxrnawita clan of
Awatixa, bought from his deceased father but the line died out when
his descendants did not keep up the rites; and Knife of the Prairie
Chicken clan bought rights from his classificatory father, Porcupine
Pemmican, AwaxeEnawita clan of Awatixa village.

Except for the last bundle line, all sacred bundles were of equal
status. Since one relinquished his own rights only when the fourth
sale was made, there were 10 equal bundles at Fishhook. Porcupine
Pemmican’s bundle was superior in status to the other for, in addition
to having rights in Two Men by virtue of performing the Naxpike,
he had bought the sacred ax symbolic of Long Arm whom he
impersonated each time the rites were performed. The Long Arm
rights were purchased separately by means of a medicine feast to the
Naxpike bundle owners to give the purchase social recognition.
In theory Long Arm rites could likewise have been sold four times
with a new ax prepared each time but there is no evidence that there
was ever more than the one bundle which was kept at Awatixa, the
group which traditionally founded the ceremony. Whenever the
ceremony was performed in other villages, the Long Arm impersonator
from Awatixa officiated. During the years preceding the abandonment
of the three independent villages on the Knife River, the Awaxawi
occupied an intermediate position between the Hidatsa-proper—
Awatixa and the Mandan, both territorially and ceremonially.
Awaxawi informants had no knowledge that the Naxpikr was ever
given at their village although they recalled that their young men
participated actively in the Okipa due to intermarriage with the
Mandan after 1782, when they united for about 20 years with one
Mandan village group. The Awaxawi had other summer ceremonies,
concerned chiefly with agriculture, that were not celebrated by the
other Hidatsa village groups.

Theoretically, one could give the ceremony only when his father
had also, but native informants believed that should one receive

710-195—65——21

310 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

repeated dreams relating to the ceremony, he should not be denied
the right to give the ceremony. Such was the case whereby Knife
bought the Long Arm rights from Porcupine Pemmican, his classi-
ficatory father. A man volunteered to perform the ceremony after
receiving a vision interpreted by the older men of the father’s clan
as an instruction from the gods above. Actually, young men often
had visions relating to the gods above which were never interpreted
as signifying instructions to perform the ceremony because their
fathers did not possess rights in the Naxpikr. Likewise, young
men eligible by inheritance frequently did not experience appro-
priate dreams. When Wolf Chief dreamed of Charred Body, his
father’s clansmen interpreted the dream as an instruction that he
would be a successful eagle trapper since his father had rights in
those ceremonies. When Crows Heart dreamed of the big birds of the
sky possessing the supernatural powers of the arrows, the “fathers”
interpreted the dream to mean that he was to buy Big Black’s Thunder
rites.

However, such was not the case when Good Bear reported a vision
he received during a performance of the Naxpikr. His widow, Mrs.
Good Bear, provided the following information concerning the pre-
liminaries to pledging the ceremony:

Sitting Elk was giving the Naxpikr and Good Bear was fasting in the lodge with
the other young men. He would get up and dance each time with the other young
men. During the second and third days while the torturing was on, young
men who wanted sticks through their skin paid with calicoes and other valuable
things to have their “fathers” pray for them and put the sticks through. Good
Bear was poor and had nothing to pay with for his mother was dead. When his
father remarried, the new wife did not want him so he was taken by Poor Wolf,
his mother’s brother, to raise.

Poor Wolf came to him and said, ‘‘You should go up to the post and have your
breast cut; that is the way to have good dreams.”

Good Bear said, ‘‘I would like to but I have nothing to pay with for I am poor.”
Poor Wolf said that all clan brothers should help each other so he went for cooked
corn and calicoes.

He said, ‘‘Go to Porcupine Pemmican who belongs to your father’s clan and say
‘T want to run around the post and suffer like Spring Boy did up in the sky.’”

Porcupine Pemmican took the cooked corn to the singers and kept the calicoes,
He said, ‘‘My son, come and sit against the post in the center.”’

Good Bear was painted white with clay brought from Knife River. Porcupine
Pemmican sang his sacred songs while he painted Good Bear again with the clay.
Good Bear shivered as though he were cold. Then Porcupine Pemmican called
two young men to do the actual cutting for him and gave each of them a piece
of the calico. Porcupine Pemmican said, ‘‘Good luck will come to you, my son.
The first fight you are in, you will strike a Sioux,’”’ and the two men pierced the
flesh when Porcupine Pemmican said ‘“‘Sioux.’’ ‘The sticks were tied to the hide
hanging down from the post and he was given a whistle. All the fasters stood
up and danced through four songs. He ran and swung around the post, some-
times swinging nearly to the roof. When he was exhausted, Porcupine Pemmican

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION oll

pulled the sticks out and pressed down the swellings, putting white clay on the
cuts to heal them and to keep the swellings down.

That night Good Bear left the lodge and went north about 3 miles onto the
hills out of sight of the village to cry. He was in great pain and very tired. In
his dream he was walking south on a beautiful flat when something very bright
and shiny came down from the sky. He thought it would surely hit him but it
missed him, coming down just in front of him. A cross was on this bright object.
When he saw all this he thought that it was an instruction for him to give the
Naxpiks. He thought that the hoop was the sun or the moon when it was full
and that the cross represented the laces on the hoop.

He awoke, thought of his dream, and again went to sleep. Again he was walking
along on a large flat; he saw two bulls belonging to White men and stopped to look
at them. There was a voice and then a man dressed in fine clothing and a white
collar drove up in a light wagon. The man saw him admiring the two bulls and
inquired if he liked them. Since he thought the bulls were pretty, the White
man told him he could have them. Then Good Bear awoke, returned to the
ceremonial grounds for a short time, and went to his lodge to eat.

That night he again had a vision that he was traveling south on the prairie
until he came to some White men’s houses. There was one long house with a
fence in front of it and many boxes of goods piled near it. He awoke and
wondered what it all meant, the White man, the cattle, the White man’s long
house, the goods, and the shiny thing that came down from the sky. He talked
to his mother’s brother, Poor Wolf, about it and inquired what it all meant.

Poor Wolf studied a long time and at last he said, ‘I think the gods above
want you to take your father’s bundle; that shining object that came down from
above was the Sun. I think the gods want you to give the Naxpikn.”

Then the two went to Good Bear’s own father and told him of the dream.
No Milk said, “In the evening, before dark, cry from the top of an earth lodge
so all can hear, ‘Next year when the leaves are full grown I will build a house
for you; I will hunt up all the bedding you will want; I want to get good luck for
my people, make all of us free of diseases, and bring happiness to all of us.’
When you have made the pledge all the people will hear you. It will take a year
before you can give the ceremony. In the meanwhile you must get all the goods
that you can, buffalo robes, blankets, and calicoes. You will need 50 robes so
you will have to go out often looking for buffaloes to get the hides. It will be
hard to give the ceremony but the gods above will repay you well for your
trouble.”

Ordinarily, one was about 30 years old before giving the ceremony
since one must have demonstrated responsibility before undertaking
so important a step. Dreams were carefully screened and the qualifi-
cations of eligible candidates were carefully examined. Permission
was given by an older and eminent member of the father’s clan—
not necessarily one’s own father, who was frequently dead—who
would have lost status had he sanctioned making the vow by one
whom he knew to be cowardly either in battle or in the protection of
the village.

One should have already demonstrated by previous participation
in fasting and personal torture that he was able to endure the priva-
tions of 4 days of fasting. He must also be sufficiently intelligent to
be able to follow instructions in minute detail. Since the wife assisted

312 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

in certain rites as well as in supervising the preparation of the goods,
one must be married to a person who was unlikely to run away during
the period of preparation or performance of the rites. If, in the
opinion of the father’s clansmen, the prospective candidate might
not be able to go through with his pledges, he was usually advised
to withhold making the pledge until he could ‘‘build himself up.”
They would tell him that because of his vision, he would have good
luck in everything that he did just the same as though he had given
the ceremony. ‘This seems to have been a common practice whenever
someone else was giving the ceremony during the coming summer,
in order to avoid repetition of the ceremony during the same summer
period, and to discourage an individual from making the vow until
he had demonstrated his qualifications for enduring the ordeals.
It was not necessary for one so seek advice again since it was the
duty of the “fathers” to notify the young man when the time had
come to make the vow if, in the meantime, he had distinguished
himself in warfare or had enjoyed other good fortune indicating that
he had been blessed by the gods above.

The principal officer of the Naxpikr was the Long Arm impersonator,
represented by Porcupine Pemmican during the period when the
ceremony was performed at Fishhook Village. This Long Arm
bundle was formerly kept at Awatixa village and traditionally origi-
nated with this village group. For that reason, the Hidatsa believe
that the Sacred Arrow rites were originally instituted by this village
eroup first to settle on the Missouri as a part of the western Crow
and that the ceremony was adopted by the Hidatsa-proper, River
Crow, and Awaxawi ** when they came to the Missouri. As further
evidence that the Awatixa were the originators of the ceremony,
native informants cite the fact that they had seen a great many more
Sun Dance circles on the prairie adjacent to the old and new Awatixa
villages than at the villages of Hidatsa and Awaxawi. In any event,
there is no traditional knowledge that the ceremony was performed
prior to their arrival on the Missouri from the east. While at the
Knife River, each village depended on Awatixa for top leadership by
virtue of its possession of the Long Arm bundle. The ceremony was
always performed at the outskirts of the summer village andnever
while away on the summer buffalo hunt.

The preliminary preparations and the performance of the ceremony
brought together a great many people, some of whom had conven-
tional duties and obligations. When permission was given to perform
the Naxpiksz, or any other established formal ceremony, the pledger
was always reminded by a father’s clansman of the warning given to

45 T found no evidence of bundle lines at Awaxawi.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 313

Bundle Good Bear
Mounds
Porcupine

Pemmican

Fasters
Fasters

Plan of Naxpike Lodge (Sun Dance)

Red Cloth

or Hide Moon | or Hide

Sun (black)

Offerings to Naxpike Bundle

| Red Cloth

Star

Ficure 2.—Plan of the Naxpike lodge and offerings to the Naxpikr bundle. (Both drawn
by Mrs. Good Bear.)

314 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Spring Boy and Lodge Boy by Buffalo when he was freed by Two
Men in which he said, “If any human being promises me anything and
does not do it, I will destroy that person.’”’ Such was the penalty for
failing to fulfill a pledge involving those sacred bundles that included
a buffalo skull. Another group of relatives was expected to lend
assistance in accumulating the goods for the payment of the officers.
One’s clan was expected to contribute generously since a successful
ceremony brought credit to the entire group. All those whose fathers
were of the same clan were also expected to assist. Since the wife
secured benefits from the performance of the ceremony, all her brothers
and sisters and clan members were likewise called on for assistance.
The man’s age-grade society was expected to meet and to put up
goods for the occasion. A similar responsibility prevailed with
respect to the age-grade society to which the wife belonged. In the
interim, the pledger was expected to hunt often in order to get an
abundance of hides for tanning. Whereas on other occasions he
customarily shared the raw hides and meat with other households due
to numerous obligations to his relatives, it was understood that once
he had pledged a ceremony he should not be asked to part with
these things.

The pledger selected a member of his father’s clan as supervisor
and instructor shortly after making the vow. It was the supervisor’s
duty to secure information on all details of the ceremony from the
one best qualified to supply that information. When the father was
living, this information was provided by him and the Long Arm
bundle impersonator, otherwise it was usually provided by the Long
Arm impersonator to the instructor who in turn passed this informa-
tion on to the pledger of the ceremony. ‘The instructor was one out-
side the Naxpikr ceremonial fraternity and therefore initially
uninformed in the rites and the significance of various elements of the
ceremony. Once the ceremony was given, his knowledge of the rites
was as great or even greater than his pupil, still he acquired no perma-
nent rights whatsoever in the ceremony, his sole reward being the
property which he received for his services and the distinction of
being selected as ‘‘ceremonial father.’”’ It was also the instructor’s
duty to see that the goods were kept dry and in good condition, and
to burn incense of pine spills on four separate occasions during the
preparatory period.

Regardless of the amount of goods already accumulated or pledged,
when the time approached for the performance of the ceremony, the
instructor carried the red tubular pipe the pledger was to receive
during the rites and stopped at each lodge where young men of the
pledger’s clan lived to cry, ‘This is a great thing your brother is doing
for his people. You should help him now. He has worked hard to

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 315

bring credit to your clan. He will soon be suffering where Spring
Boy suffered. Then you can come and suffer too; perhaps you too
will get a good dream and become a leader among your people.”’

Final preparations were completed when the leaves were full
grown and the days were hot. The instructor would invite the
pledger and his wife to his lodge to outline the final steps preparatory
to the erection of the ceremonial shelter. The Holy Women’s society
was invited in at the same time and feasted. From the society eight
women who had passed the menopause were selected to prepare the
ceremonial grounds. Those berdaches who were to assist in digging
the hole for the central post were taken in with the Holy Women with
whom they cooperated in various ceremonies. When Good Bear per-
formed the ceremony, a Sioux named Twelve was selected as, shortly
before, the Mandan berdache had been killed by the Sioux and the
only Hidatsa berdache had fled to the Crow Agency when the Govern-
ment agent forcibly stripped him of his feminine attire, dressed him
in men’s clothing, and cut off his braids. The berdache selected the
central post, which was of cottonwood from driftwood in the Missouri,
and received his instructions from the instructor. When a log ap-
parently suitable for the central post was discovered, the berdache
called for the instructor to inspect it. If suitable, and the log was
floating in the river, rawhide thongs were attached to it, and it was
staked down to prevent the current from carrying it away. Aid was
then asked of the young men in carrying it to high ground.

On the day when the central log was to be brought in, the Long Arm
impersonator took charge. He would instruct his announcer to call
through the village, ‘‘This morning is the time to get the big post.
Fix up in your best clothing; get on your best horses; bring your
lariats with you.”

Young and middle-aged men would respond and form aline. Long
Arm impersonator called for the pledger’s wife and she walked in
front of him to the place where the ceremony at the post was to be
held. He would point his eagle wingbone whistle toward the sky
and blow it; this was the signal for the young men to charge the
post as though it were an enemy. The young man striking first
was believed to have received the supernatural powers to strike
an enemy. Four men took credit for striking the post. Then the
men gathered around the log, where each sang his own personal sacred
songs, prayed for supernatural powers, attached their lariats under
the log, and proceeded to carry it between them to the ceremonial
grounds.

When they started with the log, Long Arm impersonator advanced
toward them, pointing his whistle alternately toward the sky and
ground. ‘They stopped four times in bringing the log to the ceremonial

316 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

grounds, each time on a signal of Long Arm impersonator. The fourth
stop was at the shelter.“ The pledger’s wife, eight Holy Women, and
the berdache *’ must be on the grounds when the log arrived. The
instructor delivered a buffalo head with a strip of hide along the back
and the tail to the berdache who fastened the head to the fork in the
log and then tied sandbar willow brush and buckbrush to the head.
Young men raised the post into place and the berdache tamped the soil
around it. The eight Holy Women meanwhile put the side posts in
place and tamped them securely. The young men then cut and
brought in the roof poles. There was rivalry between the young men
to see which side would be first to complete its section with cottonwood
branches. Unlike the Mandan in similar competitive situations,
moiety division was not employed. They would say that the first
person to reach the central post would be lucky. The lodge was com-
pleted that day before sunset.

Long Arm impersonator would devote the next day to arranging
things in the lodge. First he would mark the location of the doorway
to the west of south. Then he erected two small mounds, north of
the central post and near the edge of the lodge, from earth already
brought in. A bundle of buckbrush was placed upright on each
mound. During the ceremony, Long Arm impersonator’s place was
to the west of these mounds. While Long Arm impersonator was
fixing the lodge, the pledger brought in bedding and arranged his bed
behind the two mounds, placing buckbrush under his robes.

The ceremony began that evening with “Cuts Hole in the Mouth”
dance. Four young men who had struck first coup on the enemy and
were noted for their bravery were selected by Long A1m impersonator
to be the first to enter the lodge. Meanwhile, Long Arm impersonator
had erected a small post and dressed it to make it appear like an enemy
standing there. The clothing, which had been provided by the pledger
and his wife, consisted of a man’s complete outfit and fine robe
decorated with porcupine quillwork. The four warriors went to the
two mounds and sang, dancing back and forth toward the small
post dressed asanenemy. ‘The fourth time they rushed the “‘enemy,”’
striking him. The first to strike took the robe while the three other
performers divided the remaining goods between them. This com-
pleted the Cuts Hole in the Mouth ceremony. As the dancers left
the lodge, they gave the clothing stripped from the post to old men
standing outside the door. The pledger paid the eight Holy Women
and the berdache in robes for their services and the ceremonial shelter
was ready for the fasters.

4° This approach by four stages was a common pattern for Hidatsa ceremonies.
47 Formerly all berdaches participated.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 317

Long Arm impersonator and the pledger were first to enter, followed
by the fasters. Usually all clans were represented but younger clan
brothers of the pledger were usually best represented since a certain
obligation was felt to help clansmen. There was no dancing the first
night, only the cries of the fasters seeking visions. Each had an
object from his father’s sacred bundle, hoping that his father’s gods
would send an appropriate dream. Younger fasters imitated their
older clansmen. Crying continued all night. Some would go out-
side beyond the limits of the village to cry, hoping to experience
visions there, and return to the ceremonial lodge in the morning.

First day.—Although 1 day had been devoted to rites of erecting
the lodge and another to preparing the altar and performing the
“Cuts Hole in the Mouth” dance, this was all considered preliminary
to the main performance. The ceremony began with the arrival of
the 10 to 12 singers who were to direct the singing. Individuals
desiring to qualify as singers received prior instructions and training
from the Long Arm impersonator whom they paid for their rights to
direct the singing and to receive pay from those fasting during the
ceremony. The recognized singers performed each time the ceremony
was performed. Long Arm impersonator, the pledger, and the fasters
remained at the shelter during the night. As soon as the people saw
the singers leaving for the shelter, they knew that the ceremony was
about to begin. The entire population gathered and stood around
the lodge to observe the practices; only menstruating women were
barred.

As soon as the singers arrived, the Long Arm impersonator dressed
the pledger to represent Spring Boy. He led the pledger to the front
of the mounds where white clay which had been previously mixed
with water was ready for use.*® Using dark sage as a brush, Long Arm
impersonator painted the pledger’s entire body white, singing the
Painting song as he worked. Black paint was used to draw a new
moon on the forehead with the “horns” extending onto the cheeks.
The nose was painted black. A tanned leather apron was tied around
the pledger’s waist and extended to his knees. ‘Then his wrists were
painted black, an enemy’s scalp was tied to his left wrist and a dried
human hand to his right. He wore a jackrabbit skin cap. A hoop
of willow wrapped with otterskin to look ornamental was tied on his
back; this hoop represented the Moon. Then his ankles were painted
black. All the equipment was prepared beforehand by the instructor
with the assistance of the Long Arm impersonator. Each faster
received an eagle wingbone whistle.

43 The white clay was secured from hills on the Knife River near the present town of Golden Valley. Long

Arm sent some young man out for the clay and gave him authority to use the clay for doctoring. It was
considered a high honor to be so selected.

318 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

When the pledger was properly painted and decorated, he approached
the central post. This was the signal for all fasters to stand and
blow their whistles. This provided the fasters with an opportunity
to observe the pledger dressed and painted as Spring Boy had been
prepared according to tradition when he was taken into the shelter
to suffer during the first performance of the ceremony in the sky.
The ceremony was directed by the Long Arm impersonator just as
the original ceremony in the sky was supervised by Long Arm. The
pledger danced back and forth between the two mounds and the
central post where the buffalo head and hide hung. The hide and head
also represented Spring Boy. In the mythology, Buffalo volunteered
to take the place of Spring Boy who was tied to the forks of the post
during the original ceremony at which time Lodge Boy came to free
him.*9

The parents of those fasting during the ceremony were expected to
feed the singers. Whenever relatives observed that one of their
young men was tired from dancing, it was customary to bring food
for the singers who would then halt the rites to eat. Fasters were
required to get up and dance each time the singing commenced, but
the pledger was expected to dance more energetically than the others.
It was customary for a clan brother fasting during the ceremony to
assist the pledger, whenever the latter appeared exhausted, by as-
suming his place. Then the Long Arm impersonator painted and
dressed the assisting clan brother in the pledger’s outfit for several
dances. Dancing and singing ended shortly before sunset.

Second day.—The preliminaries to the dancing were essentially the
same as for the preceding day. Usually most of the young boys who
had not terminated their fasts the preceding evening were no longer
able to endure hunger and left during the forenoon of the second day,
leaving only those who seriously sought visions. The Long Arm
impersonator painted and dressed the pledger as on the previous day.
Then the singers arrived and the dancing began. One wishing to
endure the torture feature would go to his parents and announce his
desire. ‘They would say, ‘“That is the way to be successful and prom-
inent. If you do that you will have a good reputation and the people
will listen when you have something to say. Perhaps you will be
lucky and get the many fine horses and other things that you want.
In warfare you will be lucky and strike the enemy.”’

In other cases an older brother discussed the matter of “running
around the post” prior to the ceremony and urged him to take these
steps to become lucky. In a few instances older brothers had been
known to be exceedingly abusive with one showing little inclination

4° The word for buffalo is mitE an abbreviation of mitEc meaning ‘I die.’ It was believed that the buf-
falo was called mitE because he volunteered his body for use in the ceremony.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 319

to undertake personal privations, but fathers usually did not speak
sharply to sons unless driven to such extreme measures by their joking
relatives. When a young man announced that he wished to be tor-
tured at the post, the parents sang their sacred songs and praised
their son publicly before bringing the food, calicoes, robes, and horses
which were to be given to the “father” inserting the thongs. The
“father” selected—always an eminent man with a good war record—
would go to the young man and lead him to the post, all the while
singing his sacred songs and relating the successes that his “‘son’’ too
would achieve. He would say, ‘‘My son, this is a great thing you are
undertaking. You will be lucky. This will make your people lucky
too.”

The ‘father’ would then select two men to do the actual flesh-
cutting for the insertion of the sticks. When the Long Arm imper-
sonator was selected as ‘‘father,” it was customary to name two men
who had the high military honor of striking and killing a single enemy
when out alone. When such individuals were not available, men
with the next higher honors were selected. The ‘father’ would pay
his assistants with part of the goods, give the food to the singers, and
keep the balance of the goods. The man was tied to the rawhide strip
by means of the thongs and left to run and swing around the post
while the relatives cried and prayed for him. When he was exhausted,
he was untied from the hide; the thongs were removed by the Long
Arm impersonator who pressed the flesh down and covered the cuts
with white clay. Then another candidate submitted to the torture
ordeal. As each candidate completed the torture ordeal, he picked
up his sacred bundle and robe and left the ceremonial grounds to eat,
bathe, and rest. He frequently sought a quiet place beyond the vil-
lage limits to rest in the hope that he would receive a good dream.

Third day.—This day was a repetition of the second. Long Arm
impersonator painted and dressed the pledger as before. This was
the principal torture day and the activities began as soon as the singers
arrived. Each candidate selected a ‘father’ to conduct the rites at
the post. Large crowds would gather to see what goods each faster
gave to his “father” and to observe the responses each faster made to
the infliction of pain. The parents would cry as their sons ran around
the post. Sometimes the sticks would tear out and the candidate
would be thrown across the shed or even fly through the wall. Since
a young man was not freed until he was exhausted or showed fear, it
was frequently impossible to accommodate all candidates.

Fourth day.—The pledger was painted as before. Normally there
was no torturing on this day but Wolf Chief submitted to torture and
recalled that it was not unusual. The dancing continued all day.
Fasters could leave any time they wished. As before, the parents

320 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

brought food for the singers whenever their boys appeared tired.
Some fasters would leave for the hills to continue the fast, others
would break the fast but retire to isolated spots to sleep in the hope
of receiving good dreams. By this time there were usually only a few
fasters left. A fasting clansman was expected to stay until the cere-
mony terminated in order to take the pledger’s place should the latter
become totally exhausted. The singers and remaining fasters left the
lodge at sunset. Long Arm impersonator delivered to the pledger
all the things he had worn while impersonating Spring Boy. These
items became his personal property and were made into a ceremonial
bundle which he cared for during his lifetime and which was placed
at his grave or scaffold when he died.

The ceremony was concluded with sweat lodge rites attended by
the pledger, his wife or wives, and the Long Arm impersonator at the
latter’s lodge. The instructor usually attended, since he had handled
the sacred objects too. Special cleansing songs were sung by Long Arm
impersonator while rubbing the occupants with a switch made of the
dark sage. The sweat lodge participants then partook of food pre-
pared by the wives of the Long Arm impersonator. While participat-
ing in the cleansing rites at the termination of the Naxpikn, the Long
Arm impersonator gave the pledger the right to doctor injuries from
falling limbs or trees. This right to doctor could be sold four times
independently of Naxpike performances. The lodge was left standing
until it felldown. When the ceremony was next performed, a new site
was selected.

We see that a Naxpikr performance provided a formal institution
for the transfer of bundle rights from a father to hisson. In addition,
it provided an opportunity for others to fast and thereby receive
vision instructions to purchase their own fathers’ bundle rights to
this and other ceremonies. The ceremony also provided the public
with an opportunity to observe young men’s abilities to endure the
torture features of the ceremony. Having performed the Naxpiks
did not entitle one to take the part of the Long Arm. This bundle
right was sold independently to a son or sons who had formerly
performed the Naxpikn, but, in historic times at least, there seems
to have been no inclination to maintain more than the one bundle
line originating at Awatixa village.

There was reluctance on the part of men to marry widows who
had participated in the ceremony with their late husbands and it
was said that the decision whether or not to marry largely rested
with the man. This was in line with native concepts that super-
natural powers were controlled by certain rules which the uninformed
would not know. Women of bundle owners frequently made a
public vow during the husband’s funeral rites that they would not

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 321

remarry. There was one important exception to this rule; the widow
could marry the deceased husband’s brother or one who owned the
same bundle rights without bringing bad luck to the husband since
they were familiar with, and had participated in, the ceremony.
Since this rarely happened, widows of bundle owners generally
remained unmarried as in the case of Mrs. Good Bear who took the
vow when her husband died and was never asked to marry thereafter.©

The ceremony has frequently been compared with the Mandan
Okipa as though the two ceremonies were identical. This is not the
case. The entire drama involved quite different culture heroes and
settings. By comparison with the complex Mandan Okipa, the
Hidatsa Naxpike is a very simple rite. Maximilian wrote:

They likewise celebrate the Okippe (which they call Akupehri), but with several
deviations. Thus, instead of the so-called ark, a kind of high pole, with a fork
on the summit, is planted in the centre of the open circle. [Natives insist that
this is not true; that the ceremony was always performed at the edge of the
village. These dancing spots can still be identified at several of the old village
sites.| When the partisans of the war parties intend to go on some enterprise
in May or June, the preparations are combined with the Okippe of several young
men, who wish to obtain the rank of the brave, or men.*! ... The partisan
[pledger] is bound to build the medicine lodge. During the ceremony the spec-
tators eat and smoke; the candidates take nothing, and, like the partisans, are
covered all over with white clay. The latter, when they dance during the cere-
mony, remain near their pits, and then move on the same spot, holding in their
hands their medicines, a buffalo’s tail, a feather, or the like. None but the
candidates dance, and the only music is striking a dried buffalo’s hide with willow
rods. There have been instances of fathers subjecting their children, only six
or seven years of age, to these tortures. We ourselves saw one suspended by
the muscles of the back, after having been compelled to fast four days. [Maxi-
milian, 1906, vol. 23, pp. 377-378.]

I doubt that the ceremony was called Akuperi since that is the
term by which the Mandan Okipa ceremony is known today. His
description of the Naxpikr ceremony, which is the only one employ-
ing the forked post, is essentially the same as described to me except
that, in later years, the principal torture feature was performed on
the third day and fathers did, not subject their sons to torture unless
requested by the son (and then at an older age).

The Charles McKenzie account of 1805 (McKenzie, 1889, vol. 1,
pp. 354-357) from his observations of a performance at Hidatsa
village indicates that the torture feature was more severe at that time
than in 1879 when Good Bear performed the ceremony. He mentions
simultaneous “assembly line’ piercing of the flesh of a number of

50 IT asked several men why they did not marry her and each said that she was holy and they would
have bad luck.

51 Maximilian is correct that the rites stimulated military activities; those who had good dreams were
always quick to test the potency of their dreams by going out to take possession of the property promised
them by the supernatural.

322 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

candidates and the fastening of the thongs of different candidates to
buffalo heads, the number to which the candidate was tied depending
upon his military reputation. Although Mrs. Good Bear did not
observe anyone so tortured when her husband performed the rites,
an individual frequently requested a ‘father’ to pierce his skin so
that he might drag buffalo heads through the village on other occasions.
Perhaps the fact that the population was so much smaller in her time
provided time for all who wished to receive torture at the post.
McKenzie mentions those warriors who had killed the enemy as
wearing skulls and scalps while fasting. This was not a practice
unique to Naxpikn; fasters frequently wore human bones on other
occasions or fasted near the scaffolds and graves of their own people
or near heaps of bones belonging to the enemy. ‘The practice of
throwing the buffalo heads over a beam in order to suspend the can-
didates was not employed in later years at Fishhook.

In former times, according to Mrs. Good Bear, it was customary
for the pledger to offer flesh and fingers to the gods above during the
performance of the ceremony, but in her time this was not done; in
fact, 1t was optional to the pledger whether he submitted to personal
torture. Rabbit Head did, but her husband did not. In McKenzie’s
time old women of the Holy Women society who prepared the grounds
also chewed Black Medicine root which they spat on the wounds.
In Mrs. Good Bear’s time, although she knew of the above practice,
the Long Arm impersonator provided white clay for cleansing the
wounds.

McKenzie correctly describes the practice of taking the finger tips
and flesh to the edge of the village as an offering to the Sun since the
Sun and his sister were cannibals who ate human flesh and decoyed
people into battles so that they could eat. Although the Hidatsa
Naxpike has undergone numerous changes since first described in
1805, the same changes were being made in other ceremonies also.

As the Hidatsa culture changed under the impact of White culture,
the Naxpikre was no longer considered a means chiefly of attaining
supernatural powers through the medium of the sacred arrows to
become skilled hunters and warriors with the arrow as a weapon.
Mrs. Good Bear interpreted her husband’s dreams preliminary to
performing the ceremony in terms of existing values as of 1879:

All of the things that Good Bear saw in his dreams or was promised by Porcu-
pine Pemmican and the other men came true. The first time he was away to
war he struck a Sioux. He afterward learned that the man in the white collar
and dressed in fine clothing was the Roman Catholic priest. And the shiny
thing that he saw coming down from above that he thought at the time was the
hoop used in the NaxpikE he learned after he joined the Church was the Holy

Ghost coming down from Heaven. Because he saw the two bulls that belonged
to the White man, he had many cattle. The boxes of goods stacked in front of

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 323

the long house he afterward learned represented the store that he had for a
number of years. Porcupine Pemmican promised him during the ceremony that
he would be a leader among his people and the Government named him a judge
to try Indian cases and he was judge until he died.

Expressed in social status, one giving the ceremony—although
highly respected—did not otherwise enjoy a higher position than
those who had performed other socially recognized rites.

Woman ABOVE AND Hoty WoMEN CEREMONIES

According to native traditions, shortly after First Creator and
Lone Man had created the earth and the male animals, a mysterious
or holy woman named Village-Old-Woman living in the southland
learned of this new land. She resolved to create females of each
species created by First Creator and Lone Man in order to perpetuate
life, and to give the people female creatures to worship. For each
species of living males created by the other two culture heroes, she
created females to serve as gods as well as food for the people who
were to inhabit the earth. Long after she had done this, she heard
of the people living near the Knife River and followed the Missouri
River underground to its source in the Rocky Mountains, failing to
find the village. In her searches for the people she dug deep trenches,
producing the valley in which the stream and its tributaries flow.

She returned underground to Knife River where she entered the
womb of a young woman and thus was born into the village. When
she grew to maturity she created the ‘““Holy Women in the groves of
the four directions,’’” Woman Above, and all other female deities.
From time to time she introduced new ceremonies and practices
which the people adopted. Because she created both the Holy
Women and Woman Above, she introduced many common sacred
objects for these sacred bundles and ruled that whenever a ceremony
was performed, rites should also be performed for the Holy Women
whom she had created.

According to native belief the two ceremonies—Holy Women and
Woman Above—did not begin at the same time. The Holy Women
are mentioned in the myths of Unknown Man prior to the founding
of the Naxpiks rites and it is believed that rites to these women go
back to the beginning of time when the two sexes were created and
Village-Old-Woman was born into the tribe, bringing to the people
her supernatural powers. In the Unknown Man myth the Holy
Women bring meat and cover the scaffolds during a fog sent to the
village by Two Men (see p. 307). Reference to the Holy Women
is made in most of the ceremonies.

In historic times the Holy Women religious society was composed
of aged females who had bought their rights individually from their

324 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

xXx

© Bundle Owner O
and Wives
| ses]

Spectators Robes

Ficure 3.—Ceremony to the Sun, Moon, and Woman Above. (Drawn by Wolf Chief.)

mothers after dreaming of the Holy Women. In this sense the
organization differed from the White Buffalo Cow and Goose societies
which, although religious in character, were group-purchased. Mem-
bership was composed chiefly of daughters of women possessing
rights in the Holy Women organization and wives or sisters of Woman
Above bundle owners. All individuals meeting these requirements
did not, at least in early historic times, seek membership. This was
due, according to native interpretations, to the failure to obtain
appropriate dreams or the inability to amass the required property
to complete the purchase. There was, however, an increase in
popularity of the White Buffalo Cow society, the members of which
were women of about the same age; it is possible that the Holy
Women organization suffered from this competing society.

The leader of the society was the Village~-Old-Woman impersonator
and the other members represented Holy Women of the groves of
the four sacred directions. They selected a male singer who met
with them. In historic times Cherry Necklace was singer until his
death. When no one offered to buy his rights, the women performed
without a male singer. The singer bought his rights from the society
but particularly from the Village-Old-Woman impersonator. Since
Village-Old-Woman created all of the other female deities, the singer
occupied a ceremonial position superior to all male owners of Woman

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 325

Sun Woman Moon
Above
Figure 4.—Ceremonial appointments for ae Above ceremony. (Drawn by Bears
Arm.

Above bundles. Each village had Holy Woman representatives;
in fact, they were represented in the Mandan villages also. The
Mandan had even gone one step further and had named one of their
clans, the Managoctadomak or ‘‘People in a Grove” from these Holy
Women. The organization was composed of about 20 members,
including the village berdaches, according to the recollection of my
informants, but new members were not taken in during later years
and the number never increased.

These spirit women were identified with the magpies that lived in
the ash and oak groves. All dressed alike in mountain sheep dresses
painted white. Each woman wore two magpie feathers in her hair
and a braid of sweetgrass on her left shoulder. Each painted a red
oval on each cheek and sometimes on the forehead. Each carried a

710-195—65——22

326 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

stick, made of ash and decorated with white sage, about 4 feet long
in her right hand, using it as a cane. Their red-painted robes were
rolled up and carried under the left arm. The singer carried a simi-
larly painted robe under his left arm and red drumsticks, using his
robe as a drum whenever the groupsang. Although the four directions
were represented in the total membership, no distinctive dress or
painting distinguished members of the various directions. The mother
sold rights only in the direction which she represented and could sell
four times before relinquishing her rights. In the purchase of singer
rights, males seeking to join the organization secured the assistance of
a clan father as instructor, following the same pattern indicated for
the purchase of Naxpike rights.

The organization met whenever a tribal ceremony was being per-
formed; their role differed between ceremonies. They also met and
danced whenever a successful war party returned. In aboriginal
times they represented an important group, in fact, the only group
that could claim some rights of participation in every ceremony. This
was by virtue of the fact that the organization was associated with
every ceremony that involved deities created by the Village-Old-
Woman impersonator. Of all the ceremonies, the Holy Women were
considered to be related most closely to the Woman Above rites al-
though, according to native concepts, this ceremony was established
very late after Grandson had founded the Stone Hammer society and
some time before the first horses were acquired.

The customs of the berdache were based on native concepts that for
a man to dream of Village-Old-Woman or a loop of sweetgrass was an
instruction to dress as a woman and to behave as a special class of
“females.” It was believed that when a man saw a coil of sweetgrass
in the brush he should look away, otherwise the Village-Old-Woman
or the female deities whom she created would cause his mind to weaken
so that he would have no relief until he ‘‘changed his sex.” Often a
man would tell of his experiences, how everywhere he looked he would
see the coiled sweetgrass and how hard he was trying to keep from
changing over. Those who made the change and assumed feminine
attire and activities were pitied by others. The people would say
that he had been claimed by a Holy Woman and therefore nothing
could be done about it. They were treated, until recently, as mys-
terious and holy. Since they had been ‘‘claimed” by a Holy Woman,
they met with the organization and performed many tasks otherwise
too difficult for the women, such as raising the posts for the Naxpikr
ceremony. ‘They dressed and painted in the same way as the Holy
Women for ceremonial occasions. Inasmuch as the organization of
Holy Women was considered to be a benevolent group, doing much to
assist the people in time of starvation, berdaches were well thought of,

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 327

although pitied. Young men going to war would ask supernatural
aid of the Holy Women, receive a sacred object to wear, and, if suc-
cessful, prepare feasts for them.

According to native beliefs, the Woman Above ceremony did not
reach the tribe from ‘‘above’”’ until very late in Hidatsa history.”
Only three bundle lines were unbroken by the epidemic of 1837:
Twisted Wood of Awatixa sold to Crows Paunch; Seven Dogs of
Awatixa sold to two sons, No Tears and Dogs Urine; No Tears sold
to Hairy Coat; and Small Ankles sold to Red Basket, brother of Wolf
Chief. It is not certain whether the rights came to Small Ankles
from his stepfather, a Mandan, or Old-Man-Shoots-With, his own
father. It is suggested by Wolf Chief that it came from the Mandan
stepfather. If that is the case, organized bundles existed only at
Awatixa. In the case of the Seven Dogs bundle line, only No Tears
sold to his sons for Dogs Urine later showed cowardice by pushing his
daughter from his horse when they were pursued by the Sioux. After
she was killed, he dropped all of his rites, put all of his bundles away
on the prairie, and no longer participated in any social or ceremonial
activities. He entertained no friends and avoided meeting people.
Although his son, Sitting Bear, tried to get ahead, he was ashamed of
his father and would have nothing to do with his father’s rites.

By contrast with the Hidatsa village groups, seven distinct bundle
lines were preserved by the Mandan with whom the rites were highly
developed with numerous sacred myths and skull circle shrines on
the adjacent prairie. The bundle rites were practically identical
for the two tribes and those having rights in the ceremony met to-
gether irrespective of tribe, a practice which it is said they followed
even before the two tribes united at Fishhook. The poor representa-
tion of bundle lineages for Hidatsa and Awaxawi village groups and
the highly developed rites and practices of the Mandan indicate that
the beliefs had been formalized into ritual performances for the
Mandan somewhat earlier, and that the Awatixa, who have the
longest traditional residence on the Missouri, had the highest de-
velopment of the rites and beliefs. The Hidatsa-proper and the
Awaxawi, who were traditionally last to take up residence on the
Missouri, had not gone very far in establishing these bundles.

According to native conceptions, the following sacred tradition,
given in condensed form, provided the basis for the establishment of
rites to Woman Above:

There were great and powerful spirits above. One household up there consisted

of a man and his wife, one daughter, and two sons. The older son observed the
Hidatsa below and, liking their habits, indicated a desire to go down there to live.

62 For matters of organization of the data, I have recorded it at this point because of its close psychological
ties with the Holy Women rites. For an actual bundle purchase, see pp. 405-409.

328 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

His father said that it was a hard thing to do and gave him instructions in getting
into a young woman’s body so that he could be born into the tribe. The father
sent him down that evening when the stars came out, warning him not to forget
who he was.

The young man walked into an earth lodge and turned himself into a kernel of
yellow corn. He was eaten with the mush. In time he was born. His father’s
sister wrapped him in a hide tanned at the smokehole and he forgot himself.

He grew to be a large boy and, one evening while playing with burning corncobs
on arrows, his father from above came down to refreshen his memory but the boy
became angry and ordered him away. The old man and his wife above called the
boy back and he died to return to the sky.

The younger brother asked to go down to the earth and promised that he would
not forget his true identity. He, too, was wrapped in the smoke-tanned hide and
lost his memory. When he was 18 years old, his older brother living in the lodge
told him that it was now time to begin fasting so that he would become a prominent
man in the village like those he saw about him. While the young man was fasting
on the third night, a stranger appeared and the boy then remembered himself.
He was told to go to war, tbat he would get one enemy on the first trip, two on the
second, three on the third, and four on the fourth trip.

The young man returned to his parent’s lodge and was taken to the head of the
lodge near the sacred objects where he continued to fast, but he received no
additional dreams. He made three trips out for the enemies promised him and
everything happened just as he was promised.

Meanwhile his sister up in the sky received no offerings from him, only his
father, and she became jealous. Because he did not make offerings to her also,
she blessed a warrior of an enemy tribe who made offerings to her and adopted
him as her “‘son,”’ promising him that he would overcome seven of the Hidatsas.

When the young man went out the fourth time, the expedition was unsuccessful
and seven of his party were killed by an enemy painted red and wielding a club
of burnt ash wood. The young man fasted seven nights for seven different
times. Each time as he came back after fasting seven nights, the other young
men would come out to meet him to cry also. The seventh time during his
fasting, four old women with their robes tied at the breast came from the four
directions to inform him that his sister in the sky had blessed the enemy and
had adopted a “‘son” there, protecting him with a string reaching down from the
sky. They informed him that this enemy could only be killed if this young man
performed rites for the Holy Women and Village-Old-Woman who created all
of them, including this “‘sister’’ living above.

He returned from his fast and prepared the sweat lodge as instructed by the
four holy women and they flew in from the roof through the smokehole. Since
none of the women assembled there felt capable of carrying the pipe to the holy
women in the sky, they sent for Village-Old-Woman who created all of them and
she, too, flew into the lodge through the smokehole.

Village-Old-Woman did not believe that the Woman Above would take the
pipe since she had already adopted a young man living with the enemy and had
already promised him that he would be victorious over the Hidatsas. Neverthe-
less, she agreed to go above to secure a hair from Woman Above’s necklace to
put in the sweat lodge with the stones. She promised that, if successful in getting
the hair, the young man giving the ceremony would not destroy 30 but 400
lodges.

Village-Old-Woman left for ‘above land’ with the pipe, asking the Holy
Women to come out and wave their robes at noon when Sun stopped to smoke.
Woman Above refused to smoke for she had blessed an enemy and had taken him

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 329

as her “son.’”’ Village-Old-Woman threw a louse onto Woman Above’s head
and the Holy Women below waved their robes. Woman Above became drowsy
and permitted Village-Old-Woman to touch the necklace with her pipe.

Woman Above ate the corn balls, smoked the pipe, and then went to sleep.
Village-Old-Woman stole the necklace, sang the victory songs, and flew down to
the village where the ceremony was being performed, again entering the lodge
through the smokehole.

The Holy Women placed the image in the sweat lodge pit, put the hot stones
on it, poured in the water, heard the image burst, and then announced that the
young man had conquered his enemies. With this assurance, the young man led
a war party toward Mouse River and built two mounds ® as Holy Women
directed.

Hearing young men singing, he found that they were being led by Swallow and
Hawk who were teaching them the Stone Hammer society songs.

The young man selected Swallow and Hawk to kill the enemy who had been
adopted as Woman Above’s son and gave them instructions in cutting off the
head so that it would not come back to life again.

During the fight, the leader of the enemies was seen coming into the conflict,
painted red on the forehead and cheeks with a robe of calfskin and wearing magpie
feathers in his hair. All the time he was protected by a string reaching down
from a small cloud overhead.

Swallow and Hawk cut the string, causing their enemy to lose his supernatural]
powers originating with Woman Above. Woman Above came down from the
sky, carrying her ashwood stick in her right hand and wearing her robe with a
coil of sweetgrass. She was painted red on the forehead and cheeks. She
demanded the head which Swallow and Hawk had taken but they took it to their
leader instead. He extended his pipe toward the head, which died. Then the
eyes closed.

After removing the scalp, he gave Woman Above the head which she failed to
bring to life again. The war party returned to the village where the Holy Women
danced the scalp dances and received many presents. They sewed scalps to the
young man’s shirt, for he was now a chief, and gave him the name Young-Man-
Chief. Whenever the warriors returned successfully from war the Holy Women
would dance. When times were hard, they would butcher animals and put the
meat on the scaffolds for the people. The rites were passed down from generation
to generation. Because Young-Man-Chief did not make offerings to his sister
above, the people learned that she was holy so they prayed to her too. Village-
Old-Woman was represented recently by Fast Dog’s grandmother and Cherry
Necklace was the singer for the Holy Women.

53 Similar mounds pertaining to these beliefs together with medicine poles are erected adjacent to the
villages as shrines for the arrangement of skull circles: see Catlin, 1841, vol. 1, pp. 89-91, pl. 48; and
Maximilian, 1906, vol. 23, p. 340.

54 This incident dates the sacred myth as subsequent to Grandson’s residence with the people since Grand-
son founded the Stone Hammer society. According to native concepts, the sacred myth is interpreted to
relate incidents that occurred prior to the founding of the Earthnaming rites and the first introduction
of the horse—Swallow and Hawk, who are mentioned in this rite, had died and were spirits when the Earth-
naming rites were established. By relating incidents of this kind, native informants determine the relative
chronological position of the various rites. For further information concerning Swallow and Hawk, see
the Earthnaming rites, pp. 434-436.

55 This description of Woman Above’s “‘son’’ provides the basis for subsequent dress and painting for
those Hidatsa who owned rights in Woman Above bundles. Note the close similarity of dress and painting
to the Holy Women; the basis for native concepts that the Holy Women and Women Above bundle owners
should meet together on ceremonial occasions.

330 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Woman Above rites began much later than the Holy Women rites because the
Holy Women were represented by Village-Old-Woman who went back to the
beginning of time, while all the others were created by her.

In the mythology, Woman Above is usually associated with her
brother the Sun because both were believed to be vindictive and
jealous, sending good luck to the enemy when offerings were not
made to them; both were cannibals and arranged battles in order to
eat the victims; both consumed the flesh of dead animals; and both
were responsible for hot winds that destroyed the crops. For this
reason, when offerings are made at the mounds adjacent to the scaf-
folds and graves, both Sun and Woman Above were usually represented
by poles and offerings.

The Woman Above was considered opposite in character to the
Holy Women. Whereas the Holy Women were thought of as benev-
olent spirits, the Woman Above was thought’ of as an evil-disposi-
tioned spirit to whom curing rites with Woman Above bundles were
directed chiefly to avoid misfortunes such as miscarriages, premature
births, insanity, and paralysis. Men dressed in women’s clothing
and ‘‘renounced their sex”’ as a result of frequent visions sent by her
and coils of sweetgrass placed in their paths by this mysterious
woman or one of the Holy Women. Of the four berdaches remem-
bered by Hidatsa informants all were sons either of a Woman Above
Bundle owner or of a member of the Holy Woman fraternity. For
that reason, the berdache was considered holy because Woman
Above had “captured” him. He was considered a “‘prisoner’” of
the Woman Above and was authorized to participate in all ceremonies
pertaining to the Holy Women with whom he was classified. Since
women were barred from actual participation in certain rites, he
was their representative when heavy work was required.

In view of the apparent absence of Woman Above rites or, at
most, their slight formal organization in Hidatsa village on Knife
River, it would appear that the berdache had there a ritualistic
role stemming from the Holy Women rather than with Woman
Above. The Awatixa group, however, with both Holy Women and
Woman Above ceremonies, was organized in the same manner as
the Mandan where many formal bundle lines and rites survived to
the present day. In detail, the Mandan and Awatixa rites are so
similar as to indicate the diffusion of the complete complex from
one tribe to the other even to the skull circles which were ceremonial
grounds established by the Woman Above bundle owners. Appar-
ently, only the Awatixa of the three Hidatsa village groups on the
Missouri had definite Woman Above bundle lines although the Small
Ankles-Wolf Chief line may have come from Hidatsa through Small
Ankles’ own father. In any event, there is little evidence that the

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 331

Hidatsa-proper and Awaxawi gave the rites to Woman Above as
much emphasis as did the other village group, the Awatixa. The
Holy Women, however, are mentioned in both Hidatsa creation
myths and seem to represent very old rites which had a wide distri-
bution within the Mandan—Hidatsa groups. The Woman Above myth
is considered to be a segment of the Sacred Arrow myth thought to
be connected with the older Awatixa agricultural group on the
Missouri.

At this point it is noteworthy to observe that the Woman Above
rites were associated with certain beliefs and practices relating to the
human body after death and that there seems to be a relationship
between the development of Woman Above rites and the disposal of
the dead. There are numerous references in the literature dealing
with the Mandan concerning “skull circles,” mounds, and posts with
offerings which informants readily recognized as part of the beliefs and
rites performed to Woman Above. She and the other gods above were
believed to consume, the flesh of those placed on scaffolds, after which
the skulls were placed near one of these Woman Above or Sun shrines
as a fasting ground for those seeking supernatural powers.

These beliefs seem to have been deeply rooted in Mandan culture.
Primary earth burials, except in or adjacent to the lodge, have been
exceedingly rare at all of the long-occupied Mandan villages. Instead,
we commonly find secondary bundle burials of adults without the skull
in all of their Heart River villages which indicate that the body had
been exposed to the air, probably until the flesh had all decayed, when
the skulls were taken to these skull shrines. The other bones were
wrapped in hide and buried in a shallow grave adjacent to the village
or within the refuse accumulation of the village itself; apparently
without ceremony. Of the two large Hidatsa groups, the Hidatsa-
proper and the Awatixa, it is worth noting that the latter group, whose
villages on the south bank of the Knife River show occupation for two
centuries or more, have scarcely a grave adjacent to the village, a
situation such as is encountered at the old Mandan villages. The
Hidatsa-proper, whose village ruins indicate a much shorter period of
occupation, have a large and extensive burial area extending for more
than a half mile to the west.

Further evidence that cultural differences existed in native beliefs
concerning cannibalism by Woman Above is indicated by the fact that
both the Mandan and Awatixa had several sacred bundles containing
human skulls, whereas none have been reported or are known of for the
other two Hidatsa villages. The high development of Awatixa
beliefs and practices concerning the Woman Above rites, although
never as highly formalized as with the Mandan, indicates that native
traditions of separate migrations of Hidatsa groups to the Missouri

aan BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

over a period of years are valid, and that of all these groups, the
Awatixa are probably the original Hidatsa group to reach the Missouri.

The bundles were identical as to content. In fact, most Mandan
bundles contained essentially the same articles and the songs and rites
were identical. A complete bundle contained 1 large gourd rattle, 12
short ashwood sticks decorated with white sage, braided sweetgrass,
an enemy’s scalp, a jackrabbitskin, magpie feathers, white down from
an eagle, a bundle of white sage, and a buffalo skull. Bundle purchase
followed the tribal pattern in that sons bought their rights from their
fathers after receiving visions interpreted as instructions to make the
purchase. Usually one first made offerings through renewal feasts for
the father’s bundle after winning war honors while wearing some
object, usually a magpie feather supplied by the father who had
prayed that his son would be successful. It was customary for a son
to put up feasts to his father’s bundle even though not contemplating
the purchase of the rites, and to receive some object from the bundle as
recognition of his efforts.

New bundles were assembled when a complete purchase was to be
made. On selling the fourth time, the original bundle was relin-
quished. A clan ‘father’ was selected as instructor to assemble the
articles, direct all preliminaries, and arrange for a bundle owner with
singer rights to officiate during the bundle transfer. The ceremony
was of 1 night’s duration.*® When the purchaser wished to have
singer rights, it was necessary to get extra instructions from one having
those rights. The seller prepared an extra rattle or purchased one
from one who was too old to officiate or from the widow of a former
singer. The rights to the rattle and to be singer were transferred at a
feast for those holding rights in Woman Above bundles. In recent
years those Mandans having rights in Woman Above and other female
deities also met with them.

Bundle renewal was an important responsibility of a bundle owner.
It was customary for the bundle owner and his family to perform a
renewal rite occassionally, at which time they were assisted by their
clans in accumulating the goods. At the termination of the rites,
the family would be nearly propertyless but it served a useful purpose
in demonstrating that ‘‘supernatural possessions were to be preferred
to material wealth.”’ Their relatives usually replenished their mate-
rial needs. Individuals, particularly those whose fathers belonged
to the bundle owner’s clan, often pledged feasts to the bundle if they
returned from a successful military expedition. Other “sons” and
“daughters” sometimes pledged feasts before a military adventure
was undertaken. All the leading bundle owners of the tribe, those

88 See pp. 405-409 below on the Sunrise Wolf rites for a detailed account of a bundle transfer.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 333

whose sacred bundles contained buffalo skulls, were invited to
feast and to receive gifts. The sacred songs were sung and each
gift recipient prayed for the success of the giver. At the close of the
feast three ash poles were set in the ground outside of the village to
represent Sun, Moon, and Woman Above. Two mounds were con-
structed with sage at the top and human skulls were placed in circles
surrounding the image of Woman Above. Fasters frequently went
to these shrines to fast.

Since Sun and Woman Above were believed to be cannibals, offerings
of flesh and the tips of fingers were often made to them. There were
doctoring rites to cure those manifesting mental disorders, also rites
to cause an enemy to “lose his mind” so that he wandered about
aimlessly on the prairies to be killed by Hidatsa war parties and to be
“eaten” by Woman Above. Since the ashwood stick was a part of
the sacred equipment, those who suffered injuries from falling trees
called in a bundle owner to set broken bones and repair their injuries.

Oxp-W oman-WuHo-NeEver-DIkEs aND RELATED CEREMONIES

After providing the traditional setting for the Naxpikr ceremony
(Sun Dance) and the Holy Women society, the Sacred Arrows myth
introduces incidents leading to the adoption of another group of other
closely related ceremonies. Because Grandson or Old-Woman-
Who-Never-Dies, or both, participated in certain supernatural events
during the sacred mythological period, the rites having traditional
origins at that time are believed to be related. Thus, individuals
possessing sacred bundles representing these experiences were entitled
to attend rites performed for one of the related bundles. No individual
owned complete rights in all of the related bundles.

The Sacred Arrow myth, which provides the mythological and
traditional origin of the bundle rites of the complex, begins at the point
where Two Men terminate their instructions to Unknown Man in the
Naxpike rites and inform him that he is the first to make the Sun
Dance brought down from above. The Sacred Arrow myth in
abbreviated form from that point follows:

Three young women out in the trees gathering wood discover a porcupine.
They select the youngest one to climb the tree and shake the animal down. The
tree grows as she climbs until she reaches the world above when she is taken
to Woman Above’s lodge where two sons, Sun and Moon, live.*?

Moon is in the lodge with his mother for he was the one who had decided to
marry the girl. Sun comes in at sunset and announces that he has married a

Toad Woman. Toad fastens herself to Moon’s back when he teases her, a right
he has since he is her brother-in-law.

57 This Woman Above is not to be confused with her daughter also named Woman Above to whom rites
were performed.

334 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

A son is born to Moon and the girl from below. Meadowlark tells the son he
does not belong up there. Moon forbids his wife to dig ‘‘wild turnip’s sister” and
in digging one she finds the hole in the sky. Moon’s wife makes a rope of the
sinews from one buffalo but Moon did not include all of them so the rope reaches
only to the tree tops. Moon’s wife and son attempt to escape down the rope and
Moon discovers them hanging at the end of the rope at the level of the treetops.
He drops a stone, directing it to kill the woman but to spare his son.®

The son remains around his mother’s body which falls near a large garden cared
for by Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies. Discovering a child’s tracks in her garden,
she wonders whether they are by a boy or a girl. She makes a bow and arrows
which will be taken if it is a boy and a ball if it is a girl. Finding the bow and
arrows taken, she knows that the tracks have been made by a boy so she looks for
him and takes him to her lodge near by.

She forbids him to roast the red corn, giving him permission to use any other
variety. He roasts red kernels; they turn into blackbirds which he kills. She
appears pleased but she takes them outside and frees them for they are her helpers
in the gardens.

She forbids him to go into a certain thicket but he goes there and finds a large
grizzly bear who does not kill him for the bear is afraid of the boy’s father, the
Moon. So he takes the bear to his grandmother to serve instead of a dog. [This
act introduces the Bear rites and relates them to the Old-Woman-Who-Never-
Dies rites.]

During the evening he hears Two Men singing love songs to Old-Woman-Who-
Never-Dies from a village on the north side of the river.°* Meanwhile he observes
that his grandmother feeds someone who is staying under her bed and behind
the curtains.

The grandmother forbids him to go to Red Hills but when she was not in sight
he goes there and finds that the hill is full of snakes. The snakes tell the boy
that they are eagle trappers and that the lodge arrangement is for the ceremonial
capture of eagles. [The myth at this point describes the lodge arrangement for
the rites of eagle trapping and explains that the snakes were the first eagle trappers
to set up the altar.]

The snakes bite into a paunch, leaving their teeth there, and offer it to the boy
who roasts the paunch. This burns their teeth and they allrun out. The snakes
address him as ‘“‘“Grandson,”’ for they and all other snakes represent the husbands
of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies.

The snakes ask him to tell them astory. Grandson tells how the buttes make
a noise like the wind and then it is quiet again; part of the snakes go to sleep.
The streams make a noise like the wind and then it is quiet again; half of the
snakes are asleep. The large trees make a loud noise in the wind and then it is
quiet again; only a few snakes are still awake. The wind blows hard and then it
dies down; all of the snakes are asleep.

Grandson kills all of the snakes except the last one which goes into a hole.
This snake warns Grandson never to lie on his stomach to drink. [This red
hill provides the name for one of the Mandan clans, the Masrdomak or ‘‘Red
Hilled People,’ receiving the name from Clay-on-the-Face who provided the
names of the seven clans making up one moiety. I could find no evidence that
the Hidatsa clan names were in any way associated with this hill situated less

58 For a picture of this stone, now a shrine to Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, and another version of this
myth, see Beckwith, 1938.

89 This site was excavated by the Smithsonian Institution in 1952. The artifacts—particularly pottery—
observed by this writer, appear to give the site a date of late prehistoric period, Heart River Focus.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 395

than a mile southeast of the Holding Eagle home in the Fort Berthold Res-
ervation.]

Grandson learns that it is a large snake, Old-Woman-Who-Never- Dies’ husband,
who consumes the food placed back of the curtains, so he kills him. The large
snake is placed in Short Missouri which from that time on, though it had no
inlet or outlet, never went dry.

One day Grandson observes that his grandmother is bathing in the river.
Each time she submerges and comes up again she is a little younger. The fourth
time she comes up as a young woman. This way she never grows old and dies.
Then he knows that she is the one who has control of the vegetation, causing it
to grow each year when the water birds come north and the snakes appear.®

She comes to fear her grandson for he has killed her husband. Grandson drinks
water while lying on his stomach and the snake from Red Hill enters his body,
going up into his head. Moon asks Thunderbird, Wolf, and Sun to assist him in
freeing their son from the snake.® Grandson is freed from the snake and punishes
him by rubbing his nose with a sandstone until Snake agrees to be harmless and
never to disturb people again if the rest of his face is spared.®

Two Men come along and butcher a buffalo for Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies
but Grandson, who is helping them butcher, sees a foetus in the buffalo which
frightens him so he climbs into a tree. Long after this Two Men discover
Grandson dead in the tree and restore him to life.

Two Men ask Grandson to inform his grandmother that they will bring super-
natural powers to Grandson by “walking” with the grandmother. Grandmother
tells her grandson that Two Men have endeavored to marry her but she has always
refused them for they travel around all the time as the arrows. She, however,
can’t do that for she is the custodian of the gardens and must stay in one place.

She informs her grandson that Two Men are bringing the Sacred Arrow ceremony
and that during the ceremony he must select the oldest bow and arrows if he wants
the ones with the greatest supernatural powers. [This section of the myth pro-
vides the setting for the origin of the Arrow rites as well as relating them to Old-
Woman-Who-Never-Dies rites.]

Grandmother dresses one of her helpers, a white-tailed deer, to impersonate
her, putting two small pumpkins in the dress to provide the form of the breasts.
Then Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies hides until the ceremony ends.

Grandson calls for all the gods to come and they appear. First Creator agrees
to be Waiter if Two Men willinvite him. During the rites, each of the gods takes
the deer outside for intercourse but First Creator, who is last, is suspicious and
does not think he had intercourse with the real Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies.
Grandson takes the oldest bow and arrow which is the holiest one so Two Men
are not so lucky afterward in hunting.

Grandmother is angry at Two Men because they asked to “walk” with her.
She has a sacred whistle which she uses to bring rain for her gardens but which
brings storms and snow if blown at other times. Since the whistle, when blown

60 This body of water within the valley of the Missouri rises and falls according to the level of the Missouri.
It was a sacred shrine for both the Mandan and Hidatsa, particularly those who sought supernatural assist -
ance in growing gardens. Both men and women fasted there. Crow Indians also fasted and made offerings
here when passing through.

61 She is one of the original characters who, like First Creator and Village Old Woman, were not created
by any other god but who were in existence at the first creation. She occupies the same position as ‘‘goddess’’
of vegetation that Village Old Woman did as ‘‘goddess’’ of the females of the animal species.

62 Note that the four are considered brothers, and fathers to Grandson.

63 He is also introduced into numerous medicine bundles to the Snakes.

64 This whistle from the sunflower stalk is a part of all Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies bundles and was
used to bring rains while the crops were growing.

336 BUREAU OF AMEKICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

during the winter, brings the cold and drives the game away, she instructs Grand-
son to fly into the air and blow the whistle, driving the animals off. Two Men are
starving and promise to give a medicine feast if Grandson will come down and
stop blowing his whistle.

Two Men send Grandson for the hide of the Chief of the Antelopes to be used
in the rites. Grandmother prepares the antelope’s hide for covering the basket
used in the ceremony. Two Men, First Creator, and all of the gods come to the
ceremony during which Grandson permits Two Men to hold the sacred bow and
arrows until their supernatural powers have in part been returned tothem. [The
narrative here accounts for the sacred basket covered with antelope hide which
was a part of the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies bundle.]

Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies continues to live near Short Missouri with her
Grandson and both are very holy. All this time Two Men travel around a great
deal for they are in reality arrows. Long after the Chief of the Antelopes was
killed, the Hidatsa—River Crow come to the Heart River and cross there onto the
west side. One young man goes up the Heart River to fast, thinking that some
new spirits might reveal themselves and he receives a vision from Sunrise Wolf
who instructs him to go on the warpath. [This dates the origin of the Sunrise
Wolf rites.]

This Village-Young-Man comes upstream to Short Missouri where his party
is fed by their ‘‘grandmother.’”’ She feeds them in clay pots and instructs them
to stir the food when it is low and the pots fill again. She promises them success
if they go to the west, saying that they will find seven enemies wearing wolf hides
around their bodies and carrying bows without bark. She asks for one of the
scalps to hang on the side of her basket. The war party finds the seven enemies
(pl.9), kills them, and brings ascalp to their grandmother. She tells them that when-
ever they want to get the best of their enemies, they should promise her some-
thing. [This incident is used to explain the presence of scalps in a sacred bundle
primarily concerned with agriculture.]

By this time the people learn where she has her lodge and come there frequently
to eat. Heretofore, as she caused her gardens to thrive, the gardens of those she
blessed also thrived but she was annoyed by their frequent visits. Soshe instructs
the people through visions how to perform the rites and hunters discover that she
has disappeared and abandoned her lodge and gardens. The hunters see a ring
of stones to the southwest where her tipi had stood. Long after this Two Men
discover that she has taken up residence far to the south on a large island where
she cares for her gardens and is guarded by four water monsters. They learn
that the spirits of vegetation, particularly the corn and other garden things,
spend the winter with her, coming south with the waterbirds in the fall and
returning with them in the spring.®

One day Grandson returns to the earth lodge at Short Missouri to discover that
his grandmother is gone and her lodge and gardens are deserted (see also Wool-
worth, 1956). He goes south to a village downstream from Knife River to live
with Water Grass whom he adopts as “‘friend.’”? Grandson has the sacred whistle
which brings rains for the crops if used during the summer but which drives away
the animals when used at other times.

Grandson does not reveal his identity, but First Creator comes to the village
and tells the people that the stranger is Grandson who came down from above.

Grandson informs Water Grass that they will found the Stone Hammer society
and he gives his friend instructions in the rites and meanings of the objects used.
He tells Water Grass that the pole across the smoke hole represents the pole his

65 For additional traditions of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, see Thunder ceremonies, p. 359.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 35%

mother put across the hole in the sky when they came down, that the string used
for the necklace represents the sinew his mother used to come down from above,
that the red side of the hammer represents the sun and the black side the moon,
and that the road followed by Sun and Moon in their travels across the sky will
be represented by two lines. Grandson rules that those who buy will later sell to
those they call “sons.” He rules that it is proper for them to steal food during
the nights when the ceremony is being performed.

Water Grass forgets and blows the whistle during the cold weather and a severe
storm drives the game away. Grandson leaves the village with his wife and
pitches a tipi where he performs rites which bring the stars down carrying buffalo
meat which they place around those lodges that have a pipe set out for the stars
to smoke. After that the people would put a pipe by Grandson’s lodge and the
stars would come down to eat and smoke, bringing buffalo meat with them.

But Yellow Dog, the founder of the four Dog societies, has designs on Grandson’s
wife. [The myth has now dated the mythological origin of the Stone Hammer,
Little Dog, Foolish Dog, Dog, and Old Dog societies.] Yellow Dog takes liberties
with Grandson’s wife. Grandson and the gods from above are bringing meat to
the village when he discovers her unfaithfulness and attempts to leave. His wife
steps in front of him and attempts to stop him with the pipe. He makes a zigzag
path where he steps around the pipe and announces that those who follow this
track in the future without falling will live to be old.*6 Then Grandson and the
gods return to the sky.

The people are angry at Yellow Dog and will not feed him. The people move
to new hunting grounds upstream but Yellow Dog is so weak that he cannot
travel. Grandson imprisons all game in Dog Den."

Grandson’s wife assists Yellow Dog and marries him. First Creator discovers
the condition of the people and assists Yellow Dog in rites to save the people from
starvation.®

First Creator advises Yellow Dog to throw turtle fat into the fire and the
“Leader of the Wolves” will help bring the game.®

First Creator turns into a young buffalo bull and brings a herd of buffaloes near
the village, is shot in the thigh, and runs to Dog Den where Grandson removes the
arrow. Then First Creator asks Grandson to stop punishing the people as the
people are not starving. Grandson sends Fox to Yellow Dog’s camp to learn the
news. Fox is taken in a deadfall, fed by the people, and returns to report that
Yellow Dog’s people are not in want.

First Creator goes out and brings another herd of buffaloes to Yellow Dog’s
camp. Grandson sends Chickadee to Yellow Dog’s camp; he, too, is trapped,
taken to the camp, and fed. He returns and reports that the people are not starv-
ing. Again First Creator begs Grandson to free the animals.

66 This happens about 1 mile south of Sanger, N. D.

67 In the Mandan sacred myths it is the Hoita of the Okipa rites who imprisons all the animals. The
Hidatsa seem to have no organized rites to dramatize this imprisonment of the animals.

68 Note that First Creator holds supernatural powers superior to Grandson, for the former represents one
of the original characters who created the lands. Still, as far as it was possible to determine, there was no
First Creator ceremony although he assisted in many rites. There seem to be no tribal rites originating from
the “freeing of the animals” other than references to the incident in the Dog society songs of the age-grade
system.

6 The turtle is also associated with the buffalo on other occasions. Throughout Hidatsa hunting
territory are numerous turtle effigies arranged from boulders and situated on high hills with the head pointed
toward the river (pl. 6). Nearby are piles of stones on which individual offerings were made to clear the
fogs so that the buffalo herds could be found.

338 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

First Creator brings Yellow Dog’s people another herd of buffaloes; Grandson
sends out the Red Fox and he reports the people are not starving. Again First
Creator asks Grandson to free the animals.

First Creator brings Yellow Dog’s people a fourth herd of buffaloes and shortly
afterward Grandson sends out Mousehawk who is captured, fed, and freed to return
to Dog Den where he reports to Grandson that the people are not starving. Again
First Creator asks Grandson to free the animals.

Grandson sees that he is defeated. He enumerates the many things he did for
the people while he was on the earth for which, never once, did he ever receive
any offerings or pay. He now rules that since he never once received an offering,
if people of any village ever make an offering to him hereafter, that village will
be destroyed.”

Then Grandson returned to the sky for all time. He is one of the large stars
[Venus] and never is seen in the sky during the summer while the buffaloes are
calving for he is afraid of a foetus or a newborn calf. Neither does he, in his
travels across the sky, appear near the Moon, his father, for his father was in-
strumental in causing the death of his mother when she attempted to escape from
above.

The myth of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies provided the basis for
native beliefs and practices for the propagation of the cultivated
crops and she was considered the “goddess” of all vegetation. It
was probably with this latter belief that she was associated by non-
agricultural groups in the area such as the Crow and Cheyenne.
The Hidatsa thought of her as the custodian of all vegetation that
ripens or sheds its leaves in the fall and is ‘Tejuvenated” in the spring
with the northern flights of the waterbirds which she accompanied.
She was equally regarded as the ‘‘producer” of wild fruit crops;
occasionally, offerings of calicoes and meat were offered to the shrubs
and bushes. Many of the unorganized household rites relating to her
showed considerable variability.

In light of the universal distribution of Old-Woman-Who-Never-
Dies rites in the Mandan and Hidatsa villages, the existence of Corn
rites among those groups such as the Cheyenne who no longer practiced
agriculture during the 19th century, and similar myths for the Crow
where there were no organized Corn rites, it would appear that the
native view of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies as “goddess” of vegeta-
tion was an early belief that preceded agriculture. Only in the earth
lodge villages of the Mandan and Hidatsa do we find these myths
organized into formal rituals. For the Mandan we find that the Corn
rites have been associated with the Women’s Goose society (Densmore,
1923, pp. 183-205) which was organized by Good-Furred-Robe to
dance during the northern and southern flights of the water birds and
whenever the gardens suffered from drought. Nowhere in the
Hidatsa sacred myths do we find reference to the origin of the Goose
society. Consistent with Hidatsa concepts that those institutions

7 T found no evidence that offerings were made to Grandson.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 339

and customs for which there is no origin myth were recently borrowed
from other tribes, we find them explaining the presence of Women’s
Goose societies in the three Hidatsa villages as recent adoptions from
the Mandan.

The unequal development of Corn rites between the Hidatsa and
the Mandan seems to have a direct relationship to the relative im-
portance of agriculture to the two tribal groups. The Mandan and
Awaxawi were considered more stationary than the Hidatsa by
most early explorers. Henry (1897, p. 338) wrote in 1805 that—

The Mandanes and Saulteurs (Awaxawi) are a stationary people who never
leave their villages except to go hunting or on a war expedition. They are much
more agricultural than their neighbors, the Big Bellies (Hidatsas), raising an
immense quantity of corn, beans, squashes, tobacco.

Of the Mandan and Hidatsa village groups on the Missouri, the
Mandan seem to have gone farther than their Hidatsa neighbors in
the development of Corn rites. Their exodus myth from under-
ground was ritually expressed through Corn and Fertility rites
associated with Good-Furred-Robe, Cornhusk Earrings, and Uses-His-
Head-for-a-Rattle, and their sister, Corn Silk, who taught that
gardens were sacred. The exodus of the Corn spirits and their
migrations were symbolically represented by the objects in the Sacred
Robe bundle. The Goose society, likewise, was definitely integrated
into these Corn rites. The Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies as “god-
dess’’ of fertility, on the other hand, was represented both by inde-
pendent rites closely resembling those practiced by the Hidatsa
groups and as fused or composite bundle rites associated with the
myths of the exodus from the ground.

The Mandan believe that the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies rites
and bundles represent the older rites of the Heart River area as
practiced there by the earliest population, the Nuitadi. They also
feel that the Good-Furred-Robe and Skull bundle rites reached the
region much later by migration of southern Mandan groups, the
Nuptadi and Awigaxa. The concept of the settlement of the Heart
River and Sanger region by successive migrations is substantiated by
the archeology of their traditional sites. (The outline of the Old-
Woman-Who-Never-Dies lodge is rectangular, similar to those found
at the Huff and Clark’s Creek sites of early Mandan who have tradi-
tions of former rectangular lodges, but the Hidatsa have no such
traditions.) This concept seems reasonable in light of the fact that
there were traditionally never more than two of the Sacred Robe and
Skull bundles, both of which are still preserved, whereas the number
of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies bundles was sufficiently great to
be represented in each aboriginal village.

340 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

According to Hidatsa traditions, however, the Goose society was
bought from the Mandan shortly before 1800 and the Skull bundle
reached the Awaxawi through intermarriage after 1837. According
to the Mandan, this society and bundle both are late additions to their
rites by migration of southern groups out of the Grand River to the
region intermediate to the mouth of the Knife and Heart Rivers.
If we eliminate these two additions to the Hidatsa Corn rites, the
Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies rites would be common to both tribes
and represent the most popular Corn rites before the last Mandan
migration northward. The Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies myth as
related by people of the two tribes, shows only a few insignificant
differences dealing chiefly with Grandson who, in the Hidatsa myth,
founded the Stone Hammer society.

Probably no Mandan or Hidatsa myth is as widely related and
discussed as that of the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies. Most of my
informants had performed rites of one kind or another to this ‘Old
Woman,” ranging from simple household cleansing rites after a day
in the fields to the major bundle transfer rites when buying from
their fathers. Likewise, the varieties of ritual forms within one
village were greater than for any of the other ceremonies. The
simplest and most universal rites were performed by women as
individuals or household groups of females and consisted primarily
of simple offerings of meat and pieces of hide placed on sticks in the
garden during the northward or southward flights of the water birds.
This was often done without benefit of public gatherings or payments
to bundle owners. On other occasions a woman, while working in
the garden, often dreamed of those spirits associated with the gardens
and set up within her garden a high post on which a newly composed
personal sacred bundle was hung as a “protector” of the garden.
It was customary to bring these sacred bundles to the lodge when the
crop had been gathered and to return them to the gardens again in
the spring at the time of cultivation.

A woman who allowed her sacred bundle to hang in the garden
all winter, however, would have bad luck. The story is told of a
woman of the Prairie Chicken clan who dreamed that the Wolf
Woman would work in her gardens all day and appear at the camp of
warriors far from the village when the ribs were cooking.” She for-
got to bring in her bundle and during the winter a wolf came into camp
and bit her on the nose while she slept. When the men came, hearing
her cry, they killed the wolf and found that it was so old that its teeth
were worn down to the gums. After that the name Bites-in-Nose was
given to young men of both the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes.

71 See Wolf rites, below, for an account of this woman.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 341

In addition to the simple ritual practices involving only the females
of a household, there were those practices which centered around the
Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies sacred bundles of which there was one
major bundle in each of the three Hidatsa villages of the Knife River
prior to 1837. These bundle owners organized and managed the vil-
lage rites during the period of the spring northward and fall southward
flights of the waterbirds. Prior to planting the crop, individuals would
pledge to have the rites performed if the crop was bountiful or the
household enjoyed good health. After the pledge was made, there
followed a period of preparation. At the appointed time a ceremonial
feast was given, during which those possessing rights in the Old-
Woman-Who-Never-Dies bundles, the animals and birds mentioned
in the sacred myths associated with the bundle, and all others who
had secondary rights in associated bundles, were authorized to at-
tend. Each received goods and prayed for the giver’s success.”

There were three bundle lines at the time of the smallpox epidemic
of 1837: Hidatsa village represented by Bears Heart’s bundle; Awaxawi
village represented by Bear-Looks-Out’s bundle; and Awatixa repre-
sented by Crow-Flies-High’s father’s bundle. Each bundle was equal
to the others in status. At this time the Mandan had two types of
Corn ceremony bundles; those which were concerned chiefly with
rites to Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies as described in the sacred
myths, and a second bundle complex of two bundles which additionally
represented dramatizations of the myth of the exodus of the people
as corn spirits from the ground and their various experiences until
reaching the Heart River. Mandan informants state that since
there were only two Good-Furred-Robe bundles, several villages had
only Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies bundles while others had both
kinds.

The final diffusion of the Women’s Goose society to all Hidatsa
village groups appears to have taken place during the early part of
the 19th century. Nowhere in the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies
sacred myth is there reference to this society. Nevertheless, the Old-
Woman-Who-Never-Dies bundle owners were, in all villages, the
singers for this society during the entire period of recorded history.
According to Hidatsa traditions, the society was bought from the
Mandan who have a tradition of its founding by Good-Furred-Robe
to dance whenever the gardens needed rains. At first the Hidatsa
society did not wear the duckskin or gooseskin headbands, only carrying
bundles of sage in their arms. But, since the recent union of the Hi-
datsa and Mandan societies, even that distinction no longer exists
(Lowie, 1913).

72 These rites are described in considerable detail by Curtis, 1907 a, pp. 148-152.
710-—195—65——_23

342 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

According to Hidatsa traditions, the three village groups did not
simultaneously adopt the Goose society to assist the Old-Woman-
Who-Never-Dies bundle owners. The society was first to reach the
Awaxawi through the Mandan living near Painted Woods; the
Awatixa were second, and the Hidatsa were last. This would seem
to confirm beliefs that the Hidatsa-proper were relatively late to adopt
agriculture while the other two village groups had a relatively long
history of agriculture, the Awatixa on the Missouri above the Mandan
villages and the Awaxawi on the stream courses to the east.

Recent changes in the culture patterns resulting from bundle
buying would indicate that the Hidatsa have greatly enriched their
Corn rites chiefly as a result of Mandan contacts. Immediately
after the smallpox epidemic of 1837 Bear-Looks-Out, Old-Woman-
Who-Never-Dies bundle owner of Awaxawi, married into the Mandan
family owning the Skull bundle of the three culture heroes who led
the corn spirit people from the ground. His Mandan father-in-law,
Red Bird (also known as Different Pipe), had been a leader in the
Mandan Corn rites and was singer for the Goose society. Red Bird
was discouraged when his only son died after the epidemic had run
its course and then indicated a desire to dispose of the bundle which,
in spite of the high price he had paid for it, had not brought his family
good luck during the epidemic. Bear-Looks-Out indicated a desire
to buy the bundle with his wife, Corn Woman of the Mandan Prairie
Chicken clan, and the sale was made with the approval of the Mandan
of the Mitutanku village group. The bundle is popularly known as the
Good-Furred-Robe Skull bundle. Sale by a man to his son-in-law
was a common Mandan pattern.

The bundle represents the three brothers and their sister, children
of Corn Father. The children are believed to have been separated
from their father during the exodus from the ground at a point
downstream near the mouth of the Mississippi when the vine was
broken by a pregnant woman who attempted to come to the surface.
The bundle contains the skulls of the three brothers, Good-Furred-
Robe, Cornhusk Earrings, and Uses-His-Head-for-a-Rattle; white
sage; corn silk; a headdress of foxskins; and a wooden pipe (Bowers,
1950, p. 186, fig. 24).

The Skull bundle was obtained by the Awaxawi at the time of the
union of the Hidatsa and Mitutanku Mandans for the building
of Fishhook Village. Although Bear-Looks-Out kept the two bundles
separate, both were taken to ceremonial functions, thus providing
a situation wherein both the Mandan and Hidatsa groups were en-
titled to meet collectively for Corn rites. As singer to two Goose so-
cieties, it proved more convenient for the two societies to meet
simultaneously with both the Mandan and Hidatsa singers. This

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 343

arrangement was followed as long as the Nuptadi Mandan remained
below the Knife River. The great prestige of the Mandan Corn rites
is indicated by the fact that Bear-Looks-Out was selected over all
other Corn bundle owners to represent the southern direction when
Fishhook Village was built. Concerning this event Curtis (1907 a,
p. 138) wrote, quoting Bear-Looks-Around (Out), ‘“My lodge shall
represent the lodge of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies. It shall stand
to the south whence the warm winds come that they may cause the
plants to grow. As her garden prospered so shall it be with my
people.”

As long as the Mandans remained divided into two groups, those
of Nuptadi living below the Knife River and the Nuitadi at Fishhook
Village with the survivors of the Hidatsa villages, only two Goose
societies existed. The Hidatsa and Mandan at Fishhook had a
single society whose singers were the Mandan and Hidatsa Old-
Woman-Who-Never-Dies bundle owners and the Skull bundle owner.
At Nuptadi village, the singers for the society were the Robe bundle
owner and Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies bundle owners. When the
final union of the Mandans at Fishhook occurred around 1860, a
reorganization of the membership of the Goose societies occurred.
The Mandan formed a single society with the Robe bundle owner as
the principal singer while the three Hidatsa village groups met
independently with the Skull bundle owner as principal singer.
This situation continued until part of the Hidatsa separated under
Bobtail Bull and Crow-Flies-High to build near Fort Buford. Those
women who had rights in the Goose society organized anew at Fort
Buford, but for a number of years had no singer. Then Crow-Flies-
High “‘took up”’ his father’s rites in the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies,
which had died out at his death in 1837 from smallpox, and the women
then invited him to become their singer. Fishhook Village continued
to support two Goose societies; a Hidatsa society with Bear-Looks-
Around (Out) and later Poor Wolf the principal singer, and a Mandan
society with Moves Slowly the principal singer. Bear-Looks-Around
had the Mandan Skull bundle and Moves Slowly had the Robe
bundle. Only at Fort Buford was the Goose society organization
not associated with a Mandan Corn bundle.

Although the Goose society, Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, the
Skull, and the Robe rites tended to fuse into a single ritual containing
features of all four ceremonies during the 19th century, complete
union of the four ceremonies had not been achieved when the aboriginal
societies collapsed. Hach bundle ceremony had its separate songs
and rites which were still recognized by the older informants at the
time this study was made. The singer, when performing at the
request of the Goose society, sang only the society songs unless paid

344 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

to enrich the ritual by singing the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies,
the Skull, or the Robe songs.

Individuals receiving dreams associated with the Old Woman,
the Skull, or the Robe bundles could bypass the Goose society members
in performing rites and frequently did. And female membership of
the Goose society was of unequal status in respect to their relationships
to the male bundle owners. Some women had put up goods collec-
tively to purchase the society and held their rights in the society
until a younger group bought them out. On the other hand, there
were numerous women who had dreamed of the sacred bundles relating
to agriculture or had assisted their husbands or brothers or both
in performing rites to the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, Skull, and
Robe bundles as well as buying with their group into the Goose society.
These women retained rights to meet even after they had sold rights
in the Goose society to ‘‘daughters.”’ This special group also included
the wives and sisters of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, Skull, and
Robe bundle owners.

The Goose society, although associated with Old-Woman-Who-
Never-Dies, had all the characteristics of a separate ceremony.
These women kept their own pipe, drums, and sacred paraphernalia
when the society was not performing and did their own singing and
conducted all of the ritual acts when no singer was available. The
Hidatsa thought of the society as an addition to the long-established
oroups.

The Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies rites are a dramatization of the
sacred myths, and the bundle was associated with these plants,
animals, and birds mentioned in the myth:

corn elk blackbirds
beans deer geese
pumpkins bear ducks
sunflowers dogs cranes

Bundle purchase was a 4-night ceremony attended by all those
whose sacred bundles contained buffalo skulls. Traditionally, only
those with rights in Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies bundles and those
ceremonies mentioned in the myth attended prior to the epidemic
of 1837. The number of legitimate owners was so small after that
date, however, that the category of those invited to attend and to
pray for the success of the bundle buyer was increased to include the
principal bundle owners for the other tribal rites. Purchase was
from the father, and a father’s clansman was selected to make up the
new bundle and give ritual training. The father’s clansman also
selected the singer for the rites. The singer approached the cere-
monial lodge by the usual four steps, singing a different sacred song
belonging to the ceremony at each of these stations where the buyer

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 345

and his wife met him to deliver the sacred wooden pipe and a robe.
It was customary for the same group of relatives to assist in putting
up the goods as when any other tribal ceremony was being performed.
The Goose society did not meet as a group but individuals who had
qualified formerly by giving ceremonial feasts to the Old-Woman-
Who-Never-Dies could attend. During the bundle transfer, the
buyer fed the participants and spectators, received the blessings of
the sacred bundle owners, and paid those who were entitled to attend
and to participate.

The contents of a principal or complete sacred bundle varied
slightly between village groups, whether Hidatsa or Mandan. There
was, first and foremost, a corn basket covered with a tanned ante-
lope hide from which the hair had been removed. The corn basket
frame represented Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies and the antelope
hide represented Chief-of-the-Antelopes who was killed by Grandson
on orders of this old woman. The Sacred Arrows referred to the
visit of Two Men to her lodge when they gave Grandson his choice
of arrows in return for ‘‘walking’ with the grandmother. The
human scalp referred to her assistance to Village-Young-Man who
once came to her lodge to eat and rest before going to the west to get
the seven enemies she had promised him. A wooden pipe with the
carving of a goosehead on the stem represented the goose as the har-
binger of spring and the termination of the growing period in autumn.
Two clay pots represented the sacred pots which were once placed
on the shore by the Snake people and which were used to feed visitors.”
By stirring the contents of the pots, the vessels could not be emptied.
The headdress of foxskin represented the fox who served as messenger
for Grandson when he imprisoned the animals in Dog Dens. White
sage was used to cleanse people; it was kept in all households, and
after the women returned from working in the gardens they used it to
cleanse their bodies from the corn spirits and to remove insects
picked up in their work. The gourd rattle represented one of the
garden plants. A piece of elkskin was included since the elk assisted
her in the gardens; a deer skull and horns were included also, for the
deer, too, were her servants. A piece of bearskin was included because
Grandson once tamed the grizzly bear to become her helper in place
of dogs which she formerly worked. Blackbird heads were included,
for they were her helpers—eating the insects in the gardens—and
are also mentioned in the myth. A circular drum decorated with
goose tracks was sometimes also included. Corn, particularly
yellow corn, beans, pumpkins, and sunflowers, and a whistle made
of the stalk of the sunflower, representing the whistle used by Grand-

73 Pottery is generally associated with the snakes and water. It was customary when making pots to shape
them in a secluded and dark place, as in an earth lodge with the entrance and part of the smoke hole covered.

346 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

son to drive away the animals and punish Two Men, were also in-
cluded. When blown in summer the whistle brought rains; in
the winter it brought blizzards. These were the primary sacred
objects of a principal bundle, according to Mrs. White Duck whose
father, Poor Wolf, owned the Awaxawi principal bundle. She thought
that there had formerly been a snakeskin in the bundle also but
that he had sold this to a “‘son’”’ who had dreamed of the snake belong-
ing to the bundle and that it had never been replaced. Old-Woman-
Who-Never-Dies’ husband at Short Missouri was a large snake, and,
in her southern home, Two Men once discovered that four large
“orandfather’’ snakes associated with water guarded her island
home from trespassers.

The list of objects contained in Bobtail Bull’s Mandan bundle,
according to Mrs. Owen Baker, was the same as reported by Mrs.
White Duck.” This would indicate that even for the Mandan before
their union with the Hidatsa, two almost identical Corn ceremonies
were celebrated. By contrast, the Robe bundle owned by Moves
Slowly had these objects: a buffalo robe said to have been worn
by Good-Furred-Robe, on which was painted a map of the world
showing the Missouri River as a huge snake and the hole through
which the people were believed to have passed in reaching the earth;
a carved wooden pipe showing the head of a goose; headdress of fox-
skins; white sage; buffalo hide moccasins with hair to the inside;
clay pot (it had been broken and was never replaced); a piece of elk
hide; gourd rattle; corn silk; three ears of corn (white flint, yellow,
white soft); strip of badger skin; several blackbirds and one green-
head duck’s head; a deer skull to rest the bundle on; three dried
squash; a sunflower head; and a robe made of kit fox hides.

The ceremonies were restricted entirely to the period from the first
appearance of the waterbirds in the spring to their fall flight south-
ward. The principal rites were performed at the beginning and
end of the period. It was customary also for the Goose women to
meet at these times whether paid to do so or not. Until the old cul-
ture broke down, there were usually several meetings in the spring
and again in the fall, and at other times when invited to dance.”
Usually a number of people pledged to have the Goose society dance
and put up goods and meat for the spring dances. The fall dances,
by contrast, ushered out the summer garden period. Dances at that
time were said to please the water birds which, as messengers of the
Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, upon reaching their winter homes with

14 This Bobtail Bull was killed July 13, 1851, and should not be confused with the Bobtail Bull who led the
Hidatsa to Fort Buford.

75 See Lowie, 1913, vol. 11, pp. 330-338, for a description of their rites; Boller, 1868, pp. 147-149; Curtis,
1907 a, pp. 148-152.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 347

the corn spirits whom they guided south, reported the various offerings
that had been made to her. As a token of her thanks for these
offerings, it was believed she would send the winter buffaloes near the
village so that the people could live well until the next crop could be
planted and harvested. Certain women claimed to have corn spirits
in their body. Occasionally, especially during corn rites, this spirit
would appear in the woman’s mouth, and payments were made to
her to ‘‘make the spirits go back down.’”’ Women sold these
mysteries to “daughters” independently of the other corn rites.

Curtis (1907 a, p. 134) describes an instance in which the Goose
society was bypassed in securing supernatural powers directly from
the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies:

During the growing season the owner of the field took a buffalo robe as a gift
to one of the Corn Priests, asking him to pray to Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies
and to the spirits that controlled the weather, that the corn might thrive to
ripeness. The priest returned with the husbandman to his lodge, and there burned
incense and held a stalk of corn in the sacred smoke, praying that the crop might
prosper, and be plentiful. He then passed the stalk to the owner of the field,
saying, ‘‘Keep this,’ and it was hung in the sacred place of the lodge as a token
of a bountiful harvest.

It frequently happened that one made the request before the
gardens were planted. In this instance a young shoot of the cotton-
wood was substituted for the corn plant. Others, however, made
requests for supernatural assistance to win over their enemies in battle.
A young man would go to a bundle owner who stood in the “father-
son” relationship and pledge that he would give a feast for the Old-
Woman-Who-Never-Dies and decorate her basket with a scalp if he
won over the enemy. If successful, after the scalp dances had been
celebrated, a date was set for the decoration of the basket. Food
was prepared. As many robes and other things as possible were
collected from his household and other cooperating relatives. Then
the bundle owner was invited in with his sacred bundle. Prayers
were offered to the “son” and some object from the bundle was given
him for his personal use. In general, however, the bundle rites were
concerned chiefly with garden crops.

Maximilian (1906, pp. 372-373) writes of the sacred pots used in
connection with rainmaking rites as follows:

She gave the Minitaries [Hidatsa] a couple of pots, which they still preserve as
a sacred treasure, and employ as medicines, or charms, on certain occasions. She
directed the ancestors of these Indians to preserve the pots, and to remember the
great waters, from which all animals came cheerful, or, as my old narrator ex-
pressed it, dancing. The red-shouldered oriole came, at that time, out of the
water, as well as all the other birds which still sing on the banks of the rivers.
The Minitaries, therefore, look on all these birds as medicine for their plantations

of maize, and attend to their song. At the time when these birds sing, they were
directed by the old woman to fill these pots with water, to be merry, to dance and

348 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

bathe, in order to put them in mind of the great flood. When their fields are
threatened with a great drought they are to celebrate a medicine feast with the
old grandmother’s pots, in order to beg for rain: this is, properly, the destination
of the pots. The medicine men are still paid, on such occasions, to sing for 4 days
together in the huts, while the pots remain filled with water.

Native informants were in general agreement as to the Old-Woman-
Who-Never-Dies’ beliefs contained in the above statement by Maxi-
milian, but none could recall a ceremony in which clay pots were
filled with water. Within their memory clay pots were used to hold
coals with which to incense the objects in the bundles. When these
pots were broken, in recent years, large sherds were used. When
dramatizing the visit of Village-Young-Man to Old-Woman-Who-
Never-Dies’ lodge, when clay pots were in general use, it was cus-
tomary to stir the contents of the pots and to say that the food re-
newed itself. The participants would leave a portion of the food in
the vessel for the snakes.

Closely associated with the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies’ rites
were the Tying-the-Pots rites. Informants insisted that this ceremony,
practiced only at Awaxawi, had quite a different traditional origin
and was established after reaching the Missouri River.

GrizzLy BEAR CEREMONY

This ceremony was performed to the grizzly bear and the sacred
arrows and should not be confused with a small black bear ritual for
eagle trapping. The Hidatsa recognize two classes of Grizzly Bear
bundles; the hereditary bundles which have their traditional origin
from the bear captured by Grandson to serve as his grandmother’s ”
servant, and personal bundles obtained by vision. The latter class
was based on visions, often obtained as the result of being mauled
by bears as in the recent cases of Old-White-Man and Foolish Head.
These bundles have no long history of inheritance and no traditional
sacred myths. The rites were simple and often had only one or two
wordless songs. They were the personal property of the vision
recipient; feasts were rarely given to the bundle. When the owner of
the bundle died, the bundle was put away and, unless sold to a close
relative, the songs were soon forgotten. In spite of the personal
character of these bundles, we find the vision recipient receiving
directions to doctor; the principal role of the hereditary bundle rites.
In many respects the personal bundle rites and beliefs partake of the
hereditary bear rites without the restrictions imposed by tradition.
Not uncommonly, a personal bundle temporarily occupied a relatively
high status due to the personality of its owner.

76 She is the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 349

Another closely related bundle was the Bear Bullet bundle rites
originally instituted as a result of a vision. These rites also took on
a hereditary character; those Bullet rites which were instituted as
substitutes for the Sacred Arrows of the Bear bundles assumed the
hereditary character of the bundles, while those Bullet rites which were
instituted by visions independent of hereditary bundles tended to
die out.

The data on this ceremony were contributed chiefly by Bears
Arm, the hereditary owner of the principal bundle of Awaxawi
(frontispiece). The relationship of the bundle and the rites to other
hereditary bundles is indicated by the sacred myth and his interpre-
tations of the pattern of the rituals. A condensed account of the
sacred myth by Bears Arm follows:

Charred Body, a holy arrow, found a hole in the sky and looking down, saw a
new world much like that above. He came down as an arrow and established a
village of 13 households representing the 13 parts of an arrow. (See fig. 1.)
He returned to the sky and invited 13 different family groups to come down and
occupy the lodges previously constructed.”” From the beginning, life on the earth
was difficult as there were many evil spirits bent on exterminating the village.
First Creator came along and volunteered to be the waiter whenever a ceremony
was given.

Charred Body’s sister, while alone, had a visitor who forcibly removed her
unborn twins which he named Spring Boy and Lodge Boy but who, when they
grew up, were known as Two Men. ‘They were very holy and destroyed many of
the gods residing in that neighborhood. Of the two, Spring Boy was considered
the more offensive and he was taken back into the sky to suffer ceremonially, which
deed led to the establishment of the Naxpike ceremony. ‘The two boys returned
to the earth, grew to maturity, adopted a son named Unknown Man, and taught
their son the Naxpikr ceremony. ‘They also taught the Arrow ceremony.

One time they prevailed on Moon’s son, named Grandson, to have his grand-
mother, Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, put on a ceremony to which were invited
all the sacred beings who agreed to “‘adopt”’ sons in the tribe for the future, thus
helping their sons to get ahead. By doing that, they expected these sons to make
offerings to them according to the particular tastes of the various spirits.

The Grizzly Bear, who was one of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies’ helpers, took
as “son” a young man named Brave-While-Young who became a successful hunter
and eagle trapper after that.72 He went out for four successive seasons hunting
and trapping eagles, and each year he was very successful. He failed to make an
offering to the grizzly bears and, whenever the gods met at medicine feasts after
that, they teased Grizzly Bear about his selfish son who never gave him anything
and seemed to have entirely forgotten his ‘father.”’

Grizzly Bear resolved to punish his son, so on Brave-While-Young’s fourth
hunting and trapping expedition, Grizzly Bear stole the young man’s wife and two
children, taking them to his lodge in a dense cedar thicket. A year later when the
young man returned, he was alone. He cried for his wife. Grizzly Bear directed

1 This traditional site is situated on the east bank of the Missouri River a few miles below Washburn, N.
Dak.

78 In historic times grizzly bear bundles did not carry eagle trapping rights. These rights went with the
small black bear.

350 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

the young man to the lodge where the family lived and informed Brave-While-
Young that he should perform the Bear ceremony the following year when all the
holy people would attend.

Brave-While-Young worked 1 year preparing for the ceremony. Twenty robes
and twenty pairs of moccasins were needed, for the bear has ten fingers and
ten toes. Spring Boy and Lodge Boy were to bring their holy bow and arrows
to present to Brave-While-Young. All the animals would be there and the
buffalo, bear, elk, deer, and dog would have special parts. Two Men would
make the rattle, cover it with an owl’s skin, and decorate it with raven feathers;
First Creator would provide a snare with which to catch the enemies. The gods
would bless the young man and wish him success. The buffaloes would stay near
the village. He would be able to doctor the sick with the bear and remove
arrow points or other foreign objects from the body with the aid of the sacred
arrows.

When the appointed time came, the gods arrived and the ceremony was per-
formed as outlined by the grizzly bear. All the Grizzly Bear bundles began with
that ceremony although variations occur in some family lines because of sub-
sequent visions.

Bears Arm traced his Bear bundle rites back patrilineally to his
great grandfather, Crow Bull, of Awaxawi village. He believed,
however, that there was an unbroken patrilineal line from Two Men
and Brave-While-Young to Crow Bull even though he did not know
and had never heard the names of the intermediate bundle owners.
There were hereditary bundle owners in each of the three former
Hidatsa villages where ritualistic differences between villages were
assumedly no greater than between individual bundle lines within
the same village. Only two hereditary bundle lines were unbroken
as a result of smallpox deaths in 1837. Cherry Necklace held the
bundle from Hidatsa and Bears Arm’s father, Old-Woman-Crawling,
from Awaxawi. Purchase was inspired by repeated visions of the
father’s bundle or characters and events associated with the bundle.
While inheritance was traditionally from father to son, one exception
was made for Black Shield who, as a result of repeated dreams,
bought from Cherry Necklace, his maternal grandmother’s brother.”
Later, Cherry Necklace also sold to a son, High Hump. It appears
from native analyses that one not of the patrilineal line would not
be denied the right to purchase a new bundle should he have appro-
priate reappearing visions. The first step was to put on a medicine
feast to the family’s bundle; then, if the visions persisted, the Bear
bundle owners met and consented to a bundle purchase ceremony.

Bears Arm provided the following narrative relative to the
ceremony:

Crow Bull went out fasting on the hills called Rainy Buttes for 7 days and nights
at atime. Each time he fasted he had a good dream, but none of them satisfied

19 Mandan inheritance from the mother’s brother or the Maternal grandmother’s brother was a normal
occurrence. Bears Arm (Awaxawi) considered Black Shield’s case rather exceptional, although he could
recall other purchases made through the mother line at Awaxawii village.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 351

him. He thought that if he fasted more he would see something with his own
eyes without having to dream about it. On the seventh day of the seventh time
out, during the middle of the forenoon, he cut off the first finger next to the
thumb. He cut all the flesh off with a piece of sharp flint and the blood spurted
out.

He cried from the top of the butte. Soon he heard someone back of him singing,
“He is the one I can depend on.”

He looked up as a small cloud passed over the butte. There was a large bear
standing on the butte, also, trying to look over the rim to see who was doing the
singing. All this time Crow Bull could hear the singing at his back. The singer
said, ‘‘When he (meaning the grizzly bear) does that, he always overcomes what he
has in mind.”

Then the cloud over the butte passed on. The voice said, ‘‘You have always
wanted to see these things with your own eyes and not in a dream; now you have
seen them.’

Every time they passed the medicine down from father to son, there was a
sacred bow and arrows withit. After Crow Bull was through with his fasting and
crying, he thought he should go up the Little Missouri River where the railroad
now crosses near Sentinel Butte for the enemy who had been promised to him in
his dream. The Grizzly Bear had said, ‘‘Be there and though some of your men
will be wounded, none will be killed for you can doctor them now.”’

He went to the place where he was instructed to go and sent out scouts to look
around. The scouts returned to tell him that they saw the enemies coming.
They waited for the enemies until they were nearer. When the enemies saw them,
they climbed one of the high buttes. The men with shields were told to go ahead
and all the others would follow closely behind them in a compact group. Each
man, using his bow and arrows, was supported by a shield carrier who walked in
front to deflect the arrows with his shield, thus protecting the man in back of him.
In this way the shields protected them and in a short time they had killed all 30
of the enemies. At that time there were a few horses but no guns. These people
were the Snake Indians so after the battle the people named the butte Snake
Indian Butte.

Crow Bull’s father had the Bear rites and when Crow Bull saw the bear on a
cloud, his father thought that the bear wanted him to get the rights too. Crow
Bull gathered 20 robes and 20 pairs of moccasins that he needed for the ceremony
and his wife was expected to become the daughter-in-law of the bears. Whenshe
did that, she could not remarry. If she should remarry again after her husband
died, both she and her second husband would have bad luck.*®

Crow Bull gave the ceremony and was a successful leader both in warfare and
doctoring, for the bears had instructed him through his father.

Crow Bull’s son, Breathing, went out to the hills fasting and often dreamed of the
bears. Even at home sleeping, he dreamed of the bears and that was why he took
over his father’s rites.

Old-Woman-Crawling, my father and son of Breathing, was married and living
at Awaxawi village when the smallpox came. Even before he was married, he
dreamed of the bears several times. In one dream the bear was chasing the men
who were shooting at him, but the bullets would not penetrate. He had this
experience several times in his dreams. He thought that he would not have the
bear yet since he was not married. Once when he dreamed of the bear, he decided
to get the bear’s ear. Each time he had a dream from the bear, he would take

eee
8 This does not seem to apply if she married one with rights in a similar Bear bundle, particularly the
husband’s brother.

352 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

the ear down from the wall. There would be a bullet inside. Each time he
would take the bullet to the edge of the village and put it away. Six times he
had a dream and found a bullet in the ear the next day; yet he did not want to have
the bear for he was still single. It was almost impossible for a single person to
perform the ceremony and get the Bear rites. The Bears told him that if he took
the Bullet medicines, the bullets would not go through him; still he did not want
it yet. After that he did not dream of the Bear Bullet rites again.*!

The next dream he had was of the Bear ceremony. He went into the lodge
and made the pledge as a father’s clansman instructed him. In the ceremony
there was to be a waiter (irtakis) representing First Creator. It was his duty
to keep up the fires. Then there were the Two Men, Spring Boy, and Lodge
Boy. Spring Boy had a bow and two arrows, one red and one black; Lodge Boy
had only the two arrows, one red and the other black. Old-Woman-Crawling
went out for the bear and his father’s clansmen prepared the hide for the ceremony.

Bears Arm was assistant to his father, the singer, when Black
Shield purchased the rights. He was the only male informant
acquainted, from observation and instruction, with the details of the
rites and their meaning. He never bought a complete bundle nor
killed a grizzly bear ceremonially because the aboriginal culture had
broken down before he had attained the proper age and had married.
He supplied the following eyewitness account of a bundle purchase in
which he assisted and which he believes was conducted in the tradi-
tional manner:

Black Shield dreamed of the bears several times and his mother thought that the
bears wanted him to put on the ceremony for her mother’s brother’s bundle.
Black Shield made the vow to perform the ceremony. He selected a man of his
father’s clan, the Low Caps, to supervise collection of materials to go into the
bundle and the persons to officiate. Purchase was from Cherry Necklace who
was then dead. The portions of his bundle which had not been sold had been
put away. He had been wrapped in the bear hide for it was believed that when
one died, he and the bear went away together.

Black Shield shot a grizzly bear to get the hide since it was required that the
purchaser kill the bear whose hide was to be used during the ceremony. This
was to become the principal article in the bundle. As soon as the bear was
killed, a father’s clansman was called to take off the skin for the purchaser was
not permitted to butcher or skin the bear.

The killing of the bear was considered a ceremonial act and he said before
killing the animal, ‘‘My father, I have come for you. I havea feast prepared and
I need you. You will come and live with me now and when I die, we will go
away together.”’

Then the animal was killed. The father’s clansman skinned the animal and
delivered the hide to the father’s clansman in charge of collecting the materials
for the bundle.

Twenty robes and twenty pairs of moccasins were required, together with enough
corn balls and meat to feed the participants. In this case the ceremony was held
in Black Shield’s lodge although it was customary at Fishhook Village to use the
large Okipa lodge belonging to the Mandan on similar occasions.

81 For additional] information on beliefs and practices relating to bullets, see ‘‘ Warfare.”

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 353

When the ceremony was about to begin, the First Creator impersonator carried
the bear hide into Black Shield’s lodge and spread it out on the right side of the
lodge, placing a buffalo robe under it. The head faced the entrance to the sweat
lodge which was on the opposite side of the lodge. First Creator was addressed
by the name of iztakis, a term of address also employed for the waiter in the eagle
trapping lodges. First Creator impersonator then carried in a buffalo bull’s
skull. Old-Woman-Crawling was the singer for the ceremony for, in addition to
buying the Bear bundle, he had also bought singer rights at an additional ceremony
to the Bears. All those with Bear bundles, whether hereditary and acquired by
purchase or individual ones built up as the result of dreams, assisted him with the
singing.

Bear bundle owners met at Old-Woman-Crawling’s lodge beforehand and
advanced as a group to Black Shield’s lodge. There were four stops to sing the
Bear songs as they approached the ceremonial lodge.

At the first stop they sang, “I want to eat cherries,” for the grizzly bears were
often seen in the chokecherry thickets eating cherries.

They advanced another quarter of the distance and sang, “It is a pile of goods,
I think. The gourd I will take to it.”

At the third station they sang, “I want to eat cherries.”

The fourth station was the entrance to the earth lodge where they sang, ‘‘It
is a pile of goods, I think. The gourd I will take to it.”

The four stops represented the distance from the home of the spirits to the home
of the Hidatsa. In all of the ceremonies, this distance is represented by the four
stops to sing and dance.

Then Old-Woman-Crawling led the way into the entrance where they sang,
“T want to eat cherries.”

He entered the lodge and took his place back of the bearskin, followed by the
owners of Bear and other major bundles which included a buffalo skull. Black
Shield and his wife took their places at the head of the lodge. The other partici-
pants took places as indicated in figure 5. Although the First Creator imperson-
ator was assigned a place at the first central post on the right when entering, he
did not sit down much since his duties kept him on the move.

Spring Boy was represented by No Milk who had given the Naxpikr; Lodge
Boy was represented by Frosty Mouth who was the owner of a Sacred Arrow
bundle. Old Mouse made the sweat lodge in return for permission to be tortured
there. He also heated the rocks and kept the fire burning. Otherwise it would
have been Black Shield’s duty to build the sweat lodge and heat the stones.
Old Mouse called Black Shield a brother although they had different mothers.
This was the reason he did it.

Old-Women-Crawling asked Black Shield to fill the pipe and have it ready.
Black Shield filled the pipe and placed it in front of the bearskin. Then First
Creator impersonator carried coals to the front of the bearskin and burned
sweetgrass after holding the grass to the west, north, east, south, the sky, and the
ground. This was an offering to the spirits of those directions. He then carried
the pipe to the buffalo skull and burned incense of pine spills. The pine was
offered only to the four directions, meaning that the buffaloes live only on the
land. The man who burned incense before the buffalo skull lit the pipe which had
been placed there, after which all the sacred-bundle owners lit their own pipes
and smoked.

Old-Woman-Crawling asked the holy men to go to the buffalo skull, light the
pipe, and smoke to the skull. One man lit the pipe, offered the smoke to the skull,
and took goods placed on the skull. Old-Woman-Crawling produced a snare such
as was used in Eagle Trapping rites, tied it to his robe, and fastened some Black

354 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Black Shield
Wife

A Es
Z—-—- > Sweat Lodge

Spring Boy Oo,
SF G
Lodge Boy 20996900009

Bear and Other Major Bundle Owners

Daughter-in-law
First Creator

Buffalo Skull
Bear Hide
Gourd

Fire Place
Goods
Lodge Posts

vQO7n OA WD PY

Ficure 5.—Diagram of Bear ceremonial lodge. (Drawn by Bears Arm.)

Medicine root to the snare. This root represented Two Men and was used in the
ceremony to ward off bad luck. It was also believed that the snare would capture
any evil spirits that came to the ceremony.

When the snare and Black Medicine were tied to the robe, the Buffalo Song was
sung four times. Each time the song was completed, First Creator impersonator
added wood to the fire in the center of the lodge where the stones for the sweat
lodge were heating.

According to the mythology, when this ceremony was first being given by
Brave-While-Young, First Creator went to the buffaloes and told them that they
should be represented in the ceremony. They selected their oldest bull to attend.
As he approached the village where the Bear ceremony was to be held, he sang
the Buffalo song, which became a part of the Bear ceremony, and constantly
hooked his head from side to side. He appeared angry as he came into the village.
First Creator saw him coming and told Buffalo that he would have to sit by him-
self. This accounts for the buffalo skull being placed apart from the other
ceremonial paraphernalia.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 355

While the Buffalo song was being sung, First Creator picked up the skull and
hooked it from side to side in imitation of the bull’s approach to the village for
the first ceremony.

A male and female elk, a male and female beaver, a male and female otter, and
a dog, traditionally attended the first ceremony but in succeeding ceremonies
they were represented by persons owning bundles in which these animals were the
principal characters. During the feast, a piece of dried meat was fed to the giver’s
dog. The dog was represented, as dogs were believed to be related to the bears.
The bat was represented because it was believed to protect bear-bundle owners
during the night. The elk was said to have been the first to arrive when Brave-
While-Young gave the ceremony. Elk told Two Men that if they would permit
him to attend, the people could kill the elk on slippery ice to get their teeth.
Beaver came and promised the people long lives if they would drink water and
vomit out the bitter things in their stomach each morning while bathing. Otter
promised easy delivery for women at childbirth.

The singer was assisted by the other sacred-bundle owners. The order of
singing was: Song to the male elk; song to the female elk; song to the male otter;
song to the female otter; song to the male beaver; song to the female beaver; song
to the buffalo bull.

Whenever the Buffalo Bull song was being sung, one of the sacred-bundle
owners would pick up the buffalo skull and hook it from side to side and take the
goods piled on it for his pay. A whistle had been made from willow bark and
painted with alternating red and yellow stripes. This whistle was associated
with the elk and one owning one of these whistles was believed to have the super-
natural power to possess many wives. The clan father preparing the bundle
was expected to provide one of these whistles. Black Shield received his whistle
when the seven songs listed above were to be sung.

After the songs to the elk, otter, beaver, and buffalo bull were sung, the singing
stopped for the feast consisting of meat and corn balls. First Creator imper-
sonator was the waiter. He offered food to the buffalo skull and bearskin first,
then passed food to the singer and bundle owners. Black Shield, his wife, and the
spectators were fed last. Old Mouse and a number of clan brothers who were
fasting for dreams did not eat.

The Dance of the Female Bear came next. First Creator impersonator an-
nounced, ‘‘We are going to sing the Female Bear song. Any of you women who
know the Female Bear dance should get up and dance.”

Black Shield stood in front of the bearskin and each time a dancer passed him,
he gave her a corn ball until each dancer had four. Then the singing and dancing
stopped.

First Creator impersonator put down a buffalo robe in front of the sweat lodge
and my father, Old-Woman-Crawling, placed the bearskin onit. Then the waiter
said to Black Shield’s wife, ‘‘Come over and sit on the robe.”

She walked over, removed her dress, and pressed the bearskin to her naked
breast. This was known as becoming ‘‘granddaughter’’ to the bears. This she
did through her husband who was taking the bears as his gods. If he died, only
those with bear rights could take his place between the widow and the bear gods.
For that reason, unless a younger brother took up the Bear ceremonies, the widows
could not marry, for other men would be afraid of them.

Then my father, Old-Woman-Crawling, and I went into the sweat lodge. My
father called, ‘‘We are ready now. Any of you who wish to may come in.”

The waiter carried the hide back to the west wall and took corn balls over to
the sweat lodge and set them down at the entrance. Old-Woman-Crawling broke
up a corn ball and gave a piece to each person in the sweat lodge. He directed

356 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Black Shield to draw an image of an enemy on the bottom of the sweat lodge pit.
When the first stone was placed in the pit, each man struck the stone as though
it were anenemy. Each of the first four stones wasstruckin that manner. Then
the waiter carried in the remaining stones, the bearskin, and the buffalo skull.
Old-Woman-Crawling dipped sweetgrass in water from a wooden bowl and
sprinkled the bearskin and buffalo skull. All those, including even little children
who did not go into the sweat lodge, came to the sweat lodge entrance and were
sprinkled.

Before water was added to the hot rocks, Old Mouse, who was to fast in the
sweat lodge, asked two men of his father’s clan to put thongs through his wrists
and both sides of his chest so that he could be hung above the heated rocks in the
sweat lodge. He came to the door of the sweat lodge and said, ‘‘There are
many bears and other gods gathered here. I asked Black Shield, when he was
getting up this ceremony, for permission to heat the rocks because I wanted to be
pierced. I am poor. I want to do this so some god may take pity on me and
send me good luck.”

The sweat lodge was large and Old Mouse had put up extra posts strong enough
to hold him. When he was fasting at the posts, Old-Woman-Crawling said,
“Tt is the rule that we must pour 20 buffalo horns full of water on the stones.
But I do not think Old Mouse can stand that much heat. When it is hot enough,
anyone can call, ‘That is 20 already!’ I will sing the four Bear sweat lodge songs.
There are four of them. When I sing the fourth song, you will all seize the sweat
lodge frame and shake it like bears shaking plum bushes to get the fruit.”

He poured two horns full of water onto the hot stones. The men called, ‘‘That
is 20 already,”’ and Old-Woman-Crawling called to the waiter to lift up the cover.

They found Old Mouse hanging there unconscious; he appeared to be dead.
First Creator impersonator poured water on him. Old Mouse regained conscious-
ness and was sent home. Afterward Old Mouse said that while he was lying
there he saw the bearskin in its place at the head of the lodge and thought this
ample reward for his efforts. Afterward he killed two enemies, stole some very
good spotted horses, and lived a better life. The sweat lodge rites completed the
ceremony. Black Shield got all the things which his manager had provided for him.

Some Bear bundles included the Sacred Arrows while others did
not. Buyers whose fathers held these dual bundles could buy either
the Bear or the Sacred Arrow portions of the bundle or both, depend-
ing on the nature of the vision instructions. Likewise, purchase
could be made separately or at the same time. If complete purchase
was made with one ceremony, two clan fathers were selected, one to
secure the articles for the Bear bundle and the other to provide the
Sacred Arrows. ‘There was one principal tribal Sacred Arrow bundle
kept, formerly, at Awatixa village. It was kept in the Porcupine
Head household, Frosty Mouth having the principal rights in this
bundle at this time and passing it on to Robert Lincoln who was
living when this study was made. The bundle had its traditional
origin with the sacred rites at Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies’ lodge
at Short Missouri and did not include Bear bundle rights. Distinctive
songs and rituals were employed whenever individuals bought from
their fathers or whenever Sacred Arrows were to be incorporated
into other bundles. It was customary, also, for those desiring to

Bowers] © HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 357

make and use arrows for daily use to present simple offerings to an
Arrow bundle owner to enhance the arrow’s efficiency. Those leaving
for war customarily made offerings to a bundle owner who would
add arrows to be used against the enemy.

Bear bundles were primarily for doctoring. Bears were considered
to be the great doctors because they cared for their own young and
because of their great strength. The beaver and otter were also
included in the bundle, for they too were considered to be great
doctors. The arrows were used to bleed patients who had swellings
and infection. The bundle was also used in warfare. Bears Arm
explained that only very brave men ever owned Bear bundles before
guns came, for the purchaser, having made his vow, was required
to kill a grizzly bear unassisted. He considered killing a bear a
most dangerous undertaking since a wounded grizzly was more
dangerous than any other animal the Hidatsa knew. The bundles
acquired through inheritance were considered major bundles because
of the possession of the buffalo skull, and owners were rated of suffi-
cient distinction to be placed in charge of winter villages and even,
as in the case of Bad Horn, to be selected as “protector of the north
direction” at Fishhook Village. It would appear that this concept
had universal acceptance, for Wilson secured information from Wolf
Chief in 1911 which the latter restated for me when I made this
study. Wilson (1934, pp. 351-353) wrote concerning the ceremonial
arrangement of lodges and the selection of ‘‘village protectors”
during the initial building of Fishhook Village in 1845:

Then the medicinemen addressed Bad-horn. ‘‘You stand up and choose a
place for your lodge!’”’ ‘‘My gods are the (grizzly) bears,’ said Bad-horn. ‘‘The
mouths of bears’ dens always face the north. Therefore I want my lodge to open
towards the north; my bear gods will remember them and I will wish this village
to stand along time.’”’ What Bad-horn said of (grizzly) bears is true; they always
have the mouths of their dens toward the north.

Ownership of these bundles did not include the rights to eagle trap-
ping but there were certain practices and beliefs common to both the
Grizzly Bear bundle rites and the Acira or Little Black Bear rites of
eagle and fish trapping. Both bundles had sacred snares made of the
fiber of the ‘‘snare vine.”” Bear bundle snares were used ceremonially
for ensnaring the enemy, while Acira bundle snares were believed to
possess supernatural powers for ‘‘pulling’’ the eagles down out of the
air to the trapping pits. White eagle down was used as a ceremonial
offering to the bearskins of both bundles. The altars for both bundles
were set up on the west, i.e., sacred, side of the lodge. The waiter in
both ceremonies was called iztakis. Beyond these common elements,
the ceremonial similarities were no greater than between other major

83 For additional beliefs regarding the beaver and otter, see Creek rites, pp. 380-389.
%710-195—65——_24

358 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

bundles. There were no songs common to both bundles. In spite of
the fact that in the sacred mythology, Grizzly Bear was angered at
Brave-While-Young for failing to make suitable offerings while eagle
trapping, there is no evidence that eagle trapping was ever associated
with the Grizzly Bear bundles. Both bundle groups met when the
purchase of an Acira bundle was being made and, because one dreamed
frequently of bears, purchases commonly were made into both
ceremonies.
THUNDER CEREMONIES

The Thunder ceremonies comprise a closely related group of
separate rites performed to those supernatural beings believed to
“possess the power” of producing thunder and lightning. These
supernatural beings comprise two groups, the sky gods and the
water gods, between whom there were endless conflicts during the
mythological period. The welfare of the Hidatsa was generally be-
lieved to be dependent on the outcome of these contests. There was
a wide range of contests between the supernatural, chiefly involving
Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, Two Men, Packs Antelope, Eagle
People, and various water spirits such as large snakes, toads, turtles,
mink, beavers, otters, and muskrats.

The Thunder rites showed a wider variation in supernatural experi-
ences during the sacred past than other rites and, in general, the
territorial settings for the incidents leading to the establishment of
the rites ranged over a large area of the Northern Plains in contrast
with the local character of most ceremonial origins. According to
native concepts, rites relating to thunder were established from time
to time. The oldest of these formal rites now identified by informants
are concerned with the High Bird—Hungry Wolf conflict which oc-
curred at a large lake to the northeast, generally identified today
with Devils Lake, prior to the arrival of the Hidatsa-River Crow
(Mirokac) on the Missouri. In a quarrel between two brothers,
Sun and Thunderbird protected High Bird from Hungry Wolf’s gods.
This supernatural experience provided the traditional setting for the
origin of the Thunder bundle owned by Raving Bear (AwaxrEnawita
clan) of Hidatsa village who sold to his son, Smells, of the Low Cap
clan. He in turn sold to his son, White Fingernails, of the Knife clan,
bundle owner at the time this study was made. In native concept,
this bundle represented the oldest and came down through the years
by father-to-son inheritance from the time of the residence of the
Hidatsa far to the east. Smells believed that the rites had originated
on the banks of Devils Lake and, during war expeditions to that
region, usually stopped on the banks of that lake to perform rites
and to make offerings to his sacred bundle. Those in his party

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 359

claimed that when the wind was not blowing during the evening and
there were no clouds in the sky, they could hear the large snake in
Devils Lake breathing as the water lapped the shores. The Thunder
bundle owned by Smells seems to have been the only one originating
from supernatural experiences relating to the Exodus myth. (See
pp. 298-299 for this myth.)

The Sacred Arrow myths relate the supernatural settings on the
Missouri for a number of other Thunder rites believed to have origi-
nated with the original ‘‘Missouri River” peoples. The myth is one
segment of the exploits of Two Men. ‘To place this sacred myth in its
proper chronological position in the system, it was customary for the
narrator to relate the preceding section of the myth. This Wolf Chief
did while relating the sacred Thunder myth, which, in condensed form,
follows:

A village of Hidatsa live at Devils Lake; there are no clans.®

Two Men are living there; they are Big Medicine (Lodge Boy) and Black
Medicine (Spring Boy). Because Two Men are actually arrows, they travel all
over and are protected by the arrows when they sleep. Black Medicine is taken
above to be tortured for killing the sacred things below. Big Medicine finds the
hole and goes above. He travels from the zenith westward and reaches the village
of the speckled eagles; the next day he reaches the village of eagles with white
heads and tail feathers (bald eagle); the third day he reaches the village of eagles
with white bars and speckles (old calumet); the fourth and last village is of the
young calumet. There he finds an old woman living alone and learns that
Black Medicine is there and is being tortured by Long Arm.™

Big Medicine learns that his brother is to be killed on the pole and buried be-
tween two mounds. Big Medicine frees his brother and Long Arm attempts to
prevent their return. When they fail to cut off the [Long Arm’s] hand they
declare that this job is to be left for succeeding generations. Two Men return to
Devils Lake where the chief is named Horn-Between-the-Water.®

Two Men travel to the east and shoot at a white object flying by, tie themselves
together, are carried far to the southeast by a strong wind, and land on an island.
They meet Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies who formerly lived farther upstream at
Short Missouri. She has her servants about her and is guarded by four large
snakes living in the water surrounding her island. They hunt for her but she frees
the deer they bring in for the deer are her servants. Being homesick, they ask her
help to get home. She directs them to the grandfather snakes. One snake
carries them on his back and is fed four corn balls; so he reaches the shore. There
he swallows Black Medicine.

Big Medicine cries and Thunderbird, a white hawk, comes along. ‘There is a
dual between the bird and the snake, each sending out lightning, but the snake is
killed.%

83 This reference to the absence of clans before reaching the Missouri is commonly made. Clams tradition-
ally originate from events or incidents relating to residence along the Missouri River.

84 Narrator introduces listener to concepts of four eagle villages 1 day apart extending from the zenith to
the horizon. It is from this fourth village, believed to be in the Rocky Mountains where the earth and sky
meet, that eagles left to establish the Waterbuster Skull bundle described below.

8 This is the first reference to Two Men in association with Devils Lake. From this point, the Exodus
and Sacred Arrow narratives unite and are concerned with events on the Missouri River.

86 This is an example of the conflicts between the sky gods and the water gods.

360 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Black Medicine is given medicine and he vomits up the small fish and shells
he had eaten while in the snake’s mouth.*”

Two Men travel on and reach a wood lodge (eagle trapping lodge) occupied by
eagle people. They learn that one of the eagle children is ill because a mysterious
elk stuck his horn in the boy’s leg and the birds know of no way to get it out.
Black Medicine uses black medicine to remove the horn and pus. [Myth here
provides the supernatural basis for doctoring with black medicine, a root of the
red baneberry, and lancing with an arrowpoint.] Two Men stay with the eagles
through the winter until the bald eagles, the scouts for the other big birds, come
north in the early spring. Bald Eagle stops and sings a sacred song belonging to
the Big Bird bundle rites.

Bald Eagle states that there are many people around Devils Lake while the
people living along the Missouri have many offerings out also in anticipation of
the return of the big birds from the south. Offerings consisting of food and pieces
of hide on sticks are placed at the edge of the villages. The eagles travel north-
ward to receive their offerings and Two Men travel afoot.

Two Men find a large snake with a head on each end. Finding no way to get
around the snake, they burn a hole through it. Black Medicine eats some of the
meat and slowly turns into a similar snake. He is carried westward overland and
put into the Missouri River at Bird Bill Butte. Black Medicine announces that in
the future he is to be known as Grandfather. One head is at Bird Bill Butte,
the other at Thunder Creek.

Grandfather announces through his brother that people may make offerings
to him and the other six holy people of the Missouri River by placing objects on
the river bank and they will have a long life. [This transformation provides
the supernatural setting for the origin of the Missouri River rites, also for certain
beliefs and practices relating to the Big Bird rites.]

Grandfather announces that he cannot return with his brother because the big
snake in the river wants him. He teaches him the Missouri River songs and the
rites which are to be performed, and tells his brother to inform the people that
when a man braids his hair and ties it up in a knot, that will be the sign he is to
have along life. He tells his brother that all offerings to the Missouri River must
be made when there is no ice on the river, announces that he will be seen for the
last time the next year at Thunder Creek [on the west bank of the Missouri a
few miles below the present town of Sanish, N. Dak.] when the Juneberries are
ripe, and asks that their parents come to see him.

He promises to help the people when crossing the Missouri and to notify the
other six gods living in the river to do likewise. [This provides the origin of rites
at the time of making a bullboat to insure good luck to those using it.] He says
that he eats the large intestines and that anyone can make offerings of dried
intestines, call him Grandfather, and ask for good luck when crossing the river.

Black Medicine gives his sweetheart to his brother to marry and they go up-
stream to see him when the Juneberries are ripe. They offer him and the other
six gods seven cornballs and then return to the village at sunset after the large
snake has appeared for the last time.

It was about this time that the people began to leave Painted Woods and
Charred Body Creek to settle at Knife River. The Hidatsa now had left Devils
Lake, settled with the Mandans, and had been frightened away by two owls.
Then they moved northward to Knife River also.

Packs Antelope was a great hunter because he had the medicines of the Sacred
Arrows which came from Two Men. The arrows would protect him if he went to

87 He vomited out the same things when Charred Body and First Creator freed him from the spring.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 361

sleep while out hunting. Two Thunderbirds take Packs Antelope to their nest on
Thunder Buttes while he sleeps.*

He awakens to learn that he is on a high butte with no way of escaping. The
Thunderbird children tell him that he has been brought there by their parents to
protect the children during molting time from the double-headed snake that lives
in the lake on the west side of the buttes. The Thunderbirds feed Packs Antelope
meat cut from deer they have butchered.

When the Thunderbird children shake themselves, their down floats out onto
the lake and the snake knows that they are now defenseless and ready to eat.
The snake’s two heads appear on opposite sides of the butte and Packs Antelope
shoots sacred arrows into both heads, killing the snake.

The Thunderbird children instruct Packs Antelope in the rites for calling the
large birds to the feast at which the snake will be eaten. These songs were later
used when announcing that a ceremonial feast for the big birds was ready. The
big birds, while assembled, change Packs Antelope into a big bird to hunt for them
and he is given a wooden sword to kill with.*° Thunderbird’s daughter teaches
Packs Antelope the special song the big birds use for killing and they know, when
they hear him singing this song, that he is now as powerful as they.

Packs Antelope hunts snakes for the big birds for 4 years, during which time the
Grandfather in the Missouri is angry because all of the snakes are being killed off.
Grandfather prepares a sweat lodge. Then he entices Packs Antelope to come
near, seizes him and pulls him under the water. Packs Antelope is carried into
the sweat lodge and caused to vomit out the snakes; he is fanned with sage until he
regains consciousness. Then Packs Antelope becomes a human again.

Packs Antelope looks up and lightning flashes from his eyes. Grandfather
gives him a low cap to wear over his eyes and tells him that from this time on he
and his brothers, mother, and sisters will wear low caps and will be called Low
Cap people [clan] by the other groups.

Grandfather instructs Packs Antelope to give the Big Bird sweat lodge cere-
mony and says that the Grandfather will be in it as the principal one. [This
explains rites both to snakes and the big birds in the Thunder ceremonies.] Grand-
father announces that he is more powerful than the eagles, for he was able to
capture Packs Antelope. [This provides the basis for snake poles and rites in
the trapping lodge when out trapping eagles in the fall.]

Packs Antelope goes back to his own people south of the Knife River—the
Awatixa village with which the rites of the Sacred Arrow are generally associated.
He announces that he is going to give the ceremony for the big birds and notifies
the people that the weather in early spring will be cloudy and rainy for 4 days,
after which the birds will arrive in groups from the south. Packs Antelope
places meat on sticks and, as the birds arrive, they take the meat, return the
sticks, and promise Packs Antelope success in war. °°

The Eagles instruct Buffalo Skull to promise Packs Antelope good dreams so
that he will be successful in hunting. After this, the buffalo skull was a part of
the altar.

The Eagles take Packs Antelope to the sweat lodge and promise him good health
and the power to doctor; they teach him the holy songs and instruct him to keep
his holy bow and arrows since that is the most important part of the bundle;
they give him the sword with the marks of lightning on the side.

88 These buttes are southwest of Sanish, N. Dak., and west of the Missouri.

89 This sword was a common object in these sacred bundles.

% These sticks are known as Bird Sticks. Eagles taken during the trapping period were also fed meat by
means of these sticks.

362 . BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

The Eagles inform him that another eagle, his father, never comes that way and
that meat should be put on the right side of the lodge for him when the ceremony
is being performed. This is an offering to the Low Caps.

Before dying, Packs Antelope tells the people that when he dies, he will return
to the sky with his father and mother, the Thunderbirds. A gentle rain with no
lightning for the growing crops is a sign that he has returned unseen.

He tells the people that if offerings are made to the eagles, the givers will be
successful; that people will no longer have the power to go around and make deep
holes in the ground as he did looking for snakes; that the sight of a dead log or
tree breaking down is a sign that a snake once lived there.

These myths provide the supernatural setting for, and the meaning
of, the various rites and practices whereby the supernatural powers
promised the people reached individuals of the tribe. With few
exceptions (such as the exploits of High Bird and Hungry Wolf
associated with an earlier eastern residence, and the more recent
exploits of Packs Antelope which take place along the Missouri
River) the rites and traditions were also shared by the Mandan who,
in recent years, usually attended all Hidatsa performances. Although
the Hidatsa recognize differences in ritual practices and beliefs said
to arise from different group histories—no doubt more apparent in
earlier times when the three village groups first came together near
the Knife River—the Hidatsa system of bundle transfer tends to
erase these differences and to unite variants of the same rites into a
single complex by the custom of engaging a father’s distant clansman
as instructor once geographical distance between village groups was
reduced. One was usually informed of all details of the father’s rites
beforehand through living together in the same household. The
instructor, however, rarely drew on the giver’s father’s lore for his
learning but rather from another who held singer rights or broader
knowledge than his clan brother could have provided.

Often, by the time one got around to meeting all the prerequisites
to bundle purchase, the father was dead. The father played a minor
role in the actual transfer. This practice provided for wider contacts
when making a ceremonial purchase, for it gave the instructor wide
leeway in choosing his assistants from whom he obtained the knowl-
edge, interpretations, and practices transmitted to the buyer. In
cases where slight cultural differences existed between bundle lines,
whether within the same village or between villages brought together
by pressure from alien tribes, the instructor played an important role
in erasing ideological and ritualistic differences between bundle lines.
By contrast, the Mandan system of individual-to-individual sale
provided for exact duplication of bundles for seller and buyer, tending
to preserve the individual character of the bundle lines.

Closely paralleling the hereditary bundle rituals were the personal
bundles set up as a result of vision experiences. Like other personal

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 363

bundles, these tended to die out with the death of their owners and
were disposed of by placing them at the grave of their owners. These
supernatural experiences were of a wide variety but, in the final
analysis, show rigid conditioning induced by the general knowledge
the people had relative to the big birds.

BIG BIRD

The most important ceremonial periods were during the spring
at the time of the northwestward flight of the big birds—eagles,
hawks, ravens, and crows—to their summer nesting grounds along
the streams, in the badlands, and on the high peaks of the Rocky
Mountains. At this time of the year the bundle owners and others
who had received individual dreams would place meat and pieces of
hide on short “bird sticks” which were stuck into the ground on high
hills adjacent to the villages. It was believed that these offerings
would cause the birds to pass near the village and bring rains for the
gardens. It was customary to have these offerings out prior to the
first spring thunder. On the day following the first thunder, each
bundle owner would take his sacred bundle to some isolated spot near
the village, there to offer incense to the sacred objects and to pray
for good crops. Similar rites of making offerings placed on “bird
sticks’”” out on the prairie were performed during the autumn when
the leaves began to fall. The spring rites were performed somewhat
later than the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies rites; the water birds
normally came north while some snow was on the ground but the
eagles and other large birds arrived afterward. The fall rites were
likewise performed somewhat earlier since the big birds were believed
to fly leisurely southward along the Missouri, hunting as they went,
while the water birds remained north until driven out by cold weather.

Although there is a close psychological association between the
Big Bird rites and those of eagle trapping, the bundle lines were en-
tirely independent and originated traditionally from quite different
mythological experiences.

Seven recognized bundle lines survived the smallpox epidemic of
1837: two from Hidatsa (Smells and Big Coat); three from Awatixa
(Big Black, Young-Man-Chief, and Bobtail Wolf); and two from
Awaxawi (Negro and Dry Squash—Wolf Eyes). The greater number
of bundle lines from Awatixa, even though the population surviving
the epidemic was less than half that of the Hidatsa village, indicates
the traditionally greater importance of the Packs Antelope rites at
this village. The prior rights of those of the Low Cap clan, due to
the important role of Packs Antelope in founding the rites, is expressed
ritually by placing meat and other offerings on the right side of the
lodge for the people of the clan. The rites provided the supernatural

364 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

sanctions for chipping flint and it is said that in former times those
who wished to make flint objects received their “authority” from
those having rights in the Big Bird ceremony. Doctoring authority
by cutting with a flint knife also came from these rites. The use of
black medicine root in curing came from Two Men and the sword
carried ceremonially in war was believed to have originated with the
female eagle.

The bundles were of major status and differed only in rank accord-
ing to the presence or absence of Singer rights. In 1845, when Fish-
hook Village was built, Bobtail Wolf, owner of a Big Bird bundle,
took the western direction or that “from which the rains came.”’
During dry periods, it was customary for groups, individuals, or the
Goose society to pay a Big Bird bundle owner to perform Rain rites.
He would then take up his position on an earth lodge, there to sing
the sacred songs and perform such additional rites as appertained
to the bundle.

A complete bundle contained these objects: ‘‘Sleep feather” of the
eagle; white feather from near the tail feathers of the eagle; feather
from the eagle’s head; feather from left side of the eagle’s claw; 12 bird
sticks painted red; bullsnake skin representing the Grandfather in the
Missouri River; a turtle shell; an otter skin; a ferret skin; sage; a
wooden sword with an image of lightning on each side; a flint knife;
rattles; and a wooden pipe.

Wolf Chief, who served as instructor (ceremonial father) when
Hard Horn bought rights in the Big Bird ceremony, supplied the fol-
lowing account of a bundle purchase:

I remembered that Wolf Eyes of the Prairie Chicken clan had put on the Big
Bird ceremony long before. His son, Hard Horn, was now going to put on the
ceremony because he had dreams of the Big Birds. He asked me to be his ‘‘father”’
in preparing the articles for I was of the Prairie Chicken clan. After making the
vow he started to save goods for the ceremony and planned to go up to Fort
Buford to hunt for there were still many buffaloes and other large animals up there.

I did not know the rules of this ceremony so I called on Smells who also owned
this ceremony. Because I did not know the rules I was afraid. So I was careful
to learn them correctly as Smells related them to me. He was a leader in the
ceremony for he had the big rattles and knew all of the songs, but he told me that
it was hard to remember all the parts even for one knowing and performing the
ceremony often. He volunteered to help me since, at that time, I had several
gods and had bought the buffalo skull and the right to paint it in two ceremonies.
He thought that I had made sufficient progress to show that I could learn things
correctly.

He said, ‘‘When your son, Hard Horn, stands in front of you, you can promise
him that he will be successful in all that he does.”

When Hard Horn came to my lodge to ask me to be his ‘father’ he brought a

pipe and left it in front of me while his relatives brought in goods. Smells told
me that I should give the pipe back to him when I talked to him during the feast.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 365

I had been worshiping the eagles and other gods that I saw in my dreams and
had given many feasts to my father’s gods. So I prayed to my gods, saying, ‘‘I
have worshiped you and fed you and shown you every respect. Now my ‘son’
has come to me. I want him to be lucky when he goes out to kill buffaloes. If
the enemy attacks, I want him always to be on the safe side.”’

When I finished praying, I lit the pipe and smoked it, pointing it in all four
directions and to all of my gods. Then I returned the pipe to him. This time
Smells was with us and I said to him, ‘‘You have more powers than I have and
you should pick out the best corn balls and articles.”

He took out the best ones, for he knew all of the rules. After he finished
selecting them, Hard Horn said that he was glad. He thought he would be lucky
and that there would be plenty of buffaloes for all the people.

As Smells left, he said to me, “I will be back again and teach you the rules.”

He came back later and said, ‘““‘These objects are holy but I will explain the
rules to you so you will not have bad luck. This pipe is holy; we use it when we
put up the sweat lodge. I have this pipe that I got from Dry Squash but I will
let you use it. I will lend you this ferret hide. When Hard Horn puts on the
sweat ceremony, he should return it to me.”’

I said, ‘‘You bring the pipe, for I want to learn to use the pipe and to sing the
songs.”

Smells went back to his lodge. While he was away, I looked for some tobacco
and calicoes. When he came in, I spread out the calicoes on the floor and he put
the pipe and small ferret hide down. He was happy when he saw the blankets,
calicoes, and roast corn before him for that was his pay for helping me. He
said, ‘You will need some red paint.”

There was plenty, for my father always kept much on hand. He had many
bundle rites that required it. Smells took some and painted the pipe, praying
and talking to the pipe and ferret skin as he painted. He asked me to hold out
my hand. He was chewing the black root that came from Two Men. He spit
some in my hand, telling me to rub it all over my body, and I did. He did the
same. Then he sang the song. The ferret was about worn out with no hair on
it. He gave me the pipe and ferret, instructing me to paint them as he had.
Then I put them back on the robes again. ‘The pipe was a wooden one like in
my father’s Waterbuster Skull bundle.

When he had finished singing the songs and painting the pipe and hide, he
called for roasted corn. I took some with dry meat, setting it before him. He
selected a few pieces and said to the pipe and ferret, “I want you to eat. I
always took good care of you. NowI am going to give you to Wolf Chief to give
to his son, Hard Horn. I do not want to have any bad luck.” Then turning
to me he said, ‘‘I am well paid for this. Wrap the pipe and skin with a nice
calico or hide and put it away for your son.”’ Then he ate the rest of the food.

Before Smells left, he directed me to look for one feather from under the left
side of the wing of the eagle and called the sleep feather, one on the left side of
the claw, a white feather on the tail, and a fourth one from the head. I was to
save these feathers and take good care of them. I was to make 12 “bird sticks”
and paint them red, representing the eagle’s 12 tail feathers and also the 12
sticks for the moccasin game.

Smells said that I could tell my son to take these sticks when he went to war
and paint them while saying, ‘‘I am painting you and I do not want to be killed.”

Then there were the bullsnake, turtle, and otter to go into the bundle to repre-
sent the Missouri River and Two Men who were the great doctors. He asked me
to look for all these and I did. I found them but before I even touched them, I

366 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

chewed black medicine and rubbed it over me for Smells told me to do that or
I might lose my life.

Before the feast was ready, Smells came and said that he had had a good dream
in which he saw the pipe painted nicely. He thought that it was a good sign.

That fall some people came to the village to steal horses. The people shot at
them and they went off without the horses. Our people went after them with
Old-White-Man in the lead. He got off and was near the enemies when they
threw their guns away and motioned him to come. He went towards one enemy
and hit him in the face with his shield. The enemy said, “I will give you my
necklace; we did not come to kill you.”

They discovered that this enemy had a ferret skin on his neck, just like the
one that was to be used in the ceremony. I tell this because they took it away
from him. Hard Horn had promised to put on this ceremony and that is the
reason why they got the horses back and found the ferret on the man. Smells
had dreamed that there would be good luck; if it had not been for his dream,
it would have been hard for me to find one of these ferrets to use in this ceremony,

After Hard Horn had left for Fort Buford to get the hides and food for the
ceremony, I heard how he was getting along. He hunted and got many buffaloes
that winter. Because he had promised to put up a sweat lodge ceremony, the
enemies came to his camp and stole horses. The young men went out to get the
horses back. Hard Horn went along. He thought he might kill some of the
enemies since he had promised his gods that he would give the ceremony. They
found the enemies hidden in the brush where they were eating, and surrounded
them. One of the enemies ran towards Two Bulls and shot Two Bulls through
the chest, killing him. Bird Bear was shot through the skin but did not fall;
he shot the enemy and Hard Horn’s brother struck coup on him. Even though
one of our men was killed, the three enemies were killed. Hard Horn and his
brothers succeeded in striking coups; it showed that his luck was good because
he had made this promise even though one man was killed.”

Smells heard about it and said, ‘It is all right; Hard Horn was the one who
made the pledge. He and his brother were successful so he is going to become
a chief.”’

When the grass began to turn green in the spring, Hard Horn and all his
brothers and sisters came back from Fort Buford in bullboats, bringing the things
he was to use. He selected the large lodge occupied by Never-Eats-Marrow,
where the Mandan Okipa ceremony was held, for his ceremony and paid the
family for its use. He cleaned out the lodge and told me that he would be ready
the next day. I was expected to go there when it was dark. When I came
in, I saw that they had a line stretched all the way around the lodge. There
were robes hanging on it, all the way around. There were also three sticks
at the head of the lodge to show that I was to receive three horses also.

He called me over and said, ‘“‘There are 60 hides and some of them are well
tanned and decorated. Three sticks go with them; it is up to you to decide how
they are to be divided.*2 Get a man, who has more power and more songs, to
eat and sing the holy songs; then pay him part of the things I have gathered here.” %

%1 Presumably Hard Horn did not ‘‘kick the stone’”’ because he was not personally in charge as in the
case of organized military expeditions.

82 This is not entirely true. Each ceremony provided rules for the division of the goods put up as payment
for the various performers. There seems to have been no rule outlining the precise number of robes and
horses required. In this case it was largely determined by their success in hunting. For the minimum
amount of goods for the Bear ceremony, see p. 352.

93 Hard Horn seems to have assumed a rather dictatorial attitude not characteristic of buyers; it may be
because of Wolf Chief’s youth. This is the only instance I encountered in which the buyer undertook to
advise his ceremonial ‘‘father’’ in the management of a ceremony.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 367

All along Smells knew that he was to sing the holy songs so he had been repeating
them over to himself before he went to the lodge, thinking that he might have
forgotten some of them.

The next morning I was called over to the lodge and found that Smells had
already selected the 12 men who would get the bird sticks to show that they were
to attend. Smells got 12 good men who had important sacred bundles with buffalo
skulls, for these men added prestige to the buyer. He selected: Small Ankles,
my father (Eagle Trapping, Wolf, and Holy-Woman-Above bundles); Different
Wolf (Buffalo Skull bundle) ; Belly Up (Eagle Trapping bundle) ; Bear-Looks-Out,
(Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies and the Mandan Skull bundles); Bears Heart
(Bear bundle); Poor Wolf (Earthmaking bundle); Crows Breast (Eagle Trapping
and Naxpikr bundles); Red Tail (Wolf bundle); Son-of-Star (Wolf bundle) ;
Wolf eyes (Eagle Trapping and Thunder bundles); Hairy Coat (Holy-Woman-
Above bundle); and Chippewa (Thunder bundle).

In addition to these, all those who had other bundles containing buffalo skulls
were expected to attend and to receive presents. Hard Horn had gone out when
Smells and the 12 men carrying the bird sticks were heard singing. They stopped
four times as they came towards the lodge and each time Hard Horn was expected
to give some article.

They had reached the lodge and were in their places when I was called in.
Smells was in the center of the circle of old men, painted up with zigzag marks
on his body to look like lightning; his entire body was red with blue paint on the
nose and the marks of lightning all over his face. He had two rattles of buffalo
hide with stones inside. From his wrists hung eagle claws.

Smells stood up and said, ‘‘Bring one of the robes before me; spread it out in
front of the sweat lodge; pile up the corn balls there. When you put them there,
I am going to walk around them and sing a holy song. That dried meat should
be put in one pile together with the bird sticks. When I sing the song, distribute
the meat to each of these medicine men. Use these bird sticks.” %

Then he began the song, using the rattles. Hard Horn, his brothers and their
wives, and his sisters passed the dry meat to the 12 men. There was a buffalo
skull inside the sweat lodge and Smells said, ‘‘Put some of the dry meat in front
of the skull; I will appoint different holy men to take the meat from the skull.
They will each pray for you.”

Hard Horn spoke up, saying, “‘Of course, these robes belong to Wolf Chief and
he is the one to do with them as he wishes. There are a few additional articles
that I will do with as I please. It is up to him how he disposes of the robes for
I have promised them to him already.”’ %

I stood up and said, “I am glad you spoke that way. I prefer that you use
these articles to cover the sweat lodge. I am glad that all of you people who
own powerful bundles are here. I can see that there are plenty of articles. I
know that Hard Horn wants to succeed, have a good home, and bring the people
good luck. Inthe beginning you made the pledge; at first I thought that it would
be a hard thing to do. I had no power but I took it up with an old man who has
more gods than I and he helped me. Now I see that this ceremony will be
successful. Everything will turn out well. Smells will carry out everything that
you wanted me to do. I was looking for your medicines all this time; we have
succeeded, even though I knew it was going to be hard to find them. Smells had
a good dream and our enemies came. He brought one of the ferrets which are

94 This act was symbolic of the spring and fall feeding of the big birds during their flights past the villages,
at which time offerings of foods and hides were placed on bird sticks outside the village.

% That is true—but it is also Wolf Chief’s duty to see that all those who pray for Hard Horn receive
adequate reward.

368 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

hard to find. We had one that was nearly worn out and I am glad that we found
this new one. I am glad that you are a leader and that after you made your
pledge, you went up to Fort Buford where your brothers struck the enemy.
Now they call you a chief; you are successful and have a good name. I am
supposed to have these 60 robes but in the beginning I asked Smells to come over
and help me. I am giving him 10 of them.” I thought I would keep 40 of them,
and I did.%

Smells began to sing the holy songs while Hard Horn and his brothers passed
the meat around on sticks for the old men. Each man would pray for them before
handing the stick back. Then Smells sent the holy men to the buffalo skull,
saying, ‘‘There are many articles in front of the skull; go there and pray for Hard
Horn.”’ Each prayed and then took the article that Hard Horn gave him.

Smells announced that he was going into the sweat lodge and invited those who
wished to do so also. He wore a robe that was painted red and a cap down over
his eyes like Packs Antelope wore his, for he also belonged to the Low Cap clan.

He sang this song four times, ‘‘He almost reached the sky.”

As he approached the sweat lodge, singing this song, Hard Horn and his
relatives put down a robe, then another at the entrance where he stood. He sang
the same song again while facing the west. While he was singing the fourth time,
he turned toward the entrance to the sweat lodge but he did not take his rattles
with him. He had something in his hand; it was covered with sage. In those
days they carried a flint knife which was the sign of an eagle claw. That was
what he had concealed in the sage. There were many corn balls in front of the
sweat lodge, for the family had worked hard. He sang the same song and said,
“hoo hoo” and stuck the flint knife into the corn balls four times.

The sweat lodge was covered and he went in saying, “You old men have some of
your number come in here.”

The older men went in around the side with their clothing on. Smells said,
“Bring that skull, otter, snake, and all the other holy things and put them on top
of the sweat lodge.”

Then he asked me to bring sage and I did. He put it in my mouth and pulled
it out again, directing me to spit onto the stones. We repeated that four times.
Then he directed me to call Hard Horn and his brothers with their wives and the
three sisters. I called them to come into the sweat lodge. He dipped the sage
into the water and sprinkled the sacred objects and all of the buyers. He said to
them, ‘‘Now you will feel as though you have new life. You will have good homes.
This is a rule that was established a long time ago and it holds now.”

At this time they were sitting before the sweat lodge while some of the old men
were inside. He sprinkled all those attending the ceremony if they requested it.

Then Smells said to me, ‘‘Take those sacred objects back and call your son,
Hard Horn; tell him to keep these things. He must always keep them in good
order.”

I took the skull back to its place. Then I put the otter, the pipe given me by
Smells, the ferret, the eagle feathers, and the other things in their places, saying to
them, “I am poor myself and have no powers except what my gods have given me.
I hope that when I give you to Hard Horn you will take good care of him and obey
what I am now asking of you.”’

Then I called Hard Horn over and handed them to him. After I had finished
the transfer, Smells called from the sweat lodge, ‘‘Come over, all you men and sit

% This was a selfish act that brought down severe criticism from Wolf Chief’s elders, including his own
parents. He afterward employed these articles to buy back good will by inviting in various old men and
providing them with robes and food. It would have been more appropriate to have disposed of them
publicly at the ceremony.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 369

beside the sweat lodge; I will sprinkle water over you for there is much sickness
among us. Then you will have new life and be healthy. You women come over
too.”

Each time he sang, he would dip the sage in the water and sprinkle the water
over them. He would say, ““My Grandfather, I want my people to be well,
lucky, and free of sickness.” %”

Even the children came over to the sweat lodge and were sprinkled. They
liked it and believed in it, thinking they would be lucky. They would crowd to
get ahead and be the first. While this was going on, there were only four stones
in the sweat lodge, all the others being left outside.

When he had finished, he called three old men, Hairy Coat and two others
whom I do not remember, and instructed them to distribute the dry meat and
corn balls saying, ‘We are eating before our gods and I hope there will be no bad
luck. Try to distribute the food so that all will have an equal share.” After
eating, the rites in the sweat lodge began.

Smells called Small Ankles to break a stick and throw it into the sweat lodge
pit. They usually picked a man who was brave when he met the enemy to do that.
This act meant that Hard Horn would overcome the enemy. When this was
done, Smells said to Hard Horn, “When you put a stone in the sweat lodge, you
should call the name of some enemy you want to kill saying, ‘I killed 4
and hit the stone as though you were striking the enemy. Whoever carries the
stone in will allow you to hit it. That is the sign that you will overcome your
enemy.”

They did that and four men would hit each stone. After putting the four
stones in that way, they threw the rest in without striking them. Then they
covered the lodge and poured water on them.

After the sweat bath was over, Smells said again, ‘“What are we going to do
with the cover? There are many articles making up the cover.”

I said, “You do as you wish. I have my share for I have 3 horses and 40 robes.
There are many holy men here; you can do as you wish.”

The robes were distributed and it seemed that everyone was well satisfied with
the distribution. When the ceremony was over I took my share and the three
sticks representing the horses. All this goods was the reason I always thought
that I had a good protector in early times. It was proof that I was well protected.
If old times were back, I would give others the same advice if they wanted to
become lucky and strike their enemies.

When away from the village, bundle owners of Big Bird, Missouri
River, and Creek rites also performed hunting rites at the various
stone effigies of animals associated with these bundles—for the
purpose of clearing fogs. These effigies have been observed by the
writer on Mount Nebo (sec. 29, T. 143, R. 83) west of Price, N. Dak.
(sec. 17, T. 141, R. 82) (pl. 6), and 4 miles northwest of Golden
Valley, N. Dak. An effigy situated about 2 miles southwest of
the Upper Sanger site was removed to Bismarck and set up on the
Statehouse lawn. Will (1909) reports an effigy outline near Ludlow
Caves in northwestern South Dakota, one of the Buffalo Home
Buttes of the Mandan. With the exception of the latter, all effigies
are situated in the historic and late prehistoric hunting range of

7 ‘Grandfather’ refers to one of the Two Men who was changed into a snake.

370 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

the Hidatsa. My Hidatsa informants had observed a turtle effigy
on the north bank of the Missouri near Williston to which they
went to perform rites while hunting in that area. A large snake
effigy of glacial boulders west of Independence was frequently visited
for the performance of similar rites. In view of their peculiar
distribution near the Missouri, it would appear that these known
effigies were largely Hidatsa-Mandan shrines. However, the
Mandan had similar bundle ceremonies which suggests that com-
parable practices were observed while they lived near the Heart
River even though the actual shrines have not been identified; in
the late 1860’s, while on a hunting expedition near Williston, Clam
Necklace, a Mandan owning a Big Bird bundle performed rites
both at the turtle effigy and later elsewhere on the prairie. Con-
cerning these practices, Crows Heart related to me that—

The next night we camped by a circle of stones in the form of a turtle. The
gods had arranged these stones, the older men said, for none living had ever
seen one of these effigies made. There was a hill nearby and on it was a pile of
rocks. The turtle’s head was pointed to the river because the turtles stay in the
water so the gods must have arranged all the turtle outlines in that direction.
This is the only effigy I ever saw but I heard that the old people knew of many
others down the river near their old villages and would go there to make offerings.
Anyone could make offerings of knives, pieces of hides, or dry meat and other
things to eat when asking for rain or other good luck such as living to be old.
If they had children, they would ask the gods that go with the turtle to send
good luck. To give to the turtle was the same as giving to all the other gods
that went with the bundle.

While we stopped near the turtle, people made offerings to the turtle and the other
gods that went with it. Some left knives but in the olden times the flint knife
was given, for the flint was a sign of the big birds who go with the turtle and the
other gods in the Missouri and the creeks around.

After we moved on from this turtle it was so foggy one day that the leader could
hardly find his way. The hunters had to hold each other’s hands to keep from
getting lost. An Arikara brought a knife and gave it to Clam Necklace (Mandan
with a Thunder or Big Bird bundle) and asked him to try to clear the fog. Clam
Necklace took the knife and marked out the shape of a turtle in the ground.
When he finished shaping the turtle, he prayed to the turtle, telling him that the
people could not go any farther and asked the turtle to clear the fog away. Then
he stuck the knife in front of the turtle image, saying that the knife belonged to
the turtle and the other six things in the water. It was not long afterwards, and
while the men were standing around the image, that the fog cleared away from
where the turtle lay. Then it cleared out in a circle around the turtle, growing
larger and larger, until the fog entirely disappeared. Those who were connected
with the big birds and the snakes of the Okipa were the ones to pray.”

% Mandan major bundle status was expressed by participation rights on Everything-Comes-Back day
of the Okipa ceremony.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 37]

MISSOURI RIVER

These rites are nearly identical conceptually and ritually with the
Grandfather Snake rites of the Mandan. Their traditional origin
relates to the eating of a snake by one of the Two Men who after-
ward was transformed into a large double-headed snake and put
into the river by his twin brother. Before taking up his eternal
residence there, he instructed his brother in the rites to the Missouri
River and explained that although he was formerly a Sacred Arrow,
he would thenceforth be chief over all the water spirits, the various
snakes, the otter, beaver, turtle, mink, muskrat, and frog. In a
sense, the sacred bundle was almost an exact duplicate of the Big Bird
bundles, the essential difference being that the latter had additional
objects representing the big birds. Natives explain the presence of
objects representing the water spirits by saying that the grandfather
snake who became the “chief of the river spirits’ was himself formerly
a big bird identified with the Sacred Arrows. The bundles were of
major status with buffalo skulls and were held in high regard because
one of the Two Men who is represented in the bundle possessed such
great supernatural powers that he was able to draw Packs Antelope
under the waters even though he had been blessed by the eagles, had
learned their sacred songs, and carried their sword.

There were three complete bundles after the smallpox epidemic of
1837: Man-With-Long-Hair, Prairie Chicken clan, from Hidatsa
village; Missouri River, Waterbuster clan, of Awatixa village; and
Roadmaker, Waterbuster clan of Awaxawi village. Similar bundles
and rites were possessed by the Mandans. The Hidatsa bundle line
was broken when heirs did not buy the rights of Man-With-Long-Hair.
The Awaxawi bundle line became inferior to that of Awatixa chiefly,
I believe, because Poor Wolf was involved in too many ceremonies
and could not make appropriate feasts to maintain its status. Mis-
souri River’s bundle line was perpetuated by his son, Women-in-
Water of the Awaxenawita clan, who took an active part in preserving
the rites and beliefs concerning the Grandfather and other water gods.

Although the principal bundle line was maintained by father-to-son
inheritance, minor bundles were frequently established through vision
experiences of individuals of more distant relationships. Even these
minor bundles frequently were sold from generation to generation
with the ceremonial sanction and assistance of the principal bundle
owners serving as singers. The pattern of River bundle relationships
with major bundles is characteristically Mandan rather than Hidatsa;
complete rights in all of the seven animals of the River together with
their songs and sacred myths, and the recognition of minor rights
related to segments of the complex. A complete bundle carried rights
in several ceremonies. The owner possessed Sacred Arrow rights

372 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

since the Grandfather snake was formerly one of the Two Men. He
could doctor, using the sacred arrows for opening wounds, and he
could remove arrows. He derived his authority to use black medicine
for doctoring from Two Men who were represented in the bundle
by the snakeskin.

Bullboat-making rites were inherited with the bundle, and those
desiring to make bullboats paid the bundle owner for these rights.
When the sale was made, the bundle owner sang the sacred song
“belonging to the bullboat’”’ for safe passage on the water. There-
after, whenever a new bullboat was completed, the song was sung and
prayers were directed to Grandfather and the other six water gods.

Important rainmaking rites were performed with the bundle.
These rites stem from native beliefs that moisture for the native
vegetation and the gardens comes both from the sky and the streams
and lakes. Likewise, the sky and the water gods both possess light-
ning. Snakes are generally associated with precipitation: One of Old-
Woman-Who-Never-Dies’ husbands, a giant snake, was put into
Short Missouri and maintains the water level of that pond; Grand-
father snake maintains the level of the Missouri; another large snake
associated with the Little Missouri maintains the flow of that stream
and, by means of his supernatural powers, provided good hunting
along its banks. Other traditional snakes maintain the lakes of the
area and when a lake dried it was said that either the snake died or
had moved away. And, of course, Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies is
protected by four large snakes on her island in the southland. The
same concepts are extended to include small streams, many of which
are thought to be the particular home of the seven water spirits.
In other instances, men have been known to fast at certain small
springs or streams in an effort to learn which spirit made his home
there. When one of the seven spirits “revealed” itself, this knowledge
often became a part of the sacred lore of the group. It has been
“revealed” through fasting that a giant frog lives in the spring near
Tom Smith’s home. The large spring on the Little Knife Creek is
the home of an otter which was ‘revealed’? to Crow-Flies-High.

It was believed that on cloudy days during the hot weather of the
summer, the Big Birds produced clouds as they flew about looking
for snakes and other spirits inhabiting the various bodies of water
situated on the land. Then occurred the contests such as transpired
at intervals throughout the mythological period. Natives have
observed that lightning is sent down on these occasions by the Big
Birds and is returned by the snakes and the six other animals who
make their home in the water.

Bundle owners were authorized to doctor for rheumatism and
stiffness and had the power to remove snakes, usually occurring as

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 373

short worms, from their patients’ bodies or their joints; these rights
stemmed from Two Men who doctored Unknown Man’s father-in-
law in mythological times. They were also called in when parturi-
tion was difficult. The patient was given the otterskin to hold and
to rub, the smoothness of the otter and its ability to slide through
narrow openings being thus transmitted to the child; or the patient
was given a concoction of black root and the scrapings from a turtle’s
shell in water. When a male doctor was called, it was customary
for his wife or a sister having similar rights to assist in the physical
care of the mother and her infant while the male directed the rites.

Anyone could make offerings to the Grandfather and the other
six gods of the River and it was customary for those who were on the
river a great deal to make these offerings regularly. Women also
made offerings regularly and placed the objects near the river’s edge in
order to have plenty of moisture for their gardens. It was not
necessary for the major bundle owner to attend and he rarely did
unless his presence was requested. ‘The snake’s favorite food was
large intestines, a section of which from a buffalo was usually placed
on a stake or thrown into the river. The remainder of the offering
consisted of seven corn balls which were thrown into the water.
When additional offerings of greater value were to be given, it was
customary to invite a bundle owner to pray for the success of the
giver and receive the goods for his own use. Offerings were first
given when the ice went out in the spring and might be given at any
time until the river froze over in the fall.

According to tradition, the potters were formerly owners of rights
in the Big Bird, River, and other Snake bundles. Pottery was made
in a darkened place; usually the earth lodge with the entrance blocked
and the smoke hole partially covered. The potters impersonated
the snakes who were believed to inhabit dark places away from the
big birds who preyed on them. Although rights to make pottery
were inherited and purchased through females, these lines paralleled
the male bundle lines. The rites were secret and defined the meaning
of each step in terms of the supernatural. For that reason, individ-
uals not possessing rights to make pottery were not permitted to sit
around and watch. There was a limited number of households
possessing rights to make pottery, and the other households bought
their pottery in exchange for decorated robes, clothing, and other
property. There were sacred songs used during the mixing of the
ingredients, the shaping of the vessel, and the application of the
decorations.

When the vessels had been completed except for the firing, they
were covered with damp hides until the clay had set. Should an
individual come into the lodge unexpectedly or should the vessels be un-

710-195-6525

374 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

covered by an unauthorized person, it was believed that the big birds
who were always flying about looking for snakes would cause lightning-
shaped cracks to appear in the vessels either before or during firing.
This would also cause the vessels to become weak and break easily
while in use. Thus, the making of a pot was a contest between the
big birds and the snakes. The designs are said to represent the snakes,
lightning, clouds, water birds, and rain, but it was impossible to secure
precise interpretations of the various patterns impressed into the sur-
face of the vessels, since pottery has not been made for many years
and none of the old potters were still living. There was general
agreement that the zigzag lines were lightning since similar designs
still appear on arrows; others associated a curved design on the rim
with clouds or rainbows, horizontal lines around the rim with snakes
entwining the pot, and herringbone designs with tracks of the wading
birds—snipes, heron, and cranes.

Men and women cooperated in making the vessels; men brought in
the clays from selected veins and assisted their relatives in making
the pots after they had advanced in age and were no longer able to
take an active part in hunting. Big Black from Awatixa, owner of a
Big Bird bundle, and his two wives, Red Blossom from Awatixa and
Buffalo Woman, a Mandan, were the last to make a business of pot-
tery making when my informants were young. He would ride north-
west of Fishhook Village to a bank which had been deeply undercut
by those removing clay from beneath the overhanging cliff. He
shaped the pots with a cottonwood paddle while the two women ap-
plied the designs they had the purchased right to reproduce. He
assisted them further by bringing the wood for the firing. At this
time he was too crippled from a hunting accident, when his leg was
crushed by a buffalo, to assist in hunting so he traded the pots around
through the village. He also made and decorated a few pots which
were used in the various ceremonies but informants acknowledged
that the vessels were not very good for they broke easily. Neverthe-
less, out of respect for these old people, and in order to have around
these reminders of olden times, people would buy their pots even
though recognizing the superiority of the metal vessels. Big Black
also had rights in the sacred arrows by virtue of his rights in the Big
Bird ceremony and would work hard making arrows to sell and trade.

One’s ritual possessions were so much a part of his daily life that
whenever someone is mentioned, people today recall both his ritual
rights and other records (as illustrated by Bears Arm’s account of
Roadmaker). In time, each personal achievement was expressed in
terms of the supernatural. These personal records are repeated over
and over until they become stylized and differ no more, as told by

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 375

different individuals, than do the sacred myths relating to the various
ceremonies.

Roadmaker was one of the members of the tribal council during
the first half of the 19th century and is still recognized as one of the
outstanding Awaxawi leaders. Bodmer, who painted his picture in
1833, lists him as a Mandan (pl. 7). This error is probably due to the
close cultural ties which the Awaxawi maintained with the Mandan
of Painted Woods prior to the removal of the Hidatsa and Mandan
village groups to Knife River. The name is readily recognized from
the Bodmer spelling of the name, Addih-Haddisch. Bears Arm’s
account of Roadmaker follows:

Roadmaker (ari hiris), who lived in the village of Awaxawi, had a full sister
and she had a son, Poor Wolf, who told me these things. When Roadmaker was
a young man he joined the Stone Hammer and other societies. In the lodge where
the men met he said, ‘‘Now that I have joined the Wood Rattler society, I want
to fast and seek visions from the spirits.”

The old men said, ‘‘That is a wise decision; that is the way to become famous.”’

They were making the ceremony called ‘“‘Tying-the-Pots”’ in which one of the
pots was a man and the other a woman. These pots were given to the Awaxawi
by the watersnakes. These large pots were dressed up like a man and a woman
with war bonnets on both of them. The headman who had charge of the pots
would burn incense over them and ask for rain, good crops, and other things the
people wanted. Then they would remove the clothing from the pots and a drum-
head from the lining of a buffalo paunch was put over them and tied down securely
to make drums of them. This putting on of the drumheads was called ‘“‘Tying-
the-Pots.’? Then the singers would take sticks bent in a loop to beat the drums
with.

This ceremony required 4 nights to perform. Roadmaker fasted 4 days and
nights during the ceremony; then the ceremony broke up and the whole popula-
tion went out on the summer buffalo hunt to the neighborhood of Rainy Buttes.!

The camp moved farther west, but Roadmaker stopped at the buttes and fasted
7 days and nights. When he finished, he lay down to sleep. In his dreams he
saw black clouds coming from the west and in the clouds he saw a large bird with
huge claws coming down. As the bird approached the butte, it closed it claws
and a voice from above said, ‘‘These claws which you see never fail to catch
something.”

Then he awoke and knew that it was the Thunderbird he had seen and heard
talking to him. Later he fasted 4 days again in the Tying-the-Pots ceremony.

There was a battle with the Assiniboin near the village and Roadmaker was in
it. They killed many of the enemies. When night came, Roadmaker went to the
place where the dead and scalped Assiniboins lay. He carried some of the bodies
to one spot and lay between them with their heads on his arms, crying. Road-
maker afterwards said, ‘‘I do not know if I was awake or asleep. I heard voices
from the west; I thought that it might be the friends of the dead Assiniboins re-
turning and that I would surely be killed. However, it was only the wind and
in it were voices. The voices came back a second time with the wind and I could
hear them say, “Take this bead; when you have taken a scalp, put the bead on the

o9 See the Tying-the-Pots ceremony below for the details.
1 This ceremony seems to have occupied the position of the Naxpiks of the other two villages. I found no
evidence that any of the older people of this village had ever given the Naxpike,

376 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

end of the scalp. When you have done this, you will be victorious in all of your
undertakings. We are your enemies but you honored us because you fasted and
lay here with us. You will always have your own way.’ ”

Shortly after this dream, the enemy came and stole 10 horses. Those who had
lost their horses were sad. Roadmaker said that he would go out and look for the
animals, for the other young men had not been able to find them. Others volun-
teered to go with him. The scouts found the enemy camp of four men far to the
west, nearly to the headwaters of Knife River.

Roadmaker said, ‘‘We will sneak up on them and then wait until they eat.
Then they will put their bows and arrows down.”

Some had muzzle-loaders too but all of the enemies were killed before they
could get to their weapons. The scalps were given to Roadmaker since he was the
leader. He said, ‘‘We will now take the horses back to the village. You will
be required to return them to their former owners if they pay us for our efforts.
They were taken by the enemy and became the property of the enemy and now we
have taken them back.”

They started for home but it took them several days, for it was slow traveling
with the horses as they had to keep scouts out ahead all the time so they would not
lose the horses to the enemy again. When they came near the village, they
painted [themselves] to show that they had struck the enemy, tied the horses
together, and drove them through the village so that all the people could see that
they had been successful.

Roadmaker sent an announcer through the village calling that the former
owners could have their horses back providing they paid the warriors for their
services. The people who had lost these horses were glad to get them back and
made payments in dresses made of mountain sheep, robes, and moccasins.?

Several years later Roadmaker awoke one morning and said, “Three tipis have
been promised to me,’’ meaning that if he organized a war expedition, he would
kill off three households. He called for volunteers and 79 men volunteered.
Some came from the Mandan villages too. They went to the north to a place
east of the present town of Minot where a small stream enters the Mouse River.
Beyond this point the scouts discovered three tipis and returned to report. Road-
maker directed the men to wait until the camp moved and then he would not
lose any of his men.

His men hid themselves in the path of the three families and when the enemies
were close, he gave the order to attack. Roadmaker’s party had good horses at
that time and, the enemy being taken by surprise while they were spread out, it
did not take long to wipe out the entire party. He made a staff to which he
tied one scalp at the top, one in the middle, and a third at the bottom to represent
the three households he had been promised.

One day another man named Yellow Hawk went out and took many warriors
with him. They found the enemy on the flats and there was a battle. Yellow
Hawk’s men were outnumbered; one young man was wounded and could not
travel. The young mansaid, ‘“Hereis where I am going to have my eagle trapping
pit,” meaning that he was going to die and the others would bury him there. A
young man named On Buffalo, who belonged to the Little Dog society, had his
staff painted black and white with four black marks and with many feathers
along its length.

2 Note that the payments were in things the women wore. This was to compensate the female relatives
since 8 Man gave most horses stolen to his sisters and mothers.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 377

On Buffalo sang his songs and said, “You have heard this man speaking.
When you get back tell my people that I died bravely while defending this wounded
man.”

He stuck his society staff in the ground and made his stand there. He wounded
some of the enemies but they were too numerous. He pulled up his staff and
carried the wounded man back, but the enemies rushed him and finally shot and
killed him. Many others were killed in Yellow Hawk’s party and when he
reached the village the people said that he had “‘kicked the stone.”’

When On Buffalo’s relatives heard of his bravery, the father wept, cut his
hair off, stuck arrows through his flesh, and went through the village singing.
The mother cut herself and wore short dresses. Many others mourned, for On
Buffalo was so brave. Even the dogs howled.

Roadmaker became angry and said, ‘“‘The people up at Hidatsa village may be
wondering what I am going to do about it.”” The man defended by On Buffalo
was named Young Buffalo and belonged to the same clan, the Waterbusters, as
did Roadmaker. Roadmaker announced that he was going out to war and that
he would destroy 15 tipis.

He went north with a large force. Before leaving, he talked to the Grand-
father snake who lived in the Missouri River saying, ‘‘Grandfather, I am going
out into enemy territory. I am angry for they killed my brother; I want to kill
the enemy and I want your help. When I come back I will have a scalp for you.”

The large snake promised him success, saying, ‘‘When you get to the enemy
and have killed them, an otter skin will be found and presented to you. It will
be a large tanned one. Take it and wear it as a cap with the tail to the side.
Use it in saving the people when they are sick. Then you will become a great
doctor. When you get back to the village you must pledge the ‘Ceremony to
the Water People.’ ”

Roadmaker and his party set out. The first night in camp a count was made
and it was found that there were 452 warriors. They represented the five Hidatsa
and Mandan villages. Among them was a man who wore tanned bangs from
the buffalo which he used as a cap. This man, named Foolish Eagle, would say,
“(When you find the enemy, I will be the first to strike him’’ and when the men
were roasting ribs he would say the same and strike the ribs. Then the camp
tenders would give him the ribs. At other times he would say, ‘‘Those enemies
must have guns, bows, and arrows to fight with. If I am killed, I will be home
before you are.”

The next day the war party went on. Roadmaker belonged to the Water-
buster clan so he selected a crier from this clan. He instructed the crier to line
up the 40 scouts and selected the best as the number was too large. The 40
ran and the first 20 to reach the line were selected to serve with Bull Looks, a
Waterbuster clansman, who had been appointed by Roadmaker before they left
home. This leader ran with them and called out ‘‘hoo’”’ four times to make
them run faster.

Roadmaker moved his party at night and traveled that way four times. On
the next morning his scouts came back and reported that they had found 15 tipis
and that it looked as though the people were preparing to move camp.

Roadmaker said, ‘‘We will form here and, when they are opposite us, we will
make the charge.”’

Foolish Eagle was on the left side with his group from Hidatsa, Stirrup was on
the right with his group from Awatixa, and a Mandan named Whistling Ghost
who had married an Awaxawi woman and was living at Awaxawi took the central

378 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

position.2 When the enemy was opposite them, Roadmaker gave the signal.
Foolish Eagle was first to strike an enemy, Whistling Ghost was first for the central
group, and Stirrup was first of his group. They killed all the enemies and took
their horses and other property.

Roadmaker moved his camp and they stopped for the noon meal and to rest.
He called his criers and said, ‘There was an otter skin that was promised me by
‘Grandfather’ and I need that.”’

The criers went through the camp telling all that they must look for an otter
skin because Roadmaker wanted it to wear on his head while he sang the
Victory songs.

There were two young boys who were taken prisoners in the fight and the older
men met and decided that the boys were old enough to remember what had
happened to their people and that it would not be wise to take them into the
villages. When they grew up they might do damage or run away with horses
and return to their own people. The old men decided to turn them over to the
Black Mouths. Since it was not customary to kill a person who had been taken
into camp, the Black Mouths went to the boys and told them to go back to their
own country. The boys started out and, when they were some distance from
the camp, the Black Mouths pursued and killed them.

The camp moved again, and the next day at noon Roadmaker said, “I have
prayed to ‘Grandfather’ that none of my people would be shot or killed. As
you all know, I have not lost a man. My ‘Grandfather’ promised me the otter
skin saying, ‘It will be the largest one with beaver claws sewed on the mouth.’
That skin must be in this camp somewhere and the person having it should have
given it to me. The criers announced this yesterday. It has not been found.
Whoever has that skin can keep it now for it is a good skin. Whoever he is, he
will not live very long. We will take his body out and place it on some of these
hills here in enemy territory where he will be lonely. We will put the otter skin
beside his body and leave him alone with his skin.”’

When this information was announced through the camp, and while the Old
Wolves were gathered smoking, a man stepped forward and threw the skin before
the men saying, “There is the skin.”

Roadmaker opened the bundle and found that it was the skin he had been
promised. It was the largest one he had ever seen. It had large beaver claws
fastened to the mouth so that when it was shaken, they rattled. He had bluffed
the man and thus secured his skin. He put it on his head as a cap with the tail
hanging to one side over his shoulder, blackened his staff, and tied to it the three
scalps taken by Foolish Eagle, Whistling Ghost, and Stirrup.

He sang his Victory songs, calling the names of those who had struck the enemy.
Because there were so many, he called out only their names and the villages they
came from. He mounted his horse and rode through the camp calling the names
of those who had been bravest. Then the party started for home. On the way
home they killed buffaloes and all were happy.

They had guns at this time. Most of the guns were brought in by the Chippewa
from the northeast and traded for robes and corn. These people would come down
to the villages with dog teams and sleds, rarely with horses, as they did not have
many and were afraid of having them taken away from them by their enemies
along the way.

The party traveled all night in order to reach the opposite bank of the Missouri
near the villages where they howled so all could hear them. When it was daylight,
the people could see them waving the scalps. They brought bullboats across to

§ Note the division of warriors based on villages.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 379

take the men back. Those anxious to get home drifted over on rafts. It took
much of the day to cross the 452 warriors and their equipment.

When they had reached the village, Roadmaker said, ‘‘I am tired now and need
to rest. I will rest today and tomorrow I will sing the Victory songs with my
men.”

It was the custom for people to go around singing, and those seeing that would
give them presents. Roadmaker announced that On Buffalo’s parents should
be invited to his lodge and that those who had won war honors should come and
give the old couple presents during the victory dances.

Next morning the warriors painted their bodies and faces black and danced,
singing the Victory songs. Many other groups danced too. On Buffalo’s father
and mother went to Roadmaker’s lodge and sang this song, “‘Just a little while
ago you did this and now you have done it again. Roadmaker went out and found
three tipis and killed all the people. He went out again and found 15 tipis and
killed all the people.”

Roadmaker came out of his lodge and placed his finest war bonnet on the old
man’s head. He gave him a new gun with powder horn and said, ‘“‘You can use
this gun for a cane, my father.”

The old man went from lodge to lodge singing the same song; all gave him
presents of fine things. This made the old man and woman very happy.

Then he made the ceremony to the ‘‘Grandfather” in the Missouri River who
had promised the otter skin, for Roadmaker had been told that he must do that
as the price for success. He took the scalp to the spot where the Knife River
empties into the Missouri, at which place there was a deep pool formed by the
swirling water. He gave it to the Grandfather. In the dream his Grandfather
had said, ‘You must make the sweat lodge and give the ceremonies to the River;
you will become a great doctor; the people will recognize your powers and call
you in to doctor them. When you treat a patient, give him two or three pillows
placed under his back; raise the head, and he will breathe easier. Scrape the small
turtle and put some of the scrapings in a horn spoon full of water from the Mis-
souri. Make the patient drink all of it whether he wants to or not. When you
have done that, take grease and rub on the patient’s chest and abdomen. Then
rub wild sage on your hands and knead the sick man’s abdomen, for that is where
the pain all lies and gathers. By kneading the stomach after greasing the patient,
this grease goes through the skin and eases the pain so that things will work right
inside. The blood will circulate. In 4 days you can stop doctoring. However,
if it is a Severe case, you will need to doctor for 8 days, but the patient will recover.”’

These were the instructions that the grandfather gave to Roadmaker.4 He
became a great doctor and leader of war parties. Three years later Roadmaker
put on ceremonies to buy the bundle during the winter. He went out for the
enemy six times and never lost a man in war so he was famous both as a warrior
and doctor. Men of the three villages would come to him and volunteer to go
along.

The Awaxawi would say, “If you are in the age-grade societies, get up and tell
what you did and it will be sure to come true.”?’ The men would get up in the dance
and tell how brave they were and the number of times they had struck the enemy
and made wishes that came true. So it was that the people of Awatixa and
Hidatsa, when hearing something funny, would say that it sounds just like an
Awaxawi talking.

Roadmaker said, ‘‘When any of you have a dream that you are being killed by
the enemy, you can always avoid that by dressing up in your best clothing, going

‘These are general beliefs associated with all Missouri River bundles

380 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

out, and having some of your friends chase you. They will pretend that they
are killing you and take your clothing, bow and arrows, knife, or whatever weapons
you are accustomed to carry. It willbeasham battle. You will come back naked
and by doing that you will avoid bad luck.”

Poor Wolf dreamed the enemy came upon him and killed him, so the next day he
told his friends of his dream. Roadmaker, his mother’s brother, advised him to
dress up in his best, have the people come out imitating the enemy, knock him
down, and strip him. Poor Wolf did, and the warriors took afterhim. Hestopped
to fight back and the men struck him down, took the horsehair that he wore as a
scarf, and went back to the village. About that time he heard an uproar on the
south side of the village where men were running their horses and shooting as they
rode about. Poor Wolf heard one of them cry “The enemy has killed one of us”
and he ran over there to see if he could get into the fight, only to learn that they
were referring to the sham battle in which he had been “‘killed.”’

When Seven Bears (Awaxawi) had a similar dream he put on a sham battle and
said, ‘This is the time that I cheated my body” meaning that he had used his
sacred bundles to ward off arrows.®

Poor Wolf told of a man from Awaxawi who pretended to be lame and would
limp during all of the ceremonies. He unbraided one side of his hair and let it fall
over the eye. He would say, “My left eye socket is hollow for the eye has broken
and is all white.”

The people would say to him, “One should not wish for evil, only the good things
in life,’ but the man would only reply, “I do not believe in those things; I want to
see if there is any truth to them. That is why I am doing this.”

In time he had a sore eye. It broke open and then it was hollow. He would
take his hair down to cover it. Poor Wolf said to him ‘‘You were always telling us
you had a bad eye with cataracts and now you have what you have been wishing
for. Why don’t you put your hair up so we can see your eye?”

Seven Bears would not, for he was ashamed of it. The enemy came and he was
far back in the line but a bullet glanced and hit him in the thigh, breaking the
bone. When he was well again, he had trouble getting around.

Roadmaker had the right to wear everything that a chief wore and died at
Awaxawi village after the smallpox epidemic was over.

CREEK

These sacred bundles and their associated rites were closely related
to the Missouri River bundles and rites. There were two bundles
after 1837 but both were considered subdivisions of a sacred bundle
and rites originating at Awatixa. Both bundles can be traced back to
Missouri River bundle owners; Missouri River for the Awatixa, and
Poor Wolf (an older Poor Wolf who died about 1840) of Awaxawi.
The bundle rites were associated with certain spirits believed to
reside in the small tributaries of the Missouri River, the chief god being
a large snake who resided in the Little Missouri and assured good
hunting along that stream. A complete bundle contained beaver fur
and claws, otter skin, turtle shell, buffalo skull, mink skin, dried frog,
black root or medicine, peppermint, sage, cedar, muskrat skin (option-

5 I did not find reference to this practice for the other Hidatsa groups, but the Mandan made comparable
references to sham battles for warding off misfortunes.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 381

al), and water snake skin (optional). The contents in the bundle
closely approximated those of the Thunder and Missouri River bundles.
Nethertheless, the rites and songs associated with the bundle are
distinctive and in no way duplicate those for the other bundles. The
following, an abbreviated account of the origin myth, was related by
Wolf Chief:

Beaver, Otter, and Turtle who lived in the northland made plans to come to the
village to teach the people to doctor and to care for the sick. They discussed
taking black medicine along to aid them in their doctoring. They decided to
take big medicine along also. Then they decided to take peppermint and sand-
bar willows. They decided to use a dipper from the left horn of the buffalo, too.
They selected a special song which was to be taught to those doctoring one who
has been sick a long while. They also agreed that fat from around the buffalo’s
heart should be used when doctoring those who have been sick long.

They agreed on a special song for those who were sick in the stomach and had
an evil spirit with a long tail in there. There was another song to be used while
doctoring should a woman with monthlies come into the lodge, otherwise the sick
person would get worse.

Beaver, Otter, and Turtle talked about all these things. They invited Buffalo
Skull, who had a holy song, to be their leader and asked him to shake himself.
This was to be the sign that any sick person who stood up and shook himself
would recover.

They traveled southward until they came to a creek. Mink was there; he
threw water on dead brush, while singing, and green leaves came out. They
reached the Missouri; again Mink sang while sprinkling the dead branches, and
green leaves appeared.

They reached Knife River on the fourth day and Mink called for poles to make
the sweat lodge. He taught the people the Sweat Lodge songs, telling them that
earth, wood, stones, and water went together in doctoring. [This combination
provides the sacred origin of Earth Lodge rites given whenever a new lodge is being
erected.]

Frog announced that he also belonged in the creeks, so he taught the people
his doctoring song.

Mink then instructed the people in the meaning of the variousrites: Use black
medicine for those who are sick or have been poisoned; use the scrapings from the
clamshell for those who are nearly dead; use the turtle shell to learn whether the
patient will recover; use fat from around the buffalo’s heart for those who have
been ill a long time; use the buffalo skull for those who seek protection from their
enemies.

Inheritance has followed a consistent pattern for the last three
transfers: a group of siblings, male and female, bought from their
mother or mothers, and sold to the children of the female siblings.
The purchasing group customarily indicated which articles of the
bundle were to be kept individually during their lifetime. Then,
when the younger generation indicated a desire to purchase, those
of the original group of buyers met to complete the sale. All features
of the bundle and its transfer are characteristic of the Mandan and do
not conform to the Hidatsa bundle transfer pattern. During its
entire recorded period, the bundle has been associated with the Xura

382 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

branch of the Waterbuster clan at Awatixa and the closely related
Prairie Chicken clan at Awaxawi. It was also customary for in-
dividuals dreaming of the animals associated with the bundle to make
offerings to the bundle and to secure pledges from the bundle owners
that contemplated military and other undertakings would be
successful.

In addition to the doctoring rites, there were earth-lodge-making
rites which enjoyed some small measure of popularity. Whenever
a new earth lodge was being built, or new central posts were to be
erected, the household sought the assistance of someone owning
rights in a Creek bundle. While she trimmed and shaped the forks
of the four central posts, she addressed the sacred objects, saying,
“These people are building their new earth lodge; I ask you not to
fail them. They want to have good luck and no sickness. I ask
you, my gods, to send them good luck. These articles they have
given you, I will keep.”

The restricted distribution of earth lodge building rites is signi-
ficant when examined in the light of traditional residence on the
Missouri. The Mandan had a well-developed system of earth-lodge-
making rites which was intimately interwoven into the Okipa and
Corn sacred myths. This system had no equivalent in the Hidatsa
groups. ‘Traditionally, all Hidatsa Earth Lodge rites are based on
the supernatural teachings of Mink who, while singing the Sweat
Lodge songs, explained that “earth, wood, stones, and water go
together.” Although the rites were a part of the sacred lore of the
Creek bundles, females frequently purchased Earth Lodge rites inde-
pendently of the other Creek bundle roles. These rites, however,
seem not to have been renewed by subsequent sales; instead, new
buyers preferred to purchase directly from the original Creek bundle
owners. Creek bundles were traditionally of Awatixa village origin
from whence they spread to Awaxawi village in recent times, and
never reached Hidatsa village. The similarity of the rites to those
of the Mandan is further evidence substantiating native belief that
the Awatixa represent the first Hidatsa agricultural group to join
the Mandan on the Missouri River.

Wolf Chief’s following narrative provides pertinent data on the
beliefs and habits relating to this sacred bundle:

My maternal grandmother’s name was Otter Woman, for she was named from
the bundle. My mother’s name was Strikes-Many-Woman. Otter Woman put on
the rites to get the bundle when my mother was about 10 years old. She often
told her how she put on the ceremony. She made the vow just like the men did
and then put up many buffalo robes and a big feast. In that way she bought

the medicines that her mother and brothers had. She used to put on the sweat
ceremonies for the bundle even though she owned the bundles. Sometimes she

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 383

would also put on a feast and call in all those who had rights in the various animals
that lived in the creeks.®

My mother was taught to doctor and most of the time when she did the doc-
toring, she cured the sick persons. Only a few of them died during my time.
While she kept this bundle, she would call me to make offerings to the mink, otters,
and turtles; I would give my robes to the bundle for they belonged to my mother.
She often told me that this Creek bundle was almost like Missouri River bundles
as they were of the otters, mink, and turtles also, so I would sometimes make
offerings to the Missouri River as well.

One time we were downstream below Fishhook Village on the west side. I
killed a buffalo and cut the lower part of the leg off and offered it to the ‘“‘Grand-
father’ in the Missouri. I had heard that it was customary to put meat and
calicoes on the bank for the Grandfather, a large snake. I took the ankle and
fastened it to a stick and dropped it into the river, saying, “‘My Grandfather,
I am giving you this meat.’ 7

I was 10 years old when my mother taught me how to pray to these sacred
things. She would say, “If you make offerings often and say, ‘I want to save
my life,’ when you come to the enemies, you can pray to the bundle.”

My mother gave me an otter skin to keep. When I went out to attack the
enemy, I put it over my head; I was always lucky and did not lose my life. I did
not put on the ceremony to own the bundle, for my mother owned it and prayed
whenever I was to war. About 1882 my two brothers, Spotted Bird and Two
Teeth, and my sister named Brown Woman went together and bought my mother’s
bundle rights. They made the vow and then went up the Missouri hunting to
get the meat. While they were out hunting, they came to the Crow-Flies-High’s
village and their clans-people up there put in some goods for the ceremony.’ A
dance was given there also, during which time “sons and daughters” of the people
of the Prairie Chicken clan gave many fine things, knowing that their ‘fathers
and mothers’’ would need these things for the ceremony. They stayed up at
Fort Buford until spring when the cherries were in bloom.

When they gave the ceremony, they called in the holy men; they were the
people who had buffalo skulls in their sacred bundles. They really did not have
to be invited, for it was expected of them. These people represented the holy
men: Smells (Big Bird rights) ; Chippewa (Big Bird rights); Hairy Coat (Woman
Above rights); Son of Star (Wolf rights); Bear-Looks-Out (Old-Woman-Who-
Never-Dies rights); Bear Heart (Bear rights); Wolf Eyes (Wolf rights); Crows
Breast (Naxpiks rights) ; Red Tail (Wolf rights) ; Different Wolf (Buffalo rights) ;
Woman-in-Water (Missouri River rights); No Milk (Missouri River and Naxpikr
rights); Poor Wolf (Missouri River rights); and Small Ankles (Waterbuster skull
rights).

Poor Wolf was the leader of the singers, getting his rights both from the Creek
bundle and the sacred buffalo skull through the Imitating Buffalo ceremony.
He invited the Holy Women society to come to the feast. They used the Mandan
Okipa lodge for the ceremony. Anyone who prayed to even a small part of
the Creek bundle was expected to attend. When the procession reached the lodge,
my brothers filled the pipe and gave it to one of the Waterbuster clan “fathers.”’
During this time my mother was using the rattles and singing the holy songs.

6 Bundle renewal feasts. When none pledged these feasts, it was customary for a bundle owner to per-
form these Renewal Feasts.

7 This was also a popular food for Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies.

§ Although this group had separated a few years before, the bond between clan relatives remained strong,

384 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

As the pipe passed around, the holy men would say, “You are going to have
a long life and a good home,” speaking to my brothers and sister. My brothers
and sister would give my mother a valuable article each time she finished one
of the sacred songs. There were many plates for the roast corn and a large pile
of corn balls in the center of the lodge. She would sing four songs and get a pile
of robes; again she sang four songs and got another pile of robes. There was a
sweat bath ready and they used only the finest robes to cover it. Many of the
robes were fancy ones worked in quills.

Then she went into the sweat lodge, saying ‘“‘Any of you old men, who wish to,
may come into the sweat lodge. After you have been cleansed, they will dis-
tribute the corn balls and other articles. All you old men walk towards the
sweat lodge and stand at the door. I will sprinkle you with water and give you
new life.”’

She directed Spotted Bird to bring the sacred objects and place them on robes
in front of the sweat lodge. She also directed him to sit beside her at the entrance
to the sweat lodge saying, “‘I will sing the holy songs. You wanted to get these
gods so listen carefully. Do not forget them.”

Then she repeated all of the holy songs that came down to us from the beginning
of time. When she finished, she sprinkled all of the old men and called for the
women and children to come. They were sprinkled also.

When she finished, she called Spotted Bird, Two Teeth, Brown Woman, and
myself to sit down near her. She sang the holy songs again in the order that
they were given to the people long ago and sprinkled water over us. Brown
Woman’s husband did not take part even though he hunted for her, but he could
have bought in with his wife if he had given his mother-in-law a scalp. Then she
called my two brothers and their wives and Brown Woman to sit in front of her
at the entrance of the sweat lodge. There she repeated the same sacred songs.
Then they took all of the sacred objects from the top of the sweat lodge.

They had a stone ready to put into the pit. My mother said, “Those of you
who wish may break up a chokecherry stick and throw it inside where the stones
are. It will signify that you will kill an enemy. My son, break the stick into
four pieces and throw them in one at a time. Each time mention the name of
an enemy you want to kill.”

Spotted Bird mentioned a Sioux named Two Bears that he wanted to kill and
threw in a stick; with the second stick, Beads-Stick-Out-of-His-Side, a Sioux, was
mentioned; with the third stick he called Medicine Bear, a Sioux; with the fourth
stick he called the name of Red Spear, a Sioux. He had heard of these enemies
by name only, for they were holy men of the Sioux tribe. When he finished, the
other stones were put into the pit and the sweat was ready.

Before putting water on the stones, my mother said, ‘‘You men here in the
sweat lodge who wish to fast may do so, for you have many enemies. I am ready
to pour the water. If you fast, you may have good dreams to bring good luck.”’

The men in the sweat were crying, for they wanted to be great chiefs. They
were people who already had sacred buffalo skulls. I heard them saying in there,
“T want to kill my enemy; our enemies we have thrown into the pit, and we
want to kill them. We are poor and we beg you to help us.” !!

Then the sweat lodge rites were over. She said to the older people who owned
sacred buffalo skulls, ‘‘You bring me a stick so I can feed these gods first” and

® She used the familiar term ‘‘old man’’ as used commonly for a husband.

10 Medicine Bear’s mother was a Mandan taken prisoner as a little girl when Nuptadi village north of
Bismarck was destroyed by the Sioux prior to 1800.

! The man in the lodge at this time represented the most distinguished males of the tribe.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 385

then she fed them. She continued, ‘‘My sons and daughter, you are the ones
who put on this ceremony and you should pray to your new gods. Also, all you
men who own rights in black medicine and peppermint should give them some
to make them lucky.”’

Then she addressed the bundle, saying, ‘“You are passing out of my hands
now; you will be in Spotted Bird’s keeping. I have always treated you well and
I hope that while these people keep you, there will be no trouble.’’

She touched the different kinds of food—the corn balls and the meat—with
the stick, and then she touched the sacred objects, saying, ‘‘You eat this. Your
son has given this to you and you can see what he has done. Perhaps there are
some holy spirits standing outside that we do not know about”’ so she made a
motion with her stick as of feeding them also. She touched the food and pointed
the stick to the different creeks and rivers, saying, ‘‘Your grandsons are giving
you this. They want to be lucky and have a long life. Sometime they may
want to cross over you so you should look out for them while they are crossing.”’

She called Two Teeth, Spotted Bird, their wives, and our sister, saying, “‘I am
going to sing a holy song that belongs to the Frog and that will be the end. When
I sing that song, it will mean that you will have a good living and many children.”’
Finishing the singing she said, “I have received many benefits from owning these
gods. Now I have received good things for them and am ready to give them up.
I will heap these robes and the food into two piles before my children distribute
them to you old people. Each of you older people pray for my children and
promise them good luck so that they will conquer their enemies and become
chiefs.”

There was so much to divide that it took a long time. When this was done,
my mother said, ‘‘We have finished eating and we are all happy that our children
have done this for us. You spirits should now go back to the places that you
came from; the creeks, the Missouri River, and the four directions.” ”

Formerly we did not get pay for doctoring unless the patient lived. If the
patient died, the doctor was afraid to take what had been promised him. In the
last 40 years [40 years prior to 1933] the younger people have been taking the pay.

When I was about 12 years old [1863] four sisters, Juneberries, Bird Woman,
Different Sage, and Roots, the mothers-in-law of Percy Rush, came to her.¥
One of their daughters was ill and different doctors had tried to cure her. They
came with a red pipe and walked up to my mother’s sacred bundle and said,
‘“‘We have come for you. We want you to come over and doctor our daughter.”’

One had a robe and some calicoes with her. My mother inquired of my father
whether she should go there to doctor, for he had told her that she ought not go
out doctoring too often or she might lose her powers. Then her own children
might catch a serious disease. This time he said, ‘‘I think they need you badly
so you should go over there and find out if you can help. You know how to tell
if the patient is going to die by feeling the stomach. If it is a hopeless case, you
do not have to stay.’ 14

They offered to pay three horses and several robes to have the girl cured.
Before they left, they put the pipe in front of my mother’s bundle and she smoked
it while talking to the bundle. Then she went to the sick girl’s lodge.

My mother came back and said that the girl was very skinny and that the
people had given her two sets of eagle feathers; 24 tail feathers. My father

12 Note that Strikes-Many-Woman was more generous than Wolf Chief, who kept for himselfa large share
of the goods put up by the buyers. Notealso that food and goods were taken from two piles by the moieties.

18 Bear-Looks-Out’s wives; see Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies rites.

14 Since the four sisters and other doctors had tried and failed, Strikes-Many-Woman could enhance her
bundle’s status if she succeeded.

386 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

promised to lend assistance. The parents wanted my mother to stay in the lodge
overnight for it was then that she got frightened, thinking she would die, and got
worse. My mother said, “I gave the girl some water. She swallowed some of it
so I think I will stay over there tonight. I can tell better in the morning whether
she will recover.”

I did not see how she doctored for I was not there. Next day my mother came
back and said “‘I felt of her stomach and I could tell that there was a pulse toward
the back of the stomach on both sides. I kneaded the stomach and it seemed that
one side is getting better. If it improves, I think she will recover.”

She came back the second day and my father inquired if the girl had eaten
anything and my mother said, ‘‘She would not eat yesterday, but today she
wanted roasted corn and I gave her some.”’

Small Ankles, my father, was also a good doctor for he had a dream from the
bear and buffalo but he could not doctor for his neighbors, only his own children.
He did not like to doctor others, for in his dream he was doctoring his own children.
Since he and Bear-Looks-Out both belonged to the Waterbuster clan, the sick
girl was also Small Ankles “‘daughter’’ so he thought it would be all right since
Strikes-Many-Woman thought she would recover.

He said, ‘‘I will go along with you this time and help you a little.”

She said, ‘Yes, you come along and help me for I think I can cure her. I felt
of her stomach near the backbone and it seems that it is getting soft on one side.”

My father went to his bundles and I heard him praying to them. Then my
parents went off together. When they got there my father said, “I am not a
regular doctor but I will help, for in my dream I saw myself doctoring. If I see
that she is going to get well, I will stay with her and help her along.”

Bear-Looks-Out’s family was glad and promised a good horse. He began
doctoring by telling what he had seen in his dream from the bear. He sang the
holy song the bear had sung and blew water over the girl. He did this four times
and the sick girl sat up, saying, ‘‘I am well now and can eat. I would like to
have some chokecherries.”’

It was hard to find the cherries for this happened just before the cherries were
tipe. The women went out through the village and found some dried cherries
from the preceding year’s crop. They left the berries near his sacred bundle.

Small Ankles talked to the bundle, saying, “I saw you in my dream and you
taught me how to doctor and I am doing that now. You showed me how to
doctor with the chokecherries.”’

He sent some young men who had come in to go out and bring in some branches
with the cherries and leaves on, for he was going to mix these cherries and leaves
into a mash, cook it, and feed her. While the cherries were cooking, he burned an
incense from cedar for that went with the bears who live in the cedar thickets.
He chewed up the cherries and leaves while singing the bear song and, addressing
the bear, he said, ‘‘I would like to see this sick girl lie down stretched out on her
back.”

He stood at her feet, sang the holy song, and, directing her to open her mouth,
put the mixture on her tongue.

She chewed it and said, ‘‘I am eating fresh chokecherries.”

Small Ankles said, “That is fine. You are going to get well because you have
eaten the new chokecherries. How do you feel?”

She said, ‘‘It seems that I have new life and can carry myself around.”

Small Ankles told the women that they should give her some food and that her
mother should feed her. She began to feed herself shortly afterward while,
before that time, she could not lift her hands. She sat up and ate the food by
herself.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 387

Small Ankles said to my mother, ‘“‘Now itis your turn. I know you have some
medicines to doctor her with. You should use some of the peppermint to cleanse
her with. You have many kinds; use all at the same time so she will recover the
faster.’”?’ Then he teased my mother, saying, ‘“‘ You see how I doctored her. You
are supposed to be the real doctor for you have the things that came from early
times. I am not supposed to be a great doctor for I only dreamed of mine.
Still you have seen how I didit. So you should not sit there all the time but do
something.”

My mother used a plate to dip the peppermint in, and, sprinkling the girl, she
said, ‘‘I would like to see this girl recover; I want to get these horses; I do not
want to stay here too long.”’

Then she said to my father, ‘“‘ You did not say whether the sick girl would
recover or die. I think you ought to tell me.” But he would not make a
prediction.

She doctored a second time, greasing the girl with fat taken from around the
buffalo’s heart and singing the song that went with the use of the fat. When she
had finished rubbing the fat into the girl’s skin, the girl said, ‘‘ Now I feel like a dif-
ferent person.”

My mother had a turtle shell in her sacred bundle. She said, ‘I am going to
find out if she will recover; it is time to find out now.”

She burned some of the peppermint before the girl, took up the small turtle
and sang the sacred song, “‘ Mink is holy; he came; he is here’”’ and chewed pepper-
mint and spit it on the turtle singing, ‘‘ Peppermint is holy; he came; he is here.’’

While she sang, she held the turtle shell in her hand, motioned with it three
times and said, ‘‘ When I throw the turtle on her, she will recover if it stops on
her; if it drops down, she will die.”

She threw the turtle towards the girl and it stopped on her abdomen so she
said to my father, ‘‘ Take a stick and tap the turtle lightly.”

He took the stick and tapped the turtle with it and the turtle slid down slowly
and fell off the girl.

My mother said, ‘‘I promise that the girl will get better and walk around within
3 days.”

They came back to see the girl after that and my father said that he could see
that she would recover by her eyes. Within 10 days the girl was walking around
again. My mother came back then to cleanse her. She gave the girl a small
piece of mink hide to wear around her neck whenever she walked for she was still
quite weak and thin.

When she came home my father said, “‘It is all right; it was just like winning a
game. We heard that many doctors had tried and then we succeeded. We
have many children of our own so you should not go out doctoring often. If
someone calls you again, you should not go.”’

Another time Picture came and said that her boy was very sick. It was the
custom when they begged, saying, ‘‘I know you love your children and do not
want to have any bad luck’”’ that one could not refuse. Mother went over to see
what ailed the boy and came back to tell my father.

She said, ‘‘You stopped me from going out to doctor. This woman came over
and begged through our own children, saying that we honored our children.
I do not have to go if you do not want me to. You must decide.”

He said, ‘Since that old woman came here and begged, honoring our children,
I do not see how we can refuse. You could go without taking your sacred bundle,
feel of his insides, and see if you can cure him.”

She felt of his stomach and then ordered the people to prepare the sweat lodge.
She took him inside and sang the songs of the Creek bundle. When he came out

388 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

he felt better and begged for food. I heard her telling my father that she thought
he would recover for his eyes were bright.

My father said, ‘‘Since you think it is all right and they have promised two
horses, I think it is better that I go over too and help you. It will be all right
for you to stay there 1 night.”

She tried hard to cure the boy; she examined the stomach and found a hard
place there next to the backbone. She thought it was the place where the sick-
ness was centered. She kneaded the stomach every few-hours. She pressed the
abdomen and then she felt a movement inside. She came home and said that she
had been up nearly all night pressing the stomach. She begged help of Small
Ankles, saying, “I think the boy is going to get over his sickness. I think you
should go along with me and help the boy.”

He said, ‘““You can go in the morning and I will be over there at night. If I
think he is going to get well, we will go together. Then I am sure we can work
a cure.”

She came back before sundown and said, “I had a hard time today. Red
Head came in and just as soon as she left, the boy lost consciousness. I heard
that this woman had her monthlies. I used the medicines that I am supposed
to use when this happens but it seems that the boy is worse. I think you ought
to go along as you have medicines when a woman with monthlies comes around.’’!5

My mother’s rites consisted of a song, ‘That woman came to the lodge door;
she is holy; she goes out.’’ 16

The two went back. The boy was still unconscious. They took their sacred
bundles this time. They blew peppermint over him and sang the sacred songs.
Towards morning it seemed that the boy was a little better.

Small Ankles said, “I have been using the powers that I got from the bears;
now I am going to use my Buffalo Spirit rites.”’

Before doctoring the boy, Small Ankles stood and addressed all in the room,
“T tried to have a god of my own; I found a place where there were many buffalo
skulls and bones. I piled them together and built a little lodge a short distance
away. In the daytime I stood by the pile of bones, and at night I stayed in
the lodge for this was during the winter. On the fourth day I cut skin from
my leg and offered it to the gods so that I would be successful in all that I under-
took. I want to remind you, my gods, that I did all this and now I want to
cure this boy. I am going to sing the songs you taught me. You told me you
were the Buffalo Spirits and you gave me these two buffalo teeth and hair. In
my dreams you showed me all this so I am going to try to cure this boy and
get the two horses. I will sing the sacred songs.”

He sang the songs twice. He shook the boy and inquired how he felt and
the boy said that he was feeling better already. Right afterward, the boy
went to sleep.

Next day Small Ankles inquired how he felt and the boy said, “I feel much
better; it seems that I can feel my body now. I want something to eat.”

They doctored for about 14 days and then they had the boy up. They
cleansed the boy in the sweat lodge and brought back with them all the things
promised except the horses, which the people brought in from grazing and
delivered the next morning.

15 That is, she is menstruating.
16 Small Ankles’ rites were concerned with eagle trapping. There were particular menstruation rites
which were performed to prevent bad luck to the eagle trappers.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 389

When I was 9 years old, the people went out hunting and ran nine Santee
Sioux into a pocket where they built a fort. There was a fight and four of our
men were killed. A man named Little Bear was in the fight and he would say,
“Tf we stay around here we will all be killed; we should jump into the hole and
drive them out.”

He tried and was killed. Then Bluestone went toward them with his sacred
spear but he was killed before he reached the fort. Cedar was next; he jumped
into the fort killed one enemy, and then he was killed. By that time six of
our people were killed and we had only one of theirs.

Chokecherry said, ‘‘Wait until I can see how to get rid of those eight enemies.
Bear Necklace, my son-in-law, stand in front of me. All you young men stand
with him. Each time I sing, you make a noise. When I have sung the fourth
time, run over there, jump into that hole and kill them. Bear Necklace will
take my shield and bear bundle. You will never get killed so long as I sing
my song. The song I will sing is the one I was taught by the grizzly bears in
my dream. Do not be afraid.”

Each time he sang, he shook the chokecherry brush in imitation of the bears.
When the song was sung the fourth time, the young men jumped into the fort,
killed all of the enemies, and butchered them with their knives.

In the fight, Bear Heart was shot between the two bones of the lower arm.
It was only a flesh wound but he came to my mother to cure him for she had
the right to doctor the wounded from a dream she had from the mink in her
Creek bundle. She sang “It is badly smashed by the bullet but he will recover.”

When she sold her bundle, she passed the New Mink song on to her children.!”

When her grandchildren had high fevers, she would doctor them. She would
not take pay from her own children as she had in mind being of assistance to
her own children when she bought the ceremony. Outsiders were required to
pay well before she would doctor.

TYING-THE-POTS

This ceremony, performed at Awaxawi village, had no precise
equivalent at any other Mandan or Hidatsa villages. It was, accord-
ing to traditions, a popular rainmaking ceremony at Awaxawi and
was performed annually during the hottest part of the summer.
This important summer ceremony occupied the same prominent
position at Awaxawi that the Naxpikr or Sun Dance did at the other
two villages.

It was not possible to identify any survivor or older descendant of
that village who had ever participated in the Naxpikr as bundle
purchaser. This would indicate recent union with the other two
groups, too short a time for complete intergroup borrowing of their
respective ceremonial bundles. Informants recalled, however, several
of their older relatives who had participated in the summer Tying-
the-Pots or the Mandan Okipa ceremonies.®

Like other native traditions concerning clay pots, the sacred origin
myth for the ceremony relates the experiences of the snake people.

17 Here we find an instance of ritual enrichment.
18 This group has traditions of residence on the tributaries of the Red River until early historic times.

710-195—65——_26

390 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

The following abbreviated account by Bears Arm comes from Poor
Wolf and Old-Woman-Crawling who lived at Awaxawi village until
its abandonment after the smallpox epidemic.

A very handsome young man living at Awaxawi village seldom went arouud
with the girls because he thought that most of them were foolish. One morning
he awakened to see a young woman leaving his bed. She came for 4 nights and
he resolved to follow her and learn who she was. When she left the last time,
he followed her and she led him northward until, when evening came, a killdeer
bird was frightened up and she knew the bird was scout for the Big Birds.

The young woman requested her companion to cut a chokecherry branch to
represent a snake, which they put near the entrance to a cave situated on the
river bank near Mannhaven. In the night they heard the thunder and knew
that the big birds were attacking the branch.

After the storm passed, they traveled northeastward and came to a large lake.
He followed her into the water where he found a new land and saw that the people
weresnakes. The young woman was the daughter of Chief-of-the-Snakes.

One day he heard thunder and saw lightning. The people said that the thunder-
birds were trying to kill them, but the lightning could not penetrate through the
water.

After a while the young man became homesick and longed to see his people
again. The young woman being married to him, she agreed to return with him.
Although she went about a great deal in the village under the lake, she remained
at home all the time in her husband’s village. Snake Woman would stay in the
lodge seated on a buffalo hide from which the hair had been removed; she was
afraid of thunder. She worked all the time decorating robes, leggings, and
moccasins with porcupine quills but she never went outside to get wood and
water, or to work in the gardens.

She ordered that no woman must ever touch her husband and he had this
information announced through the village. One day his sister-in-law touched
the corner of his robe while teasing him. He cut out the spot in the robe where
it was touched but his wife detected it and disappeared shortly afterwards.

He returned to the lake and tried to go to the land beneath the lake but each
time he dived down, he came back up again. He cried long and his wife appeared
out of the water with two pots, one large one and one small one. She explained
that the large one was a man and the small one a woman, and stated that they
were to be used as drums for bringing rain. She instructed him in dressing the
pots with clothing and in making the snake poles. She taught the songs that
went with the rites.

She warned that the pots should not be carried about from place to place but
must be stored in a deep hole with a strong roof over them when not in use, as
protection from the thunder.

The ceremony was an annual affair and was celebrated during the
hottest days for the purpose of bringing rain. Both men and women
pledged to perform the rites but women were excluded from the
lodge where the rites were performed as was customary whenever
fasting was practiced. The person pledging the ceremony was
assisted by his relatives in the same manner as in the Naxpiks or the
Wolf rites but the costs in goods were not as great as when buying
abundle. The one bearing the expenses of the ceremony was expected

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 391

to provide fancy clothing, for the decoration of the pots, and robes
for the singers.

The principal ceremonial equipment consisted of two very large
clay pots decorated to represent the water snakes from whom it was
believed they were obtained. One was slightly larger than the other
and represented the male and the smaller one represented the female.
It is said that the decorations on the body of these vessels represented
the snakes. However, no one living at the time this study was made
could provide a precise description of the decorations. The two
vessels were kept in a corn chamber in a bed of soft sage !® and covered
with a strong roof of ash poles and earth. They were taken from the
pit only on ceremonial occasions. They were never exposed to
direct sunlight and were kept in the earth lodge while the ceremony
was performed.

This apparently was the only rainmaking rite which provided
opportunities for formal fasting and torturing. Young men conducted
themselves in essentially the same manner as when fasting during
the Naxpikr, the Wolf, or the Mandan Okipa ceremonies, calling
on members of their father’s clan to insert the sticks for the suspension
or dragging of buffalo skulls. The use of a carved log to represent
a snake with eyes, mouth, and nostrils at one end and carved notches
along the back was unique to this ceremony. During the performance
of the ceremony, the leaders ran back and forth beside the log dragging
a vibrator over the notches. The resulting noise was believed to
represent the sounds made by the snakes when “bringing the rains.’
On other occasions during the performance of the rites, drumheads
made from the buffalo’s paunch were tied tightly over the two clay
pots and allowed to dry. The drumsticks consisted of curved
willows with a crosshatching of sinews. There were special songs
for ‘“Tying-the-Pots,” referring to the tying of drumheads over
the pots, which is the name by which the ceremony is known today.

Those who fasted during the ceremony were provided with small
notched sticks or carved ribs which they rubbed together whenever
the singers caused the large vibrator to be sounded. It is suggested
that these small individual vibrators are the numerous notched ribs
found frequently in all of the Hidatsa and Mandan village sites of the
Heart River focus or culture. When the ceremony was completed, the
pots were returned to the cache and protected by a pole and earth
cover. Informants thought those giving the ceremony also received
rights to make pottery with certain designs.

The ceremony had many features in common with the men’s
Notched Stick age-grade society of Awaxawi village. It appears that

19 Called ‘“‘different sage’ by the Hidatsa.

392 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

the ceremony was an expression of the greater emphasis placed on
agriculture by the Awaxawi.”

The rites were abandoned a few years after moving to Fishhook
Village when the principal sacred bundle owner died. The people at
first returned to Awaxawi during the summer for the annual perform-
ance, but the rituals never became popular at Fishhook when the three
village groups united there. Due to the prohibition against moving
the pots, they were never taken from Awaxawi. The exact spot where
they are buried is unknown; the last person to possess that information
died a few years prior to the time of this study. According to native
concepts, the Tying-the-Pots ceremony originated after this village
group reached the Missouri, this belief being based on incidents that
occurred on or near the Missouri.

Wo.ur CEREMONIES

The Hidatsa recognized three distinct hereditary Wolf ceremonial
complexes, Wolf Woman, Sunrise Wolf, and Sunset Wolf. Each
ceremony was transmitted independently of the others through
established hereditary lines although the Wolf Woman impersonator
officiated also during all performances of the Sunrise and Sunset Wolf
ceremonies. Traditionally, the three ceremonies were founded rather
late. The Wolf Woman is conceptualized to be one of the females
created by Village-Old-Woman during earliest times. Nevertheless,
the sacred origin myths related by the Wolf Woman bundle owners
and the Holy Women attribute the origin of this specific Wolf Cere-
mony to incidents occurring after 1800 when a small group of Hidatsa
quarreled and moved onto the Little Missouri to build a village near
the mouth of Cherry Creek. The Hidatsa consider the recency of
the events leading to the establishment of these bundle rites merely
as the recognition of a supernatural being who was with the people for
a long time, gave them personal dreams and sacred bundles, but was
not recognized by formal tribal ceremonies until recently.

The Hidatsa date the establishment of the Sunrise Wolf ceremony
by the fact that it was instituted by Village-Young-Man from visions
experienced while living at the mouth of Heart River” subsequent
to residence at Devils Lake and to the fact that his war party found
Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies still living on the Upper Missouri.
The Sunset Wolf rites were believed to have been established after the

20 «The Mandanes and Saulteurs (Awaxawi) are a stationary people who never leave their villages except
to go hunting or on a war excursion. They are much more agricultural than their neighbors, the Big Bellies
(Hidatsa and Awatixa), raising an immense quantity of corn, beans, squashes, tobacco’ (Henry, 1897, p.
338).

31 George F. Will dates this settlement as about 1811. See Will, 1946, pp. 16-17.

32 These rites also bear close similarity to Mandan practices and may well have been borrowed from the
Mandan while at Heart River.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 393

Hidatsa had moved northward to the mouth of Knife River and sub-
sequent to the removal of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies to her per-
manent home in the south. Traditionally, then, the order of adoption
of the various formal Wolf ceremonies was: (1) Sunrise Wolf; (2)
Sunset Wolf; (3) Wolf Woman.

The Wolf rites are distinctive in that their principal emphasis was
on warfare and their ritual training consisted primarily of teaching
the formal offensive warfare patterns. Offensive warfare with the
Hidatsa was a highly ritualistic activity in which the participants,
irrespective of the sacred bundles carried by the leaders, impersonated
the wolves and coyotes. The leaders themselves were known as the
Old Wolves, the scouts were the Coyotes, and the other members of
the party were Young Wolves. The great florescence of rites empha-
sizing warfare was traditionally of recent occurrence. The elements
comprising these rites, however, were plucked from the long-standing
cultural traditions and seemingly do not represent many features new
to the Hidatsa groups. The ritual attitude toward the wolf is not
unlike that of the Mandan, who had gone even farther than the
Hidatsa in the development of hereditary bundle rites, or the Crow,
Sioux, Cheyenne, and their other neighbors; but the form taken was
quite different. Mandan Wolf rites were intimately integrated into
both the ceremonial and clan systems while we find no evidence that
Hidatsa Wolf rites followed any particular clan pattern.

In the Mandan sacred myths, Clay-on-the-Face, a wolf imperson-
ator, regretted that only the moiety representing the buffaloes and
founded by Lone Man had a leader, and he pledged that, should the
war expedition which he was planning return successfully, he would
give names to the people of the opposite moiety. So, when he met
the enemy and overcame them in battle, he thought of his vow. As
he returned toward the village he observed the prairie chickens, the
speckled eagles, the bears, the badgers, the snakes living in the red
hills, the crows, and the people in a clump of woods, so he gave these
names to the people of the opposite moiety as clan names, designating
those of the numerically superior Prairie Chicken clan to be the
“carriers” of the Wolf rites. The clan inheritance feature was pre-
served by transmission from ‘mother’s brother to sister’s son” or
“father-in-law to son-in-law” inheritance, both being aspects of clan
inheritance. These Mandan beliefs and practices were entirely
lacking with the Hidatsa. Transmission was from father to son,
thus cutting across clan lines, and Wolf Woman rites were transferred
from a female to one she addressed as ‘“‘daughter’’—father’s sister to
brother’s daughter, or mother to daughter.

394 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

SUNRISE WOLF

Wolf Chief, who bought full ceremonial rights in this ceremony,
provided a detailed account of the sacred origin myth and his bundle
purchase efforts. The following is a condensed account of this
myth:

When the Hidatsa, the people who afterward lived on the north bank of
Knife River, reached the Missouri they first crossed and settled near Heart River.
The people would see the high buttes around there and think that some great
spirits surely lived in them. A young man though the would try to learn which
spirits were in these buttes so he walked far up the Heart River and fasted at
one of the highest buttes. He fasted from time to time for 4-day periods until
one morning just before sunrise he heard someone singing Wolf songs and talking
from afar.

The voice said, ‘‘I take their part going out against the enemies and now my
son here will do the same.’”’ Then the wolves ran, singing, ‘‘You will take the
part I used to take. I used to go out against the enemies and take their scalps.
Now you will do the same as I did.”

They ran a third time but he could not see the people who were running.
Each time they stopped they sang a holy song. They said, ‘“My son, you should
do as we did and go out and overcome your enemies.””’ They ran again and
stopped to dance. They said, ‘It is easy for us to do that and, you being our
son now, we give you the power to do it also.”

The wolves came into view and he saw nearly 30 of them. He heard the
songs but he did not understand them. He went home and in his dreams he
saw wolf hides over the wolves’ shoulders and caps of wolf hide, to which the ears
were attached, on their heads.

The Wolves said, ‘‘You have been suffering so long to get a god of your own.
We knew that you were fasting and we have come to instruct you to put on the
Wolf ceremony so that you can carry on these rites that we want your people
to have. This is a good thing we have brought to you. There are many enemies
to the south and they will come against you. You will need this power. In
the future you will pass the ceremony on to others but, before they put up the
ceremony, they must first go out and kill their enemy. You see how we said
“We have been victorious over our enemies.’ You repeat that to your sons, too.
There will be another wolf, the Wolf of the Sunset. Tell your people that you
want to put on the ceremony for the Flatland Wolf. When you do this, we are
going to sing a holy song and change you into a wolf. You do not have to go
out and kill an enemy afterwards but pretend that you do. Then the people
will make fun of you and give you a funny name. Whenever you sing this
holy song you will change into a wolf. We will show you how to get more strength
and power so that you will never become exhausted no matter how far you travel.
Do not show off too soon. It may be that some enemies will attack and surround
you and then we will instruct you further.”

The Wolves showed him how to use the sacred things—Black Medicine, Sweet-
grass, White Clay, and Earth—so that he and later generations would know what
to do when tired, saying, ‘“You should inform the people that there are songs to
go with each of these four things. When you pass them on to the younger genera-
tion, you should teach them when to use the songs.”

Then the Wolves sang, ‘“‘This earth is holy; sweetgrass is holy; black medicine
is holy; water is holy. All these things are holy; they will give you back your
strength again.”

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 395

The Wolves said, ‘There will be a buffalo skull too and a song to go with it and
they sang, ‘‘He came to the lodge; he is coming.”

The Wolves added, ‘In the future you will want to reveal all this supernatural
power we have given you, but do not tell them anything until they make fun of
you. When you are out against the enemy, and the scouts report the enemy
near, there is a holy song that the scouts should use. Tell them that when they
run back to report, they should pretend to be coyotes. Then the others should
stand in arow. The warriors will sing and the scouts will tell where they saw
the enemies. There is also a holy song that belongs to a very old female wolf:
at the end there is a howl.?3 Anyone who sings this song and makes a wish will
be unusually successful in getting what he asks. Whenever the warriors come
back with success over their enemies, they should put red paint under their
noses; this is a sign of success. It may be that in the future other generations will
want additional dreams. Then they, too, may get additional holy songs from us.”

So ended the Wolves’ instructions.

Each time the warriors went out to kill their enemies, this young man would
say that he was going along and that he was the one who would do the actual
killing. When the party returned, he would put marks on his leggings. The
people thought this was funny for he had not been out to war. His pal would tell
him what the people said.

One time the warriors, including the pal, were out and they made up a war
song giving him a name, singing, ‘‘The Man-who-Stays-at-Home-Smoking-and-
Jealous, he pretends to be brave; still he has not done anything. He is just
fooling himself.’’

So the people called him Village-Young-Man. He told his pal of his experiences
with the wolves and which he had now passed on to the others to make them
successful. He announced that he was really going out to reveal his supernatural
powers. There were 12 in the party which included himself and his pal. They
came to the lodge of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies and she brought out bowls
of roasted corn for her ‘‘grandchildren.’”’” The men thought the pots were very
small indeed and she sensed their thought, saying, ‘““Those are indeed small vessels.
When the vessels are nearly empty, stir them and they will fill again. When
you go out, go to the west. There are seven men whom you will meet.24 You
can kill them all off. They will have wolf hides around their bodies and carry
bows without bark. When you kill those seven enemies, I wish you would bring
me one of the scalps to hang on the side of my basket.’’ 25

They went west to an oak grove, killed the seven warriors, and gave the old
woman the scalp. She said, “‘Whenever you want to get the best of your enemies,
you should promise me something.”

At home the people danced and Village-Young-Man decorated his spear and
wore feathers to show what he had done.

Black Hawk organized a war party and the pal thought they should go along
so further demonstrations of his supernatural powers could be revealed. Village-
Young-Man went to his fasting grounds to get further instructions from the
wolves. Then he saw the tipis far to the north so he asked his wife to prepare
his moccasins. She did not believe he would go out for he was always promising
and never went out.

33 This reference is to the Wolf Woman of the Wolf Woman ceremony.

24 These seven warriors were turned to stone (pl. 9).

35 It was customary for young men going to war to seek supernatural assistance of the Old-Woman-W ho
Never-Dies bundle owner and to promise a scalp for the ceremonial basket when successful in striking the
enemy.

396 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

The next day he instructed his wife to go to the river bank and hide. He
walked by her and swam the river. There he howled like a wolf and when she
uncovered her head, she saw a wolf on the opposite bank. He called to her,
““Now you see that I am holy” and he ran over the hills towards the north.

Before the party left, he told his pal that he would join them on the fourth
night while the others were singing derisive songs about him and that when they
heard a wolf howl he should bring roasted shoulder meat to the edge of the camp
and leave it. Then on the next day Village- Young-Man would be far to the front
and coming from the enemy’s village when the others first saw the camp. All
these things came true. Village-Young-Man and the other scouts returned to
their camp where he reported that he saw the lodges and they were as thick as
the spots in the buffalo’s mouth and informed the scouts that in the future scouts
must repeat the same information.

The leader did not believe what Village-Young-Man said so he went out to
see for himself. Village-Young-Man went into the enemy camp. There he
waited until daybreak so his party could see him. Then he killed a woman,
scalped her, and ran away slowly so that the enemy would follow. He ran back
to the scouts who had not yet reached the enemy camp, instructed them asthe
Wolves had taught him in running so as not to tire, and led them into battle
against the scouts which the enemy had sent out. While instructing the scouts,
he demonstrated his new supernatural powers by knocking down four enemies
with the assistance of his pal.

While returning to Black Hawk’s camp, he instructed the scouts in the use of
white clay to make them light on their feet so they could run faster. The main
party stood in a line when they heard the scouts coming and Village- Young-Man
gave the scalp and elk-horn scraper to Black Hawk’s wife, addressing her as sister-
in-law. Black Hawk was not sure that they might not be old lovers and Village-
Young-Man criticized him for acting unchieftainlike. The scouts told Black
Hawk of Village-Young-Man’s skill and supernatural powers and they danced
the scalp dances.

Village- Young-Man said to Black Wolf, ‘I am going back home and will be
there before sunrise for I am not really human any more. I will transform my-
self into a wolf and be there when the sun rises.”

He crossed the river at daybreak and went into his lodge. Since he returned so
soon, his wife thought he had been lost. He told of turning himself into a wolf
and she was happy. But he said nothing to her of his part in the battle. He
dressed up and put marks on his leggings to show that he had killed the enemies
and he wore scalps and feathers too. The people thought he must be insane and
laughed at him.

On the fourth morning home he saw an old man walking through the village
and he asked him to be announcer to tell the people that the war party would
arrive that day and to use the word sakucha which in the future would signify
that the party had been successful. The old man made the announcement even
though he thought the young man was insane.

Soon the people saw the war party on the opposite bank singing an Honor song
and each time they sang they mentioned Village-Young-Man. It was customary
for the relatives of those who had killed the enemy to give out food and goods.
His parents hesitated for they did not believe their son had accomplished these
things and were crying for shame.

Village-Young-Man came off of his lodge and said to his wife and parents,
“T am the one who killed all the enemies they mention. Now they are asking for
articles and you should give them some. Paint your faces black and dance for
I did all that they tell you I have done.”

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 397

His wife stood in front of their lodge with her face painted and was happy be-
cause her husband had been successful.

Village- Young-Man instructed the people that the war leaders should not look
into holes in the ground nor eat meat from the buffalo’s hocks. Village-Young-
Man taught the ceremony to those who came to him and wanted to give a feast
to the wolves.

The Wolf rites differ from most other ceremonies in several re-
spects: (1) the sacred myths were more widely known than those for
other ceremonies, due in part it seems, to the training young men re-
ceived prior to and during their first military expeditions; and (2)
there were no special singers for the rites whose status during ritual
performances exceeded that of other comparable bundle owners.

Items in a Wolf bundle were: a wolf hide; a braid of sweetgrass;
black medicine root; cap of wolf hide with the ears attached; any
fox or coyote—Wolf Chief’s being a gray fox—to represent the
scouts; a buffalo skull; and 12 sticks. Four bundle lines represented by
Two Tails, Yellow Shoulder, Red Basket, and Small Ankles survived
the smallpox epidemic of 1837. During the succeeding years the
number of bundles doubled but at no time were the sales sufficiently
numerous to become an annual event.

Wolf Chief was one of the last to buy a bundle during which the
full ceremony was performed. This ceremony was performed in 1880
or 1882 in conjunction with his brother who was buying their father’s
Woman Above rites. Since that time, due to the termination of
Plains warfare, interest in the bundles died out. Most of the bundles
have since been put away.

Wolf Chief provided the following account of the purchase of a
Sunrise Wolf bundle. In this joint purchase his brother assisted
him and received their father’s Woman Above bundle.” The details
of the purchase preliminaries and the final transfer are given essentially
as related by Wolf Chief. This narrative is especially valuable in
illustrating simultaneous purchase of two distinct bundles, a practice
characteristic of the later years when the aboriginal culture was
breaking down rapidly. Of the purchase, Wolf Chief said:

This Wolf rite, before my time, belonged to my father, Small Ankles. One
day my brother, Red Basket, came to me and said, “I dreamed about our father’s
Wolf bundle.”

That was when I was 30 and my brother was 24.

I said to him, “I had such a dream, too. Now you are trying to do the same
thing but it is very difficult to do. Let’s think it over a while and not make any
promises we cannot fulfill. In your mind you have it already for you have seen
it in your dream. I do not want to refuse you for we might get into trouble and
have serious misfortunes. You did not say a certain bundle. You said that you
want to own all the bundles that our father has. You know that he has many
other ceremonies which makes it all the harder. Our father owns the Wolf of the

26 For the myths and additional information on the Woman Above ceremony see pp. 323-333.

398 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Sunrise, but he has the Black Bear for eagle trapping. Then he also owns the
Old-Woman-Above and the Waterbuster Eagles. It would be easier if you
mentioned a certain one. We should pick out certain ones to use. I think you
should pick out the Old-Woman-Above ceremony and I will take the Sunrise
Wolf for that would be easier.”

We informed out father about our plans and he said, “It is going to be hard for
you because the buffalo are nearly gone. The only way you will be able to do it
will be to ask the different societies. It may be that they will give you enough
valuable things such as robes, horses, and clothing to make up the ceremony.”

Then he taught us how to say we wanted to own our father’s gods. He told
Red Basket to say to Old-Woman-Above, “I want to own you and I promise to
build a sweat lodge for you. I will have enough articles. My father’s god,
I want to own you.”

He said to me, ‘‘You should say, ‘I want to own you, Wolf of the Daybreak.
I want to own you, my father’s god.’ After you make your promise, you will
have to look for another ‘father’ who will repeat the holy songs belonging to
the Wolf and the Old Woman Above. Since the songs for the two bundles will
be mixed, you should pick two ‘fathers’ but you could have one sweat lodge.
Select Hairy Coat (Waterbuster clan) to do the singing in the ceremony as he
has the Old-Woman-Above rights.”

We decided to appoint Lying Chicken 27 as our ceremonial father for we had
heard much about how he had fasted. Even in war, although he had been
wounded, he was able to save his life. We thought he would be a pretty good
man to ask. Before we went to see him to tell him of our plans, we got several
fine blankets and robes. Our father told us we should take the pipe along when
we spoke to him of helping us get the bundles.

He was not at home when we called but we saw his sacred bundle hanging
there. His wife saw us carrying the pipe and inquired what we wanted and we
said, ‘‘Mother, where did our father go?”

She said that he had gone out visiting somewhere and we said, ‘‘We wish
that you would go out and look for him as we come for a great purpose.”’ She
went out and in a short time she came back with him.

As soon as he came in, he inquired what we wanted and we said, ‘‘We want
to own a god so we selected you as our ‘father.’ My brother wants to own
the Old-Woman-Above and give that ceremony while I want to own the Sunrise
Wolf. We want to go together and get these bundles from our own father who
owns them both.”’

Lying Chicken said to us, ‘‘It is a hard thing to do but it will be all the better
for you when you are through. When the time comes, I will be ready to take
the things over, my sons.”

At the time we took the pipe over, we left it in front of his bundles. When
he finished speaking, he went to the bundles and lit the pipe saying, “I want
my sons to be successful.”’

When we came back home our father, Small Ankles, said, ‘I think it is going
to be pretty hard to get a wolf for they are nearly extinct. You will have to
get one. I have an extra hide here that I can fix up and repaint. I think it
will be just as good as a new one. I will look for the ash stick and make it up
into shape for the Old-Woman-Above. I will have to get some braided sweet-
grass and buffalo hair to wrap around it for the Old-Woman-Above always used

27 Lying Chicken belonged to the Itisuku clan which was, at this time, being incorporated into the
Waterbuster clan as was the Xura clan. He had taken an active part in the various Buffalo Calling cere-
monies and had fasted on the hills during the coldest part of the winter to bring the winter herds.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 399

that. I think those things will not be hard to find. Then we will need a scalp
from the enemy but I am afraid that will be even harder to find. The important
thing for her real powers is the jackrabbit. You find one and skin it. Tie a
piece of buffalo tail to the hide. That is very important for when she goes after
anything she always has that. Then there must be a magpie to go with the rest
of the Old Woman’s sacred bundle and that is very important. Pull two or
three of the long tail feathers of the magpie and get eagle down from the calumet
eagle; you will need two of those feathers. Someday you may go out to attack
your enemy and then you can wear these down feathers. We will have to bring
the sweetgrass in and have it braided nicely and then folded into a circle for the
Old-Woman-Above used that on her breast. There will be 12 sticks (about 6
inches long) made of 6 sticks split into 12 and painted red. You will also be
given a buffalo skull.”

We pledged to give the feast at the time when the chokecherries were ripe.
I said to my brother, ‘‘We will have to go out southwestward to hunt buffaloes.
There might be a few even though the hides will not be very good now. By fall
they will be better. By the time we get back we should have plenty of meat.
Then we can invite in the different societies to donate various articles for our use.”

We went out and passed Dickinson. There were my brother and myself to-
gether with our wives, four of us in one wagon. When we came to the Little
Missouri west of Dickinson, there were many tents. White men were living there.
They were killing all the buffaloes and we saw the meat and hides. I was angry
but I did not say anything even though they were leaving most of the meat to rot
and were just taking the hides. Many places we saw the dead animals and the
hides spread out. They were killing the best ones and leaving those that were too
poor and shaggy. We went up the Little Missouri until we came to high moun-
tains at the head of the river where there were many small branches to the stream.
We crossed and went west again, killing many fat deer and antelopes. We dried
the meat whenever we stopped. We continued west but we could not find any
fat buffaloes for the hunters were leaving only the shaggy ones, so we turned back
toward the Little Missouri again.

We decided to stop there to hunt deer and trap eagles. My brother did not
have complete rights in eagle trapping but my father had been teaching him a
little at a time, for which my brother had paid him. He thought we should try
to trap anyway and I thought it would be all right. We stopped in a place where
there was plenty of wood and good water. We saw a high butte and thought
that the pits should be near its base. He sang and prayed, and then we dug the
holes. When the pits were ready, we killed a jackrabbit, cleaned it, and filled it
with grass so that it looked alive.

My brother said, “If it is good weather tomorrow I will go into my pit. If
the wind is not from the west, we will fix another pit for you.”

The next day was a fine one for trapping eagles so he went out before sunrise
without eating breakfast, for one was expected to fast while in the pits. I stayed
around camp looking after the horses, thinking that some stranger might come
along and get them or bother the women. After dinner my brother came back
with a fine eagle. When he brought the bird into camp, there was no place to
put it as we did not have a lodge built for the eagles. He tied the bird to our tipi
and pulled the 12 tail feathers out.

I said to him, ‘“‘We should have a lodge for the eagle as we have no right to do
this to the birds. Wehave plenty of time to makealodge. Ifound a beaver dam
and we could take that wood.”

We brought the wood and madea lodge inashort time. Then we lived separate
from our wives.

400 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

We tied the bird back of the lodge. Then there followed 2 poor days for trap-
ping. While looking around, we found holes that were formerly used. We saw
many birds in the air and thought that this must be an old eagle trail that other
trappers had found. I selected an old pit and my brother cleaned it out while I
stayed in camp in case strange men came along.

I said to my brother, ‘I will have to pay you for praying for me for I want to be
lucky.’’8

I told my wife to pick out some fat meat and a hide to give to my brother for
fixing the trap. He thanked me and said that he would do the best he could.
He came back in the evening and said that he had it ready and that it was well
concealed. I thought it looked like a good location.

Next day the wind was from the wrong direction and I decided to hunt for
blacktail deer. I killed one buck and a doe. I fixed some of the meat for my
bait, using a piece that was fat and bloody. I gave it to my brother to pray to
and fix as our father had taught him. I gave him one side of the ribs roasted for
his pay.

He said, “I am satisfied with my pay. I am not supposed to own the whole
ceremony, only the part that was taught me by my father. He taught me how to
dig the holes and tie the bait. He taught me the songs that go with that and I
am going to sing one of them before we go further.”

He sang the song that he had learned and said, ‘‘Now you sing it with me” and
we sang, ‘‘The bait you carry on your shoulder; the bait you carry on your shoul-
der; the bait you carry on your shoulder; the bait you carry on your shoulder;
black bear is fixing his lodge. What will be the best bait to draw birds to it?
The best part for bait is the breast.”’

Next day the wind was from the southwest. We could not go out trapping
when the wind was from the east. We knew the birds would be moving with the
westerly wind so I thought it would be all right for us to go out since our wives
were not afraid to stay alone. We should not stay too long here trapping eagles
as it was nearly time for cold weather. We went out without eating. I went
into my pit and pretended to be fasting and crying, but I did not let my voice out
loud. After a while I saw a black spot in the air. My pit was near a sharp bank.
Suddenly the eagle came up from below and onto the bank. My father had often
told me how to seize them for, should I miss, I might push the bird over and lose
it. I took a careful aim, pulled his legs together, scraped the feathers, and pulled
them out. Then I tied the bird up and went back into the hole again.

I saw another black spot in the air. I had been told that when one comes, the
other will come from the same direction. It sat on my bait and I pulled it in
also. I pulled the feathers out and said to the eagles, «I wish I could get some
more and I would make a warbonnet.”

Being late, I started back to camp. Not having a rope, I tied one eagle to my
belt and carried the other under my arm. When I got back I saw two eagles
behind the lodge for my brother had caught another, a spotted eagle.

I thought, ‘‘We are supposed to put up a big ceremony; that is why we are so
lucky” for I had always heard that when one pledged a ceremony, he would be
lucky at everything he undertook while getting the things together.

Next day the wind was not in the right direction so I said, ‘‘We should go out
for deer. Weshould goin different directions. The deer will be fat by this time.”

I killed a blacktail deer. It was fat even for this time of year. I took off all
the meat over the ribs in one piece for it would make good dry meat for the feast

33 Wolf Chief, though older than his brother, had not bought Eagle Trapping rights of his father as Red
Basket had.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 401

that we were to give later. At that time it seemed that the wind was changing to
the southwest so I hurried with my butchering and got ready to trap eagles.

I used my brother’s rabbit for bait as my meat had turned black, and I tied
some fat to it also. Many magpies came around to eat the fat. I would punch
them but they would come right back again. After a while an eagle came down
and I caught it. It was getting cold and it seemed that there were many eagles
flying so we went into our pits the next day. In a short time I saw a black spot
in the same direction as before. It disappeared before coming up over the bank
and onto the bait. I pulled in another fine calumet eagle and took the 12 tail
feathers out. I was crying for I wanted to catch another calumet. It was not
long until my prayers were answered and I pulled it in.

It was getting cold and uncomfortable so I left early. I took the two birds and
went back tocamp. I tied the two eagles at the back of the lodge with the others.
My brother came in late with a “soft small’’ eagle. He had been around our
father a good deal and knew many songs and stories about eagles. He was more
interested in it and braver than I for he had struck the enemy and had cut his
fingers off and fasted much. He was cold when he came in and I thought that
we might have a blizzard.

I said to him, “I have often heard the rule that when it gets cold and the edges
of the rivers are frozen, we are not supposed to go out any more. It seems that
it is going to freeze up. If the birds get their feet cold, it means that the people
will get into trouble. I think the time for trapping is over and that we should
stop before going any further. We have enough eagles now.”’

We did not go through the regular ritual here for we did not have a qualified
leader who knew all the rules for cleansing out the spirits. Then there is a regular
order with a head man to pray when the birds are killed so they will go back where
they came from. We did the best we could and turned them loose the next day
to fly away after feeding them fresh meat during which time my brother prayed
to them saying, “‘I did not have the regular right to do this. I had only the right
to dig the holes which my father taught me. I have no way of sending you back
but I ask you, Little-Black-Bears,”* to help me send them back. I do not want
any trouble. I want you to carry out anything I do not know and excuse me.”’

We had a big load on for the women had worked hard drying the meat and hides.
We had a wagonload of dry meat piled up high and we tied some poles to the
back of the wagon on which we piled about 60 deer hides. We came back through
Dickinson where we sold 10 hides to buy coffee and sugar. There we found
fresh tracks and soon overtook Spotted Bear and his party to learn White men
had come to the village while we were away and had stolen most of our horses.
We hurried home when we learned that. The river was carrying a great deal of
ice but we crossed our stuff in bullboats, even taking the wagon apart and crossing
the parts in boats. My brother went back to his wife’s parents and I went to my
wife’s parents’ lodge.

Our wives did not give away all the hides for I had a good wife. I wanted to
sell many of them and turn them into other articles. I belonged to the Grass
Dance as did my brother. Wolf Eyes (Sunset Wolf bundle owner) came in and
I told him that I was going to feed my society for I wanted them to put in some
articles to help us fulfill our promise. He thought that it was the right thing
to do for it was hard to get the articles together. He thought that it would be a
good idea to pass through another year before fulfilling the promise as it was so
hard then for the people were so poor.

2 The traditional custodians of the Eagle Trapping rites.

402 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Wolf Eyes went back to his lodge. He belonged to the Big Grass society and
he told his young men about it. He was one of the real chiefs in a way for he was
usually selected ‘‘Leader of the Warriors’ in the Sunset Wolf performances.
He said to the members of his society, ‘‘Wolf Chief has undertaken a great thing
for it will bring rain for the crops; food will be abundant and our people will
increase.2® I think all of you should put in some things for Wolf Chief.”

I heard afterwards that they were having meetings and would notify me when
they met. I belonged during this time to the Night Grass Dance and my brother
was a member also.2t We heard that they were going to dance. I had already
sent word to them. Big Bull, their announcer, went through the village telling
the people that we were going to meet that night. I told my wife to have meat,
corn, and coffee ready. ‘They prepared several pails of food.

The meeting was to be in the Mandan Okipa lodge.*

My wife and I dressed and she took the food to the lodge. All the people of
the society came in and danced. I told my society that I was in need of their
help. When I mentioned it, they did not say anything for a while.

Then Red Wing who was highly respected said, ‘‘Wolf Chief is doing this for
the good of all the people. He wants to have a good home and fine gardens;
he wants our people to increase; he wants no sickness among us. It is hard for
him to get all the articles so I advise you young men to help him along, even with
small things that he can use.”

The people met in small groups and talked it over. Sitting Owl said, “It is
all true; it is a good thing for us. Weshould help him. When we pass the barrel
around, each person should put up something. Iam going to put up a 2-year old
colt for the Wolf Ceremony.’’? They had two wooden barrels and stopped at each
end to sing the society songs. As they went along with the barrels, the people
put in things.

There were 50 members in the society and they gave freely. Cherries-in-the-
Mouth gave ared pipe. On the other end of the line someone gave me a blanket.
We would get an article and then they would sing. Nearly everyone there gave
us a fine blanket, robe, calicoes, quilts, or other things. When the barrel came to
Rabbit Head, he got up to dance and gave a mare and 2-year old colt, saying
that it was for the benefit of all.

The barrel came to Long Bear, Old Dog’s father, and he told how he had fought
the enemy. He began to tease some of the members of the Dog society sitting
there. They were there and had to hear it. He told how he ran the enemy into
the creek. I thought he was very brave by the way he was dressed. Old Dog
was there and he had his father give an eagle tail of 12 feathers and a good spotted
horse for he was proud of his father the way he talked.

Eventually the barrel came to Bears Heart and he danced. He was in the same
age-grade society as Long Bear. He showed how he seized the enemy, making
many humorous movements that amused the people immensely. He said,
“T do not see why those of my age and society do not get wounded. They must be
cowards or they always manage to be somewhere else when the enemy is around.
Right after the smallpox we were few, still we were always after the enemy.
A bullet hit me and that is what I represented just now. Another time we went

30 Note the shift in emphasis to other societal values with the abolition of warfare by the U.S. Government.

31 These Grass Dances were of late introduction from the Sioux and were rapidly replacing the older age-
grade military societies.

32 Note the many references to the use of this ceremonial lodge by the Hidatsa for the performance of
various social and ceremonial functions. Formerly the Hidatsa met in the various lodges but there was a
gradual increase in the use of this lodge for their public meetings until, just prior to the abandonment of the
Village around 1889, the Mandan ceremonial lodge was used interchangeably by the two tribal groups.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 403

to the north and they shot me in the back but it did not go through. Another
time near Knife River the enemy attacked and went ahead. Before I got to them
they shot me in the flesh of the arm. That was why I held up my arm. But
these, my friends, must stand a long ways back from the enemy for they never
get hit. But I go up close and that is why I was wounded four times. Another
time nine enemies made a fort and I got wounded for I was up close to the fort
but this man here must have been far back for he never got any wounds. I had
used all my bullets so I had only my ax. I jumped into the fort and they shot
into my hand between my fingers. Still my friends here did not get any wounds.
I am old and my horse is old too but you can get something out of him. The horse
is my donation.”

All the people laughed but some of them felt a little hurt, for he criticized
them in public where they had to sit and listen.

In all there were four horses donated to us in addition to dry goods, blankets,
guns, and eagle feathers. We called our wives to help us take the things back
to our father’s lodge and put them away there for the future.

Two days later we heard that another society, the Big Grass society, was
going to have a feast and dance to help us. We saved the best foods, as much
as we could, for our use in the ceremony when the time came so this time we
mixed the dried meat, cut into pieces, and corn which together made enough to
feed all.

When we heard the drums beating, I told my wife and my brother’s wife to
take the food over. They left it on the floor. Then I said, ‘I need help of this
society; I would like some things to help me as I am trying to own a god.”

This time Wolf Eyes who was leader of the society said, ‘‘It is for your benefit.
What Wolf Chief is doing is for all the people.”

Then Lucky stood up and said, ‘‘It is a good thing for all of us and we should
all help him; it is a great thing that he is looking to our future and the increase
of our numbers. It may be hard for some to give anything but give a little
dry meat or goods, even a pair or two of moccasins. All this will help him out.”

At that time I did not dance with them but sat between two older men who
were my clan brothers and belonged to the society. Representatives of the
society came together to talk the matter over and then they went back to their
seats.

Spotted Horn stood up and said, “There is no way for us to get buffalo hides
for we are poor. We should try to do the best we can for he is looking to our
benefit. My son, White Bird, will give Wolf Chief a war bonnet.’ Spotted
Horn was the announcer for the group.

They started a barrel on each end of the line. The drums were beaten. The
older people were dressed in headdresses and feathers to show their war records.
Others wore scalps on their leggings or other signs of success in warfare. Big
Coat’s wife * had her husband give a stick to indicate that she was donating a
horse. In all there were only three valuable things, a war bonnet and two horses.
Others gave moccasins, shirts, and many knives.

These were not the only times we got donations as my age-grade group helped
me and individuals came in with things.

We kept all the goods at my father’s lodge and my wives could not give any of
them away for the things were given to use in the ceremony. My father told
Two Teeth that he could help us, his brothers, in getting goods and participate
in the ceremony to get some of the rights.

33 A member of the Maxoxati clan, the same clan as Small Ankley’ first wife and Wolf Chief’s half brothers
and sisters.

404 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

When the days were shortest, our dry meat was getting low, for we had been
giving so many feasts. There were many deer at that time so my brothers and
I went out hunting a great deal. Then we would put on a feast and invite in
clan brothers and sisters and they would give us things for the ceremony.

There was a dance of the Night Grass society towards spring and Young Wolf
donated a horse. There were many other dances of the Grass society through
the winter and the pile of articles continued to grow. All this time our sister,
Brown Woman, continued to help us. Wolf Eyes, whom we appointed to help
us and to look after the articles, would come over once in a while. We heard that
he had been looking for a wolf hide.

One day he called us over to his lodge. There we found Hairy Coat, who was
the leader for the Woman Above rites, and my father. Wolf Eyes’ sacred bundle
was on a four-post platform. I saw some fox and coyote hides but I could not
see a wolf hide. I thought it would be hard to get one for wolves were scarce.

Wolf Eyes said to Hairy Coat, ‘“You are the man who is leading and will sing
the holy songs. I am supposed to get the wolf hide and the other things for
Wolf Chief but it is pretty hard to get the scalp and wolf hide but otherwise I
think I have all the things that I should get for them.”

Hairy Coat said, ‘Since they made the promise, I thought we might have an
enemy come so that we could get a scalp. We should be able to get a wolf but I
see now that we may have trouble. Of course in the early days I promised a
ceremony to the Woman Above, but in those days there were many enemies.
One of our people went out and killed one enemy. He gave the scalp to my
‘father’ to use and I have that in my bundle. If they will pay enough, they can
have that scalp.”

When we heard that we were glad. I was 13 years old when this attack was
made on the village and they gave Hairy Coat the scalp when he put on the Old-
Woman-Above ceremony.

Small Ankles said, ‘‘I am glad they have promised to give the ceremony. Up
to this time they have had no bad luck. It shows that their wish is coming true
and yours, Wolf Eyes, and yours, too, Hairy Coat. All this makes me very
happy.”

Wolf Eyes was the one to get the scalp from Hairy Coat and pay for it.

Small Ankles said, “‘I understand that you did not get a wolf hide but I gave
the ceremony when I was young. My ‘father’ gave me a hide and I had good
luck in war. Now I see that you do not have one for your ‘son’ and I will let
you have mine, only you will have to pay me.”

Hairy Coat said, ‘I am glad that all the articles that our sons are supposed to
have are at hand. We are to begin tonight for these two ceremonies are to be
held together. This is to be a practice meeting tonight but tomorrow we will
put on the regular ceremony. Each time I sing a song, you must pay a little.”

The men sang and when our fathers brought the holy things in and laid them on
the ground, we were supposed to give some articles. We knew there was plenty.

After they finished talking we went back and roasted the corn and cooked the
dry meat ready for the feast. While they were together, the three “fathers”
selected Different Wolf to be the announcer for he belonged to my clan and would
see that the ceremony was well advertised. He went out through the village
calling, ‘‘Wolf Chief asks all those with the Old-Woman-Above and the Sunrise
Wolf to come. He has a big sweatbath ready and he wants you to come. Who-
ever owns the Buffalo Skulls come too.”

34 Wolf Eyes occupied an important position in the Wolf ceremonies at this time because of his military
record.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 4()5

When evening came, we took the meat in. There were already many people
there who owned the different bundles such as Wolf and Buffalo Skulls. Even
some old women had the right for they had put up feasts to the bundles although
they had not put on the big feasts or ceremonies to buy the whole rights. By
that time Lying Chicken, our ceremonial father, came in with a buffalo skull and
put it at the head of the lodge.

My father, Small Ankles, said to us, ‘Hairy Coat was supposed to sing the
holy songs but he forgot one place where he was to instruct you young men for he
is young.*®> When they take the skull in, you are supposed to put the pipe and
an article in front of the skull. Hairy Coat is supposed to call an old man to take
the pipe and article, and pray for you but he forgot to tell you that for he is young
and has not gone through the ceremonies many times.”’

When we came in, the buffalo skull was in its place. Hairy Coat said, ‘‘You
are to bring me some articles and I will begin the holy songs. Bring me a little
fire.”’

My brother took some. Hairy Coat smoked the skull and rattles with sweet-
grass. He began to sing a holy song of Woman Above. While he was singing
we distributed food to the older men. He sang a song that I do not remember,
something about. ‘calling the enemy.’ When he finished he said, ‘‘Whoever has
the rites of the Sunrise Wolf should take the pipe before the Buffalo Skull.

Kidney (Bull Buffalo is his other name) went over and sat by the skull. He
called me and my two brothers to come to him and he said, ‘‘Buffalo Skull, these
are your sons; they want long lives. You can see what they have done for you,
bringing all these fine articles. They wish to be successful and have plenty of
food for all the people.’”’” We brought articles and placed them before the skull
for Kidney.

Hairy Coat called for some more articles and another small fire to burn sweet-
grass, and then he sang. Again the pipe was placed in front of the skull and we
carried articles there. Another man prayed and asked the buffalo skull to send
their ‘‘sons” good luck.

We passed the food around then, feeding all those who had the right to attend.
Even the old women with Wolf Woman bundles and rights, by virtue of feasts
they had given, were fed.

When the people had eaten, Hairy Coat called for more coals and the filled
pipe to be placed before Buffalo Skull with some articles. He asked if there was
any food left and we told him that it was all gone. He said that it would be all
right for it was nearly daybreak by that time. He told the old men to get up
and pretend to be holy men, impersonating their gods, and to go back to their
lodges.

So ended the practice performance.

During the day we prepared for the final performance. We took all the articles
and the sticks to represent the horses to the Mandan Okipa lodge and hung them
up. Our “fathers” were in one of the lodges and they came out with their sacred
bundles. We had had the lodge swept out and cleaned out nicely by the Holy
Women owners, and a new sweat lodge was built inside ready for use.

Small Ankles had instructed us how we were to do, saying, ‘‘Before they peek
in the door, have the articles and horses they are to get ready for them. These
men will leave their lodge and sing the holy songs at four different stations on
the way to the lodge. When they sing the fourth time they will come in and
distribute the articles among themselves. Before they come in, you are ex-

35 Note how one bundle owner checks up on another to see that performances are conducted strictly
according to custom.

710-195—65——27

406 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

pected to have most of the articles spread before the buffalo skull; also have some
near the sweat lodge. When they bring in the sacred bundles that you are to
get, such as the wolf hide and scalp, they will leave them on top of the articles
that you have heaped there.”’

We had the sweat lodge covered with dry goods and many fine articles, also
the sticks representing the horses. It was evening. We had given only a few
articles on the previous evening for this was the important meeting.

My father said, ‘‘Whenever Hairy Coat calls for some articles, take our four
and give them to him for he is the leader. Whatever he asks for will come
true.”

My brother brought coals as Hairy Coat had directed. Hairy Coat burned
some sweetgrass and smoked the rattles before beginning the songs. He was
painted with red paint over his body and face and wore magpie tail feathers in
his hair. He wore only his breechcloth. When he finished singing he said,
‘“‘Whoever owns the Old-Woman-Above bundle step forward to the Buffalo
Skull and pray for your son. When you have prayed for your son, you may
take the articles on the skull. Pray that he will be successful.”

Big-Foot-Bull, a Mandan who owned the Sacred Shell Robe of the Mandans
and Awatixa, stepped forward and prayed, ‘‘My god, Woman in the sky Above,%6
I wish that you would see that my ‘sons’ here have long lives for they want to
be successful in all that they do.’”’ Then he smoked the pipe before the skull
and took the goods.

Again Hairy Coat called for a fire and sweetgrass. I put goods before the skull
and another man prayed for us. Then we would distribute corn and meat to
the people and my sister would give the food to the old women who had rights
in Wolf ceremonies. Sometimes the songs belonged to the Old-Woman-Above
and other times the songs were to the Sunrise Wolf.

Then he called for other old men to go the the skull and pray. Short Bull went
there and prayed, “Up in the sky, holy Old Woman, I beg of you to help these
sons enjoy a long life; you are the one who has the power. ‘These articles that are
given to you I am going to use.’’37_ Then he asked Red Basket ** to come forward,
saying, ‘‘Whoever owns the bundle for the Sunrise Wolf step forward and take the
articles and pray for your sons.”

Then Hairy Coat stopped singing and there was a short rest.

Small Ankles came to us and said, ‘‘ Your ‘father’ did not tell you about this but
there are some old women who own the ceremony of the Holy Woman. These
women always meet separately when a ceremony is in progress. They are to-
gether now so you should save some of the articles for them. They represent
the very early days before this ceremony was founded. Besides the Old-Woman-
Above there were these other women in those times.’’?

Hairy Coat called for coals again for he was going to sing the Invitation song
again. The Wolves sang this song whenever they wanted the gods to come to the
feast, so we passed the food around again in imitation of the Wolves.

Again Hairy Coat invited someone with Sunrise Wolf rights to step forward and
take the things at the skull. This time Wolf Eyes did, saying, “Stand by me,
my sons. In the early days I tried to own this god. I had a hard time so I know

38 He belonged to the WaxikEna clan and moiety opposite that of Wolf Chief who was a Prairie Chicken;
hence, Wolf Chief was a ‘‘son.”’

37 Short Bull, a Mandan, had an equivalent Mandan Old-Woman-Above bundle and was of Wolf Chief’s
opposite moiety.

88 Waterbuster clan, so a father to Wolf Chief; he had rights in the Sunrise Wolf and his wife was one of the
Wolf Woman owners.

39 Note here how the Hidatsa relate two ceremonies in time.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 407

what a difficult thing it is. I ask the Wolf, my father, that my ‘sons’ here have
good homes and become leaders among their people. May they have many
children to increase our population.”

Hairy Coat said to our ceremonial father, Lying Chicken, ‘You are the main
one who was going to give the bundles to your sons. There are many things
under the bundles, but you did not furnish all the articles. Small Ankles gave
the wolf hide and I furnished the scalp. You have to pay us for those things for
you have many articles. You do not have to worry about your pay.”

Lying Chicken came forward, picked up the bundles, and put them on the
buffalo skull. He put the articles in a heap saying, “I am glad our sons promised
to give the ceremony for, since they promised, there has been no bad luck. I
have listened to the old men praying to their gods and I can tell from this lack of
sickness and death among our people that it is because they promised to put on
this ceremony.”’ He divided the goods into two piles and put two sticks on each
pile.

He continued, “Hairy Coat is the singer and he took a greater part in singing
the songs. He can have one part of the articles and that stick which is the spotted
horse given by Old Dog, for it is a good horse. Small Ankles furnished a wolf hide.
I can see that it is very holy. We know he got good results from it and now his
sons want to own this wolf hide. Now I am glad that his sons are going to own
his gods so I give Small Ankles this pile of goods for there are many fine things in
the pile, as well as a good horse.”’

Small Ankles took the horse and articles. Again Hairy Coat called that he
wanted his pay and we put 12 articles consisting of blankets and robes in a pile.
But he called for more so we brought more. By that time the stones for the
sweat lodge were heated. Hairy Coat said, “There are many articles left. After
we come out of the sweat bath, our sons will distribute them among the old people.”’

When the things were distributed, Hairy Coat said, ‘‘I think Lying Chicken has
his share. Before I deliver these bundles to our ‘sons’ they should bring up their
wives if they want to become ‘granddaughters’ to these bundles.”’

He walked towards the sweat lodge while singing another holy song and shaking
the rattles used by the singer of the Woman Above songs. He said to the old
men, ‘“Those of you who wish may come into the sweat lodge. Act like the god
that you represent.”

The song he was using was one which called for sweetgrass. He sang the song
and made the request four times. When he was inside the sweat lodge, my
brother took in the stones. Those whose bundles included buffalo skulls went to
the entrance but there was not room for allto goin. There were other young men,
mostly Prairie Chicken clansmen, in the lodge crying and begging for a good
living and success. When the old men came out of the sweatlodge, Hairy Coat
said, “‘I want the first chance. Then the rest of the goods will go to those who
own a branch of the Wolf and Woman Above ceremonies. Then the people with
Buffalo Skulls and other bundles can have the rest.”

Hairy Coat stood in front of Buffalo Bull Skull and said, ‘‘My granddaughters, *°
you must take your leggings and moccasins off. Leave one dress on. If you
want to, you can step forward and call this skull your grandfather. If you want
to keep your grandfather as your protector, do not be foolish; keep yourself clean
and do not run after other men; then I will sing a holy song. If you think you
will be tempted and can’t do it, I will not sing that holy song for you here.”

At that time my wife was Big-Foot-Bull’s daughter, Coyote Woman, who was
a Mandan. Hairy Coat called for some coals as he wanted to smoke the bundles

40 Note a change in kinship; heretofore they were daughters-in-law.

408 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

in front of the buffalo skull. He held up the sacred bundles and said ‘‘You
women who respect your ‘grandfather’ and will obey his rules, come to me. If
your are not sure of yourself, I will not sing it.”

My wife stood up and said, ‘‘Sing the holy song.”

Then Red Basket’s wife, Skunk Woman, said, ‘‘Sing the holy song.”

He sang the song and said to the women and the sacred bundles, ‘‘Now these
are your granddaughters and they expect to look after you. They want long
lives. Hold out your hands. I am going to give you a grandfather.”

They held the bundles up for a while. Then he picked up the buffalo skull
and incensed it a little, saying to Coyote Woman, “‘If you are going to respect
this grandfather, rub the skull against your breast. Promise that you are not
going to think of any other man no matter how good looking he is. Then your
grandfather, the Buffalo Skull, will look to your benefit.”

There was a certain man who always painted the buffalo skull for my father.
Afterwards my father always had good luck. So I wanted Small Ankles to paint
the skull for me but I had to pay him extra. I thought I might use the skull some
day when I was attacking my enemies. At this time I took the red paint and left
it by the buffalo skull and said, ‘‘My father, I would like to own the right to
paint the buffalo skull. I want you to show me so that I will know.”

He stepped forward and said, ‘I see that my son wants to own the painted
skull but of course he spoke to me before. I want all you older people to hear
what I say. I used to pray to the skull, cut myself, and go out to hunt my
enemies; I used to paint the skull on the tipis and it was easy then for me to get
my enemy. My father, Buffalo, I want to show my son how to paint you. I
want to turn you over to him and I wish that you would give him strength and a
long life.”

I was sitting behind him all that time; he had water to mix with the red paint.
He said, “If I mention any words in the song, you should pick up the skull and
scratch the ground with it as hard as you can.”

During the first song he was singing, I was painting the skull and was ready
but in the first song there were no words so I finished the painting. In the
second one there were words and I scratched the ground. The older men were
happy and shouted, ‘“‘aho! aho!”’

After we finished he said, ‘‘Up-in-the-Sky-Holy-Woman, you taught me the
things you taught in the very early days. You taught us to use the skull and
I am teaching its use now. When I owned this skull, I kept it in good order and
now I am giving it to my own son here.’’ Then he said to me, “In the future you
might attack the enemy or come to a tipi where there are many buffalo skulls on
the ground protecting its owner. You will then know how I sing thesongs. You
sing the song, pick up one of the skulls, and lay it back on the ground. Then
you can call your men and attack the tipi for they will get the best of your
enemy.”

Then he said to me, ‘You have already learned how to do it from me and it is
the same now except that you will own the buffalo skull. Distribute what is left
to these Holy Men for some of them came from the big timber and far away.
They represent the Holy-Women-of-the-Timber around here and the woods to the
north.”’

Meanwhile our mother was in her lodge preparing for us to invite in the Holy
Women so I took my bundle and the buffalo skull to my father’s lodge where I
put them with my father’s bundles. The Holy Women had a leader named
Cherry Necklace who was already there. He was dressed with a mink hide, I

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 409

think, around his head and a robe upside down. He had a few magpie feathers
scattered over his robe. He was there but a short time when my mother looked
out and said that all the old Holy Women were coming, about 10 of them in all.
Red Head, Roots, and Goes Around were all I remember.

They came in rapidly with face and foreheads painted red. Each had a digging
stick made of ash. They announced, ‘‘We have come from the brush, the
heavens, and the north but we can’t be seen.’’

They pretended to be foolish women of the woods. They ran around in the
lodge and bumped into each other. We sat back in the lodge where we could
watch them perform. Cherry Necklace was carrying his rattle and, walking
around between them, he sang, “I am the Old Woman; I am the genuine Old
Woman. I would rather be the Old Woman to have great powers.”

When he finished, the women pretended to be like the old women and then one
said, “I have come for the things you promised me but I am a spirit and can’t be
seen.”

They stopped jumping around and formed a circle, when one said, “Bring the
pay I am promised for this.”’

My father said, ‘‘You should take those articles and distribute them.”’

I said, ““My mother, here is an article.”

She said, “I came from far away in the heavy timber and brought this medicine
for you. Open your mouth.” Then she put black medicine on my tongue.

Each one told where she came from. Some said, ‘There may be illness in your
family so you can use this black medicine to doctor with.”

After they finished, Cherry Necklace said to the women, “Go back to the dif-
ferent directions where you belong.”’ They ran out fast carrying the goods, and
scattered in all directions.

That was the end of the ceremony. After receiving all these bundles, we fixed
a place for them beside our father’s bundles and on the same platform. My
father spoke to the bundles saying, ‘‘They own you now and you should send your
sons good dreams.”

Night came and I hada dream. I heard many wolves singing but I could not
tell if they were inside the lodge or outside. When they finished singing, I memo-
rized the song at once. It was a long one without words. I had never heard it
before. Then I dreamed again. I saw where we had the ceremony in the big
lodge. There was a hide rope around the lodge and the wolf hide given to me
was there. The hide was painted red in the middle and it looked like a new hide.
In the morning when I awoke, I was happy for I thought from the freshness of the
wolf hide, the red paint, and the Wolf song that I would be successful when
attacking my enemies. As soon as I arose I told my father about it.

He said, “It is good that you saw red paint for that is a sign that you are going
to kill the enemy and have a long life.’”’ I was happy about this dream.

At the same time, Red Basket told us that he had a dream also. My father
said, ‘“Let me hear what you learned. Don’t be afraid to tell me for your brother
has already told his.’”’ I told my brother how I had seen the wolf hide and that
when he was out hunting he should take a piece of wolf hide and put it around his
head. Then he would be successful.

Red Basket sang the song he had heard. When he finished my father was happy
and said, ‘In your dream you had a song from the Woman Above. I am glad
for it means that you are going to have a good life. You will become a leader of
your people.”

The song was, ‘‘My son, my son, from up in heaven above you.”

410 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

SUNSET WOLF

These Sunset rites, which also included ceremonial participation of
certain females possessing rights in the Wolf Woman bundles, were
considered to be independent of the Sunrise Wolf rites in spite of the
fact that bundle owners of both rites had important ceremonial duties
whenever this ceremony was performed. Each of the ceremonies,
the Sunrise Wolf, the Sunset Wolf, and the Wolf Woman, has a sep-
arate origin myth. Although wolves are represented in many of the
origin myths relating to very early times, the Hidatsa village groups
do not consider the Sunset Wolf rites in their later forms to be very
old. This ceremony is considered more recent than the Sunrise
rites since it traditionally was founded after the Hidatsa-proper had
moved from the Heart River where the Sunrise Wolf rites were in-
stituted. Since the Hidatsa-proper think of the Knife River villages
as quite late in tribal history and the Cheyenne as late arrivals on
the Plains, they consider the ceremony one of the last major ceremonies
to be founded by the gods.

Bears Arm and Joe Ward provided most of the data on this cere-
mony. ‘The origin myth, summarized by the writer to include the
principal points stressed by both informants, was as follows:

A young man, later to be named Hungry Wolf, was out eagle trapping with his
wife to the west. He had his pit which he would go into when the winds were
right; at other times he would hunt mountain sheep and other game. When he
had caught four eagles and they had all the meat the dogs could bring back, he
notified his wife that he would go out for fresh meat while she packed the things.
When he returned his wife and the dogs were gone. He found the tracks of seven
men who had taken his wife and dogs away. At last, near the headwaters of
Knife River, he saw the enemy camp of many lodges.

When night came he found one path leading to a waterhole where the Cheyenne
women were accustomed to get their water. He hid near the path and watched
for his wife, telling her that he would take her away during the night. Instead
of going away with him, she notified the Cheyenne who captured him. Some of
these enemies struck coups on him and one man cut a small piece of scalp from
Hungry Wolf’s head.

They decided to kill him so they brought two large ash poles and drove them
into the ground. Instead of killing him outright, they decided to torture him
first. They ran knives through his ankles between the bone and large cord and
did the same with his wrists. They brought rawhide ropes and fastened them
through the holes in the legs and arms. They tied him to the posts so that he
hung there, and they brought wood for a fire. The women danced around him,
among them Hungry Wolf’s wife.

At last the Cheyenne broke camp, leaving him fastened to the posts. Magpies,
ravens, foxes, and coyotes came to the campgrounds to eat the scraps thrown out.
He hung there 3 days unable to free himself. On the fourth day the raven flew
back toward the “spot where the sun sets.’’ He told the Chief of the Wolves
that a young man was being tortured in the abandoned camp.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 411

The wolf called all the other wolves and they met. They resolved to go to the
camp and free the young man. They traveled as wolves and changed themselves
into humans as they approached the deserted camp.

Chief of the Wolves said, ‘‘We heard about you and we came over here to help
you.” They cut the rawhide cords and doctored him until he was well again.

The leader said, “‘This is a Wolf ceremony. You have seen how we paint our
bodies and wear caps made of coyote skins. There are raven feathers on our
heads. There is only one kind of white clay to use. We will go west to the
place where this clay falls down from thesky. Use that for paint when performing
the ceremony.”

They took the young man west with them. On their way the young man
heard something roaring as it came down from the sky.

The leader said, ‘‘When giving the ceremony, someone must come here to get
the white clay to paint their bodies with. You will be returning home now but
in a year come out this way with your warriors. You will find a camp and your
wife will be among them. I will give you 100 enemies to destroy. You will
take your wife but you do not have to keep her. When you perform these
ceremonies, there must be two brothers dressed alike.”’

“You will have coyote skins tied around your wrists. Use the head from a
coyote skin for your cap; wear split raven feathers on top of your head; sew a
coyote tail on the cap so that it will hang down the back of your neck. You will
carry two canes and on them there will be four marks, Paint your body with
the clay we showed you. When you are having these ceremonies, have a bowl
of clean water and red grass from the hills ready. Dip the grass in the water.
The waterissacred. Thegrassissacredtoo. You will use that for the ceremonies
as well as for doctoring. There is also a song to the old female wolf.”

Then the wolf showed him the canes saying, ‘‘These canes will represent the
two posts set in the ground where you hung, and the four marks will indicate the
four days that you suffered. Tie a coyote tail to the top of each cane. You will
have a mound formed to represent yourself and the people will dance around the
mound just as they danced around you. These canes will be used by old people
and they will live long because they will use them to brace themselves.”

‘On the last day the Holy Woman society will clean the dance grounds and dig
out the little cacti for the fasters are hungry on the last day and may fall down.
You must sing the song 100 times on the last day. Since we promised you 100
enemies you must select one man to sit in the middle and keep track of the singing.
When the song has been sung 100 times, he will say ‘stop.’ While the men are
dancing and running around the mound the women must stand around waving
their robes as though driving the enemy away. You can go out with us and we
will have a feast before you go back, for you have been fasting now for 4 days.”

The Wolves went out and killed a buffalo. This was the beginning of the
ceremony. He reached his home at Knife River. During the winter he made
arrows all the time and gave them to the old men who trimmed them and passed
them on either to their sons or sons-in-law living with them for these younger
people were the ones who would use them. When the arrows were all completed,
his helper gave them back to him. He blessed them and made arrow ceremonies
for them. He gave them to the brave warriors and they in turn gave them to
their sons or sons-in-law.

He married one of the best young women in the village. Then he was ready
to give the Wolf ceremony. When the ceremony had ended he told the people
that the next time they went out on the buffalo hunt they should kill many old
buffalo bulls to get their hides from the shoulder and neck for shields. He
directed them to cut out round pieces from the hides, spread them on the ground,

412 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

put hot stones on them, and roll these hot stones over the hides until the hides
were charred. When a hide was dry, they should cut the edges again until the
hide was round. Tanned buckskin should be fastened over the hide. Then
when the tanned buckskin was painted with pictures of she young men’s gods,
these shields would protect them when attacking their enemies. All the men
did that and the arrows would not penetrate the shields. The other tribes saw
these shields and copied them. Hungry Wolf also had the power to bring rains.

The war party moved camp, going toward the southwest. Wher they reached
Like-a-Prairie-Chicken-Tail Butte they found red paint inside stone balls and
took all they needed. Scouts returned to report a large camp ‘They charged
and the enemy ran. They killed 100 and allowed the others to escape. His
former wife and another old Hidatsa woman were in this camp. The old woman
told how she had been taken captive by the Cheyenne when a little girl and had
raised a family there so she did not want to return to the Hidatsa. Many women
and children were taken prisoners and kept at the Knife River villages. When
Hungry Wolf was old, he sold his ceremonies to his sons and so they passed down
to present times.

In spite of the fact that women with Wolf Woman rights partici-
pated in this ceremony, only one brief reference is made in the myth
to the Wolf Woman bundle and that is to the effect that there is
another song without words that belongs to a very old female wolf.
A summary of the sacred myth which the Hidatsa claim to account
for the origin of the Wolf Woman bundle is supplied at this point
since the bundle owner had an important role in the performance of
the Sunset Wolf rites.

The myth has its origin with the Hidatsa who were living at the mouth of
Knife River on the north bank. A very holy man named Strong Jaws lived in
this village. He had grown holy because he fasted 9 days and nights and had
dreamed of all the different kinds of wolves.“

The wolves told Strong Jaw to stuff a wolf hide with sage and to take it outside
of the lodge whenever the wolves howled and they would reveal what news they
were sending him. Because he could predict the future this way with the help
of the wolves, he was of great assistance to the village.

The other holy men were jealous of Strong Jaw’s supernatural powers and a
friend warned him that it would be best to leave the village and take the friendly
families with him.

Thirty-five families broke away and traveled westward towards the Killdeer
Mountains until they reached a place on the Little Missouri where they built a
new village. They hunted afoot for there were few horses in those days. They
lived there 3 years. Strong Jaw had a son named Walks-at-Dusk and a daughter
who was 8 years of age.

Farther west the Snake Indians lived. One of their men was very holy so he
was looking around to find someone suitable to buy his sacred rites. His power
was a sacred hoop through which he could look and see every tribe on the earth.

41 The informant, Joe Ward, interpreted this to mean that, in addition, he had given public performances
so that the people knew and approved Strong Jaw’s beliefs of his supernatural powers and that he had
further distinguished himself in battle.

42 Traditionally this village group displayed less unity than the other two Hidatsa groups, the Awatixa
and Awaxawi, and is said to have forsaken agriculture from time to time, living nomadically for several
years at a time.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 413

He would take up his hoop and point it towards tribe after tribe, looking for the
right man but he could not find anyone who was as strong as he was. He looked
through all the tribes until he saw Strong Jaw and his party traveling towards
the Killdeer Mountains. He saw a man in the camp with something powerful
looking back at him.

The Snake Indian called the people together and announced that he was getting
old and wanted someone to take over his medicine powers. The only one fit to
do so was Strong Jaw’s son, Walks-at-Dusk. The Snake Indians did not approve
the idea but agreed to assist in the transfer.

His tribesmen inquired how he would handle it and the Snake holy man said,
“We will go after that little boy in the middle of the summer. I do not know
whether we can get him or not for his father keeps a pack of wolves watching
over him all the time. The only way I can get them off their guard is to feed them
something. We will drive a large herd of buffaloes into theircamp. When they
go out to hunt them, we will have our chance. The men will be out hunting,
leaving the women and children alone in camp. Do not kill any of the children.”

The Snakes, 200 in number, started for the Hidatsa village, driving the buffaloes
before them. One night the leader announced that he was to pray to his hoop
that evening and then camp four times before reaching the Hidatsa.

They moved one more camp towards the village. Strong Jaw’s daughter had
a dream which she related to her parents in the morning saying, “I saw a big
smoke in my dream. I was carrying my little brother on my back and did not
know where to go.’’ The old people said it was surely a bad dream but did
nothing about it.

The second morning she told the same story saying that things were so clear
she could not get it out of her mind. She shook from fright all day.

The third night her dream was even more vivid. Strong Jaw’s wife said to her
husband, ‘‘You should pay attention to what she is saying.’”? He thought it was
only a child’s dream for no enemies were near or the wolves would have told him.

She had afourth dream. By that time the Snake Indians were on the opposite
side of the hills. Again she said, “I had my little brother, Walks-at-Dusk, on
my back. The lodges were burning and all the dogs were howling.”

This time Strong Jaw’s wife convinced him that something should be done.
He brought out his sacred pipe and the wolf skin. He burned sage before the
skin and it turned into a live wolf. When the wolf went out of the door, the dogs
rushed at him and drove him back into the lodge, just as the Snake holy man
had planned it. The people told of a large buffalo herd near the village; Strong
Jaw was uneasy and could not decide at first what to do. At last he decided to
go after the herd and the men were soon killing the buffaloes. The Snake Indians
killed the women, captured the children, and burned the lodges.

Four days later the Snake holy man took the little girl and boy, giving the
other children to his tribesmen to raise. He said of the little boy, “This is the
young man who will some day be your strong man.’’

When they reached the main camp, the little girl was given to another woman
who was very kind. One day this old woman said, “I pity you. Do you think
you could reach home if I showed you the way? I will take you away from the
camp.”’

She drew a map of the Missouri and Little Missouri Rivers on the ground and
showed her where the Knife River villages were situated. She said to the girl,
“We will start tomorrow evening. I will take you part way. Tell your people
what happened but do not urge your brother to go for he has a good home here.
Some day when he is strong enough, he may come back to visit you.”

414 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Before leaving the girl, the old woman gave her advice on conserving the food
and warned her not to travel during the daytime. She traveled night after night
until her food was gone. She was very hungry but still she traveled. One moon-
light night she saw something ahead of her. At first she thought it was a white
rock but when she was nearer, she saw that it was a large wolf. The wolf wagged
its tail like a friendly dog and walked up to her. Then the wolf walked on,
showing her the way. When it was daylight she stopped and the wolf brought
her a buffalo leg bone with some meat on it. She broke the bone and ate the
marrow. That night the wolf came again to lead her and when she was hungry,
the wolf brought her tallow from around the buffalo’s kidneys.

The fourth night the Wolf said, “I know all about you. I did not come to you
until you lost your way. When we get to Butte-with-Grass I will call all the
wolves to you and they will tell you what to do when you get home.”

They walked all night until light appeared in the east. Then the wolf said,
“This is the place.”

Wolf faced towards the south and howled. Soon wolves were coming from that
direction. Then she faced the west and howled and the west wolves came. Then
she faced to the north and to the east to howl and the wolves of those directions
came also. She listened to their conversation and could understand everything
they said. The ‘leader of the wolves” kept repeating, “We must finish what we
have to say before sunrise.”

The wolves selected the north wolves to speak to her as that was the most
numerous group. Their leader said, ‘‘Whenever she goes anywhere alone, she
will turn into a wolf and have powers like we have. And one thing more, she
must make a ceremony to the wolves. When making the ceremony, you should
give offerings and call the name ‘prairie people’ because the wolves are the people
of the flats.”

The wolves decided that the wolf who had taken her this far should lead her to
the village. The wolf led her to a high hill back of the village and then said,
“Your fathers will come to look for you because they know you are coming
toward the village. You stay here until they find you.”

While she sat there, it became light and she could see people walking in the
distance. They were her father and his brothers. She scolded them saying,
“Look at all the trouble we have had just because you would not listen to my
dreams. My brother is with the Snake people whose holy man gives him good
care. The older women were killed. I promised the wolves to give their cere-
mony as soon as I reached home.’”’ Her father knew what she meant. Soon
the criers were calling that Strong Jaw’s daughter had returned from the enemy
and that the wolves had led her all the way back.

A few days later she resolved to give the ceremony to the Wolves. She carried
robes and corn balls onto the earth lodge and wore ceremonial clothing such
as the wolves told her she must wear. The Wolves had said, ‘Take the skin off
of a wolf’s head with the head and nose on to make the headdress of. Wear
12 eagle tails fastened to a band made of porcupine quills. Wear wolf claws around
your ankles and wrists.”

Then she went onto the lodge and called, ‘‘People of the Prairies.”

Since she was too young to fast, her father and his seven brothers fasted and
performed the dances for her as the wolves had instructed her. Each called
for arrows to record his exploits in warfare. In this way the men tried to outdo
each other. Afterwards others wanted to perform the ceremony and she would
tell them when the proper time had come to give it again.

She grew up like other girls only all knew her to be holy. She learned to plant
and harvest corn like the other women. People praised her for discovering the

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 415

Wolf dance and said that it was good for the tribe. When men wanted to go
on the warpath, they would give her elkskin dresses, robes, and moccasins to
bring them good luck and she would say, “I will pray for you to get many horses
without being seen.”’

Everything would happen just as she predicted. One time a large war party
was going out and the leader came to her and asked for good luck. She said,
“Go on your way. Start tonight. On the fourth night I will come to you.
Have a fat cow butchered, and camp in the timber near good water. Roast
the ribs and at sundown I will be there. Just on the other side of the hill you will
hear a wolf howl so you will know I have come.”’

They did what she said. Just as the full moon was coming up she howled and
the leader said, ‘‘The Wolf Woman is here.”

She had been working in her gardens for 4 days but on the last day she sang
the war party songs saying, “‘I will be there when the ribs are cooked.”’ Suddenly
she changed into a wolf and all the people of the village saw her run away. She
reached the war party that night and asked for the short ribs. Others brought
her roasted ribs, asking for luck.

She said to the leader, ‘‘I told you I would be here to tell you what to do.
Move your camp three times. The fourth time you will be near your enemies.
Run a little and they will chase you; turn and you will kill many. Doing that
several times you can take the whole camp. You will find the chief’s lodge in the
middle of the camp. Save everything in that lodge for those things belong to
me. Now Iam going home.” They did as she instructed. They killed the men
and took the women and children prisoners.

Meanwhile her brother, Walks-at-Dusk, had grown up and was quite prominent
for he had a full knowledge of the Snake Indian medicine rites but he often dreamed
of his own father’s Wolf bundle. He was the leader of many war expeditions.
In his dreams the wolves told him to go east towards the Killdeer Mountains
where he could kill seven men. He knew he was Hidatsa so he was afraid they
might be his own people. The Wolves sent him dreams every night until he
decided to go. Each time he dreamed of seven men and one spotted horse. At
the same time a Hidatsa living on the Knife River dreamed that he should go
toward the Killdeer Mountains where he would find seven men and a spotted
horse.

The Knife River party started out with seven men and a pinto horse at the
same time Walks-at-Dusk came east with six men and a pinto. The Hidatsa
sent two men ahead as scouts and the Snakes did likewise. The Snake Indians
were run onto a high butte and were surrounded. One Hidatsa was sent back on
the spotted horse to bring warriors from the village. Before the warriors arrived,
one of the Hidatsa said, “I am going to talk to them and see if they know what I
say. Are you up there, Walks-at-Dusk? If you are, you better be brave because
we sent for a large force. We are about to kill all of you.”

Walks-at-Dusk replied, ‘‘Come along” and he sang the Wolf songs. The
Hidatsa heard a wolf howling to the west. That night the Snake Indians went
out between the Hidatsa sentinels but they were not seen.

The war party arrived from Knife River the next day but none of the enemies
could be found. When Walks-at-Dusk returned he told how he had nearly lost
his life because of the great supernatural powers of the Hidatsa wolf leaders.
After that the Snake Indians never led war parties against the Hidatsa.

Sunset bundle rites were transmitted from father to son. As was
the case for other bundle transfers, it was not necessary for the father
to be living. Since some bundle owners had rights in both the Sunrise

[Bull. 194

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

416

‘OUI] SIBIG INO] UT SeTUOWIAIID JJOMA—"

UDID = NyIMDUsXDMY UD|ID NJIMDUSXOMY

FI LYVHD

(JIOM PSHUNS) (310M ASI4UNS) (yjOM JeSUNS) (FIOM 4esuns)

yaiy, big UDd eq WDITTIM IMO 901g
N i N L £
UD|D Ja,SNGsejOM
UD|D 49ISNGIIOM UDID IfDKXOXOW (J19M yosuns)
(310M eSl4uNs ) 2|603 sip9g 4no4
JOP|NOYS MO}jaA 5 P

i

uDID

1}DXOXDW

(JOM asisuns
pup jsesuns)

S|IDL OM]

L

(310M ‘}yeSUNS)
juiuaddad

3

UDID NyIMDUe XDMY
HUIW LON

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 417

and Sunset ceremonies, analysis of the visions usually was necessary
in order to determine which rites were to be performed. There are
instances of indecision on the part of the older men, the ‘“fathers,”’
when vision recipients came to them for advice, and additional fasting
was recommended to learn which ceremony was to be performed. The
Hidatsa reluctantly approved the performance of the rites by one
whose father or a close relative standing in that relationship had not
performed the rites. When, however, the father owned rights in both
ceremonies and the initial visions were not sufficiently clear to indicate
which performance was to be given, individual feasts were generally
given to the father’s bundle or additional fasting was endured to secure
additional instructions. When the father owned rights in only one
ceremony, either the Sunrise or the Sunset Wolf, mere dreaming of
the wolves was considered sufficient.

Efforts to secure authority to perform the rites was further con-
tingent on the vision recipient’s capacity to secure the necessary
goods and endure the traditional inconveniences and ordeals of fasting
during the performance of the ceremony. Since the performance
demanded intimate cooperation between the giver, his family, clans-
men, and age-grade group, as well as the confidence of the older
people, individuals rarely undertook to have the rites performed
until they were married and had shown some military distinction
under recognized war leaders. Once a man pledged the performance,
he was accepted as a potential military leader. It was customary for
one, immediately after making the vow, to undertake a small-scale
military mission to steal horses. It would appear that not a great
deal was expected at first. Informants thought the mere fact that the
leader had not lost any men, even though he had won no significant
military honors, was adequate proof that the young leader had already
acquired supernatural powers.

No vow was made until approval was given by someone whose
bundle included a buffalo skull. There seems to have been no special
effort to select a Wolf bundle owner. Rather, he might consult any
man of the father’s clan to whom he had gone for advice on other
occasions. Black Owl, son of Four Bears whose father owned rights
in both the Sunrise and Sunset Wolf, gave Bears Arm this account
of his instructions to perform the vow:

Black Owl said that he had been sick in bed for quite a while and was still very
weak. There were many people at his lodge. They made so much noise that he
decided to move to his brother’s [William Bell] lodge while he was ill. Black Owl
wanted his ‘mother,’ Eagle, to doctor him while he was there by pressing his

bowels, which she did. Black Owl’s own mother was Not Mink; Eagle was Four
Bear’s young wife.

43 His mother’s “sister” by extension of the kinship system.

418 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

After 8 days, Black Owl heard a group of people singing and as they sang, they
came nearer. He could hear them at the back or head of the lodge near where
the ceremonial things were kept. He knew the songs to be those of the Sunset
Wolf ceremony and he wondered how that could be as he had not heard that any-
one was to give the ceremony at that time. It was the rule to make it known a
year in advance and he could not remember hearing of anyone making the
promise. He called Eagle to his bedside and inquired who was putting on the
ceremony. When she said that there was no ceremony going on, he insisted that
there must be since he could hear them singing at the back of the lodge.

She continued, ‘‘You must be out of your mind for there is no ceremony outside
or we would all know about it.”

He insisted, ‘“There must be a ceremony for I could hear them singing and
dancing outside. First they were on the other side of the village. After each
song, they came nearer until they were back of the lodge.”

Eagle said, ‘“That was your father’s god when he was living. It may be that
you saw it before but made no promise to perform the ceremony, so you have been
made sick.”

Black Owl said, ‘‘I saw that once before, but it takes 1 year to get all the things
together and I did not think I could complete all the preparations for the cere-
mony.”

She said, ‘‘Go ahead now and make your vow to give the ceremony. You
might get well by doing that.”

A few days later he went to Poor Wolf who belonged to the same clan as his
father and Poor Wolf instructed him further. So he stood on the roof of the
Mandan Okipa lodge and addressed the Sunset Wolf, “Sunset Wolf, I will get
you arobe. I want to get well and strong again. I want my people to be lucky
and increase in numbers. I want no hardships for them.”

When he made his vow, all the people heard what he promised and knew what
would happen in a year. This was in the fall of the year and boys were playing
around the Okipa lodge. They looked up and one of them said, ‘‘There are no
buffaloes around close. How can you get a robe?”

When William Bell came home in the evening, Black Owl told him that he
was going to perform the Sunset Wolf ceremony. Bell thought it would be all
right and offered to help all he could. He was well a month after making the
vow and set out first on the warpath. He did not lose a man. Then he began
collecting buffalo robes and went out hunting often.

Rites were performed only during the three warmest months and
after approximately 1 year of preliminary preparation. One of the
Wolf bundle owners’ most distinguished members was appointed to
direct the ceremony and to see that it was performed according to
custom. This position was in later years occupied by Wolf Eyes
who served on several occasions, he being well liked for his generosity,
respected for his intimate knowledge of these rites, and renowned for
his military achievements. Custom decreed that he was to sit near
the first central post on the left side when entering the lodge.

After making the vow, the bundle buyer selected a father’s clansman
as bundle maker. It was his duty to prepare the new bundle and
other ceremonial paraphernalia for the occasion and to act as advisor

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 419

to the buyer during the period of preparation.** A woman owning
rights by public purchase in the Wolf Woman rites was likewise
selected to impersonate the Wolf Woman. Since there were usually
several women possessing these rights, it was customary to select an
individual of the same clan or moiety as the buyer. Informants
believed there were several ‘‘wolf women” for each of the clans prior
to 1837. Bears Arm explained that young men preferred a “wolf
woman” of the same clan where possible as it would “raise the record
of the clan to perform a successful ceremony.” First Creator, the
waiter, was represented by one of the buffalo skull owners who
selected one from their members. His place in the ceremonial lodge
was next to the director of the ceremony.

Singer rights were not limited to Wolf Bundle owners. Instead,
the major bundle owners—those who had the tribal bundles con-
taining sacred buffalo skulls—took turns singing and drumming.
When the last rites were performed, Bears Arm counted 42 of these
bundle owners and thought there must have been a number of others
who were not represented. Fasters lined the wall to the head and
sides of the lodge with neither clan nor moiety arrangement (fig. 6).

Bears Arm explained that a young man’s father never strongly urged
him to fast on these occasions but would often, in a roundabout way,
hint that it was an honorable thing to do. Older brothers, on the
other hand were more direct. Distinguished clansmen were often
quite severe in their criticism of younger members who showed in-
difference to fasting for it was both their right and duty to speak
sharply to younger clansmen. Bears Arm remembered one older
clan brother saying to another, ‘‘By all means don’t fast or make
yourself uncomfortable. You have so little time to live, you should
enjoy life. And when you die we will put you on a scaffold. Then
it won’t be long until the ravens and buzzards will have your eyes
picked out. While you lie there thinking of the good times you had,
those young men who are going in to fast now will be striking the
enemy; all you will be able to do about it will be to feed the birds
and give off foul odors.’”’ Bears Arm added, ‘‘Nobody spoke to me
about going in to fast. I was 16 years old and saw how the others
were doing. I wanted to go in, thinking I might get a good dream.”

After settling at Fishhook Village, the Mandan erected a cere-
monial lodge for their Okipa and other ceremonies. The Hidatsa then
paid to use this lodge for the ceremony. Formerly the Hidatsa rites
were performed in any large lodge since it was considered a great
honor to have one’s lodge selected. No ceremonial lodge having been
built by those Mandans who accompanied the Hidatsa to Fort

44 A woman might assist her brother and get minor rights in a bundle,

420 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Goods and
Arrows

Bullboat Covering Fire
Two Wolf Hides

Place of Piercing Flesh
Buffalo Hide

Director of Ceremony
Seller

Lodge Posts
Spectators

A
B
Cc
D
E
F
P
s
3

Owners of Bundles Containing
Buffalo Skulls

Ficure 6.—Lodge arrangements for Sunset Wolf ceremony.

Buford about 1870, the system in vogue there was that followed in
the Knife River villages prior to 1845.

It was the bundle maker’s duty to assemble the objects for the
sacred bundle. He could either kill a wolf for its hide or purchase one.
He sent some young man familiar with the country for the white
clay and gave him the right to use this clay in doctoring as the re-
ward for his efforts. Although similar white clay was found at a

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 421

number of places west of the Missouri, only white clay from the hill
designated by the wolves in the traditional origin myth of the cere-
mony was used.

The bundle buyer, bundle maker, director of the ceremony, and
the fasters entered the lodge during the evening preceding the com-
mencement of the ceremony and took their traditional places. The
fasters would cry all night.

First day—The older men with good military records and owning
bundles including buffalo skulls dressed as though going to war.
Each employed his distinctive painting and wore some article desig-
nating his ceremonial bundle rights. These men met at the lodge of
the member selected by them to wear the wolfskin. The leader of the
warriors and the buyer entered the ceremonial lodge; each carried a
pipe and wore a wolfskin. The buyer approached the new ceremonial
bundle and placed his pipe in front of the bundle, saying to the
Wolves, “I promised to perform this ceremony for you a year ago. I
have gathered all the things that are needed. Now, this day, I am
prepared to stand up and come to you. By making this promise I
wish to have my people free of sickness and lucky in everything they
do. I pray that we may get the advantage of our enemies every
time they attack us.”

The leader of the warriors picked up the bundle buyer’s pipe and,
while lighting it, said to the Wolves, ‘‘You heard what your son said
to you. He expects you to bring his people good luck and no sickness.
He is going to suffer now for 4 days. He will take no food and water
for 4 days and nights, hoping to realize all that he has asked of you.
He believes all this will be given to him because of this ceremony.”’
Then he lit the pipe and returned it to the bundle buyer.

While the leader of the warriors and the bundle buyer performed
this rite before the bundle at the altar, the other warriors stood outside
the lodge in a row with the Wolf Woman impersonator standing just
back of them. In a roll across her back she carried an untanned buf-
falo hide from which the hair had been removed. She sang whenever
the men sang. This untanned hide which she carried was kept as a
permanent part of her sacred bundle to be used especially for this
ceremony. They stood in a row and sang one particular wordless song
belonging to the ceremony and known as the “Invitation song.”
When sung preceding the ceremony, it was an invitation for all major
bundle owners to participate. A man with a Wolf bundle might, on
other occasions, have food prepared for a feast and invite in the people
with Wolf bundles by singing the song from his earth lodge roof. When

710-195—65——28

422 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

out from the village in small parties, singing the song was interpreted
as an invitation for all to attend a feast.

The Invitation song was sung through four times as the warriors
approached the ceremonial lodge, the fourth stop being at the entrance
to the lodge. They stood in a line before the lodge. The man in front
carried the wolf hide and the man on the end was expected to relate one
of his military achievements. The director of the ceremony, the bun-
dle maker, and the bundle buyer all had to be at their places in the
lodge as the warriors approached.

The bundle maker supplied the arrows used in the ceremony. As
the warriors approached the lodge singing and dancing, the buyer
sent First Creator impersonator out four times with an arrow to give
to one of them. The instant the warrior accepted the arrow, the
director of the ceremony shouted, “Stop,” without waiting for the
singing and dancing to end. Bears Arm explained that interrupting
the singing for the man receiving an arrow (which he would take the
next time he went out searching for enemies) was to indicate to the
young men that when on the warpath, if lucky along the way, they
could turn back and not finish their trip.

Four Dancers provided a detailed account of the sending out of the
arrows at each of the four stops. When Appearing Coyote, Good
Bird’s father, gave the ceremony at Fort Buford, the rites were held
in Bobtail Bull’s lodge. At the first stop No Milk received an arrow
and said, ‘‘We went on the warpath towards the south. I was a
scout then and found one tipi.”

Porcupine Pemmican stepped forward at the second stop, took the
arrow, and said, ‘“‘We went out looking for our enemies and I saw a
lone man on a black horse.”

At the third stop, Bears Heart took the arrow and said, ‘‘We were
out looking for our enemies and I found the man who was given to
Bluestone the time he fasted under the eagle’s nest.”

45 Bear-on-the-Flat explained that this was the song the wolves used after making a kill to call the other
wolves, coyotes, foxes, and magpies to the feast. One time he was out eagle trapping with Iron Eyes, the
only Mandan known to have performed the Sunset Wolf ceremony and then, he was permitted to do so only
after dreaming of the wolves many times. One day when the trappers were in their pits, they heard Iron
Eyes singing the ‘‘ Invitation song.”

Bear-on-the-Flat said tothe younger men, ‘‘That isan invitation for us to go into camp.’”’ Aseach ap-
proached the lodge where the feast was to be given, he recited one of his war records. Bear-on-the-Flat
said, ‘‘We were out to war and found one tipi. While we were running towards it, I struck one of the
enemies.’’ Then Bear-on-the-Flat went into Iron Eyes’ lodge.

Bears Arm said, ‘‘ Wolf Eyes was the leader and we went to the north against the Chippewas. When we
came to the enemy, there was a battle and some of our men were wounded. I was a camp tender for I was
only a boy. As we came towards home, I helped the wounded men by carrying water and cooking meat for
them. I did all this until we reached home.’’ Then Bears Arm went into Iron Eyes’ eagle trapping lodge.

Iron Eyes picked up a small piece of roasted rib and dipped it into coffee; then he held it in the air and
prayed to the Wolves saying, ‘‘Sunset Wolf, when you find something good, you call all the wolves, coyotes,
foxes, and magpies to congregate andeat. Llofferthistoallofyou. Eat this first. You will have the pipe to
smoke also. You eat first and we will take the scraps.”” Then he took pieces of meat outside and placed
them on the west side of the lodge for the animals.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 423

Raven Paunch stepped forward at the last stop, took the arrow, and
said, “I was one of the scouts. I saw the enemy making camp and
building their fire. This was just west of the Killdeer Mountains.
There were six enemies in the party; Bear-on-the-Water saw them
after I saw them.”

The warriors entered, followed by additional fasters carrying ar-
ticles from their fathers’ bundles.

When the warriors were ready to leave for the ceremonial lodge to
dance, painting of the bundle buyer was started and timed so as to be
completed when the warriors finished their last song. The bundle
maker did the painting, using white clay moistened with water to form
a thick paste. The paint was applied to the entire body; then he used
his fingers to remove strips of paint from the arms and legs as well as
from across the forehead. Beforehand, the bundle buyer selected a
clan brother to stand with him before the wolf hides and to be painted
in the same manner. Both were dressed in coyote-head caps with
raven feathers sticking up at the top and a coyote tail sewed at the
back so as to hang down at the back of the neck. They were given
two canes each, representing the two poles on which Hungry Wolf
suffered. The canes were partly peeled so as to leave four strips with
bark on. The canes were peeled at the top and bottom. The four
strips of bark represented the 4 nights of the ceremony and the four
divisions of life; childhood, youth, maturity, and old age. The canes
were used during the ceremony to bend forward on and to keep time
with during the singing. A piece of wolf mane with a foot attached
was tied to their wrists and ankles. The clan brother selected was one
who had given much assistance in accumulating the goods necessary
to pay the performers. The bundle maker then dipped red grass into
the water and white clay and sprinkled the two wolf hides before
placing one around the waist of the bundle buyer and the other around
the clan brother.

Dancing in the lodge stopped when the warriors arrived. The
four men who had recited their war records while approaching the
ceremonial lodge were expected to relate additional war deeds in
the same order while running toward the edge of the village. The
bundle buyer and his clan brother led the way, trotting like wolves,
followed by the fasters. Women desiring to fast followed the male
fasters. Some fasters dragged buffalo skulls fastened to their backs
by means of thongs inserted through the skin. Clan fathers had done
the piercing and were individually paid by the fasters’ parents for
this service. The director of the ceremony and the bundle maker
remained at their places in the lodge while the fasters were outside
dancing.

424 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Bears Arm remembered the following major bundle owners as
representing the warriors when Appearing Coyote bought his Wolf
bundle: Weasel-Blackens-Himself, Thunder and Big Bird bundles;
No Milk, Naxpike bundle; His-Horse-Smells-Him, Thunder and
Big Bird bundles; Porcupine Pemmican, Naxpikr bundle; Bears
Heart, Grizzly Bear bundle; Black Horn, Wolf bundle; Crows Breast,
Woman Above bundle; Lying Chicken, Imitating Buffalo bundle;
Hits-on-Back, Eagle Trapping bundle; Hairy Coat, Woman Above
bundle; Dog Bear, Imitating Buffalo bundle; Plain Tail, Big Bird
bundle; Marries-by-Carrying-Water, Grizzly Bear bundle; Holding
Hagle, Eagle Trapping bundle; Iron Eyes, Wolf bundle; Bobtail
Bull, Earthnaming bundle.

After the fasters had danced at the edge of the village, the warriors
proceeded toward the lodge, again stopping four times to receive
arrows and to dance and sing. The same four men related additional
war records, after which all went into the lodge. The fasters were
brought out four times each day. Each faster carried an eagle
wingbone whistle supplied by his father and, while dancing, was
expected to look toward the sky and whistle.

When all were in their places in the lodge, the ‘“fasters song’? was
sung 100 times to represent the 100 Cheyenne Indians the Wolves
gave to Hungry Wolf. The major bundle owners took turns singing,
using the buffalo hide drum which Wolf Woman provided when the
ceremony began. All fasters were expected to dance through the
entire singing. A bullboat was kept over the fire so that exhausted
fasters would not fall into the fire. The director of the ceremony
kept track of the singing by means of 100 sticks. After each song
he removed a stick from the pile until all were taken; then he would
shout, ‘Stop.” Then the singing and dancing stopped. The
bundle buyer and his clan brother were required to wear the wolf
hides during the dancing, so the young men could “look at the wolf
as they danced and cried.”’

Other fasters would select clan fathers to pierce them for drawing
buffalo heads while dancing went on outside at the edge of the village.
Occasionally one chose to be lowered through the smoke hole by means
of rawhide ropes fastened to the thongs. This was the exceptional
case and seems never to have been universally practiced as it was
among the Mandan in their Okipa ceremony. The fasters went
out to the edge of the village in the early forenoon, just before noon,
during the middle of the afternoon, and early in the evening. Between
times, the major bundle owners sang and one of their number danced.
The dancer would call for a specified number of arrows and the
bundle buyer would carry them to him. The director of the ceremony
would stop the singing the instant the arrows were delivered.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 425

On one occasion Poor Wolf danced and called for three arrows.
When the singing stopped he said,

““We were out to war against our enemy, the Sioux. We went to the south.
Four Bears was the leader. When we found them, they were making their fire
at the edge of the brush on a hillside. I took aim at the man making the fire
and killed him. I rushed in and struck him first; a Mandan named Red Leaf
struck him next. When we returned to our party, Four Bears said ‘We ought to
get the scalp as proof that we killed our enemy.’ When he said that, it meant
that any man who brought in the scalp could keep it. The rest of the party went
into the brush and we thought they might be planning to kill anyone who returned
to get the scalp. Nevertheless, I went out and brought in the scalp. I killed the
enemy, struck the enemy, and got the scalp. Those are my three deeds for the
three arrows.”

The major bundle owners sang again and Bluestone danced. He
called for two arrows and said, “I went out with Four Bears when he
went against the Assiniboin. We found an enemy and I was the first
to strike him. Another time I went out with Knotted as leader and
I struck the enemy.”

Red Basket danced and Appearing Coyote was directed to bring
five arrows. He said, ‘“‘One time the Assiniboin came in large numbers
to wipe out our people because they heard that we were few in numbers
after the smallpox. There was a big battle and they wounded our
chief, Four Bears. I went out and struck five enemies that day.”

Then Iron Eyes danced. He said, ‘‘I was leader and took my pipe
along. I got one man on a black horse. Flying Eagle struck this
enemy while he was riding away.”

The same men would dance on successive days and call for arrows,
but each time a different war record was related. There frequently
were so many attending that it was not possible for a man to relate
more than one record. At the close of the day’s dancing, the spec-
tators, warriors, and Wolf Woman impersonator returned to their
lodges for the night leaving the director of the ceremony, bundle
maker, bundle buyer, clan brother, and the fasters at the ceremonial
lodge. Any fasters desiring to do so could go out beyond the village
limits to cry or drag buffalo skulls through the village. In the latter
case, relatives usually accompanied them to give away property in
the name of the ones manifesting outstanding bravery. Fasters might
go outside for personal duties anytime except when the song was being
sung 100 times. The bundle buyer and his clan brother could go out
anytime when not wearing the wolf hides. The wolf hides were worn
only when the 100 songs were being sung.

As stated above, the warriors selected one of their number to be the
First Creator impersonator and to serve as waiter. In eating, the
order of serving food was: (1) Wolf Woman; (2) director of the cere-
mony; (3) warriors; and (4) bundle maker. The bundle buyer and

426 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

his clan brother, together with the fasters, abstained from eating or
drinking while participating in the ceremony. The bundle buyer was
responsible for feeding the participants and was assisted by parents of
those fasting. As was the case when performing the Naxpiks, clan
brothers felt obligated to come and fast to bring credit to the clan.
Fasting was an individual matter and one remained only so long as he
wished to. Most of the younger boys dropped out after the second
night. When a faster had a vision, he often thought he should fast
longer in the hope of getting fuller instructions.

Second and third days.—The first day’s performances were repeated
on the second and third days. Only those intending to submit to
severe torture remained beyond the third day.

Fourth day.—Several new features characterized the fourth and last
day of the ceremony. ‘The warriors came in as previously and took
their places, making four stops on the way to relate war records as
they approached the ceremonial lodge. Parents brought goods for
their fasting sons to give away; some brought in much, others only
small amounts, depending on the family’s means. Those unable to
contribute other items of value brought food.

When the warriors were seated, the bundle maker instructed the
buyer and his assistant to stand in front of him before the Wolf Altar
in order to be painted and dressed. He picked up his brush of red
grass, dipped it into the water, and sprinkled the wolf hides, singing,
“This water is holy; this water is holy; this water is holy; this water
is holy. This earth is holy. This clay is holy.’”’ The two were
painted and dressed as before. When the buyer and his clan brother
were ready, each faster went about through the assembled crowd
calling on a member of the father’s clan to pray for him and wish
him good luck. This took most of the day.

Bears Arm, who was 16 years of age when he fasted in the Sunset
Wolf ceremony, selected Porcupine Pemmican, a clan brother of
Bears Arm’s father. His parents brought in his gray horse and
gave it to Porcupine Pemmican who arose and said, ‘(Come over
here and stand in front of me, my son.”

When Bears Arm was in front of him, Porcupine Pemmican said,

I dragged two buffalo heads at the same time. All the skin and tongues were
on them; all the hide along the back and the tail was on them. They were heavy
but I dragged them by means of the sticks through my skin. I had a hard time
of it and suffered much, but I was well paid for my suffering. I saw in my vision
that I would not get wounded even when close to the enemy in battle: It would
not make any difference whether they shot with bullets or arrows. My son, I
suffered for what I have told you. You have given me a fine horse and now I
bless you and pray that you may live to be an old man. If there is war, do not
be afraid to go in close for the enemy will not be able to harm you. If there are
many hardships, do not let them worry you, for you are on the safe path.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 427

Each faster was expected to give something to a male of the father’s
clan and to receive his blessing. These activities occupied much of
the day. It was felt that the success of any ceremony was, in part,
measured by the degree of cooperation between the fasters, the
clansmen, and the age-grade society of the buyer in furnishing valu-
able property to be given to clan fathers of the various fasters. There
was a feeling that all of the major bundle owners participating should
have an opportunity to bless at least one ‘‘son.”’ Some fasters even
went beyond the clan and sought the “blessings” of males of the op-
posite moiety who had not been called upon to receive goods. When
situations, due to the limitations of clan membership, arose in which
one had few or no opportunities to pray for a son because none
of the fasters’ fathers belonged to his clan, there was a property
transfer within the group itself or one being called on to pray for a
“son” relinquished his right publicly to another of good or superior
reputation. Nor did the goods received long remain in the hands
of the major bundle owners. They shared on the spot with others
who stood in a father-son relationship to them and it was customary
to share liberally with the feeble men and women, addressed as
grandfather or grandmother, who gathered near the door of the
ceremonial lodge on these occasions.*® ‘There was a rapid exchange
of property during and immediately following the celebration of all
major ceremonies; in this respect the Sunset Wolf ceremony was no
exception. Hoarding goods in excess of one’s neighbors was
frowned upon.

Meanwhile, the Holy Women and berdaches erected a mound at
the outskirts of the village and removed the cacti and grass around
it for the “last dance” (fig. 7). These women—and men clothed as
women—wore their low-necked ceremonial dresses with a braid of
sweeterass tied at the shoulder and magpie feathers fastened in their
hair. They carried bone hoes and wooden digging sticks slung over
their shoulders. When the giving of property to clan fathers was
ended, the bundle maker sent the director of the ceremony to the
lodge where the Holy Women and berdaches had congregated, after
erecting the mound, to clean up and paint themselves for the “last
dance.” *?

When the Holy Women were ready, they sent word to the bundle
maker. These women, together with their singer, made the traditional
four stops to sing as they went along and reached the dancing grounds
first, led by the Wolf Woman impersonator. They stood on the east
side of the cleared space. Then the bundle owners went out followed

46 See the kinship system for application of grandparent terms.

47 Cherry Necklace was singer for these women in more recent times and they met at his lodge. After he
died, no new singer bought into the society so the women did their own singing.

428 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

@—Wolf Woman
ve)

@
@—West Woman
@

@
@—North Woman
@

®
@—East Woman

®

Fasters dance

®
around mound @——South Woman

a)
@

@ .
@—Singer for

is Holy Woman

Sit x
i Ee
Ficure 7.—Plan of the last dance of the Sunset Wolf ceremony.

in turn by the bundle buyer, his assistant, and the remaining fasters.
A rapid pace was set; all trotted in imitation of the wolves while many
of them dragged buffalo skulls. They sang the ‘fasting song’ 100
times but at an accelerated tempo. For the fasters, this was the final
dance after 4 days and nights of fasting (see fig. 7).

The mound represented the place where Hungry Wolf suffered.
When a faster fell, others would stumble and fall over him. Then
the dance would stop long enough for the exhausted man to recover
sufficiently to get to his feet again. The bundle maker would dip
sage in water and cleanse him. Seeing ason or brother fall exhausted,
the relatives would return home and select a good robe, war bonnet,
or other article to place on the ground near the exhausted man showing
such bravery and fortitude. The Wolf Woman impersonator—
running like a wolf—would pick up these articles and stack them in
a pile in front of the Holy Women. Later in the day these articles
were taken to the lodge where these old women met; each would take
one article from the pile until all the goods were distributed. This
was their pay for participating in the ceremony.

When a faster fell exhausted, the dancing stopped until he had
recovered. He was then cleansed with water from the red grass
bundle sprinkled on him by the bundle maker and cut free from the
buffalo skulls by those “fathers” who had inserted the thongs. All
the fasters were without clothing and moccasins, wearing only the

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 429

breechcloth for the last dance. The dance consumed much time since
it stopped whenever a man fell unconscious. At the end of 100
songs, the director of the ceremony stopped the dancing.

Usually only a few fasters could hold out to the end and the bundle
buyer was expected to be among them. For this reason, the older
men never authorized one to perform the rites until they were assured,
on the basis of previous instances of fasting and torturing, that the
candidate could endure through to the end of the ceremony. His
torturing was not as severe as that inflicted on the other fasters since
he was not obliged to drag buffalo skulls and rarely didso. Moreover,
the clan brother, dressed and painted in the same manner as
the bundle buyer, substituted in many of the dances, thus giving
the buyer an opportunity to conserve his strength for the last dance.

When the song had been sung through 100 times, the cleansing rites
terminated the ceremony. First the fasters were sprinkled, followed
by those who had participated as singers, the director of the ceremony
using the red grass and water for this rite. Then the director of the
ceremony, the bundle maker, bundle buyer, and the clan brother
assistant returned to the ceremonial lodge to be cleansed either with
the grass or by a sweat lodge rite. When the latter method was used,
these four people, together with the latter two officers’ wives, met at
the bundle maker’s lodge where he took them into his sweat lodge,
cleansed them, fitted them out with new clothes and then set food
before them.

The bundle buyer and the assisting clan brother received identical
bundles. Articles in the bundle were: A coyote cap decorated with
two raven feathers; four coyote manes with feet attached, to be worn
around the ankles and wrists; a wolf hide; two canes with four dark
strips, and made of chokecherry limbs; white clay; red grass; and a
buffalo skull. Bundles were somewhat more numerous at Hidatsa
than at Awatixa and none were reported for the survivors of the
Awaxawi village. There is no evidence that the ceremony was
performed in the Mandan villages prior to 1845 although the Mandan
did have rites resembling those of the Sunrise Wolf described above.
After 1845 Iron Eyes, a Mandan, was permitted to perform the Sunset
rites at Fishhook Village when he had dreamed repeatedly of the
Sunset Wolves. This was an exceptional case and his sons did not
buy to perpetuate the line.

The rites were important since they provided the Hidatsa with a
second major outlet ** for group tasting during the summer. The
Mandans, on the other hand, had only one outlet for formal group
fasting—the medium of the Okipa ceremony. For Awaxawi village

48 The NaxpikE being the first outlet.

430 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

there was no evidence that either a Sunset Wolf or Naxpike bundle
line survived the epidemic of 1837 and, in light of the high develop-
ment of the Tying-the-Pots ceremony which was performed during
the summer months as rain-making rites, some question is raised as to
whether this village group ever performed these ceremonies. In
historic times, this small Awaxawi group were reported to have placed
greater emphasis on agriculture due, no doubt, to their small numbers
and the greater danger of extermination by their nomadic neighbors.
It is of traditional record of this and the Mandan groups that the
Awaxawi lent considerable assistance to the Mandan in the perform-
ance of their summer ceremony, the Okipa. This is no doubt correct
in light of the fact that in the period prior to 1785 the Awaxawi were
closely associated with the Mandan first in the Painted Woods region
and later at the Knife River.

The Hidatsa and Awatixa claim that the Sunset rites were of late
establishment, although immediately prior to the first appearance of
the horse. Features of the ceremony are of such widespread distribu-
tion in the Plains and even in the ceremonial structure of the Hidatsa
themselves, however, as to indicate considerable antiquity for Wolf
rites although probably not in the precise form taken in later years.
This is indicated by the military pattern running through the other
sacred rites believed to be of greater antiquity.

WOLF WOMAN

The Walks-at-Dusk sacred myth, given above as a part of the
sacred beliefs and habits relating to the Sunset Wolf, provides the
mythological and traditional setting for the rites associated with Wolf
Woman. This female wolf who led the girl home after the burning
of Strong Jaw’s village on the Little Missouri was believed to be a
holy woman who formerly lived at Hidatsa village on the north bank
of the Knife River. She would often transform herself into a female
wolf and travel out on the prairies far from the village. She lived in
the village as any other old and wise woman, caring for her gardens,
tanning hides, and looking after her lodge. But she would often sing
her holy song for war parties leaving the village and predict good luck
for their undertakings. Transforming herself into a wolf on the fourth
day, she would join them at dusk. Thus it was considered a very good
omen when the members of a war party heard the wolves howling on
the fourth evening after leaving home. There was only one song
belonging to the rites: ‘‘Friends, I tell you that dusk when the camp-
fire glows is a good time if you are discouraged. When you have put
the ribs to roasting and they are ready to be eaten, I will join you.”

The Wolf Woman bundle owners were classified as members of the
Holy Women and Woman Above groups because, according to tradi-

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 431

tions of the various bundle lines, all were created by a very wise old
woman—Village-Old-Woman—who created the females of the species
in very early times. According to present-day tradition, she created
the female wolf woman who, in turn, assisted Strong Jaw and his
daughter when the latter performed the rites after returning safely to
the village. On the basis of these supernatural experiences, Hidatsa
women established these sacred bundles.

Traditionally, there was one Wolf Bundle for each of the seven
clans prior to the epidemic of 1837. Of these, only two bundles sur-
vived; one held by Yellow Head of the Maxoxati clan of Hidatsa vil-
lage, and the other held by Yellow Husk of the Prairie Chicken clan
of Awatixa village. This distribution provided one bundle for each
moiety.

It is difficult to reconcile the traditional late establishment of these
bundle rites with the widespread references to the role of Wolf Woman
in the other ceremonies. The site on the Little Missouri referred to
in the myth is obviously of recent occupation. The Hidatsa date the
site as after the introduction of horses and near the end of the period
of contacts with the Shoshonean peoples to the west. Warfare with
this group was being actively pursued in 1804 (Lewis, 1893). It
seems unlikely that these bundle rites should have been first instituted
about 1800, spread within the Hidatsa and Awatixa villages to each
clan in a matter of a few years, and died out to two bundle lines, all
within a matter of less than 40 years. If the Hidatsa had preserved
the belief that each clan should have a bundle and ceremonial rights,
enough females should have survived to preserve the bundle lines.
Bundles were regularly inherited from persons long dead. A more
logical interpretation of the data would be that the moiety bundles
met the new ceremonial requirements for participation in the Sunset
Wolf rites and that the incidents of a historic event—the destruction
of Strong Jaw’s village—took precedence over the earlier Wolf sacred
myths and beliefs referred to in the other bundle complexes.

The rites were of major bundle status since each contained a buffalo
skull—the badge of major status—and the presence of sweetgrass
and the robe in the bundle related the bundle and the rites to those
of the Holy Women. One having repeated dreams about the wolves
customarily went to a ‘wolf woman” of the same clan (or moiety)
to request permission to give a feast to her bundle. Essentially the
same sequence was followed as when making offerings to other bundles
concerned with calling the buffaloes or bringing rain. A date was set
for the feast, people with related bundles attended, each giver was
“blessed” and promised success in his various undertakings, and each
received some object for his sacred bundle.

432 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

When the bundle was to be transferred to one standing in the
relationship of ‘‘daughter,” the bundle owner’s children and the
younger people of the clan and household cooperated to acquire the
necessary goods for the transfer feast. The transfer was a direct
one to the children, one of whom held prior interest.*? Sons were
assisted by their wives, but the daughters’ husbands took no part in
the transfer except when a new and permanent relationship had been
established with the mother-in-law by prior removal of the mother-
in-law taboo. The sale was direct from mother to daughter. If the
mother was dead at the time the transfer was to be made, an older
woman of the mother’s clan was selected to prepare the bundle and
to receive instructions for the purchaser. Those owning rights in
the Wolf, Holy Woman, and Old-Woman-Above bundles were ex-
pected to attend and to pray for the success of the buyers. There
was a payment in robes and other goods to the legitimate participants
who, in return, publicly sanctioned the bundle transfer.

The Wolf Woman being conceptually one of the Holy Women,
any man with singer rights in a Woman Above or Holy Woman
bundle could lead the singing. The articles for the bundle were
received, in part, from Sunset Wolf and Old-Woman-Above bundles.
The former supplied the wolf hide, wolf-hide cap decorated with
12 eagle tails, and the wolf claws and mane for the wrists and ankles.
The Old-Woman-Above owner supplied the buffalo hide with hair
removed, braided sweetgrass, and an enemy’s scalp. Either bundle
owner could supply the buffalo skull.

The husband, when he had not removed the mother-in-law taboo,
took no active part in the amassing of the goods other than his tradi-
tional role as hunter for his wife’s people and did not attend the
transfer rites or claim any rights in the bundle. Neither is there
evidence that the husbands of Wolf Woman bundle owners were
necessarily owners of other Wolf bundles. Should a situation have
arisen in which the husband and wife were Wolf bundle owners, by
the customary inheritance rules, separation would have occurred in
the next generation. The husband’s rights would go to his son, who
would be living in a different lodge by the rules of matrilocal residence,
and the wife’s bundle would be retained in the lodge by her daughter.

Articles in the bundle included a wolf hide, a buffalo hide from
which the hair had been removed, a wolf-hide cap with 12 eagle tails
attached by means of a porcupine quill decorated band, wolf claws
and mane to be worn on the wrists and ankles, a braid of sweetgrass
in the form of the sun, an enemy’s scalp, a buffalo skull, and white clay.

49 See the Creek ceremony given above for another case of transfer of a bundle through the female line.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 433

There was one principal song belonging to the bundle. It referred
to Wolf Woman’s ability to transform herself into a female wolf and
reach a war party out 4 days. The other songs were the customary
War songs, the common property of all Wolf bundles. Bundle owners
would dress in their ceremonial outfits and dance whenever scalp
dances were celebrated. They were believed to get dreams from the
wolves whenever their enemies were lurking about the villages.
Whenever these women failed to predict the presence of enemies, it
was believed that these enemies had appealed to their own super-
natural guardians to bewilder and confuse the wolves so that they
forgot to warn the Wolf Woman impersonators. Although the Wolf
Woman impersonator had a definite part to perform in the Sunset
Wolf ceremonies, independent rites were performed on other occas-
sions. This was primarily a war bundle and little emphasis was given
to other village activities. The right to use white clay for doctoring
was optional.

BurFaLo CALLING CEREMONIES

These rites constitute a series related by virtue of common beliefs
and practices believed to increase the buffalo herds and bring them
near the villages. These rites represent but a part of those in which
the buffalo is included, but they had become recently incorporated
into a related series in which the singers selected from the Earth-
naming bundle owners play a dominant performing role. There is
both historic and traditional evidence that this integration has oc-
curred recently (probably since 1800) and that the pattern has changed
to one approximating the Mandan as practiced through the medium
of the Okipa summer ceremony although the specific origin myths
for the two tribes are entirely different.

EARTHNAMING

Of the rites in this series, the Hidatsa believed that the Earth-
naming ceremony was the last to reach the form as practiced until
the final extermination of the buffalo. The ceremonies were based
on the belief that certain spirits, including the buffalo, were residents
of the various buttes of the adjacent prairies. A line drawn between
those buttes situated on the farthest periphery constituted native
concepts of the limits of tribal territory; it was with these limits, as
defined by the bundle owners, that the Hidatsa have been chiefly
concerned recently in all tribal claim negotiations with the Govern-
ment. Conceptually, these buttes were the homes of various spirits
whose leader was a large owl living inside the Killdeer Mountains.
Each butte had a spirit and each spirit a sacred myth, ritual, and songs.
These spirits would meet periodically at the Killdeer Mountains,

434 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

known as Singer Butte, where rites were performed under the direc-
tion of a large owl who resided in a deep cave there. Each butte
was further symbolically represented by a buffalo skull in essentially
the same manner; each sacred bundle of major or tribal importance
in the various villages included sacred buffalo skulls (map 1 and pl.
10).

There were two sacred bundles after 1837; one was owned by Guts
and came from Hidatsa village and the other was owned by Poor Wolf
and came from Awaxawi. There is no traditional evidence that
Awatixa ever had one of the bundles. The two bundles and rites
were identical and have provided the basis for considerable conflict
due to the competitive position for peace-chief status which the
bundles carried. According to traditions related by Four Dancers,
grandson of Guts, and Mrs. White Duck, daughter of Poor Wolf,
the Earthnaming bundle rites began with Raven Necklace. Briefly,
the sacred myth is as follows:

An Assiniboin boy taken prisoner by the Hidatsa wore a raven skin as a necklace
when captured and was named Raven Necklace. A few years later the Hidatsa
went into winter camp on the Missouri above the mouth of the Little Missouri
River (pl.11) During the winter, the Assiniboin attacked the village and Raven
Necklace undertook to protect three women of his adopted tribe. Two of the
Assiniboins who attacked the women were recognized as his Assiniboin brothers.
He wounded both brothers but did not killthem. After the battle it was learned
that 30 young Hidatsa women were missing, among them Raven Necklace’s
adopted sister.

Raven Necklace traveled northward to the Assiniboin camp, looking for the
Hidatsa women, and visited with his Assiniboin family. They discussed the
battle and then he inquired about his adopted sister. During the night he freed
the 30 women but his sister was not among them. He killed one enemy who was
out as scout and then they traveled toward the Missouri, reaching a timbered
coulee north of the spot where Fishhook Village later stood. Raven Necklace
was about to push over a dead tree when a voice said, “Raven Necklace, leave
that tree alone, for itis my home. J have my young ones here and I do not want
my home destroyed.”’

Looking up he saw that Owl was speaking. Owl said, ‘““This valley is known as
Owl Valley. You can make a buffalo corral bere. I will give you a ceremony
called Earthnaming. When you perform the rites the other spirits will teach you
the songs and what things to use with the Earth medicines. When you call them
together, they will tell you the names of these high hills. There will be a great
deal of memorizing.”

The 30 women helped him build the buffalo corral and they took many buffaloes,
tanning the hides and curing the meat. Then they went upstream and joined the
others at the winter camp, waving the scalp to show that they had overcome one
enemy. All this time the spirits living in the various buttes came to him in his
dreams and taught him the songs and rites.

The people went back to Knife River in the spring where many people helped
him put up the goods to buy the ceremony. Among the buttes represented

50 This owl was the singer whenever the spirits of the buttes met at Killdeer Mountains.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 435

were: Killdeer Mountains, the singer; Ghost Singing Butte situated northwest
of the Killdeer Mountains, so named because Swallow and Hawk were buried
there; Crow Butte; Singing Butte; Heart Singing Butte; Little Heart Singing
Butte; Fox Singing Butte; Rosebud Butte; White Butte; Opposite Butte; Buffalo
Home Buttes; and others not now remembered by Hidatsa informants. The
spirits came and established the ceremony. [See map 1 for location of these
buttes.]

The precise beliefs associated with many of these buttes are no
longer known. Poor Wolf had no sons and refused to instruct his
daughter. Bobtail Bull had not completed the training of his son,
Four Dancers, when he died, for the rites were no longer practiced
and the rewards for learning the rites seemed insignificant to Four
Dancers once the buffaloes had ceased to exist. Theoretically, each
butte had independent rites which collectively comprised the Earth-
naming ceremony. One of these, Ghost Singing Butte, was of
special importance since the spirits of Swallow and Hawk lived there
and were believed to have introduced horses into the tribe. Both
informants supplied the sacred myth which was briefly as follows:

The people were traveling upstream from Hidatsa village on the Knife River
to go into winter camps. Swallow and Hawk, who had died and whose spirits
resided in Ghost Singing Butte, exerted supernatural influences on a poor young
man and his wife, causing them to leave the main party at the mouth of the
Little Missouri and to go up this stream where they found a washout in which
they made their camp for the winter.

Swallow and Hawk who, while living, had helped Young-Man-Chief 5! came as
spirits and visited the young man and his wife during the winter telling them how
they happened to be buried at this butte. Swallow told how he had been out with
a war party against the Blackfeet and had died of his wounds while returning to
Knife River. Hawk told how he had gone out later with a hunting party, had
died away from the village, and had been buried beside his friend.

Swallow and Hawk ate and smoked with the poor young man and sent him good
hunting. They informed him that they would bring horses down from the heavy
timber to replace the dogs; they described horses which the people had never
seen before, and gave instructions as to their care and use. They told the young
man not to place moccasins on the ground with the toes pointed to the east or
the spirits would call the owners back.

While the poor young man and his wife lived well from the game sent them by
Swallow and Hawk, the winter village was without meat and had resorted to
snaring cottontail rabbits. Swallow and Hawk secured the aid of the Holy Women
to cure meat for the poor young man. The people from the winter village dis-
covered this meat and learned that the poor young man was now holy. Swallow
and Hawk had given him instructions in the Bird ceremony of Swallow and
Hawk who resided in one of the Earthnaming Buttes.

When the chief learned that the poor young man had become holy, he instructed
his son to marry his two sisters to the poor man since the two women belonged
to the same clan as the poor man’s other wife. The oldest sister had a white
buffalo robe and the younger one had a calfskin robe which they gave for the
ceremony.

51 See Woman Above rites, given above, for an account of the role of these twoin protecting Village- Young-
Man from the enemy who had been blessed by Woman Above.

436 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

When the time for the ceremony had come, the people went out onto the prairies
near Ghost Singing Butte to await the horses which Swallow and Hawk promised.
They were camped in a circle when Swallow and Hawk arrived with a gray stallion,
a bay mare, and her three bay colts. The people examined the horses and said
that they looked much like dogs except that they were much larger and stronger.

Speaking of the mare and her colts, the people said, ‘‘The hair is red. They
are not buffaloes or bears. They are holy animals of some kind. They are red-
haired-dogs.”” And so they were called icwwasuka.

The people said, ‘‘We suffered from hunger and this young man stayed here
and had everything provided for us. Now we have these horses and the corn
seaffolds are built and loaded with buffalo meat. We are not in need of any-
thing. We are at the end of the world, for it is like finding a new world to find
these horses which will be so useful to our people. Now we will be able to do
almost anything.”

Then the rites to Swallow and Hawk were performed, after which the people
returned to the Knife River.

According to Four Dancers, sacred myths were likewise associated
with the other buttes mentioned in the rites. Whereas offerings to
the characters represented in sacred bundles were ordinarily placed
on poles within or adjacent to the summer villages, offerings made
to the Earthnaming bundle were placed near the various buttes
while out from the villages on summer buffalo hunts. Of these
buttes, four were known as the “Buffalo Spirit Places”: Buffalo
Comes Out Butte; Singer Butte (Killdeer Mountains); Buffalo Home
Butte; and Rosebud Butte. At each of these buttes, offerings of
feathers from the speckled eagle were made to increase the buffalo
herds. The feathers were tied in bundles to buffalo skulls placed
near caves situated under the overhanging cliffs.

The sacred bundle belonging at Hidatsa village was owned by
Guts who, due to loss of prestige from bad luck in war, passed it on
to his young son, Bobtail Bull. The other bundle, kept at Awaxawi,
was held by Half-Smoked-Tipi in 1837, he having bought the bundle
from his father, Raven Necklace.” He sold it to Poor Wolf, his son,
shortly after 1837. The bundle rites exceeded all other tribal rites
in complexity and had integrated into a related complex most buffalo
rites when the aboriginal culture broke down. Inheritance was from
father to son, but, unlike most other ceremonies, training, instructions,
and participation in the various rituals were begun at an early age
in order to become qualified to assume the father’s role later. It was
customary for a man to train several sons simultaneously for bundle
ownership, and instruction was continued for several years. In this
sense the preliminaries closely resembled the practices of the Mandan
who taught the lore and rituals of their various tribal rites by sections
or segments until the entire ceremonial complex was mastered. Poor
Wolf and Bobtail Bull often remarked to their children that they

62 He was named after the bundle.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 437

grew up with their fathers’ bundles and learned the rites a little at a
time. They assisted their fathers each time rites were performed
until each was fully acquainted with the rites, even before the bundle
transfer was completed. The bundle owner’s position as singer and
director of the rites was comparable to that held by the Lone Man
impersonator in the Mandan Okipa and their buffalo rites.

The final transfer of the bundle and ritual leadership was made at
a public feast attended by all persons having major bundle status;
that is, persons having ceremonial rights which included sacred
buffalo skulls. Transfer was authorized by a man of the father’s
clan who interpreted the vision experience to signify that the purchase
of the father’s bundle was indicated. There was the usual year’s
preparation during which time it was necessary to acquire 100 buffalo
robes, 100 pairs of moccasins, and sufficient food to feed every man
possessing a sacred buffalo skull during the 4 days of the transfer
rites. Conceptually, the cost of the ceremonial transfer exceeded
that of all bundles and was expressed in terms of village status,
the bundle owner being the leading peace chief of the village group.
His status, expressed in terms of the goods mustered, indicated the
importance of the buffalo in the economic life of the people.

For this study it is important to note that Earthnaming bundle
ownership gave one paramount status in terms of village and cere-
monial organization. He was the titular head of the rites to propa-
gate the buffalo herds and, as such, occupied highest status in the
ceremonial life. Whenever one dreamed of the buffaloes and wished
to perform a feast for them, the bundle owner was ex officio singer
for the ceremonies. As a symbol of the buffalo which he represented,
he acted as singer for the Imitating Buffalo and Red Stick ceremonies
by virtue of Earthnaming bundle status.

Although the Hidatsa did not customarily perform village rites
when out on summer buffalo hunts, it was customary for one having
EKarthnaming rights to retire to pray at those buttes mentioned in his
sacred myths and to place offerings near them according to the habits
practiced at the various buttes. On one occasion, when the Hidatsa
were camped near the Killdeer Mountains, Poor Wolf and his daughter
climbed the cliff to the deep hole in the top believed to be the home
of the speckled owl, singer for the rites performed at that hole period-
ically by the spirits of the buttes, and placed old robes near the cave,
saying, “Buffaloes, we have brought you your old robes and put them
here for you. You don’t come out of this butte very often now and
we are hungry.”

Then they cried. As they walked back toward the camp, they
saw a small herd of buffaloes and the young men killed some of them.
When they cut the paunches open they found no grass, only balls

710-195—65——29

438 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

of clay [hair balls] in there, and according to Mrs. White Duck,
Poor Wolf said, ‘“‘They must have just come out of the cave for they
have only clay in their stomachs. Their hoofs are sharp too, but
they would have been dull if they had been on the prairies very long.”

A sacred bundle contained two very large rattles made of buffalo
hide; the head, two wings, and two claws of the speckled owl; red
and black clay; white sage; and a buffalo skull. Swallow and Hawk
were represented by feathers from these birds. During a bundle
transfer, young men paid to fast and to be tortured as it was believed
easy to get dreams from the buffaloes. The Holy Women met at a
separate lodge on the last day to receive their pay for the part the
Holy Women performed in butchering and curing meat for Raven
Necklace when the speckled owl taught him the ceremony during
mythological times. The Holy Women and berdaches also prepared
the dancing grounds at the edge of the village where the fasters
congregated daily, dragging the buffalo skulls.

The presence of two bundle owners when the three Hidatsa village
groups united to build Fishhook Village after the epidemic of 1837,
whereas heretofore there had been only one bundle owner in the
same village with peace chief status, resulted in endless rivalries
between the two factions. This competition was settled only when
one group under the leadership of Bobtail Bull, successor to Guts,
left the area and built a new village near Fort Buford.

IMITATING BUFFALO

These rites, although traditionally of an independent origin,
were integrated with the Earthnaming and Painted Red Stick rites
in recent times by virtue of common singers. The sacred myths
explaining the origin of the rites introduces two characters, Blood
(Clot) Man and Buffalo Woman, who worked together to provide
buffalo meat for the starving people. Theoretically, both characters
went back to the origin of the land when Buffalo (male) was found
on the earth by First Creator and Lone Man who concluded that
Buffalo, like other things on the earth, came out of caves from the
land below. Buffalo Woman was created later by Village-Old-Woman
who introduced the female opposites of male living things. There are
two important sacred myths to explain the roles of Blood Man and
Buffalo Woman in the performance of the Imitating Buffalo rites.
One deals with Buffalo Woman’s experiences leading to her trans-
formation from a buffalo cow to a Hidatsa woman after which she
took up residence in the villages and assisted them in various Buffalo
ceremonies, particularly the Imitating Buffalo and Painted Red
Stick ceremonies.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 439

Briefly, the Buffalo Woman sacred myth was as follows:

One winter the people came up from Knife River to build a winter camp in
the timber below Elbowoods. Game was scarce and the people were obliged
to bring garden produce from their summer village. Scouts could not find
buffaloes anywhere. The children had caves where they played at keeping house
and a strange boy who was rather dark-skinned with curly black hair invited
his play wife to go home with him.

The girl went along to learn that the boy was in reality a buffalo named Calf
Wedge. He was living with his mother in a hide tipi in the heavy timber. They
had not been able to travel north with the herd for the mother had injured her
foot on a snag. The buffalo cow gave the girl meat to take to her parents and
they, in turn, made corn balls for the two buffaloes. The buffalo woman asked to
move to the girl’s camp and her parents invited them in secretly and pulled out
the snag, for human beings could do almost anything. Buffalo woman described
the rites of building the temporary lodge for the Painted Red Stick ceremony.
Four days later the buffaloes appeared in great numbers. The people appointed
leaders who had the right to pray to the buffalo skulls and then the kill was made.

The girl married the Buffalo Boy by rubbing her body with a buffalo skull
and in the spring Buffalo Woman and her son returned north with the other
buffaloes, leaving the girl with her own people. During the summer she gave birth to
a child in a buffalo wallow but her mother took her back to the village without
permitting her to see her child. Buffalo bulls came to the wallow, caused the
baby calf to grow to maturity by rolling him, and then took him to his father to
the north. He was called Spotted Calf because he was half human and half
buffalo.

Four years later Spotted Calf was homesick for his mother’s people so his
father, Calf Wedge, and his grandmother, Buffalo Woman, agreed to return with
him to help the people call the buffaloes. The three changed into humans, entered
the village, and built a lodge of their own on the south side of the village, for
buffaloes like ground corn.’ Spotted Calf’s mother joined them in the lodge.
After that, whenever the people were in want, Buffalo Woman or her descendants
would call the buffaloes, for they were buffaloes in spirit.

The myth given above explains the origin of Buffalo Women
impersonators in the buffalo rites. While Buffalo Woman lived in the
village the following incidents traditionally occurred and led to the
establishment of the Imitating Buffalo ceremony:

An old man named Grey-Old-Man, his wife named Red-Corn-Woman, and
their daughter lived in one lodge at Knife River with a rather poor young man
who was hunter for the family. Since the young man had no close relatives
and went around from lodge to lodge, he was taken in and treated kindly. He
requested one of the older women where he had formerly lived to take meat to
Red-Corn-Woman and inform her that he wanted to marry her daughter, White-
Corn-Woman. Grey-Old-Man thought that it would be a fine thing to have
such a good hunter as son-in-law, so the marriage was completed.

The young man and his wife decided not to accompany the others into winter
camp farther upstream so he built two small eagle-trapping-type lodges facing
each other in the nearby timber so each couple would have its own lodge.

Game became scarce during the winter and the young man ordered his wife
not to feed her parents. He also ordered her not to return to the summer village

53 Corn is associated with the southern part of the village.

440 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

for corn. The magpies went to a valley where the buffaloes were grazing and
told how an old couple was starving because their son-in-law refused to help them.
The buffalo bulls came together in council and decided to help this couple, select-
ing one of their number to be with the Hidatsa forever and to help them whenever
they needed buffalo meat.

One day Grey-Old-Man walked to the river bank where he saw a buffalo
standing. When the buffalo went on, he found a clot of blood where the animal
had been standing. He pulled sandgrass and put the clot on it, wrapped the
clot in more grass, and took it to his lodge. When he unwrapped the bundle,
he found a baby boy with dark hair and strong muscles and bones. The baby
asked Grey-Old-Man to name him and he was given the name Blood Man.

Grey-Old-Man performed rites over the baby four times and the child grew from
a baby to a mature young man. Then he remembered that he had been sent
to live with the people to prevent them from starving. Blood Man produced
a fat buffalo by magical means and the old people ate without divulging their
secret to the daughter and son-in-law. Next day when the son-in-law left to
hunt, Blood Man informed White-Corn-Woman that he was sent to kill her
husband. She agreed that it was the correct thing to do.

Blood Man went out to where the son-in-law had wounded an elk and killed
the young man. When the old people learned that Blood Man had killed their
son-in-law, they approved his action, for they saw that the young man’s bad
behavior was due to the fact that he was an orphan and had no people to teach
him respect for the elderly.

Blood Man married White-Corn-Woman and went out each day hunting for
the old people. The Holy Women came to Blood Man and volunteered to
help him when he brought the buffalo herds to the village, saying, “When one
person undertakes to do something, he should have help. We will come to help
you and bring the other gods with us. Instruct your wife and her people to
take wood and ice into the lodge, enough to last 4 days. During the time that
the buffaloes are coming to the village, they must not come outside.”

The Holy Women brought the meat from the buffaloes and a mysterious woman
named Buffalo Woman looked after it, seeing that it was properly arranged on
the corn scaffolds. When the old people went out, they found the scaffolds
loaded with meat and a white buffalo robe on their own scaffold.

The winter camp being without meat, scouts returned to get produce from
the cache pits, saw the scaffolds loaded with meat, and were invited by Grey-
Old-Man to eat in his lodge. He invited the people to return from the winter
camp and soon the various families began to arrive from upstream. Even after
all the people had reached the village, there were many buffaloes near. From
that time there was no end to the buffaloes because Buffalo-Blood-Man was a
buffalo in spirit.

Several years later Blood Man said, ‘‘We should have a ceremony to the oldest
buffalo bull, one who is so old that the body seems small in proportion to the size
of the head. When you kill one, save the hide.”

Before planting the gardens, someone who did not belong to the village was
invited to wear the hide. Evergreen was put on his back, wrists, and ankles
for the dances. He represented old age and the dance was called “imitating the
buffalo.” Everyone was asked to make pemmican to give to the dancers. Blood
Man called the person dancing in imitation of the old buffalo his father and
Blood Man’s wife stood when the man danced and she moved as he moved.
The old men cried and praised Blood Man. When a young man went to the
dancer with a robe, he received a bowl of pemmican to give to his sweetheart.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 44]

People would see that and know that the couple would be happy when they
married.

The people said that Blood Man did right when he killed the foolish young
man for, long before, Two Men had come to save their son, Unknown Man.
At that time the buffaloes had taken Unknown Man far to the north where evil
spirits lived, but Two Men killed the evil spirits, sparing the buffalo’s life when
the buffalo promised to come whenever the people ran out of food. At that time
Buffalo said to Two Men, “If a human being promises me anything and does
not do it, I will destroy that person.”’

That was why the buffaloes came and caused the foolish young man to be killed
by Blood Man. The ceremony passed down from father to son, all rights in
the ceremony coming from Blood Man. Blood Man grew to old age and died
in the village. By that time sons had taken over his rights.

The Imitating Buffalo rites were believed to have originated at
Knife River with the Awatixa group, according to some informants.
This belief is founded on the concepts that: (1) The ceremony fulfilled
the same function as the Painted Red Stick ceremony which was
not celebrated at Awatixa, only at the other two villages; and (2)
Blood Man was a contemporary to Black Wolf who founded the
eagle-trapping rites which were not celebrated by the Awaxawi and
Hidatsa until they had left the eastern lake region for the Missouri
when they acquired the rites and skills from the Awatixa and Mandan.
Whatever may have been the development and diffusion of this
ceremony, during the past century individuals inherited bundle
rites through their fathers at each of the three villages. Four bundle
lines were from Hidatsa, three from Awatixa, and one from Awaxawi.
That the Hidatsa survivors of the epidemic of 1837 outnumbered
those from Awatixa by a ratio of more than 2 to 1 suggests a greater
popularity of the rites at the latter village.

The Hidatsa do not consider the ceremony to be as ancient as
those relating to either the Sacred Arrow or Exodus myths although
they recognize characters represented in the rites as very ancient.
Of the eight bundle lines surviving the smallpox epidemics, individuals
performing these rites had, in addition to rights in the Imitating
Buffalo ceremony, other important tribal bundle possessions. There
were many individuals possessing various tribal hereditary bundles
who had never performed this specific ceremony. It is important to
recognize that, while all sacred bundles belonging to the traditional
hereditary group had buffalo skulls, few had bought rights in the
Imitating Buffalo ceremony. ‘This is due, it would appear, to several
buffalo ritual traditions which existed as independent units or as
segments of other rituals. We find the Calf Wedge myth defining
the practice of arranging buffalo skulls in groups of four, thus relating
this feature to the Imitating Buffalo and Red Stick ceremonies,
while similar shrines arranged by other bundle owners were symbolic
of the buffaloes of the four seasons.

442 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

The ceremony was traditionally an annual event at each of the
villages until 1837. It was held during the late winter until, with
the near extinction of the buffaloes, the herds no longer came to the
river bottoms near the winter villages. Then the ceremony was
shifted to the summer and became rites to the summer herds which
were found farther to the west. Dog Bear, son of Missouri River
who was one of the ‘‘builders” of Fishhook Village, was the last to
perform the ceremony. According to a dozen or more witnesses to
the ceremony, it was performed in the traditional manner with the
exception that it was held during the summer instead of the winter,
the shift being made because it was only during the summer that
the people then hunted buffaloes. Although Dog Bear was buying
rights through his father who came from Awatixa village, informants
recognized no differences in village bundle line rites.

The following account of this ceremony was supplied by Bears Arm
and Rattles Medicine, the latter an officer in the ceremony and the
daughter of Poor Wolf who was principal singer at that time:

Dog Bear gave the ceremony to get the Imitation Buffalo rights from his
father, Missouri River. He made the vow so all could hear while the Hidatsa
and Mandan were on the summer buffalo hunt. Kidney had been selected as
leader of the summer hunt that year and had taken the people to the southwest
where scouts had reported buffaloes. While near the Rainy Buttes, Kidney
named Dog Bear to be the leader of the hunters, for he had prayed often to the
buffaloes because Missouri River had those rights. At first Dog Bear was afraid
to accept the risk for his hunters. Then he remembered that he had once dreamed
of bis father’s old buffalo bull so he decided that should he make the vow it would
be just the same as having already performed the ceremony.

He went to Poor Wolf’s lodge and talked to them about it for Poor Wolf was
a “father,” being of the same clan as Missouri River, and Poor Wolf’s wife would
be a “mother.’’ They agreed that it was the proper tbing to do and that it was
wise to decide to give it, for it would give Poor Wolf an opportunity to find the
oldest buffalo bull from which to get the skull and hide. This duty fell to Poor
Wolf or Guts, the singers and Earthnaming bundle owners, whenever the cere-
mony was to be performed.

Dog Bear then made the vow, standing in the center of the camp circle, so
all could hear him. Poor Wolf selected Coyote Head to be announcer and to
instruct the hunters to watch for an old buffalo grazing alone. When a buffalo
grew old, it was customary for the young bulls to drive him out of the herd.
They had some difficulty finding an old animal and moved camp several times
until they reached Buffalo Home Butte where one was found. The people
remarked that because Dog Bear had been unable to find one, Blood Man had
sent one out of the butte in which resided the spirits of the buffaloes.

Poor Wolf took charge of the buffalo. He skinned and cleaned the head
and neck for the costume to be worn by some visitor during the ceremony. Then
he cleaned off the flesh so that the skull could be used as a part of Dog Bear’s
Imitating Buffalo bundle when the ceremony was given.

The ceremony was given 1 year later. In the meantime, Dog Bear and his
relatives collected goods and horses. Officers for the ceremony were: Poor
Wolf, the singer and Blood Man impersonator; Dog Bear, buyer of his father’s

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 443

bundle; Bug Woman, Dog Bear’s wife, impersonator of Calf Wedge’s wife and
daughter-in-law of the buffaloes; Iron Eyes, carrier of the Eagle Trapping snare
and owner of the principal Mandan Eagle Trapping bundle; File, an Arikara,
the dancer and wearer of the buffalo robe; Coyote Head, the announcer for Poor
Wolf; Rattles Medicine (Mrs. White Duck, daughter of Poor Wolf) the waiter;
the Black Mouth men’s society; the Holy Women’s society.

During the period of preparation, it was necessary to get the wife’s approval
since a vow to live with her husband was made during the rites. At this time
she was told that should her husband die, she could make a vow not to remarry,
which the men would respect. In return for this vow, she was pledged good
health and a long life. If, however, she eloped or went around with other men,
the promise made by the bulls would be revoked.

A runner was sent to the badlands for the creeping cedar. He received the
right to use this cedar for doctoring as compensation for his assistance.

The rites were usually performed in the Mandan Okipa lodge but in this
instance they were held in Dog Bear’s lodge. The approach to the lodge was
made by four stops, at which time Dog Bear brought the pipe to Poor Wolf
who used the large hide rattles from the Earthnaming bundle for the songs.
The participants followed in groups back of Poor Wolf and occupied places as
indicated by the floor plan (fig. 8).

Dog Bear filled the pipe and carried it to Poor Wolf who smoked, sang the sacred
songs, and prayed for Dog Bear’s success. The night was divided into four
periods of singing, a practice characteristic of the Mandan Okipa ceremony,
representative of the four groups of buffaloes. The people fasted during the
night, symbolically representing the old man and his wife who were starving
when Blood Man came to kill their selfish son-in-law and to rescue them. About
midnight, the Holy Women and Black Mouth societies, together with the spec-
tators, left the lodge, leaving Dog Bear, Bug Woman, File, Poor Wolf, Iron Eyes,
and Rattles Medicine to fast until morning.

Shortly after daybreak, those who had left earlier, returned bringing sacks
of pemmican; all ate, dramatizing the feeding of the old people after Blood Man
had killed the buffalo. Poor Wolf’s wife painted the dancer, having bought
the right to paint the dancer from Missouri River’s wife, Root. File, the dancer,
was painted with red paint; the old buffalo head and neck hide with hair on was
hung over his head reaching down his back. The creeping cedar was tied to
the hide. His moccasins were made from the old buffalo’s hide with the hair
inside and turned down at the top. These moccasins were called ‘‘straight toe.”
Then Bug Woman’s face and arms were painted red.

The spectators arrived with the two societies and occupied places at the door,
males on the same side as the Black Mouths and the females on the opposite
side of the lodge. The front row was reserved for holy men who had sacred
bundles containing buffalo skulls and who were not performing any specific
parts in the ceremony. People came in anticipation of a feast. Corn balls
were mixed with the pemmican and served with a ceremonial wooden spoon
belonging to Rattles Medicine. She had bought the right from her mother who
had bought it from Root. She had given her mother a horse to own the spoon
and the right to use it during the ceremony.

When the food was ready to be served, Poor Wolf sang the Thanks song,
holding some of the food up to the four directions and thanking Blood Man for
the buffaloes. Then Rattles Medicine served the food. Poor Wolf received a small
coil-basket full; the dancer received a wooden bow! full; all the others received
a handful, except Dog Bear who was fasting.

444 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

AN

Rattles
Bug Woman
Dancer
aia Biles tes Iron Eyes
SS
SQ
Wooden spoo if e O NN

\
D\

® Ar @\
> \Woman-in-Water
@P © \

oO" 0 a Dog Bear
: Bear Necklace

<= \'
ta | olf Eyes

©

©)

O | Hairy Coat
O
©

f

i] ~
peoue ono S$
Plenty Yellow-————-@

j-Does Good
#Crows Breast
f-Two Shields

Raven Arm
“Bobtail Bull
Coyote Head

Buffalo Skull
Buffalo Hide
Medicine Bundle
Goods

Lodge Post
Spectators

nove © Bo PF

Ficure 8.—Floor plan of the Imitating Buffalo ceremony. (Drawn by Bears Arm and
Mrs. White Duck (Rattles Medicine).)

Each member of the Black Mouths and Holy Women societies took a branch
of creeping cedar to carry or to wear in the belt. Bug Woman wore a buffalo
robe with the hair-side out and fastened with a waistband. She received a
small bag of Dog Medicine to which were fastened hawk or owl claws. There
were sage leaves in the bag and a song belonged to the bundle to be used in curing
bites of mad dogs and rattlesnakes, or injuries from buffaloes. Dogs were repre-
sented because the people used dogs in bringing the meat back to camp; rattle-
snakes, because the hunters were sometimes bitten while chasing buffaloes; and
injuries from buffaloes because they frequently attacked the hunters or their
horses.

Rattles Medicine wore a stuffed owl and branch of evergreen fastened to her
belt. This was put there by the head war chief, Crows Breast, who prayed that
she be given a long life and good luck. For the dances, Bug Woman led the
procession followed by File, the dancer, and the others succeeded them in no
set order. The Holy Women all carried sacks (made of the buffalo paunch) of
pemmican to symbolize the scaffolds which they loaded with meat when Blood

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 445

Man “called” the buffaloes in mythological times. Iron Eyes did not leave the
lodge but remained seated in his place making signs with the loop as if snaring
buffaloes and drawing them magically into the corral. He sang the Snare songs
belonging to Eagle Trapping rites.

Poor Wolf wore a buffalo robe with the hair side out. He had a piece of white
buffalo hide about 12 inches wide around his head. A raven feather, to represent
Raven Necklace of the Earthnaming bundle, was in his hair.

Bug Woman stopped at some point in the village and all would call out at
once, ‘‘Come out and chase this buffalo.’’

Poor Wolf sang one sacred song and, when he finished, the dancer got down
on his knees. The people came and asked to buy the pemmican. They received
as many bowls of pemmican as they offered articles in exchange. A person
who gave a horse received a bag full of pemmican. Only young men bought
and they gave the meat to prospective wives. It was proper and customary
for a man to give pemmican to two or three girls, providing they were not of
his clan, for he had the right to marry several girls, but girls were criticized who
accepted meat from more than one. It was understood that a girl accepting
pemmican was willing to take the buffalo as her god and to assist her future
husband in the buffalo ceremonies.

The procession moved through the village, singing and dancing. The number
of times they danced depended on the supply of pemmican. When all was dis-
posed of except what Feather-on-head, leader of the Holy Women, had in her
calfskin bag, Rattles Medicine ran to Bug Woman and shook her, this being
the signal for the participants to return to the ceremonial lodge. When the
ceremony ended, the pemmican carried by Feather-on-head was given to Dog
Bear and his wife. It was Poor Wolf’s duty to supply the pemmican carried in
this bag. This pemmican was made from the old buffalo whose hide and skull
were used in the ceremony. The other pemmican was contributed by Dog Bear
and his relatives.

On the second and third days, the ceremony was conducted the same as on
the first. The ceremony broke up during the fourth night. When the pemmican
had been consumed, the spectators left. Sandgrass was used to sprinkle the
participants during the final cleansing rites. This was the grass on which the
people believed the old man found the blood which later became Blood Man.
Then Poor Wolf made up the Imitation Buffalo bundle for Dog Bear. It consisted
of the buffalo hide worn by the dancer, creeping cedar, and sandgrass, together
with the buffalo skull used in the ceremony.

Because Dog Bear did not want restrictions placed on him in entertaining
his friends, such as the number that should be in attendance when smoking, he
said, ‘‘Do not have any rules.”

Poor Wolf placed a portion of pemmican on the buffalo skull, saying, ‘‘You
will get this skull without any rules.”

Dog Bear now had the right to pray to Blood Man and the buffaloes. He
received the right to call the buffaloes to the village, doctor the sick and injured,
and lead war parties. The people praised him for his sacrifices in performing
the rites to insure an abundance of buffaloes.

In dividing the robes and blankets, Poor Wolf instructed the dancer to take
his pick. The dancer had kept track of the number of times they had stopped
outside to dance and selected an article for each stop. Iron Eyes, who had
carried the sacred snare, was given four articles for remaining inside with the
snare and singing the Snare song of eagle, fish, and buffalo trapping while the
others were outside dancing. The Black Mouths and Holy Women each received
one article. The remainder belonged to Poor Wolf. If he thought his share

446 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

was too great, he must divide it with the societies represented, otherwise people
would criticize him for being selfish.

In this instance, since Poor Wolf and Dog Bear’s father belonged to the same
clan, Poor Wolf was both ceremonial father for making up the new bundle and
singer, otherwise Dog Bear would have selected a different man to make up
the bundle. When Dog Bear’s father died, his wife made a vow on the buffalo
skull not to remarry and remained the ‘‘daughter-in-law”’ of the buffaloes the rest
of her life.

Guts’ singer rights were identical to Poor Wolf’s. It was the duty of the pledger’s
father and ceremonial father to decide which man would serve as singer. Since
these two singers came from different villages, the old people usually made their
selection on the basis of the village from which they came.

BUFFALO CORRAL

The rites of corralling buffaloes were drawn from the Eagle Trapping
and Imitating Buffalo ceremonies. The sacred snare was also a
part of the eagle and fish trapping rites while Blood Man officiated
as director of the buffalo drive by virtue of his authority to pray to
them. Black Wolf secured his sacred snare for catching eagles
from the Black Bears.

The following is a summary of the sacred myth on which the origin
of corralling buffaloes was founded:

Blood Man was a great chief living in the village when Black Wolf returned
from the Black Bears who had taught him the Eagle Trapping rites. Blood Man
thought that since the buffaloes were quite scarce, he would ask Black Wolf to
assist him in getting them together into larger herds.

He said, ‘“The way it is now the young men go out and get the buffaloes but
the old men can’t. I want to plan things so that all get a more equal share. I
know that you went over to the eagle trappers, the Black Bears, and saw it all
with your own eyes. You got your supernatural powers from them and that is
the reason why I need your help for what I have in mind. You have the sacred
snare. You should arrange things so that we can get the buffaloes into a corral
with the power of the snare.”

Blood Man selected nine men to assist him and an eagle trapper to stand on
the hill and use the snare. Black Wolf stood on the hill with his snare when the
runners were out bringing in the buffaloes. He would paint the spare red and
sing the Song of the Snare. In the meanwhile the holy men and Blood Man
were concealed in the trees.

The eagle trapper stood on the high hill making motions as though catching
the buffaloes with his snare. He had four motions to use: When the buffaloes were
to the neck of the corral, he held his blanket to the side; when they were a little
farther in, he folded his blanket; the third time he wrapped it around him; the
last time he threw the robe and dirt into the air four times, signifying that the
animals were corralled and the people could come. The right to impersonate
Blood Man was bought by one of the Imitating Buffalo bundle owners from his
father. Each village had one Blood Man representative until the smallpox
epidemic of 1837, Black Shield who lived at Awaxawi being the only one to
survive. When the people went to Fishhook Village, he directed the rites.

According to traditions, corrals were widely used in earlier times and,
prior to the adoption of horses, each village group had one or more

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 447

corrals situated near both the summer and the winter villages (see fig. 9). If
corralling buffaloes during the summer, the corrals were usually
built near the Missouri at those points where the herds usually
crossed from the eastern range to the west banks during the late
summers when the waterholes and sloughs had dried up. For winter
corralling, the pens were situated near the winter villages on tributary
streams. Each corral was individually owned by one possessing
rights in Imitating Buffalo ceremonies, but the building and repairing
was a group activity under the bundle owner. As the horse popula-
tion increased and the buffalo herds became smaller due to excessive
slaughtering by White hunters, corrals were less commonly used.
The last corral, built north of Fishhook Village on a tributary to the
Missouri, was operated under the direction of Black Shield who had
inherited his rights from his father while still living at Awaxawi
village.

The topography along the Missouri and Little Missouri Rivers
was well suited for corrals. Any sharp bank with a flat area extend-
ing back from the cliff made a suitable spot for the corral, particularly
when the flatland narrowed toward the river bank. This made
easier the convergence of the buffalo into a compact herd at the
entrance. It was important that the cliff over which the animals
were run was precipitous enough to prevent the animals from climbing
back out. It was also necessary to have these corrals near the village
or winter camp to reduce the work of bringing in the meat. The
Hidatsa seemingly did not depend on the steep banks to kill the
animals as did other tribes farther west, although some Mandan and
Hidatsa informants had participated in cliff-killing when visiting the
Crow on Powder River. Instead, the corral was constructed beneath
a lower bank 10 to 15 feet high. From my observations of ‘‘kills’’
situated on Powder River in the vicinity of Broadus, Mont., it would
appear that corrals were not employed there due to the scarcity of
wood at many of those sites. On the Missouri River in the territory
occupied by the Hidatsa, the terrain is not so deeply eroded and fewer
spots were suitable for killing buffaloes by driving them over steep
banks.

Construction and repair of the corral were supervised by the owner
of the site; one who had either bought the corral and the associated
rites directly from his father or had built one of his own after ob-
serving the movement of the herds and the suitability of the terrain.
However much one desired to build and operate a corral for its
prestige value, social recognition and support of the people was
essential since the work was exceedingly hazardous and involved
the organized activities of many people. The whole population
assisted in making the corral. Men and women went into the woods

448 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

to cut and trim posts and rails. When constructing the corral, men
of the four-clan moiety dug the postholes and brought in the posts
and rails for the right half of the enclosure looking into the corral
from the cliff while the three-clan moiety constructed the other half.
Large trees with forked limbs were used as posts. About 2 feet of
each fork were retained and the forked end was set into the ground
to give the posts strength and stability so that pressure from the
animals against the wall would not draw the posts out of the ground.
The rails were fastened to the posts with strips of green buffalo hide
which contracted when dry. Eight piles of stones were placed in a
funnel-shaped arrangement reaching up to the entrance to the corral.

Eight young men, selected for their skill and bravery, stood behind
these rockpiles and jumped up at the proper moment to drive the
animals over the cliff. Three men, wearing wolf hides to conceal
their identity, were selected to move the animals off of the range to
the funnel-shaped entrance. When the animals did not move in the
proper direction, smoke from small fires was used.

The eagle trapper with his snare stood on a high hill in full view of
the activities and out of the path of the buffaloes. The impersonator
of Blood Man and the other nine headmen kept out of sight in the
trees with the rest of the people. The man with the snare made
movements as though snaring the animals, singing the Snare song
and praying to the Black Bears to bring the buffaloes into the corral
without injury to the young men.

The speed of the animals accelerated as they approached the corral.
Once the herd was past the outer stones, the men concealed there
stood up and waved their robes and the animals broke into a gallop.
When they were a little farther into the funnel the next opposing pair
jumped up. The most hazardous positions were occupied by the
last men on each side of the entrance to the corral. They could not
stand until the front of the herd was even with them or the animals
might turn, double back, mill around, or break away. When properly
timed, the front of the herd was moving rapidly and directly toward
the opening of the corral, at the instant that the animals in front
sighted the corral and sharp cliff. Then the pressure of those to the
rear forced the vanguard over the cliff, and the dust from the first
animals concealed their descent into the corral.

Crows Heart told of the time Black Shield had a corral. Then
the animals were wedged in so closely that a stray yearling that
had broken away from the herd came over the cliff while the people
were gathered around the corral, fell onto the backs of the other
buffaloes wedged in there, climbed from the buffaloes’ backs over the
corral wall, and ran away. This caused everyone to laugh heartily.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 449

The man with the snare signaled the progress of the herd with
his robe as indicated in the sacred myth.

The division of the animals after they had been shot was as follows:
(1) The tongues belonged to the 3 men who brought the herd to the
corral; (2) the man with the snare received one buffalo; (3) the 10
men overseeing the corral each got one buffalo; (4) the 8 men stationed
at the rockpiles each received a buffalo; and (5) each moiety got half
of the remaining buffaloes. After the officers had made their selections,
the rawhides holding the lower rails were cut and the rails were
removed so that the animals could be dragged out. In dividing the
buffaloes, an imaginary line was drawn through the middle of the
corral as illustrated in the accompanying diagram (fig. 9). The
first buffalo on the median line belonged to the four-clan moiety and
the next to the three-clan moiety and so forth, alternating to the
opposite end of the corral. Each moiety then took all the buffaloes
on its side of this line.

A moiety selected beforehand one of its number to divide the
animals among households. Each man knew the number of house-
holds in his moiety. The division went by men of the moiety, the
wife butchering with her husband on his side of the corral. They
tried to give one buffalo to each family when enough buffaloes came
into the corral, otherwise one buffalo was given to two related house-
holds, such as to two brothers. A widow with children got her meat
from the moiety to which she belonged. It was her brother’s duty
to see that she received her share in proportion to her needs. Officers
listed above received their share as heads of families in addition to
the tongues and animals which they received as their pay for bringing
the animals to the corral. When the corral was only partially filled,
it was considered bad taste for the officers to keep too much while
other families had little. And it was considered foolish to quarrel
over the division of meat which all should enjoy. Thus, the households
having plenty of help pitched in to assist those in which there were
many small children, few men to take hold and direct the butchering,
or in which the people were old and feeble.

Once a corral was built, it was necessary only to replace the lower
rails when it was ready to be used again.

The Hidatsa also captured antelopes, but the animals’ great speed
demanded corrals with walls less substantial but far higher than were
necessary for capturing buffaloes. The rites, too, differed. Blood Man
and his nine helpers were symbolic only of the buffaloes and thus
were not represented. Rather, the rites were under the direction of
one possessing a sacred snare. The corral was built at a pot where
a stream undercut a high bank. When a drive was to be made, the
able-bodied men usually went out onto the adjacent prairie and drove

(Bull. 194

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

450

(wiy sivag Aq uMPIC)

*[B1109 ojeyng 29y4} jo ue[gd—’6 AANoIY

“at

AK
A

Ny et
A

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 451

the animals together and turned them toward the river valley and
wide bottoms with the corral at one end. The women and children
formed a line along the edge of the timber where they concealed them-
selves until the animals had run down from the high hills. As soon
as the herds came down from the hills and attempted to go through
the trees the people stood up and shouted to turn them. In the mean-
time, the faster runners who had brought up the rear turned them
away from the hills. The only open area was at the wide neck to the
corral concealed below the bank. Antelopes traveled so rapidly that
careful timing by the large number of concealed people stationed in
long lines was necessary. There was not, however, the danger of
accident attendant with the buffalo corral. Once driven into the
corral, the animals were clubbed. There was no division within the
corral by moieties. Instead, a headman for each moiety took charge
and divided the animals according to the number of families and the
animals captured.
PAINTED RED STICK

This ceremony was observed by Lewis and Clark. It was described
in detail 28 years later by Maximilian (1906, vol. 23, p. 334) who
wrote that—

Another very remarkable medicine festival is that for attracting the herds of
buffaloes, which is usually celebrated in the autumn, or winter. I shall describe
this festival, as an eye-witness among the Manitaries, where it is observed pre-
cisely in the same manner as among the Mandans. At this festival they leave
their wives to the older men, and individual Indians do the same on certain
occasions, when they desire to ask good wishes for the attainment of some object
they have in view. A man, in such a case, goes, with his pipe, and accompa-
nied by his wife, who wears no clothes except her buffalo robe, to another hut.
The wife carries a dish of boiled maize, which she sets down before a third per-
son, and the man does the same with his pipe. The woman then passes the
palm of her hand down the whole arm of the person favoured in this manner,
takes him by the hand, and he must follow her to a retired spot, generally to
the forest surrounding the huts in the winter time; after which she returns and
repeats the same process, often with eight or ten men. As soon as the man so
favoured has resumed his seat, the person who asks his good wishes presents
his pipe to him that he may smoke; whereupon he expresses his best wishes for
the success of the undertaking or project in hand. By way of returning thanks,
his arm is again stroked.

The rites as described by Maximilian applied to later times when
my informants were young. This ceremony was often spoken of as
the ‘Walking with the Daughters-in-law” ceremony from the prac-
tice of sending one’s wife to an older man of the father’s clan and
inviting him outside for ceremonial sexual intercourse. In historic
times there were two active Singer bundles for the ceremony owned
by Bobtail Bull and Poor Wolf. The former traced his rights back
to Hidatsa village through his father, Guts, and the latter bought

452 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

from Face, an older clansman who lived at Awaxawi. There was
no knowledge of a bundle at Awatixa, the people of this village cus-
tomarily going to Hidatsa when the rites were performed. Although
two distinct origin myths are related, one for the Hidatsa and Awatixa,
and the other for the Awaxawi, the rites were performed in the same
manner at all villages. In fact, with few variations, the same rites
were performed in the Mandan villages. According to traditions,
the rites were instituted late in Hidatsa history since all incidents
are associated with the Missouri River and its environs.

The Hidatsa version as related by Wolf Chief from information
secured of Bobtail Bull was briefly as follows:

Buffalo Bulls came out of the north led by one old bull who carried a red stick.
He was the guide and selected the places to stop. The bulls decided to come
to the village to help the people so they went there, carrying a buffalo skull
with them. The club that the leader carried had buffalo hoofs tied in a row and
two long wing feathers at the end.

The leader said to the other buffaloes, ‘‘We are taking much food to the people.
When we reach the village we should get corn balls and a chance to have inter-
course with our daughters-in-law. When we start traveling, I am not going to
touch you with this club or you will not be able to carry yourselves along.”’

As the bulls walked along, the leader sang, “If I want to walk, I walk; when
I walk I always say this.”

They stopped three times and then they were at the village. The leader said
to the people, ‘‘We are bringing you something holy. You will have to furnish
us corn balls; we want to walk with our daughters-in-law. In return, we will
send the buffalo herds to the village.”’

First Creator arrived and announced that he was the one who always in-
structed these people and served as their waiter. The leader distributed the
red sticks to the other bulls and instructed the people in the Painted Red Stick
ceremony. All the other spirits learned of the ceremony and came to eat and
walk with their daughters-in-law while the bulls danced for the people.

The leader of the bulls announced that the one giving the ceremony would be a
chief and leader, for he would be able to protect the people from starvation while
one who dreamed of the drum used for the dances would strike his enemies. The
leader of the bulls announced to the people that they would not come and bring
the buffalo herds unless the people offered their wives to the buffalo bulls. Those
men who offered their wives would have long and successful lives.

The oldest buffalo directed the youngest buffalo to dance, while the bull with
the drum sang several times so all could memorize this song, ‘‘When I want to
walk towards the village I say this; when I want tobacco I always say this; when
I want to walk towards the corn balls I say this; when I want to walk toward
my daughter-in-law I always say this. Dogs will be among them.”

The Awaxawi version was as follows:

Twelve (six) buffalo bulls—men with the spirits of the buffalo bulls—lived
together and painted themselves only in red, never white or black. These men
were known as wirukusi for they carried red sticks. In this village the people
gambled. A short, fat, and rather ill-looking stranger came to the village and
won consistently. He would win all the property the people would put up.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 453

Buffalo Woman, who was living in the village, predicted that because of the
stranger’s gambling successes, the village was in danger of starvation. She in-
formed the people that the gambler was Sun who planned to kill off the people.
If he won the arrows with bark on, he would win half of the village. If he won
the peeled arrows, he would get the other half. She told one of the buffalo bulls
that Moon was trying to help the people while Sun kept promising Moon a share
of the bodies when the village was destroyed.

Buffalo Woman announced, ‘“There is only one way to save the village. You
buffalo holy men should select four young men to put on the ‘Walking with the
Daughter-in-law ceremony.’ If they refuse, the village will be destroyed. Of
course, when you ask them, they will not know what it is and will hesitate. You
can tell them that I know how to perform the rites and will help them.”

At first the young men refused but at last one agreed, saying, ‘Since Sun is
trying to destroy the village, I will volunteer.”

Buffalo Woman replied, ‘‘You have made a wise decision. This is the only way
that we can win this game with Sun and save the people. Youshould have the man
with the arrows here. Sun has already won the first 10 arrows. Do not let him
out or he will gamble again and lose the last of his arrows. Then there is no
chance of saving the village.’’ Then she taught the young men how to make the
vow, saying, “I am giving the ceremony for the Sun and all the different gods of
the universe. I will give a big feast and call you, my gods. I will let you take
_ my wives out.”

Buffalo Woman taught the young men how to erect the lodge with the door
to the south, saying, ““Perhaps Sun won’t come in right away. That will be my
chance to get him in for I will be at the side of the door. It may be that it will
take more than 4 days to get him in. When he steps in, I will seize him by the
ankles and say ‘I want you, my grandfather’ and then we will win the game.
Announce through the village that the people must build the lodge, for the warriors
from those 12 villages are on their way here to destroy our village. Have plenty
of dry sticks and three places for fires so the light will show over the entire world.
When the lights are bright, the old buffalo bull men will begin to take out the
women and Sun from outside will see what is going on. Have plenty of roasted
corn and other corn products. Then the gods will come from all directions to
eat, even though you cannot see them. When you want the women to walk with
your gods, the gods will not be seen but they will be there. There is another way
that I can help you. Moon will be there and I will ask him to invite Sun to the
feast so that he can walk with his daughter-in-law. I think Moon will do that.
When you are ready, have the older men go inside while the younger men stand
around outside. Distribute the food which will signify that you are feeding the
spirits from all directions.”

When night came, they took the food to the shelter. They had the feast and
the older men walked with their daughters-in-law. Moon tried to fool Sun,
saying, “Our son has promised us a big feast and we should be there’”’ but Sun held
back and the ceremony broke up in the morning.

The ceremony continued for another night. Sun and Moon came towards the
village where the ceremony was being held. Moon said, ‘‘All the different gods
were there last night. They had a good time eating and walking with their
daughters-in-law for I heard them talking about it’? but Sun would not go beyond
the edge of the village that night.

On the third night, Buffalo Woman went to Moon and said, ‘‘You should tell
Sun that his lover might go out with someone else if he is not here.”” This time
Sun came into the village and stood near the ceremonial lodge.

710-—195—65——_30

454 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

On the fourth night Buffalo Woman noticed that Sun and Moon were near the
entrance. As soon as Sun stepped inside, Buffalo Woman said to him, ‘‘I am
your granddaughter. Why didn’t you come before, you are the greatest god.
We will go outside, for you are my grandfather.”

Sun did not want intercourse with her, claiming that she was already his “‘grand-
daughter’? but he could not refuse in such situations when the daughter-in-law
insisted. Males have less will power than females in sexual matters. So Buffalo
Woman became Sun’s “‘granddaughter”’ again.

When Sun was ready to leave her, she seized him and said, ‘‘You are the greatest
god. I will not let you go unless you promise me that you will deliver those 12
villages for us.’”’ Sun hesitated and she continued, ‘‘Why don’t you say something;
you are my grandfather now and have had advantage of me.”’

Sun was sad, saying, “I will promise you those villages but I do not like to see
you kill off those people for my ‘son’ is there. Since you are now my ‘grand-
daughter,’ I must promise you the villages.’”’ As they walked back toward the
village Sun added, “I adopted a son in one of those villages and now I will have
to eat him along with the other people.”’

When they returned to the lodge, the holy people placed Sun on the west side
of the door which was the weakest side. They had pemmican hanging over Sun’s
head. When Buffalo Woman told the people that Sun was eating, the people
struck coups on him with sticks just as they did to their enemies, for Sun had lost
his supernatural powers to Buffalo Woman when he had intercourse with her.
Then the people set fire to the ceremonial lodge at many points so that the light
shone over the whole world.

Next day Buffalo Woman announced, ‘It will be either tomorrow or the next
day that you will kill them, for Sun has promised me those 12 villages.’? She
painted all the buffalo skulls red and faced them towards the south. While she
painted, she sang her holy song, saying, “I do not think any of you will be killed,
but you will kill all of your enemies.’’ She used the song that kept the buffaloes
near the village.

When the 12 villages of enemies came, the people saw that Sun’s “‘son’”’ was the
leader. He was painted red over his entire body; he wore a piece of rawhide
around his head and light sage in his hair. The enemy were all killed back to the
leader. When the leader was killed, they found that his spinal cord was choke-
cherry wood. They had difficulty cutting the head off. One man promised that
he would take the head to the Missouri as an offering to the Grandfather snake,
who once was one of the Two Men, if 100 enemies had been killed. The leader
was the 100th killed, so the head was offered to the snake at a point where the
Knife River entered the Missouri. Sun came down from the sky and demanded
the head but Grandfather snake refused for he could not give back what had been
promised him. Sun found a puffball and white sage to use for head and hair.
His son stood up four times but fell to the ground each time. Then Sun went off
crying. The people had won their game.

The rites as performed by Wolf Chief about 1870 differed slightly
from performances witnessed by Maximilian prior to the epidemic
of 1837. The number of red sticks had been increased from 6 to 12
due to the union of two identical bundles, one from Hidatsa and
the other from Awaxawi. Also, informants sometimes spoke of
6 bulls carrying red sticks but on other occasions even the same
informants mentioned 12. It would appear that the sacred myth
originally mentioned 6 bull participants but that after the villages

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 455

united both bundles were used during the rites and the number of
bull impersonators was increased to 12. The rites were performed
under the direction of an EKarthnaming bundle owner who served
as singer.

The Hidatsa believed it was easy to get dreams from the buffaloes,
so young ambitious men sought their supernatural assistance through
the media of the various buffalo rites and age-grade purchases. The
Painted Red Stick ceremony and most age-grade purchases practiced
the rites of sexual license between females and males possessing rights
to own and to pray to the buffalo bulls. The sexual act constituted
a relinquishment of supernatural powers from the buffalo imperson-
ator to a “son” through the “son’s wife” who, prior to the sex act,
was a “daughter-in-law” to the buffalo impersonator and afterward
was addressed as ‘“‘granddaughter.’”’ Through the medium of the
sex act, the older men’s supernatural powers to call the buffaloes were
transmitted to the younger generation. Since the chief role of the
sexual act was the transfer of supernatural powers, only men whose
record demonstrated possession of these qualities were selected to
carry the red sticks. The same situation prevailed in buying and
selling age-grade societies. Those who lcst status as a result of
indifference to ritual responsibilities, evidence of cowardice or lazi-
ness, and unwillingness to assist their kinsmen in social and ceremonial
activities, were weeded out of the age-grade societies, leaving only
those who conformed to the highest traditional standards. Although
the same concepts of supernatural power transfers regulated the
sexual license of ‘fathers’? with their ‘“son’s wives’ during age-
grade society sales, the rites were not practiced at the lowest level
in the system because the “sons” had not married and the next
higher group had not as yet secured important sacred bundles con-
taining buffalo skulls.

Wolf Chief provided the following data on his personal experiences
and beliefs as a result of performing the ceremony on the advice of
his father:

Parents would advise their sons to seek gods while they were young so that
they would have guardian spirits and not have to rely entirely on their fathers’
gods. My father often told me that it was easy to get a dream from the buffaloes,
especially if I gave the Painted Red Stick ceremony for calling the buffaloes.
Before I was married, I had a dream in which I saw four frameworks of branches
surrounding my father’s sacred bundles and the outer framework was old and
broken-down.

I described my dream to my father, Small Ankles, saying, “I had a dream last
night; it seemed strange to me. I saw willows in a circle like the fishtrap. In
all there were four circles of willows and the outside one was broken-down. I
do not know what it means.”

My father gave this explanation, saying, ‘‘I often think of the way you and
your friends play around here in front of these skulls (Waterbuster clan bundle).

456 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Now this dream has been given to you by your grandfathers, the skulls. That
dream means that you are going to give the ‘walking ceremony’ four times and
your wives will walk with your ‘fathers.’ You are going to live to bean old man
for the last circle of sticks is old and broken-down.”’

I thought I would give the ceremony as soon as I married. When I was 19
years old, the Sioux attacked the village and my horse was shot. After the
battle, the men of the Waterbuster clan, my ‘‘fathers,’’ sang the honor songs
because I was brave. Several girls tried to marry me but I married a Mandan
girl I had been watching.

I did not know the best way to bring up the matter with her since my wife was
quite young so I went to my father for advice. My father thought that we
should consult my mother. She talked to the girl and the girl’s mother and
they agreed, saying that it would make me a better husband and we would be
together always.

The girl’s brother said, ‘It is a great thing for it is hard todo. If he puts you
in the ceremonies that way, it will be all the better for you since it is like giving
you to the gods to care for.”

My wife thought that by helping in the ceremony, I showed affection for her
and would not divorce her.

Small Ankles instructed me that in making the vow publicly, I should say, “I
am promising to kindle the fire and give you the light. I will make feasts for
my fathers all over the world. I want to see my people provided with enough
food for a good living.”’

He instructed me to go to Bobtail Bull, carrying a tubular red pipe and to say,
“My father, I want to put up the lodge for all the gods and send the light out for all
the gods.’’ 54

Bobtail Bull replied, “It is a hard thing to do. Only a few men can doit. I
did not do much fasting but I made up for it by giving my wives. NowI ama
chief and every time I go out, I win over my enemies because I have given the
ceremony. You are going to have a good home and plenty to eat. I will have
my announcer give the news to the village. In the evening I will call the men
who have the right to attend and give each a red stick.”’

Bobtail Bull selected the following men, all members of the Black Mouth
society to which he also belonged: Hairy Coat; Crows Breast; Wolf Eyes; Crows
Arm; Son-of-Star; Lean Bull; Two Shields; Red Feather; Bear Necklace; Wolf
Grass; and Walking Chief. He selected the following individuals as officers:
Guts, the announcer; © Bobtail Bull, the singer; Wolf Chief, the pledger of rites
to the buffalo bulls; Wolf Chief’s wife, the Buffalo Woman; Small Ankles, inter-
preter of the dream; Poor Wolf, bad luck as symbolized by the Sun impersonator;
clan sisters to Wolf Chief, wood carriers; Two Shields, the First Creator
impersonator.

We made the lodge of cottonwood trunks and branches with the opening to the
south and within the open circle of the village where the Mandans held their
Okipa and other summer ceremonies. The lodge consisted only of a wall with
posts dug into the ground and the spaces between filled with small branches.
There was no roof.

54 He could have gone to Poor Wolf who was also singer for the ceremony. Both Bobtail Bull and Poor
Wolf were “‘fathers’’; Bobtail Bull because he belonged to the opposite moiety from Wolf Chief who belonged
to the Prairie Chicken clan, and Poor Wolf who belonged to the same clan as Wolf Chief’s father. Small
Ankles sent him to Bobtail Bull because both belonged originally at Hidatsa village before the union
of villages.

55 Father of Bobtail Bull and former owner of the Earthnaming bundle which he relinquished to his son
after suffering numerous misfortunes.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 457

My parents gave me most of the instructions, for they had both participated
in former rites, and Bobtail Bull merely outlined the events as they would occur.
Since I was not buying the bundle, only giving the feast to the buffaloes, I did not
have to wait so long. My clan and society, the Kit Foxes, helped me get the
food, especially the roasted corn that the buffaloes preferred.

On the morning of the evening that the ceremony was to begin, Bobtail Bull’s
father, Guts, went through the village and called that all the young men and
women should go to the forest and bring in cottonwood branches and poles for the
lodge. I appointed 10 clan sisters to bring in the dry wood for the fires. Those
who were to carry the red sticks to represent the buffaloes dug the holes for the
lodge posts and set the posts. The lodge was built just south of the Mandan
Sacred Cedar with the entrance to the south. It was roughly circular in outline
and was not completed until late afternoon.

All the officers met at Bobtail Bull’s lodge and I was instructed to listen for
them when they came out singing just after sundown and to bring the pipe.

I heard singing and went out to meet them in the village. They sang, ‘‘The
land belongs to us; we are walking along.”

This meant that the buffaloes had the right to walk on theirown land. At the
end of the song, Bobtail Bull prayed for me and handed the pipe back to me.

At the second stop the carriers of the red sticks again sang one of the buffalo
songs, ‘‘Whenever I want to walk, I always walk.”

This song meant that whenever the buffaloes wanted to ‘‘walk” [have inter-
course] with their daughters-in-law, there were always some who wanted to walk
with them. I took the pipe to Bobtail Bull and he prayed for me again.

The third stop was at the northeast side of the open circle where they sang,
“The land belongs to us; we are walking along.’”? Again I offered Bobtail Bull
the pipe and he prayed to the buffaloes to send me good luck.

The fourth stop was at the lodge entrance. Poor Wolf, representing the Sun
and bad luck, entered the lodge alone and sang the song. He did not come to the
lodge with the others as he was the ‘‘enemy”’ to be overcome. He sang, ‘‘When
I want to walk, I always walk.”

The holders of the red sticks occupied places along the east side of the lodge,
while those who were offering their wives occupied places at the head of the lodge
along the north side. Poor Wolf sat just west of the entrance with the bull skull
and folded buffalo robe in front of him. The ‘‘drum of protection’ was on the
east side of the entrance with the 12 red sticks placed in front of it. Originally
only one fire was used, and that was near the head of the lodge, but later two addi-
tional fires were built; one on the east side and the other on the west side [fig. 10].

It was customary for clan brothers of the same age as the giver to bring their
wives. It was also the practice for the Kit Fox Society men to bring their wives
when a member of that society was giving the ceremony. Poor Wolf, representing
bad luck or the Sun, sat on the west side of the door with the announcer [fig. 1].5°

Poor Wolf entered first. He was known as patuki or “savior of the village.’ ”
He would pray for success over the enemies and for protection for the people.
He would say, “If any are to be killed, I turn the matter over to my enemies;
they are the ones who should be killed.’”” Then he prayed at four points outside
the ceremonial lodge in this order: north; east; south; west. He was painted

56 Figures 10 and 11 illustrate the ground plans of the two variations of the ceremony. Plan One was
followed when the giver had little assistance except from a few clan brothers; Plan Two was followed when
a@ member of the Kit Fox society gave the ceremony to the Black Mouths.

57 Bears Arm explained that it also meant ‘‘closed’’ and referred to the custom of Sun impersonator to
return to the ceremonial lodge late in the night, when all were supposed to be asleep, to pray that the popu-
lation might increase rapidly.

458 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Wives of the Giver

ond Clon Brothers Giver of Ceremony

Clan Brothers
Sis

S
sa s ;
S
S s
S
YWoly 4 Of :
e
RZ ? S
a ay 8
©
an mn Q at
D ® S

Buffalo Bull Skull
Protector Drum
Fire

Protector Robe

OF Date Oo p>

Spectators

Figure 10.—Painted Red Stick ceremony, plan one.

red over his entire body, had a piece of rawhide tied around his head, and had
dark sage stuck in his hair.

The Black Mouth society entered next, when the Kit Fox society was assisting
one of its members, otherwise there were 12 carriers of red sticks who followed
the Sun impersonator. The men whose wives were to be offered to the holy men
came in last, accompanied by their wives who were dressed only in their robes.
When the Kit Foxes were assisting a member, it was necessary to bring a wife.
Single members could come if they borrowed a wife of one of their clansmen.
My Mandan wife helped me 2 nights and then she ran away and hid. I did not
know what to do so I went to my clansman named Knife and asked for his wife
for the next 2 nights.

Knife said, ‘‘My brother, you do not need tostop the ceremony. All the women
married to us Prairie Chickens [clan] are eligible to go with you and help you out.
You can use my wife for the next 2 nights.’”’ And I did.

The holy men who represented all the gods, and especially the buffaloes, carried
the red sticks with them to the lodge. When they had taken their places, the
First Creator impersonator collected the red sticks and placed them in a pile
near the singer.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 459

—Giver of Ceremony

Sticks
S : The Singer
S S
S S
2 S
S
Tees :

mM Se :

Sun Impersonator

Announcer Red Sticks

Buffalo Bull Skull
Protector Drum
Fire

Protector Robe

(Je) ea} uy fol ae

Spectators

Ficure 11.—Plan of Painted Red Stick ceremony, plan two.

Bobtail Bull said, ‘‘Your ‘fathers’ have come from far away and are tired.
You should give them a smoke.”’ It was believed that these 12 holy men came
from a buffalo village in the north. The giver of the ceremony and all others
who had brought their wives filled pipes and offered them to the holy men. First
Creator impersonator was always first to receive the pipe and each holy man,
when handing the pipe back, prayed for the success of the giver.

After the pipes were passed around, Bobtail Bull said, ‘‘Your ‘fathers’ have
come a long distance and are hungry. You should distribute your corn balls
among them.’ Again I was assisted by those who had brought their wives.

When they were fed, Bobtail Bull said, “If you men have enough food, it
would be well to give food to those spirits outside for they have come a long
distance and are hungry too.”’ Then the corn balls were passed out to the specta-
tors standing around on the outside, the plates and bowls being taken back with
a pulling motion downward from the shoulder.

The fires were replenished and First Creator held the red sticks in smoke from
creeping cedar before distributing them to the holy men. Bobtail Bull sang
and First Creator impersonator danced. This was followed by a song called
“The Two Young Ones” while the 12 holy men rubbed each other in imitation
of buffalo bulls.

Then Bobtail Bull said, ‘‘My son, have my daughter-in-law step forward.”’

I said to my wife, ‘‘You should walk over to Two Shields.”

460 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

She wore no dress, only her robe. She said to him, “I will take you out.”

Two Shields said, “This painted red stick is my power; it is as good as going
out.’”? So he handed her the red stick and prayed for her while she rubbed the
red stick against her bare breast.

Then she went to the next man and offered to take him out. She went to
several men who gave her the red stick to press to her chest. Before the ceremony,
my father had said to me, ‘Do not think about it when she goes to the holy
men. If you think of your wife at that time, you will not be successful. When
I was putting on the ceremony, sometimes my wives went out and other times
they rubbed the clubs on their chests. Afterwards I could always tell the differ-
ence for they seemed to have new life.”

After a while I saw her going out with Walking Chief who belonged to my
father’s clan. He was the only one to have intercourse with her. Whenever
the men with the red sticks prayed, they asked aid only for me and my wife.
Then I sent her to Poor Wolf who represented bad luck or the Sun.

Concerning Poor Wolf’s role, Bears Arm, who witnessed the
ceremony performed by Wolf Chief, added:

When Wolf Chief took the pipe to Poor Wolf, he not only prayed for Wolf
Chief and his wife but for the people in the ceremony and the whole tribe. His
prayers were supposed to show that by giving the ceremony he was responsible
for the welfare of all the people. Poor Wolf remained at the shelter to pray
after the ceremony broke up each evening. At that time he prayed at the four
directions, asking help for all the people. He was required to remain in his place
during the ceremony.

Should any young man come to him at that time and ask Poor Wolf to move
over so he could sit in Sun’s place, it meant ‘‘I promise to make this ceremony
in 1 year.’”’ Next day the young man would stand on his earth lodge and make
the vow. Sometimes a young man wanting to give the ceremony would be
away from the village when the ceremony was being given. He could wait
until he found Poor Wolf or Bobtail Bull [formerly Guts] with the Sun rights
seated with other older men and say “‘Move over. I want to sit in your place.”
Then all would know that he was going to make the vow. When he made the
vow, the young men of his clan would hear it and know that they must help
him get the goods and food ready.

Concerning his further participation in the ceremony Wolf Chief
added:

When I stood before Poor Wolf he said to the red stick carriers, ‘I am going to
sing a song that belongs to your son, Wolf Chief. I want him to have a long life
and to be successful. I want him to have a large family and become one of the
leaders of our people.”’

He asked me to face the west and he sang, ‘‘A man came, he says; Wolf Chief
came too.”

Lean Bull led the 12 holy men representing the buffalo bulls from the lodge,
followed by all the others except Poor Wolf who remained until the village was
quiet. Then he prayed for the village.

They performed the ceremony in exactly the same way on the second and
third nights except that I took Knife’s wife the third and fourth nights. On the
fourth night there was the usual advance of the holy men through the four stations
with stops for smoking and singing. Poor Wolf came to the lodge in advance of
the others and sang the fourth song from inside the lodge as before. The holy

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 461

men entered, followed by the young men who were bringing their wives. The
pipes were passed; corn balls were given out; the dances were held; lastly, the
young men’s wives walked with or received the blessing of the holy men.

Near the end of the ceremony Poor Wolf stood up and announced that I would
win the game; I would be successful; the village would be saved. Then he called
me and Knife’s wife to stand in front of him. He had a chokecherry branch
sticking in the ground in front of the buffalo skull, a black-tipped eagle tail
feather, a tip of a buffalo’s tail, and a branch of creeping cedar. He said that
they should be used for doctoring my children and some of the people laughed
for I didn’t even have a wife since mine had run away 2 days before and none
knew where she was hiding.

As he passed the articles to me he sang, ‘‘A man came and left again; these
people live to the east; Wolf Chief kills them; Wolf Chief brings the buffaloes;
Wolf Chief will call the rain; Wolf Chief will bring the fruits and plants; the
people will have plenty to eat.’’ These were the things that Poor Wolf had the
right to promise on the part of Sun whom he represented.

A large sack of dried buffalo meat hung on the wall back of the Sun impersonator.
As soon as he left the lodge, followed by the holy men, those who had brought
their wives took the sack down and divided the meat between the women who,
during the ceremony, had represented the Buffalo Women. Then their husbands
burned the lodge, setting fire to it at many points to make the flames leap high
and throw the light far.

The Holy Women society met on the last evening at their singer’s lodge.
These women met during the ceremony because, when Buffalo Woman prevailed
upon Sun to destroy his own warriors, these Holy Women came out and helped
the Hidatsa during the battle. All of us who had brought our wives to the
ceremony went to the Holy Women’s lodge with our wives. Each Holy Woman
stated the direction she came from, danced in her ceremonial outfit, and then
demanded her pay. Each received a robe and corn balls and gave in return
Black Medicine roots to use in doctoring. Then the participants were sprinkled
with water, using the creeping cedar to terminate the ceremony.

The rites were performed primarily to bring the buffalo herds near
the villages. In this sense, the giver performed an act of great value
to the group. In return for his and his wife’s part, supernatural
powers were passed down from the top by the buffaloes and all the gods
to the red stick and other officers. They, in turn, transmitted these
supernatural powers to the women and their husbands through the
medium of the sexual act, pressing of the sacred red sticks to their
naked chests, prayers by the old men, gifts of food, and the presenta-
tion of pipes. There was no formal bundle transfer and once having
performed the rites one did not possess the authority to serve as singer,
these rights being reserved for Poor Wolf and Bobtail Bull who held
equal rights by virtue of Earthnaming bundle possessions. The rites
were comparable to those performed during the summer by those
making the vow in order to insure good growing conditions for the
crops. Nevertheless, one who performed the rites did have the
authority to pray to the buffaloes and, in that sense, occupied a high
status inferior only to tribal bundle owners and singers. One obtained

462 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

the authority to learn and to relate the sacred myths belonging to the
ceremony and to speak with added authority when disciplining younger
clansmen.

The rites as performed by the Mandan and Hidatsa show close
similarities that point to a common development from a single source.
Each employed the sacred red sticks, but the Mandan exacted a
virginity test that seems to be entirely lacking with the Hidatsa.
Although the rites for both tribes are theoretically for the attraction
of buffaloes to the villages and the increase of the calf crop by bringing
the animals out of the various Buffalo Home Buttes (a symbolic
fertility rite), each tribe had its characteristic sacred myths and
rituals.**

Ceremonial sexual license was not limited solely to performances of
this ceremony and age-grade society transfers but was individually
practiced on the initiative both of young ambitious men and old widow-
ers. A young man desiring to undertake some extremely hazardous
undertaking, such as a military expedition far from home to avenge
the death of a brother or other clansman, with the consent of his wife,
often sought supernatural powers of an old man standing in the relation
of ‘father’ to obtain his supernatural powers to supplement his own.
In this case, the old man was taken to the young man’s lodge and fed,
after which the young man and his family retired to another lodge
until morning, leaving the “father”? with one young wife. Irrespective
of the sacred bundles which the old man possessed on these occasions,
he impersonated one of the 12 buffalo bulls as represented by the bull
skulls in all major tribal bundles. They were left together during the
night with the doors barred. Although it was not uncommon for
one of the red stick carriers to refuse intercourse during the ceremonies
in fear of exhausting his supply of supernatural powers—preferring
instead to relinquish the red sticks—it was not considered proper to
refuse when invited to a young man’s lodge. The young man returned
to the lodge in the morning and ordered food, fine clothing, and horses
for the ceremonial father who, in return, prayed for his son to be
successful in his undertakings. This practice was so widespread with
the Hidatsa and Mandan as to be viewed as a universal pattern.
Whites were believed to possess greater supernatural powers than
Indians because of their richer material culture and technology, and
visitors to the villages were often given the same courtesies, both
publicly during the performance of the rites and privately in the homes.
Many a trader who called at the villages soon learned the cultural
pattern of praying for their ‘‘sons’”’ whenever some young woman met
his fancy. Many traders, therefore, not only spent pleasant nights

58 For the Mandan version see Bowers, 1950, ch. 14.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 463

with young women, but also received rich rewards in robes and even
horses from the husband in return for promises of success to the
young man.

Often a small group of three or four clansmen, widowers who no
longer participated in the active events of the day, would send for a
distant “son”? whose young wife met their fancy and offer to bring
the young man good luck if he would leave his wife to them. Infor-
mants thought that this practice was more common among the Hidatsa
and Crow than with the other two Hidatsa village groups, the Awatixa
and Awaxawi, or the Mandan. My Mandan informants considered
the practice improper, since one should not offer to part with his
supernatural powers. This seemed to be the case also with many of
the Hidatsa who had been in closest association with the Mandan.
Many informants questioned the sincerity of those who sought inter-
course with some young woman on the pretense of sending her husband
good luck. Nevertheless, it was widely practiced, especially by those
whose wives were dead or had left them. Informants jokingly re-
marked that it was sometimes necessary to send invitations to a num-
ber of young men before one agreeable to the proposition could be
found. If the old men had not distinguished themselves during their
younger days, owned no rights in important ceremonies, or were not
generally well thought of, the matter was usually taken lightly.
Since, however, the sacred myths refer frequently to supernatural
manifestations by old and poor men not thought to possess any
supernatural powers, unless overdone, the old men were likely to find
some young man who was willing to take a chance of obtaining
supernatural powers by offering his wife or wives. After settling at
Fishhook Village the community was divided in its views with respect
to supernatural power transfer on the initiative of the old men but
took no action other than public disapproval, leaving the matter
largely to the parties involved.

BUFFALO NECKBONE

This ceremony died out shortly after the epidemic of 1837, but the
localities considered sacred in the ceremony continued to be so re-
garded until the aboriginal culture broke down. Crows Heart, whose
father was Hidatsa and whose mother was Mandan, thought that both
the Mandan and Hidatsa had the ceremony. When the author was
conducting archeological work in ancient Mandan villages upstream
from the mouth of the Heart River, for Beloit College in 1929, burials
were discovered at the Larson site with articulated buffalo cervical
vertebrae in such close association with the human bones in cache pits

464 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

as to indicate simultaneous burial. Maximilian (1906, vol. 23, p. 375)
also refers to a ceremony in which buffalo neckbones were used:

The Manitaries [Hidatsa] are as superstitious, and have as much faith in their
medicines, or charms, asthe Mandans. . . . Buffaloes’ heads are likewise medicine.
In one of their villages they preserve the neck bones of a buffalo, as the Crows
also are said to do; and this is done with a view to prevent the buffalo herds from
removing to too great a distance from them. At times they perform the following
ceremony with these bones: they take a potsherd with live coals, throw sweet-
smelling grass upon it, and fumigate the bones with the smoke.

After the epidemic in which the greater portion of the population
succumbed, some buffalo ceremonies no doubt died out or were
changed in outward ritual form since a number of the legitimate
officers died without providing for successors. Persons who could
not have been legitimate purchasers of bundles, because of the laws
of inheritance or transmission, purchased the right to own and relate
the ceremonial myths. In that way, some myths continued to be
vital parts of the total religious beliefs of the tribe long after the
related ceremonies became extinct.

Actually, the site for the last Hidatsa village (Fishhook) was
selected because it was the locality where the Buftalo Neckbone
ceremony had its traditional origin. There is no evidence, however,
that the ceremony was celebrated after the village was built in 1845.
All that can be learned from informants is that this was a winter
buffalo calling ceremony of 4 nights’ duration; that two posts were
set up, one dressed as a man, the other as a woman; that it was in some
way related to the Holy Woman and People Above; that feasts were
made to the bundle; and that the principal items in the bundle were
vertebrae from the buffalo.

It is to be presumed that the rules of inheritance from father to son
were followed. There is no evidence that Four Bears was an owner
of one of the bundles even though he recommended that the new
village be built at this traditional shrine. Placing of ash posts on the
prairie and making up of images of a sacred character were common
ceremonial practices. The songs died out chiefly because they were
ritual songs and would not be sung except during bundle purchases
and renewals.

Bears Arm provided the following sacred origin myth:

The people came up the Missouri from Knife River to go into winter camp.
At that time the people used dogs, for horses had not come yet. As they traveled
along, they would take the loads from the dogs when they camped and use the
poles as frames for their lodges. At last they reached timber a short distance
below the Like-a-Fish-Hook Bend, where they built small earth lodges for the
winter. At first there were a few buffaloes around but these soon became scarce
and it would take the men 2 days to reach the herds.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 465

Finally the buffaloes were still farther away and the people had only the things
from their gardens to live on. Time passed and even the garden products were
consumed. There was one man in the camp with many children, all of whom
were hungry. This young man was a good hunter and the old men had often
been invited in to eat and smoke with him. He respected the old men and they
liked him.

One evening he said to his wife, “Fix up my moccasins. I am going to cross
the river [where Fishhook Village was built many years later] and see if there is
any game. Fix mea bag.” *

Next morning he crossed the river immediately west of where the Fishhook
Village later stood. He was looking for roseberries for his children but he saw
that someone had been there ahead of him. At last he found some and made
balls of the berries for his wife and children. As he was crossing the river, he
saw a person standing on the river bank he had just left. He wondered who it
was since he could not remember having seen anyone go out ahead of him.

Soon he saw two persons coming nearer. He did not know who they were and,
thinking they might be enemies, he ran faster. At Like-a-Fish-Hook Bend they
caught up with him. They stood in front of him and he stopped. The man was
on his right side and the woman on his left.

The man said, ‘‘The buffaloes are far off and it is hard for your people to get
meat. Although it will be hard for you to do this, when you get home, secure full
outfits of new clothing for both a man and a woman. Bring them up here, put
up two ash poles, and hang the clothing on them. Bring someone along with
you. I know that your children are hungry for you have been picking berries.
When you put the clothing on the poles, the buffaloes will come to your winter
camp.”

The young man observed that the two people were carrying clubs—painted
red—in their belts. The man said, ‘‘You will kill the buffaloes and get all the meat
you want. Each time you kill the buffaloes, new ones will come to take their
places. In the spring you will have so much meat that many families will take
their meat down the river in bullboats while the others will go overland with the
dogs. You saw us far off and coming towards you. When we travel, we do not
have to walk.”’

They did not say who they were but they flew instead of walking and were
human. They flew even though they had no wings. Long afterwards Four
Bears thought that the place where they walked was holy because these people
had blessed the man, so we founded a village there.

When he reached camp he directed his wife to build up the fire and prepare such
food as they had for he was inviting some of the old men in. She had a few corn
balls and she made the rose balls into soup. When the old men had eaten, he told
them what he had seen.

He said, ‘‘I saw some holy persons who were strangers to me. They told of many
good things I should do and promised that I would be a chief some day. I am
depending on you, for I am poor and can’t do all those things without help. I
have been asked to get full-dress outfits for a man and a woman.”

Between them and their wives, the old men had all the things that the young
man needed. They secured two ash poles; they took the white sage and made it
in the form of a head; they put two magpie tail feathers in the hair. He asked

59 Bags made of the paunch and used by the Holy Women in the Imitating Buffalo ceremony

466 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

one man to fix up the hair and put the robes over the poles. They painted the
sage for the cheeks and forehead, using red paint.

When taking the clothing to the place where the posts were to be erected, they
saw the young man’s tracks and the spot where the others had traveled, the dis-
tance of their tracks being the range of the arrow. They cleared off the snow and
built a fire to thaw the ground so that the posts could be set up. The posts were
set up facing the south for that was the direction the two people faced to return
to the sky.

The young man smoked sweetgrass and said, “I have the clothing that you
wanted; there are two complete outfits. I have put them up as you wanted me to
do, begging that the buffaloes will come soon.”” Then he used the smoke from the
sweetgrass as incense for the clothing.

He said to the 10 men standing there, “I will have the buffaloes come soon. In
the future our people can go through this territory after game. In the spring we
will have rains for our crops. If our enemies come, we will get the advantage of
them. There will be no sickness among our children and we will have many
children.”” Then he directed the 10 men to go home saying, “I am going to ery
here around these posts. I may get a dream. Announce in the village that 4
nights from now, all the people must tie up their dogs.”

He cried all night and returned to his lodge in the morning. He did that for 3
nights. On the fourth night he told the old men to stay in their lodges.

Late in the night one man looked outside and said, “It is snowing hard but I
heard a noise outside.”

Another went out and came back saying, “There is a buffalo just outside; he
chased me into the entrance.”

They took up their bows and arrows, killed the buffalo, butchered it right there
and had a feast even though it was not very fat, for the buffaloes breed until late
in the fall and are not very fat in winter.

After that the people put up offerings at this point regularly and the place was
known as “Place Where they Put Offerings for the Buffalo.”

The young man was called Holy-Young-Man after meeting the two spirits.
When he was old, they called him Holy Man. The reason the spirits told him to
watch until they went out of sight was that if he did that he would have a long life.
After that the buffaloes came into the camp and the people cured much meat to
take back to the Knife River villages. Before the enemies came, the young man
foretold that they were coming. Fifteen enemies were killed and he was a chief
after that.

He kept buffalo skulls and bones of the neck which he would smoke with sweet-
grass if the buffaloes went far off and they would come back. The people would
come up from Knife River often to renew the shrine whenever someone dreamed of it.

After the smallpox of 1837, the people of Hidatsa village on the Knife River
wandered around for 7 years looking for a place to have a village. Some thought
they should reunite with the River Crows, but the Awatixa and Awaxawi did not
want to leave their villages and abandon their gardens.

Four Bears said at that time, “Since these holy people came to this place, it
should be a lucky place. The people have been putting up offerings there for a
long time. I think we should take the people up there and put up a new village
where we [the three Hidatsa village groups] can live together.”’

So the people moved to the place and built Fishhook Village on the spot where
the two spirits were seen and the people were lucky in driving off their enemies.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 467

CLAN BuNDLE CEREMONIES
WATERBUSTER CLAN BUNDLE

There was only one sacred bundle (pl. 12) for these rites and it was
kept by a male of the Waterbuster clan at Awatixa village on the
Knife River where, according to traditions, the bundle rites were
instituted by two Eagle Men who came from a spring at the source
of the Missouri River. Pepper and Wilson (1908) recorded the
complete origin myth as related by Wolf Chief, son of the last holder
of the bundle. In this study of the same rites, the writer endeavored
to relate the bundle to the total tribal pattern. Hence, several points
not brought out by Pepper and Wilson are given in order to show the
position of the rites in the total ceremonial structure. (Fig. 12.)

The following is a condensed account of the origin myth as related
by Wolf Chief:

Up in the sky there are four eagle villages which were seen by Lodge Boy and
Spring Boy when Spring Boy was taken above to be tortured, and by Charred
Body who once lived above before he came down to found the village at Charred
Body Creek. They told the people that there was a hole in the sky immediately
above them; that 1 day’s march to the west up there in the sky was the village of
the Speckled Eagle; the second village was of Bald EKagles; the third was of the
Barred-speckled Eagles; the last village was of the Calumet or Black-tipped
Eagles who lived 1 day’s march west of the Barred-speckled Eagles and were
the children of the third village group. At the place where the Calumet Eagles
lived, the sky dipped down and met the earth at the highest points in the Rocky
Mountains. It was from this village that the Eagles who founded this ceremony
came.

When Spring Boy was taken above to be tortured, Long Arm carried him west-
ward through the other three villages of eagles until he reached the village of the
eagles whose tail feathers were white with black tips. There the people tortured
Spring Boy.

Long after Spring Boy was tortured and the Awatixa had moved to the Knife
River from farther downstream in the Painted Woods region, two eagles came out
of the spring where the sky and earth meet and talked of going to live with the
Indians. One eagle liked the Awatixa and decided to live in that village while
the other decided to go farther south and be born among the Siwaxuwa. No one
knows today who the Siwaxuwa were but they were nomads and did not stay in
one place very long.

The two eagles selected villages to live in where they could be of great help to
the people. The eagle who wanted to live with the Awatixa came downstream to
the mouth of Knife River and entered the body of a woman where he knew every-
thing that happened even before he was born. It was not long after he was born
that he remembered his mission was to help the people by being their leader so he
carved out a wooden pipe. He thought that the people should have something
to use when they became ill so he selected the peppermint.®

60 See ‘‘The NaxpikE ceremony,”’ for the details of Spring Boy’s suffering.
61 This is the native interpretation of the plant. Pepper and Wilson identify it as one of the pennyroyals
that grow in moist places.

468 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Bull. 194

Hole in sky Big Medicine
came through.

Path followed

First fea) Speckled Eagle

Village Village (i-pi-ta'-pi)

Second er Bald Eagle
Village Village (ba-tuk)
Third

Village ci) Barred-Speckled

Eagle Village (tsa™tsi)

Fourth ee) Black—tipped

Village Eagle Village (ma-i-cu')

(Village origin of W.Buster and Knife Bundles)

Ficure 12.—Plan of eagle villages in the sky. (Drawn by Wolf Chief.)

He thought the people should have something to give them good luck when
their enemies attacked so he made up a corn ball to go with the pipe. He thought
that he would bring his friend who had gone to the enemy and that he would use
corn balls and pemmican to do this. He thought he would call the rain. The
people would have plenty of food so he decided to have a turtle on which to place
the peppermint when rain was wanted. He would have the buffalo skull in his
lodge and that would keep the animals near the village. All these things he
thought about and all these things he undertook to do.

When the year was dry he would use the turtles and sing the sacred song.
Then the rains came. Sometimes the buffaloes would stray far away and he
would build a small fire under the buffalo skull while hesang. Then the buffaloes
would come nearer and the people lived well.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 469

One day he told the people that it would be better to move farther upstream so
they settled at a place below Shell Creek where Henry Bad Gun lives today.
This must have been before the Hidatsa came for there is no mention of them in
the myth for the Hidatsa, when they came, did not like to have others build in
that territory. They stayed there 2 years and everything they did was successful
for this Holy Man was with them and protecting them. After 2 years, many
people called ‘‘People Who Live in the Woods to the East’”’ came out of a ravine
to the east and attacked the village.

The Eagle Man saw many enemies coming and said, “Wait a little before you
go out against them.”’ He took his pipe out and pointed towards the enemies
four times and said, ‘‘You warriors can go out now and attack them.”

While his people were fighting, he held the pipe out while singing the holy
songs and lightning came out of his eyes and broke a piece of the bowl from the
pipe. After the battle the Awatixa returned to their old village at the mouth
of Knife River. Many enemies came but each time he would take out the pipe
and his people would win.

He thought that he would give out corn balls and the peppermint to those who
made offerings to the pipe when seeking good health.

He thought of his friend with the Siwaxuwa for he knew everything that
happened there. His friend decided to come with his followers to kill off the
Awatixa so he would have his friend with him. The Fagle Man at Awatixa
knew all this and thought that it was a foolish idea to think of killing off all the
Awatixa. His friend had seven different tribes come together to help him and
he was the leader. The seven tribes were so far away that it would take them 4
days to come to Awatixa. The Eagle Man of Siwaxuwa started out ahead
saying that he would reach Awatixa first.

When he reached Awatixa, the other Eagle Man knew that his friend was at
the door. He had the pipe and corn balls ready beforehand and called his
friend in. The Eagle Man from Siwaxuwa said, “‘I have come for a great pur-
pose. You live here and drink this dirty Missouri River water. You have no
opportunity to get around and breathe the fresh prairie air. When it rains, it
is muddy here. I think this is a bad place to live. I have a better place there
with plenty of buffaloes. We stop at nice springs of good water; everything is
pleasant there.”

The Eagle Man from Awatixa said, ‘‘You are mistaken. We were eagles
before we came out of that spring. We were to live in the different tribes and
be of help to the people. I am lucky; I have a pipe to bring the buffaloes. Our
warriors are lucky too. We have all our owncorn. I do not think this is a bad
place at all. I do not think you are doing well. You said when we left the
spring that you were to be the cbief but I know that some of your people are
not contented. The water is dirty and brown and it tastes salty. Your people
are suffering from so much traveling. I prefer to have you here with me where
you will have a comfortable home and plenty of food. Then you would be here
forever. I told you that I have good water. I have the water right here and
I want you to try it.”

He gave his friend some of the water with the peppermint in it. He drank
and said that it was true. He began to shake.

He gave his friend corn balls and pemmican but his friend continued to shake
so he filled the pipe and gave it to him to smoke.

Eagle Man from Siwaxuwa bit the pipe and said, “‘Take good care of me, my
partner. I would rather stay here than come here to destroy your people. My
seven tribes will come in 4 days to attack you. Your men will kill them all up
to me. Hurry out then with your pipe and offer me a smoke. I will die after

710-195—65——31

470 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

I finish smoking. I want you out there for some of the others might shoot me
with arrows. Then there would be too much suffering.”

On the fourth day the attack was made and the Eagle Man hurried out with
his pipe. There were many arrows flying around and some were sticking in his
friend’s body. He said, ‘I told you to hurry; I am suffering a little now.” He
smoked the pipe and died.

When his friend was dead, he cut the other’s head off, breaking the Juneberry
stick inside. All the others at Awatixa fought long and killed off nearly all the
enemies. The people gave Knife River the name Walking-in-Water Creek by
which it is still known because the enemy were driven across the water. He took
his friend’s head home and put it in an anthill for the ants to clean the flesh from
the bones.

In 10 days the bones were cleaned of flesh so he fixed a platform on four posts
on which the skull rested. While he was doing this, the skull said, ‘‘Do not let
my head touch the ground. Put it on a soft place.” He fixed a place for it on
soft hides, painted it red, and left it on the platform he had prepared for it.

After that the people thought the Eagle Man from Siwaxuwa was very holy so
they often made offerings of corn mush to the skull. He could not eat it but his
friend sat beside him. He would offer a little to the skull and then eat the rest
himself. If he could not eat all of it, the Skull would say, “Don’t give any of
it to another; if you can’t eat it all, put it in the fire’ and the other would do
that. Whoever made an offering to the skull always got a small bunch of the
peppermint to rub on his body. Then he would get his strength back again.

The Eagle Man said, “The supernatural powers I have made and given to the
Awatixa will last forever; we will use these things for sickness and they will make
you strong.” After that they made offerings to the bundle and called the Eagle
Man “grandfather.” 8

Whenever the people wanted good luck, they made a sweat lodge, brought in
robes for payment to the bundle owner, and had the hot stones put in. The
Eagle Man would say, ‘‘You will be lucky and prosper.’”’ While he was living,
he would roll the pipe towards the enemy and the Awatixa would have no bad
luck.

One day Eagle Man said, “Before long I am going back to the eagles” and the
people wept. The people were sitting in a circle when he told them of his plans.
He added, “I belong to the Waterbuster clan. I am leaving so listen to what
I have tosay. After I die, take my head out and put it in an anthill until it is
clean of flesh. Then wrap it in a soft hide and place it beside my brother, the
other Eagle.“ Though my body is gone, my spirit will be here to look after you
and see that you have plenty of food. It may be that sometime you will need
rain; have both of our skulls placed on the ground with a hide under us; sprinkle
water with the peppermint on us and it will not be long until the clouds will
come from all directions. Since you have seen how I did it, anytime the enemy
comes, take out my skull and place it on the ground, and take the pipe out and
roll it on the ground. Then you will not have any difficulty killing off the enemy
just as I did. When you want the buffaloes, take our skulls and the buffalo
skull out and lift the pipe up. The buffaloes will come near the village. Any of
you who wish to, may make an offering of corn balls before I leave. I have
always eaten what my friend did not. Speak to us as though we were alive and

62 Pepper and Wilson said “‘chokecherry.”” Wolf Chief corrected this to read “‘Juneberry,’”’ as he claimed
the spinal cord was of the same wood as the arrows.

63 All the people so address the skulls. Those of the Four-clan moiety classify Eagle Man as a paternal
grandfather. This is consistent with the kinship system.

6 Note here Wolf Chief changes the kinship relationship between the two Eagle Men.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 471

tell us what you want. After you have made the offering of food, you can eat
the remainder. Throw what is left in the fire. When one wishes to make a
feast for us, he must prepare the sweat lodge. One will pour water on the stones
and tell what he wants. After my body is gone, the one who takes care of us
must be of the Waterbuster clan because we call ourselves holy.66 Whoever
takes care of us will live to old age.”

“Don’t permit running around on top of the lodge you keep us in. Whoever
takes care of us must keep it clean where we are kept. Then I will make a rule
that whoever takes care of us must not give any fire to any of the other lodge
groups who come asking for it. If they do not ask for fire but walk in quietly
and take some out carefully, do not say anything. If they ask for coals, do not
give it to them. No matter where you are, do not walk around in front of us
raising the dust.”

When he finished talking to his people, he covered his face with his robe and
died. The people of his clan did as requested; they put his head in the anthill
to clean the skull and then it was kept by a man of the Waterbuster clan. How
many kept these skulls no one knows, but there must have been many for the
people lived long in this village without being wiped out by their enemies. They
followed the rules carefully. When the buffaloes were far away, the bundle owner
took the skulls onto the lodge and the buffaloes returned. When there was no rain,
he took the skulls onto the roof and the rains came. When he came to old age
and died, another member of his clan took care of them and followed the same rules.

Wolf Chief supplied additional information on the beliefs and prac-
tices in his time, saying—

When I was a boy I knew Missouri River who took care of the bundle. He
belonged to the Waterbuster clan and came from Awatixa village, the new
village closer to the riverbank. He bought from Blackens-His-Moccasin
who was chief there. When Missouri River was getting old, my father gathered
together all the goods that he could and took the things to Missouri River, asking
for the right to holdthem. At that time there were many Waterbusters and they
agreed that it would be a good thing, for my father already had many holy things
which he had paid well for and had taken good care of. Right after he got the
skulls, the people appointed him leader of the winter village. This camp was on
the river bottoms near Blue Buttes. The people thought he would be lucky so
they appointed him leader. They went into the winter camp and were lucky all
winter with plenty to eat. Whenever there were hard times in the camp, he
would pray to the skulls and the game would come. Then in the spring they
went back to Fishhook Village.

Once the weather was dry and the crops were suffering. The people brought in
war bonnets and blankets to get my father to take the skulls out and pray for rain.
There was a feast and sweat lodge. Two days after that the rains came and
soaked the ground. Isaw him dothat myself. After he had called the rain and it
had cleared again, he called in all the older men. He told them that he had a
message from the skulls that something would happen during the summer to give
all the Indians glad hearts so that they would be enjoying themselves. Shortly
afterwards, the enemy came out in great numbers. I was 19 then and was in the
fight. We were not very numerous but the enemy numbered over 200. All the
while my father prayed to the skulls so we had good luck and drove the enemies

68 The meaning of this statement was not clear to Wolf Chief; perhaps it means that one must follow
instructions laid down by the gods and must not vary from the rules. During early historic times very
few clan bundles existed,

472 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Bull. 194

back. I had a fast horse and went ahead trying to catch up with them. When I
was close, they turned and shot. My horse dropped and Wolf Ghost ran in front
of me so I had no trouble saving myself. It was because my father was praying to
the skulls while the battle was in progress that I was able to do that.

Before my time, Missouri River was owner. He was holy because he kept holy
things. The Indians met and paid him many valuable things to be their winter
camp leader and he prayed to the skulls, ‘‘My people want me to be their leader
and to select the place for the winter camp. While I am the leader, I want
enough to eat and, should the enemy come, I want good luck for my people.’

Soon after going into camp, heavy snows came and lay deep on the ground.
Then the scouts reported many buffaloes coming toward the village. During the
winter some Sioux came with their pipe and a buffalo skull. It was the rule to
bring these things when seeking peace. Missouri River called all the older men in
and asked what should be done, whether to kill them off or not, since the Sioux had
brought in the pipe. They discussed the matter between themselves and left the
matter for Missouri River to decide saying, ‘‘Because you are leader, we want you
to decide for you have been successful in bringing the game and all of us are
happy.”

Missouri River said, “‘I see now that you people have smoked with them and fed
them for you have had them in your lodges. Already they are your friends. If
you had wanted to kill them off, it should have been done before they got into the
village. Now they are in so I think you should be friends to them and make
peace.”

The bundle also played an important part when Fishhook Village was built 6
years before I was born. The old men put Missouri River in charge of laying out
the village. He replied, “I am glad you have selected me because I have taken
good care of these skulls so we will surely have good luck.”

He walked around on the site where the village was to be built singing the holy
songs and then he said, addressing the Eagle Men, “‘I want to have the village here
so that my people will increase and be safe. I want four good men who are holy
and have had good dreams to decide on four places to build their lodges. I want
them to help me so that we will have good luck and always conquer our enemies.”

The older men met and selected Big Cloud first to put his lodge up to represent
the east. Then when the weather was dry he could bring rain, for he had had
dreams from Thunder. He was a good man and kind hearted. When he saw
children with dirty faces, he washed them. When they cried, he would pick
them up.

Big Cloud said, ‘‘I will do the best I can but I am not very powerful myself.
But I had a dream so I will talk to the Thunder whenever we need rain. I will
face to the east when we need rain and Thunder will do the things he promised me.”’

Again they talked it over and decided to pick a man for the south station.
Bear-Looks-Out was named to put his lodge to the south side to help look after
the village, bringing the buffaloes, calling the rain, and repelling the enemies.
He said, ‘‘By myself I have no power or strength to carry out these things. In my
dreams our Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies promised to help me. I will ask her to
help me. My grandmother, they appointed me to help direct this village and
I want your help.”’

Then they appointed Bad Horn to select a spot for his lodge and he said, “By
myself I cannot do very much, but my protector is a bear who will help us out. I
will have my entrance to the north for the bears always den up on the north
slopes with the door to the north. I hope that he will protect us and help us
along.”

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 473

Again they discussed the selection of the fourth man and named Missouri
River; he agreed to take the direction from whence the Eagle Men had come. He
stood up and prayed to the bundle.

After the four men who were the new leaders finished laying out the village, the
people got along very well and there were no hungry people. This happened
in the spring and there were good crops. A year later the Sioux came and tried
to get into the village from the back side. They failed and four of them were
killed. The people came out of their lodges and built fires where the Sioux could
watch. They scalped and cut up the Sioux; they burned their enemies’ bones
until only the ashes remained. The women sang and all were happy. Nearly
every year the enemies attacked the village but they could not get the people out.
Only when the people went out hunting or on war expeditions were our enemies
able to get at us. The people could not be run out of the village because they had
these four men whom they had selected for their protectors and the two Eagle
Men skulls which were part of this protection. [See pl. 12 for picture of this
bundle.]

KNIFE CLAN BUNDLE

According to Knife clan informants, the bundle rites for this clan
bundle followed the same pattern as that of the Waterbuster clan
bundle. These rites, having lapsed somewhat earlier than the Water-
buster rites, were not actively performed after the death of Medicine
Bird, the last bundle holder. Thus, it was not possible to obtain a
detailed account of the rites and practices associated with the bundle.
Medicine Bird obtained the bundle from an older member of the Knife
clan from Awatixa. Since his clansmen were not interested in the
bundle because of the costs of making the transfer after buffaloes
became scarce, he left the bundle in his son’s (Hunts Along) care.
The latter was ill at the time this study was made and was unwilling
to discuss the bundle as he was performing personal rites to the bundle
in hopes of affecting a cure.

Bears Arm, who also belonged to the Knife clan, stated that the
bundle consisted of two human skulls said to belong to two brothers
who came from above to live with the Awatixa to help them. For-
merly the two brothers, named Brush-Between-Horns and Goes-
Along-Between-Hills, were eagles living in one of the Eagle villages
in the sky. They entered the body of an Awatixa woman and were
born in the village where they helped the people repel their enemies.
When they were old, they told the people that they belonged to the
Knife clan and that their skulls should be retained in the village; then
the village would never be destroyed by the enemy. The bundle
was kept by one of the most eminent members of the Knife clan who
paid his clansmen for that privilege. Stirrup, the last bundle owner
at Awatixa, was one of the Council of Twelve selected by the three
villages at Knife River prior to 1837. According to Awatixa in-
formants, the top leadership at this village was vested in two bundle

474 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

owners, Blackens-his-Moccasin ® who kept the Waterbuster clan
bundle and Stirrup who kept the Knife clan bundle. The bundle
never attained the same importance as the Waterbuster clan bundle
after the death of Stirrup as several holders died or were killed in
warfare until it reached Medicine Bird shortly before 1870.

SUMMARY

Five distinct clan bundle rites were reported for the Hidatsa:
(1) A Waterbuster clan bundle which was owned by this group and
kept by one of their most distinguished male members at Awatixa
village; (2) a Knife clan bundle which was similarly owned and
transmitted through the male clan membership of Awatixa village;
(3) a Shell Robe bundle which was shared by the Awatixa and
Mandans of the Prairie Chicken clan and kept by the Mandan
(Bowers, 1950); (4) certain Thunder rites relating to Packs Antelope
which were shared by the members of the Low Cap clan, one of their
number retaining the bundle; (5) the Creek and Earth Lodge Making
rites traditionally belonging to the Xura clan of Awatixa.

The clustering of clan bundles at Awatixa raises numerous problems
concerning the bundle inheritance patterns for the three Hidatsa
village groups. The clan was not an important property-owning
eroup for the Hidatsa and Awaxawi, except for the eagle-trapping
lodges which also were clan-inherited with the Mandan, which raises
the question of the significance of clan bundles. In view of the
greater emphasis on clan inheritance by the Mandan, it is suggested
that the Awatixa borrowed this pattern from them. This belief is
strengthened by the traditional relations which the Awatixa and
Mandan have had over a very long time. In view of the fact that
this Hidatsa village group has traditions of long residence on the
Missouri near the Mandan, predating the arrival of the Hidatsa-
River Crow and Awaxawi, it would appear that clan-inheritance of
sacred bundles represents an older cultural stratum. This belief is
further strengthened by the archeological record on the Upper
Missouri where the late prehistoric-early historic site of this village
group shows a very long period of occupation not equaled by any of
the other Hidatsa groups for which we have traditional or archeo-
logical information.

Not only is there evidence of long and intimate contacts between
the Awatixa and Mandan village groups but, as in the case of the
Shell Robe bundle, ownership included all members of the Prairie
Chicken clan of Awatixa and the Mandan villages but did not include

6 For additional information on Blackens-his-Moccasin, see: Lewis, 1893, p. 184, and Catlin, 1841, vol. 1,
p. 186.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 475

the clansmen of Hidatsa and Awaxawi until after the building of
Fishhook Village. In the case of this important sacred bundle,
believed by both the Mandan and Awatixa to be very old, there were
distinct village versions of the origin myth.

The two sacred bundles containing male human skulls were both
clan bundles. As far as it was possible to determine, of all the
earth lodge village groups on the Upper Missouri, only among the
Mandan are other human skull bundles found. The Hidatsa and
Awaxawi seem to have made more universal use of earth burials near
the villages than the Heart River Mandan and Awatixa. The
latter two employed scaffold disposal with secondary disposal through
bundle burials of the bones, other than the skulls of males which were
placed at Sun Bundle shrines situated at the edge of the village.
Women, on the other hand, were more frequently buried in cache
pits under or near their lodges.

When the bundle systems of the three Hidatsa villages are examined
trait for trait, the Awatixa occupied a position intermediate to the
Mandan with their highly developed clan-inheritance system on the
one hand and the Hidatsa—Awaxawi on the other with a father-to-son
system. It is interesting to note that it was only with the union
of the three Hidatsa village groups at Fishhook Village that clans
from the three village groups participated in these clan rites.

HIDATSA CULTURAL POSITION IN THE NORTHERN
PLAINS

No reference to the Hidatsa communities was made in the historic
accounts of traders and explorers prior to 1797 when Thompson
distinguished them from their immediate neighbors, the Mandan,
on the basis of linguistic and minor cultural differences. At this
time they were living in earth lodge villages at the mouth of the
Knife River. The village of the Hidatsa-proper was on the north
bank, the village of the Awatixa was on the south bank at the river’s
edge, and the village of the Awaxawi was situated a short distance
to the south on the spot where the courthouse in the town of Stanton,
N. Dak., stands today. By the time of Lewis and Clark—1804-6—it
was known that the Hidatsa and Crow were closely related
linguistically, that they were previously one people, and that they
had maintained close social ties even after the Crow had moved out
onto the plains west of the Missouri River as nomadic hunters.

Although these early traders and travelers recorded several migra-
tion accounts for the Hidatsa and Crow, some of which are
contradictory if one views the Hidatsa as a single unified group,
these apparent contradictions tend to disappear if one examines
each village group as an independent social unit. One version of
Hidatsa-Crow history deals with the Mandan account of first
encountering a strange people who appeared on the east bank of
the Missouri River at the mouth of Heart River and called across.
The Mandan, not understanding their language, said that “they want
to cross” or minitadi, by which name the people of Hidatsa village
were thereafter known. This version relates how the Minitadi
tasted of the Mandan corn, which they liked, and how they agreed
to return with their people in 4 days. This lengthened into 4 years
at which time the Minitadi and the Crow appeared on the east bank
of the Missouri and were ferried across in Mandan bullboats. They
lived with the westside Mandan for a short time until a quarrel
occurred between the Hidatsa and the Crow, the latter then moving
out on the plains to the west as nomads, and the Hidatsa moving
northward along the Missouri where they set up separate villages.

Historical anthropology of these village Indians must take into
account general movements of related groups and specific movements
of local groups. Mandan and Arikara migration myths tell of their

476

[Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 477

southern origin downstream: the Mandan reached White River from
the east, where they set up villages, and then migrated upstream until
they reached the Heart River where some had lived so long that that
area was thought of as “the heart of the universe.”” The Arikara had
recently separated from the Skidi Pawnee to settle on the Missouri
River in what is now the State of South Dakota where they planted
their corn and built their earth lodge villages until losses from epidem-
ics and pressures from the Sioux forced them, too, to migrate upstream,
abandoning their ancient villages which were observed in ruins by
Lewis and Clark in 1804.

Granting the validity of these migration myths as indicative of the
general direction of population shifts in the Great Plains, the wide-
spread movements of local groups to many localities during historic
times is consistent with the long-time archeological picture of the
region. Prior to 1930, those writing on the history of the three village
tribes, the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara, tended to treat each as a
close-knit political group of related villages moving as a tribal unit
when the wood and other resources were consumed, At that time
it was believed that a single cultural tradition was shared by all of
them. Other than the Mandan, whose late prehistoric archeology
had been studied by Will and Spinden, little was known of the archeol-
ogy of the Hidatsa and Arikara.

In 1930, a Logan Museum field party excavated the first rectangular
lodge discovered on the Missouri. It was found to deviate sharply
from the well-known circular lodge tradition. It was suggested that
a second and earlier lodge tradition might exist locally on the Missouri
River in areas formerly occupied by these three tribes. In this site,
39ST1, known today as the Cheyenne River site, surface features in
part of the habitation area suggested other large rectangular lodges.
Part of the area of the site had been occupied by the Arikara in his-
toric times. Outlines of a rectangular lodge were discovered under-
lying the historic level in a stratigraphic position which preceded the
earliest White contacts. A considerable interval between the two oc-
cupations was further evident by the fact that the outlines of historic
Arikara graves cut the outlines of the ruins of these earlier lodges.
So far as is known today, this was the first actual discovery of the
reoccupation of an ancient village site by an agricultural group of a
second tradition.

Those who had previously surveyed and excavated in earth lodge
sites along the Missouri River in North Dakota and South Dakota
took little note of this new evidence. Rectangular loghouses had
commonly been built at the Mandan and Hidatsa villages near Knife
River by White traders living with the Indians and married to Indian
women. Although our researches at that time did not establish the

478 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

presence of any European trade material in this association, pottery
now known to closely resemble that of the Riggs site north of Pierre
was found. Not knowing at that stage of researches in the Plains
what prehistoric Arikara pottery looked like, it was assumed by us
that the difference in pottery at these two levels was due to the rapid
deterioration of the potter’s art under White trader influence and the
introduction of metal vessels. Numerous heavily grassed sites along
the Missouri River showed similar lodge outlines, but the Logan
Museum site maps of that time, and those prepared by Will and
Spinden, were drawn to indicate circular lodges, it being assumed that
surface disturbances by wind and water must have altered their
original circular outlines.

A few years later, the North Dakota Historical Society with WPA
funds excavated extensively in that State and confirmed the existence
of rectangular lodges at Huff site in North Dakota. This find was
followed by numerous similar discoveries by W. H. Over and E. E.
Meleen working in South Dakota. In 1952, Woolworth excavated
“Grandmother’s Lodge,” known by my informants as the ‘Sacred
Lodge of the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies’”’ who was held in reverence
by the Hidatsa, Crow, and Mandan. This lodge was found to con-
form to the same general rectangular dimensions of lodges in certain
village sites downstream along the Missouri River to Chamberlain,
S. Dak. These discoveries provide us with a new image of the cul-
tural history of the region.

When field researches there were first undertaken, it was generally
assumed that agricultural villages were not at most more than a few
hundred years old. As early as 1924, George F. Will indicated that
certain sites near the southern border of North Dakota, which his
Mandan informants claimed were older than those at the mouth of
Heart River, had types of pottery which he identified as characteristic
of the older sites of Cannonball, Fort Rice, Shermer, Glencoe, Eagle’s
Nose, Bad Water, Holbrook, and Ward. He distinguished them from
the later sites such as Slant, Motsiff, Scattered, Boley, Sperry, and
Burgois. My Hidatsa informants identify only Scattered as their
ancient residence.

A cultural history of the village Indians has been slow to evolve
for a number of reasons: (1) The early researchers assumed that
agriculture was late to reach the river valleys of the Great Plains and
that the relatively homogeneous culture of the Hidatsa, Mandan, and
Arikara which they saw in Historic times was characteristic of the
entire period of their residence in the Plains; (2) knowing only one or
two local areas, they had little knowledge of the large number of sites,
running into the hundreds, which dot virtually every well-drained
river terrace; and (3) methods and techniques for observation and

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 479

analysis had to be developed in the field in conjunction with their
researches.

By 1946, Mr. Will had been able to introduce time-depth into his
field researches, employing tree-ring analysis techniques to old posts
found in agricultural village sites near Bismarck. Based on observed
cultural changes and differences existing within the same village and
between villages, in 1939 I set a minimum date of A.D. 1300 for the
small, unfortified, rectangular, lodge sites situated along the Missouri
River from the Big Bend to the Clarks Creek regions, after which
time this earlier native population began building the larger fortified
sites with bastions.

However, recent carbon-14 tests on wood from these ancient rec-
tangular lodge sites, now recognized as preceding the circular earth
lodges, have established A.D. 700 as the earliest date for this agri-
cultural tradition. And this date does not take into consideration
still earlier Woodlands cultures in the Plains which bear evidence of
limited agriculture.

Based on the survival of numerous items of the material culture of
this rectangular-lodge tradition of the Missouri River Aspect after
the transition to the historic circular lodges of the Mandan and
Hidatsa, the architectural features of the ceremonial lodge of the
Mandan, and their well-founded traditions of former employment of
rectangular lodges, the history of the Mandan is now seen as a con-
tinuous cultural development on the Middle Missouri extending over
a period of nearly 1,000 years. Beginning with the original Mandan
researches by Will and Spinden, and employing all the techniques of
the archeologist and ethnologist, we see emerging the image of the
continuous valley residence of a single people—the Mandan of Lewis
and Clark’s era—which can be matched in few places in the United
States.

Simultaneously with the abandonment of the small unfortified
communities and the reorganization of this original population into
larger fortified communities (the Oak Creek site in South Dakota;
Huff, Ward, and Shermer sites in North Dakota), there was a general
and large-scale invasion by a people with Central Plains Upper
Republican cultural ties. These people quickly took over most of the
valley upstream nearly to the North Dakota border. Locally, they
united with the indigneous and other peoples from the east at the
Arzberger site. There, one tradition in pottery (check-stamping
and cord-roughened bodies), which is widely represented in the Lake
Traverse, lower loop of the Sheyenne River, and the Red River Valley
of eastern North Dakota, is well represented. ‘These distinctive
combinations of body types in association with crosshatched rims,
dark color, and other diagnostic traits, characteristic of the some-

480 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

what later Schultz site on the Sheyenne River southwest of Fargo,
N. Dak., have not been reported for locales upstream from the Arz-
berger site until one reaches the traditional homeland of the Hidatsa
north of the Square Buttes in sites which my older Hidatsa informants
identify as those they occupied before moving to the mouth of the
Knife River.

This mass migration into the Missouri Valley of South Dakota
seems to have come about as a consequence of an extensive drought
in the central plains which occurred about A.D. 1450. It resulted in
the displacement of many of the original inhabitants, the realinement
of populations, and the introduction of many new cultural traits
which produced local cultures now identified as belonging to the Chou-
teau or Slope Aspect. In South Dakota, there was a northward move-
ment from the western tributaries of the Missouri River in Nebraska
of the ancestral Arikara. There occurred simultaneously an east-
ward movement, along the tributaries of the Missouri River in South
Dakota, of the ancestors of the southern Mandan who had already
changed considerably both linguistically and culturally from those
who had long lived on the Missouri. As our knowledge of the arche-
ology of the sites of the Chouteau Tradition or Aspect grows, it is
becoming increasingly evident, however, that a majority of these
sites represents the various branches of the ancestral Arikara.

These newcomers to the Northern Missouri Valley introduced: A
new house type, square to roughly circular in outline with the four-
post support for the roof and weak peripheral wall posts; distinctive
incised-decorated pottery designs; a high regard for catlinite; simple
fortifications with or without bastions, which evolved to simple en-
circling ditches; distinctive flaking tools cut from the edges of buffalo
vertebrae; and other tools from bone. A few cultural differences
between these earliest sites suggest that regional differences probably
already existed.

When these two populations of agriculturalists came together,
there followed widespread cultural borrowing between those belonging
to the Missouri Valley Aspect and those of the Chouteau or Slope
Aspect. The most significant change for the people of the Missouri
Valley Aspect was the adoption of the four-post roof support to a
small square lodge with rounded corners by those who had formerly
built large rectangular lodges. Those peoples of this tradition, living
chiefly upstream from the Grand River, soon modified these small
four-post lodges by the addition of rather heavy forked peripheral
posts usually 12 to 13 in number, and 6-7 feet high, against which
they leaned wooden slabs set back 5-6 feet to form a distinctive
feature which in later years the Historic Hidatsa referred to as the
atutish area. The southern groups downstream from the Cannonball

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 481

River continued to set the peripheral posts near the edge of the lodge
as uprights, without the atutish section, until protohistoric times
at the Rygh site. This Mandan—Hidatsa earth lodge type did not
appear in the south until somewhat later at the Swan Creek site,
upper horizon, and the Cheyenne River and Leavensworth sites.

In 1929, while excavating at the Larson site north of Bismarck,
N. Dak., the field party from the Logan Museum excavated an earth
lodge in the oldest and unfortified section of the site which showed
that the atutish area was characteristic of their lodges at this time.
Further excavations in the Hensler or Van Oosting site again re-
vealed that the leaners had been set out 5-6 feet from the peripheral
posts. Tree-ring dating for the Mandan village at the Larson site
by Mr. Will showed occupation between A.D. 1615 and 1641. The
Hensler site, although somewhat more recent in age, was still clearly
precontact and in the Mandan tradition. A ceremonial lodge north
of the ‘‘open circle” of the Hensler site had the traditional double
row of eight central posts, a flat front facing the center of the open
circle, a short entryway, roughly parallel long sides, and a rounded
back that consisted of uprights set in slightly from the vertical.
This lodge’s upright back had been rebuilt by extending it back
and forth several times.

Unlike the Mandan, who have traditions of once living in large
rectangular lodges and who think of their ceremonial lodge as roughly
rectangular rather than circular, the Hidatsa have no traditions of
earth-covered lodges other than with the four-post frame, heavy
peripheral posts, and the atutish area, or the small eagle trapping
lodge set up on a four-post foundation like a tipi. This would indi-
cate to me that the Hidatsa did not come onto the Missouri River
to live until after 1615, as a minimum date. By this time, the rec-
tangular lodge was no longer used as a residence by the Heart River
or Northern Mandan. The Awatixa who have traditions of longest
residence on the Missouri refer to the first lodges built there as having
the atutish as described in the myth of the ‘‘Sacred Arrows” (see
p. 305) when twins were ripped from their mother by a monster, one
becoming known as Atutish or ‘‘Edge-of-the-Lodge,”’ which is that
section of the earth lodge extending from the peripheral posts to the
wall where things were stored.

Some have thought that the Hidatsa came from the prairies as
nomads, settled with the Mandan, and took over their culture in
a matter of a few years. Reexamination of Hidatsa traditions, which
I analyzed for this study in 1932 and 1933, and new information at
hand on the archeology of the Northern Plains confirm native tradi-
tions of separate and independent migrations of the various Hidatsa
and Crow groups coming to the Missouri at different times. When

482 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

this study was undertaken in 1932, I was able to distinguish three
distinct Hidatsa migration accounts. Those informants whose
parents came from Awatixa village on the south bank of the Knife
River claimed that they had always lived upstream from the mouth
of the Heart River and they had no traditions of living elsewhere
than on the Missouri River. The Awaxawi descendants gave an
account of their ancestors’ migrations which was essentially the same
as recorded by Thompson in 1797; to the effect that they had pre-
viously lived along the streams to the east until a few generations
prior to 1797 when they moved to the banks of the Missouri River.
These informants claimed that their ancestors came to the Missouri
River as agriculturalists and continued a way of life which was char-
acteristic of their eastern residence. The Hidatsa-proper claimed to
be the last to reach the Missouri River, coming there from the north-
east as nomads, having “lost their corn” while residing north of
Devils Lake. The various Hidatsa and Mandan traditions con-
cerning the Crow Indians seem to have validity in that they believed
that the Crow Indians residing west of the Missouri River came by
two or more major migrations from their eastern homeland near the
headwaters of the Red River of the North as agriculturalists, lin-
guistically related to the Awatixa, while others came from the north-
east as nomadic hunters as part of the Hidatsa-proper-River Crow
linguistic group, known prior to their separation as the Mirokac.

This would then have been the picture of distribution of the Hidatsa
and Crow groups five or six generations prior to 1797: The western
branch of the Hidatsa—Crow would have been composed of an agri-
cultural group—the ancestors of the Awatixa—living upstream from
Square Buttes and a closely related nomadic group comprised of
small bands living on the Plains to the west; a cluster of agricultural
villages on the lower Sheyenne River and headwaters of the Red
River, the survivors of this area becoming the Awaxawi when they
moved to the banks of the Missouri River north of the Square Buttes;
the Mirokac living as nomads in the Devils Lake area and to the
north until they migrated southwestward to the Missouri. There
some continued to live as nomads, to become the River Crow, and
the others adopted the earth lodge and agriculture, settling upstream
from the mouth of the Knife River as the Hidatsa-proper.

These native traditions of the various Hidatsa—Crow groups are
borne out, in part, by recent archeological studies conducted in many
areas of the Northern Plains traditionally occupied by these peoples.
A significant group of sites on the Missouri River, between Square
Buttes and the Knife River, traditionally occupied by the various
Hidatsa groups, are found, from an analysis of lodge forms, village
organization of lodges, and pottery types and frequencies, to be es-

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 483

sentially alike and to differ in several respects from the contempora-
neous Mandan living near the mouth of the Heart River. The
diagnostic traits of this Painted Woods Focus are: Circular earth
lodges with a well-defined atutish area or section; absence of
specialized ceremonial lodges, open circles, or ceremonial areas; in-
discriminate arrangement of lodges; absence of fortifications; distinc-
tive pottery types and ranges not characteristic of the contemporary
Mandan sites nearby. Type “‘S’’ rims fall well below the range for
the Mandan while thickened rims, formed by the addition of a narrow
band, are common. The incidence of check-stamped rims runs as
high as 18 percent of the collection at the Fort Clark Station site a
few miles downstream from the mouth of the Knife River. Check-
stamped pottery bodies comprise 40 percent of the collection at the
Upper Sanger site, and cord-roughened bodies comprise 6.6 percent
at the Fort Clark Station site.

The contemporaneous Mandan sites show numerous differences
from these identifiable earliest Hidatsa sites on the Missouri River.
Lodges were identical for both groups and had the well-defined
atutish section. The Mandan preserved an open area within the
village, a specialized ceremonial lodge distinctive in structure from
the habitation lodge, and a plaza complex consisting of an upright
cedar post, an adjacent ceremonial lodge, and habitation lodges which
faced the open circle.

There were numerous similarities in the pottery of the two tradi-
tions, the Mandan villages of the Heart River Focus and the Hidatsa
villages of the Painted Woods Focus, which indicate that there had
been a long period of intervalley contacts prior to the arrival of the
Hidatsa on the Missouri. Evidence of this association is borne out by
the fact that, trait for trait, these early Hidatsa sites on the Missouri
closely resemble several sites in southeastern North Dakota along the
lower section of the Sheyenne River. At the Shultz site near Lisbon,
the pottery types and frequencies of types more closely resemble that
found on the Missouri River in sites of the Painted Woods Focus than
that found in traditional Mandan sites only 2 or 3 miles away. Check-
stamp ware was never characteristic of the Missouri Valley or Chou-
teau traditions on the Missouri, but is very common in southeastern
North Dakota and thence northward into Canada. It is found
in the Devils Lake area and westward into the Mouse River drainage
and thence westward to the Yellowstone River as far west as Forsyth,
Mont., in a region that in late prehistoric times was traditionally
occupied by the various Hidatsa and Crow groups. It appears
occasionally in the Mandan sites near the Heart River by the time
of the establishment of the Huff and Shermer sites, at least a century
prior to the building of the first Hidatsa villages on the Missouri.

484. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Its presence in these Mandan sites at this early date suggests that
overland contacts between the Missouri and the Red River of the
North existed long before the first Hidatsa—Crow groups settled on
the Missouri. Extensive cultural exchange of other traits between
the two areas continued until this westward movement of Hidatsa—
Crow was terminated with the final arrival of the Mirokac.

Continued cultural borrowing between earth lodge peoples living
along the Missouri River and these western tributaries of the Red
River of the North even after the abandonment of the eastern area
by the Hidatsa—Crow, is indicated by the many common traits
of the historic Cheyenne of the same general region as noted by Strong
in his excavations at the Biesterfeldt site. This site, however, shows
closer cultural ties to the historic Arikara than to the Mandan or
Hidatsa.

Thus, the record from native traditions, accounts of early discov-
erers, and archeology are in general agreement that the various
Hidatsa and Crow bands reached the Plains from the western edge
of the Woodlands as independent and separate groups. They came
prior to the first White penetration of the Missouri Valley and after
the Mandan had already become firmly established there. This
penetration of the Plains seems to have been a friendly one as far as
the Mandan are concerned; we find no mention in their traditions of
any conflicts, and the earliest Hidatsa villages were not fortified.
The earlier Mandans, with their rectangular lodge tradition, had
built villages as far upstream as Clarks Creek near the mouth of
Knife River. There may have been some settlements farther up-
stream, for the ‘Sacred Lodge of the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies,”’
was of this tradition (of which the Hidatsa had no memories when this
study was made).

We must assume that the various Hidatsa groups came to the
Missouri Valley a few at a time. They settled above the mouth of
the Heart River in areas abandoned by the Mandan as they moved
from an independent village system to a more centralized tribal orga-
nization and built the large, long-occupied, and strongly fortified
Slant, Motsiff, Scattered, Boley, Larson, and Double-ditch villages.
Dialectic differences between these west-side communities of Nuitadi
Mandans at the Heart River had disappeared until the later arrival
of a small southern branch of Awigaxa Mandans, who had remained
near the Grand River until after A.D. 1700, and a somewhat larger
group known as the Nuptadi Mandan who had built at Double-ditch
site prior to that date, they, too, coming north relatively late in
prehistoric times. By A.D. 1700 the Mandan in the villages listed
above were developing astrong tribal organization which was composed
of the Nuptadi and Nuitadi linguistic groups. The Awigaxa Mandan,

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 485

a peripheral linguistic group, also maintained friendly ties with the
northern Arikara until the smallpox epidemics and the encroachment
of the Sioux forced them to enter into new alliances for mutual defense.

The other two earth lodge groups, the Arikara to the south and
the Hidatsa to the north, seem not to have achieved the characteristics
of a tribal organization until after the smallpox epidemics of the 18th
century. There is archeological evidence that some of the original
Arikara communities attempted consolidation at the Fort Sully site
during protohistoric times, building one huge village of several hundred
lodges and multiple ceremonial lodges. The next major Arikara con-
solidation did not occur until about A.D. 1800. Lewis and Clark,
1804, found them in the two Cottonwood (Leavenworth) sites and a
third community on Ashley Island at the mouth of Oak Creek. It
appears that even at that time there was no particular tendency on
the part of the Arikara to set up a unified tribal organization from
among the survivors of the many abandoned villages mentioned by
Lewis and Clark. One group of Arikara, representing the survivors
of the northern branch living near the Grand River in close associa-
tion with the Awigaxa Mandan, made numerous resettlements of the
old Greenshield site opposite Washburn, N. Dak., as close neighbors
of the Awigaxa Mandans who had settled near there. Peace could
not be maintained between these northern Arikara and the Nuitadi
and Nuptadi Mandan; old animosities were revived and conflicts soon
arose. As a result, these Arikara came to the Greenshield site to
rebuild their homes several times between 1785 and 1820. They
then moved in with the other two Arikara groups at the Cottonwood
sites where they were found during the Leavenworth campaign. The
Awigaxa Mandan eventually joined with the Nuitadi Mandan at
Fort Clark and, after one final quarrel when they moved back down-
stream only to be reunited at Fort Clark a few years later, were
absorbed by the latter.

The Hidatsa settlements on the Missouri upstream from their
culturally related neighbors were, by and large, accepted by the
Mandan without friction. There is no memory of any intertribal
conflict. The Awatixa, who have longest traditions of residence on
the Missouri, acted as a buffer against aggression by nomadic groups
from the north, and their close linguistic and friendly ties with the
Mountain or Western Crow gave the Mandan protection from that
direction. The long association of this group with their southern
Mandan neighbors is reflected in their culture as described above;
in trait after trait they more closely resembled the Mandan than the
other Hidatsa groups. With the single exception of temporary resi-
dence at Scattered Village with the Mandan where the present city
of Mandan stands, they have generally lived upstream from Square

710-195-6532

486 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Buttes. Old Awatixa site on the south bank of the Knife River was
their principal residence.

Traditional, historical, and archeological evidence indicate that the
Awaxawi were the next group to settle on the Missouri River, coming
there from the western tributaries of the Red River of the North by
way of Devils Lake. They were agricultural Indians with a knowledge
of the earth lodge and a culture that had already been strongly influ-
enced by their distant overland contacts with the Mandan and the
Awatixa Hidatsa. They settled in the Square Butte to Washburn
area in closer association with the Mandan than with the Awatixa.
The Hidatsa and River Crow came to the Missouri River as nomadic
hunters and took over the unoccupied area upstream from the mouth
of the Knife River. Some of these people adopted agriculture from
the Mandan and their closely related linguistic neighbors, the Awatixa
and Awaxawi, to become the Hidatsa-proper. Those who remained
nomadic moved upstream and onto the lower Yellowstone River to
become the River Crow.

Once established on the Missouri River, the more numerous Hidatsa
and River Crow would not permit the other Hidatsa groups to settle
above them on the river. War once broke out between the Hidatsa-
proper and the Awaxawi when the latter attempted to move upstream
beyond the Knife River and the Awaxawi, for a while thereafter, lived
near Fort Yates with the agricultural Cheyenne.

When the smallpox epidemic of the last part of the 18th century
broke out in the earth lodge villages on the Missouri River, the Hidatsa-
proper and Awatixa were at the mouth of Knife River, the Awaxawi
and Awigaxa Mandan were in the Painted Woods region, and the
Nuptadi and Nuitadi Mandan were in the vicinity of the Heart River
in six or more large villages. 'The combined Mandan-Hidatsa popu-
lation must have been well in excess of 12,000 people, the Hidatsa
eroups constituting about one-third of the combined population.
The combined Arikara population, apparently twice as numerous as
the combined Hidatsa—Mandan population and living in twice as many
villages between the Grand River on the north and the Big Bend to the
south, suffered even greater losses than their neighbors to the north
where the epidemic wiped out approximately 75 percent of the
population.

Prior to this time, with the exception of the Mandan near the
mouth of Heart River, this agricultural population on the Missouri
River had been widely dispersed. Reorganization of the native pop-
ulation was hastened by the invasion of the Sioux in large numbers
to the area. The Arikara concentrated near Grand River, the three
Hidatsa groups concentrated at the mouth of the Knife River, and the
Mandan moved upstream and settled a few miles below the Hidatsa

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 487

for mutual defense against their common enemies. These mutual
defense measures were taken just prior to A.D. 1800 as a means of
protection against their more numerous nomadic neighbors.

By 1837-38, following another severe smallpox epidemic that nearly
exterminated the Mandan and Hidatsa, the Arikara appeared on the
Knife River, having been nomadic hunters in the Western Plains after
their gardens had failed from drought a few years earlier. There
they appropriated the Nuitadi Mandan village, and joined with the
Mandan-Hidatsa survivors in a mutal defense pact against the Sioux
and other nomadic neighbors. In 1845, Fishhook Village was built
by the Hidatsa and Nuitadi Mandans. The other Mandans re-
mained near the Arikara until after 1860 when they, too, came to
Fishhook Village. ‘Ten years later, most of the survivors of Hidatsa
Village on the Knife River, under the leadership of Bobtail Bull and
Crow-Flies-High, moved to the mouth of the Yellowstone where they
lived until forced to return to the Fort Berthold Reservation. They
established a settlement at Shell Village apart from the other Hidatsa.

To understand cultural differences and similarities among the vari-
ous agricultural communities, one must take into account their sepa-
rate histories. Hidatsa family, kinship, and clan loyalties have been
strong while tribal loyalties have been weak. This has produced a
system whereby some Hidatsa-proper bands have felt stronger loyal-
ties to some River Crow bands than to their nearest neighbors, the
Awatixa. Likewise, the Awaxawi have occasionally had closer ties
with the Awigaxa Mandan or the earth lodge Cheyenne than with
the Hidatsa-proper or the Awatixa. The Awatixa have had closer
ties with the Mandan through cultural exchange than with the more
nomadic Hidatsa-proper and, in the past, expressed little concern
when many of the latter talked of rejoining the River Crow.

From what we have been able to determine, the Mandan had been
more successful than the other groups in developing a tribal system.
The Awigaxa Mandan, nevertheless, retained closer cultural ties with
certain northern Arikara groups until after 1800. The Arikara, too,
had their fraction group which was not completely integrated until
after 1820.

At the time the first Whites reached the Missouri River during
the 18th century, the Village Indians had a common basic culture
which was of long standing in the river valleys of the Plains and had
spread eastward to the tributaries of the Red River of the North.
It was founded on common agricultural plants, tools, and technology.
The summer villages were composed of semipermanent earth-cov-
ered lodges sufficiently large to shelter an extended family. Minor
differences in design of lodges had disappeared. ‘The winter season
was normally spent in the lower wooded valleys where the popula-

488 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

tion depended primarily on the animals they hunted. The eagle-
trapping techniques had become standardized. Their material
culture was exceedingly similar throughout several hundred miles of
Village Indian occupation along the Missouri River and in such areas
as the lower Sheyenne River to the east.

However, as one delves deeper into the archeology of the area,
and comes to acquire greater understanding of these cultures through
careful examination and with the aid of native informants familiar
with their ancient culture, numerous differences come to light. Cat-
linite was uncommon in the village sites of the rectangular lodge
tradition and in later Mandan sites, but it was common in sites of
the Chouteau and Painted Woods tradition. On analysis of Mandan
traditions and values, one learns that there was a strong prejudice
against the use of redstone pipes for ceremonial functions which was
not shared by the Arikara and Hidatsa. The Mandan preferred
the large, carved, wooden pipe as did the Awatixa who had lived
longest on the Missouri River near them. Shell beads were popular
in the Missouri Valley tradition and unimportant in the Chouteau
tradition.

The open circle or plaza of the Mandan was of long standing with
them and their image of the community was built around this com-
plex. Recent fieldwork in South Dakota and carbon-14 dates for
that area indicate that this ceremonial complex was developed before
the invasion of the region by Chouteau tradition peoples and that it
was not adopted by the Arikara until nearly protohistoric times.
Clearly indetifiable ceremonial lodge complexes, as yet unreported for
the Arikara, antedate their first appearance in South Dakota by
several centuries.

Even as late as 1933, Mandan informants were reluctant to dis-
cuss knowledge of this sacred complex. Hidatsa informants had no
knowledge of sacred areas in their villages or separate ceremonial
lodges, and archeology confirms this. Like the Mandan, the Awa-
tixa believed that each village ought to have an outstanding sacred
bundle owner stationed at each of the four directions within the vil-
lage to sound alarms sent by their bundles whenever danger was at
hand and to assist the head chiefs. This belief and practice was not
shared by the other Hidatsa groups. It was the type of village
organization that was employed when Fishhook village was built
in 1845. There is neither traditional nor archeological evidence
that the Hidatsa groups ever adopted the earth-covered ceremonial
lodge.

We also find that the Awatixa, like the Mandan, commonly trans-
mitted property of a sacred nature through the matrilineal line
rather than from father to son as was the practice among other
Hidatsa groups,

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 489

It is evident that the Mandan have influenced the Hidatsa more than
the Hidatsa have influenced the Mandan. The oldest Hidatsa sites
have distinctive types and frequencies of pottery that are not charac-
teristic of the Mandan, and these had all dropped out by historic
times with the adoption of the more popular Mandan types. Their
age-crade military society system and women’s age-grade societies
were, in many instances, borrowed from the Mandan, even within the
memory of the grandparents of native informants living in 1933. A
common clan system was developing from two traditions, a 13-clan
system of the Hidatsa-proper and Awaxawi, which was shared by the
Crow, and a 7- or 8-clan system characteristic of the Awatixa. Their
clan systems, through close contacts with the Mandan, were equated
to extend cooperative ties across tribal lines.

It can be said that the Hidatsa enjoyed little of the cultural stability
of the Mandan after their final arrival from the east. They had
shifted from a marginal agricultural region to one possessing a highly
developed agricultural system of long standing. Some had even
come as marginal hunters and gatherers from the northeastern edge
of the Great Plains and had undergone significant internal cultural
changes brought about by their close association with Village Indians
living near Heart River on the Missouri. They adopted social dances
from the Sioux and passed them on to the Crow. They borrowed many
curing rites from the Assiniboin which enriched their ceremonial
life. Their ancient way of life was being rapidly enriched by their
many new contacts on the Missouri when these processes were abruptly
terminated with the extermination of the buffaloes, the conquest of
their enemies by the U.S. Army, and their forced removal to the Fort
Berthold Reservation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BrecxwitTu, Martua W.

1938. Mandan-Hidatsa myths and ceremonies. Amer. Folk-Lore Soc.

Mem., vol. 32.
BENEDIcT, RuTH.

1922. The vision in Plains culture. Amer. Anthrop., n.s., vol. 24, No. 1,

pp. 1-23.
BopMER, Kart.

1906. Travels in the interior of North America, 1832-1834. In “Early
western travels, 1748-1846,” ed. by Reuben Gold Thwaites, vol.
25. Cleveland.

Bouter, Henry A.
1868. Among the Indians. Eight years in the far West: 1858-1866.
Philadelphia.
Bowers, ALFRED W.
A history of the Mandan and Hidatsa. MS., Ph.D. dissertation,
Univ. Chicago, 1948.
1950. Mandan social and ceremonial organization. Univ. Chicago Press.
BRACKENRIDGE, Henry M.

1904. Journal of a voyage up the river Missouri; performed in eighteen
hundred and eleven. Jn ‘‘Early western travels, 1748-1846,” ed.
by Reuben Gold Thwaites, vol. 6. Cleveland.

BRADBURY, JOHN.

1904. Travels in the interior of America in the years 1809, 1810, and 1811.
In “Early western travels, 1748-1846,” ed. by Reuben Gold
Thwaites, vol. 5. Cleveland.

BusHNELL, Davin I., sr.

1922. Villages of the Algonquian, Siouan, and Caddoan tribes west of the
Mississippi. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 77.

1927. Burials of the Algonquian, Siouan and Caddoan tribes. Bur. Amer.
Ethnol. Bull. 83.

CATLIN, GEORGE.

1841. The manners, customs and condition of the North American Indians.
London.

1867. O-kee-pa: a religious ceremony; and other customs of the Mandans.
London.

CuHarpon, Francis A.
1932. Chardon’s journal at Fort Clark, 1834-1839. Ed. by Annie Heloise
Abel. Pierre, S. Dak.
Curtis, Epwarp §S.
1907a. The Absaroke, or Crow, the Hidatsa. Jn ‘“‘The North American
Indian,” ed. by Frederick W. Hodge, vol. 4. Univ. Press,
Cambridge.
1907 b. The Mandan. In ‘The North American Indian,” ed. by Frederick
W. Hodge, vol. 5. Univ. Press, Cambridge.

490

[Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 491

DENSMORE, FRANCES.
1923. Mandan and Hidatsa music. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 80.
Eqa@aaNn, FReEp, EpIiTor.

1937. The social anthropology of North American tribes. Univ. Chicago

Press.
GRINNELL, GEORGE B.

1923. The Cheyenne Indians, their history and ways of life. 2 vols.

Yale Univ. Press.
Haypen, F. V.

1863. Contributions to the ethnography and philology of the Indian tribes
of the Missouri Valley. Amer. Philos. Soc. Trans., n.s., vol. 12,
art. 3, pp. 231-462.

Henry, ALEXANDER.

1897. The manuscript journals of Alexander Henry and of David Thompson,

1799-1814. Ed. by Elliot Coues. 3 vols. New York.
Kurz, Rupoutes FRIEDERICH.

1937. Journal of Rudolph Friederich Kurz. Ed. by J. N. B. Hewitt, trans.

by Myrtis Jarrell. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 115.
La Harpe, BERNARD DE.

1886. Relation du voyage de Bernard de la Harpe, Decouvertes et etablisse-
ments des Francaise dans l’ouest et dans le sud de ]’Amerique
Septentrionale 1614-1754. Ed. by Pierre Margry. 6vols. Paris.

La V&RENDRYE, PIERRE GAULTIER DE VARENNES.
1927. Journals and letters of Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de La Vérendrye
and his sons. Ed. by Lawrence J. Burpee. Toronto.
Le Rays, CHARLES.
1908. The journals of Charles Le Raye. South Dakota Hist. Coll., vol. 4.
Lewis, MERIWETHER.

1893. History of the expedition under the command of Lewis and Clark.

Ed. by Elliot Coues. 4 vols. New York.
Lipsy, O. G.

1908 a. Typical villages of the Mandans, Arikara and Hidatsa in the Missouri
Valley, North Dakota. Coll. State Hist. Soc. North Dakota, vol.
2, pp. 498-502.

1908 b. La Vérendrye’s visit to the Mandans in 1738-39. Coll. State Hist.
Soc. North Dakota, vol. 2, pp. 502-508.

LoIsEL, —

1939. Tabeau’s narrative of Loisel’s expedition to the upper Missouri.

Ed. and trans. by Annie Heloise Abel. Univ. Oklahoma Press.
Lowiz, Rosert H.

1910. The Assiniboine. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. Anthrop. Pap., vol. 4,
pt. 1, pp. 1-270.

1912. Some problems in the ethnology of the Crow and Village Indians.
Amer. Anthrop., n.s., vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 60-71.

1913. Societies of the Hidatsa and Mandan Indians. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist.
Anthrop. Pap., vol. 11, pt. 3, pp. 219-358.

1917. Notes on the social organization and customs of the Mandan, Hidatsa,
and Crow Indians. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. Anthrop. Pap., vol. 21,
pt. 1, pp. 1-99.

1918. Myths and traditions of the Crow Indians. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist.
Anthrop. Pap., vol. 25, pt. 1, pp. 1-308.

1919. The Hidatsa Sun Dance. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. Anthrop. Pap.,
vol. 16, pt. 5, pp. 411-431.

492 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194

Lowir, Ropert H.—Continued
1935. The Crow Indians. New York.
1954. Indians of the Plains. New York.
MACKENZIE, CHARLES.

1889. The Missouri Indians, a narrative of four trading expeditions to the
Missouri, 1804—1805-1806. Jn ‘“‘Les bourgeois de la compagnie du
Nord-Ouest,’’ ed. by L. R. Masson, vol. 1. Quebec.

MatTtTHEews, WASHINGTON.

1877. Ethnography and philology of the Hidatsa Indians. U.S.Geol. and

Geogr. Surv. Misc. Publ., vol. 7. Washington.
Maxtimitian. See WiEp-NEUWIED.
Morgan, Lewis H.
1871. Systems of consanguinity and affinity. Smithsonian Contr. to
Knowl., vol. 17.
Mutuoy, Wi.uramM T.
1942. The Hagen Site. Univ. Montana Publ. in Soc. Sci., No. 1.
PALLISER, JOHN.
1853. Solitary rambles and adventures of a hunter in the prairies. London.
Prprer, G. H., and Witson, G. L.

1908. An Hidatsa shrine and the beliefs respecting it. Amer. Anthrop.

Assoc. Mem., vol. 2, pp. 275-328. Lancaster, Pa.
Province, J. H.

1937. The underlying sanctions of Plains Indian culture. In “Social
anthropology of North American tribes,” ed. by Fred Eggan.
Univ. Chicago Press.

Rew, RussE.u.

1930. The earth lodge. North Dakota Hist. Quart., vol. 4, No. 3, pp.

174-185.
Scuootcrart, Henry R.

1851. Information respecting the history, condition and prospects of the
Indian tribes of the United States. Collected and prepared under
the direction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. 6 vols. Phila-
delphia.

SPAULDING, ALBERT §.

1956. The Arzberger Site, Hughes County, South Dakota. Univ. Michi-

gan, Occ. Contr. Mus. Anthrop., No. 16.
Strone, WILLIAM DUNCAN.

1933. The Plains culture area in the light of archaeology. Amer. Anthrop.,
n.s., vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 271-287.

1940. From history to prehistory in the northern Great Plains. Jn ‘‘Essays
in historical anthropology of North America.’’ Smithsonian Misc.
Coll., vol. 100, pp. 353-394.

Tuompson, Davip D.

1916. David Thompson’s narrative of his explorations in western America:

1784-1812. Ed. by J. B. Tyrrell, vol. 12. Toronto.
Wirep-NEuWIED, MaxrmiLiAN ALEXANDER PHILipp, Prinz von.

1906. Travels into the interior of North America, 1832-1834. Jn “Early
western travels, 1748-1846,’ ed. by Reuben Gold Thwaites, vols.
22-24, Cleveland.

Wi, Grorce F.

1909. Some observations made in northwestern South Dakota. Anthrop.

Pap., 1.8., vol. 11.

Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 493

Wit, Georce F.
1924. Archaeology of the Missouri Valley. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. Anthrop.
Pap., vol. 22, pt. 6, pp. 285-344.
1946. Tree ring studies in North Dakota. Agric. Exper. Sta. Bull. 338.
Fargo.
Wit, Georce F., and Hecker, Tuap. C.
1944, The upper Missouri River valley aboriginal culture in North Dakota.
North Dakota Hist. Quart., vol. 11, Nos. 1-2, pp. 5-126.
Wit, Grorce F., and Hypr, Grorcs E.
1917. Corn among the Indians of the Upper Missouri. St. Louis.
Writ, GeorGce F., and SprrnpgEn, H. J.
1906. The Mandans, a study of their culture, archaeology and ethnology.
Peabody Mus. Amer. Archaeol. and Ethnol. Pap., vol. 3, No. 4.
Witson, GriLBErt L.
1917. Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians. Univ. Minnesota Stud. Soc.
Sci., vol. 9.
1924, The horse and dog in Hidatsa culture. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist.
Anthrop. Pap., vol. 15, pt. 11, pp. 125-311.
1928. Hidatsa eagle trapping. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. Anthrop. Pap.,
vol. 30, pt. 4, pp. 99-245.
1934. The Hidatsa earthlodge. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. Anthrop. Pap.,
vol. 33, pt. 5, pp. 341-420, ed. by Bella Weitzner.
WIncHELL, N. H.
1911. The aborigines of Minnesota. Minnesota Hist. Soc., St. Paul.
Woop, W. Raymonp.
An interpretation of Mandan culture history. MS., Ph.D. disserta-
tion, 1961, Univ. Oregon.
WootwortH, ALAN R.
1956. Archaeological investigations at Site 32ME59 (Grandmother’s Lodge).
North Dakota Hist., vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 79-102.

710-195— 65 33

=o Moran Lm aN oh

Hie wi% ae tek wi

- ¢,
ri a erstay a lial bi A seul ht
I rod RY
LL eter oe, Ga ne ae j
‘ fal ee ius \;
a u Pens" fa , le Ob teu oe ‘ a!
be 7,’ ‘a! eg . iy .
— "oD : df * . - f
ver AIOE Gas i eurhisied ay
‘ jl ‘“. i
. ‘oi iy
sie iE bee AA RA ae
Pre s
4 rail
= i ; i
b DR a Ie el tb, Atl is SA 4
.) ) si ,
~ ra (‘hori sisi tins i j
: 3 SN j ;
; ww. 4 4 \
» 4 : ‘
b 7 - ‘
f 5
-
tl
’
o* “1
'
i
4
d
4

: hip ods “ark
Ree ae na a

Li i iy AD |},
Ra ae an vat i oe Om

BULLETIN 194 PLATE 1

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

“ISPT[IA IO fo UOTONAJSUOD ORT

ae

*

@8n, >

BULLETIN 194 PLATE 2

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

(‘oW1} 3¥Y} 3e BuIpurys a3po] YiIva apAjs-pfo ATuO

7

ay} sem SIU.)

6761 “98D [[PUS Ieou aspoy yea 83¥0D Artepy{

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 194 PLATE 3

ni 2 ae

Pehriska-Ruhpa (Two Crows) in the costume of the Dog Band. (Lithograph from original
drawing by Carl Bodmer.)

BULLETIN 194 PLATE 4

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

(soupog [ep Aq Sutmesp [eursio woz ydvssoyiwy]) ‘uepuryy ey Jo aourq (I[ngq) opeyng

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 194 PLATE 5

Wolf Chief and wife, 1933.

BULLETIN 194 PLATE 6

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

"6761 “ARCA ‘N ‘OU Jvou AsBypo sp1IN J,

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 194 PLATE 7

Roadmaker, of Awaxawi village. (Lithograph from original drawing by Carl Bodmer.)

.

a

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 194 PLATE 8

zg ~ele

4 7 he Oe Ab
% ’ ae? 6 .
Face

“g

(Lithograph from original drawing by Carl Bodmer.)

Scalp Dance of the Manitaries (Hidatsa).

BULLETIN 194 PLATE 9

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

OL6l

¢

SIOTIIEM Auraus udAes Ce |

4

BULLETIN 194 PLATE 10

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

(‘peyonoje1 ydeisojoyd JO fe] oW9.17x47)

“OF6[ ‘toumO

9[pung v fo s[[mys oyey neg.

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 194 PLATE 11

(Hidatsa). (Lithograph from original drawing by Carl Bodmer.)

itaries

Winter village of the Man

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 194 PLATE 12
ore : ee wets ce ee a

-

Drags Wolf and Foolish Bear with Waterbuster clan bundle, 1933.

INDEX

Addih-Haddisch, Indian name for Road-
maker, 375
Adoption Pipe fraternity, 48
Adoptions, ceremonial, 7, 48, 49, 103, 172
expeditions, 49
“father and son,” 48, 91, 92
of prisoners, 95, 167
presents for, 48
rites, 91
Aged, care of, 164
Age-grade system, 4, 7, 26, 32, 44, 91,
163, 174-212, 250, 337
announcer, 131
group, 54, 62, 63, 938, 175, 201, 250,
403, 417
purchases, 106, 124, 157, 178, 182,
209, 290, 455
Sequence, 176, 179, 188, 199, 222
Agriculture, 11, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 27,
ae, Lid, ACS, 200; 213, 215, 217,
302, 336, 344, 430, 479, 482, 486,
487, 489
abandoned by Indians, 154, 287, 338
adopted by Hidatsa, 11, 16, 18, 23,
37, 59, 64, 302, 342
gardens, 46, 52, 57, 59, 62, 75,
106, 110, 114, 117-119, 128,
186, 188, 142, 157, 161, 167,
201, 204, 205, 210, 247, 276,
297, 298, 300, 301, 334, 335,
338, 339, 340, 348, 347, 363, 390,
415, 430, 489, 440, 464, 465, 466
rites, 104, 188, 209
Ahnahaway, see Hidatsa.
Alien groups, visits of, 48, 49
All-Comes-Out, Indian woman, 147, 148
All Different, 98 (chart), 100 (chart)
Amahami, see Hidatsa.
Ammunition, 142, 147
Animals, freeing of, 197
imprisonment of, 196
Ankles, painted black, 317
Antelope, 58, 226, 227, 399, 449, 451
hide, 336, 345
Antelope Woman, Indian woman, 147
148
Ant hill, 470, 471
Apologies, offering of, 189
Appearing Coyote, Indian man, 422, 424,
425
Aprons, tanned leather, 317
Archeological records, 16, 23, 30, 477,
486, 488
Arm, ceremonial stroking of, 451

Arikara Indians, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 20, 24,
28, 29, 36, 37, 40, 41, 67, 74, 185,
1625 1770S WISAATO PAIS 2G 219,
235, 237, 2538, 2045/260,.278, 281,
370, 448, 476, 477, 478, 480, 484,
485, 488
Arrow, Sacred, 166, 196, 228, 245, 253,
254, 286, 290, 291, 292 (fig.),
303, 304, 306-308, 312, 322, 335,
345, 348, 349, 350, 356, 360, 361,
371, 372, 374, 481
myth of, 64, 303-308
Arrows, 120, 180, 131, 157, 188, 239, 2538,
254, 260, 277, 286, 291, 304, 305,
306, 310, 322, 336, 345, 349, 356,
357, 359, 360, 372, 374, 380, 411,
412, 414, 420, 422, 423, 424, 425,
426, 453, 470
holy, 349, 350
iron-headed, 301
peeled, 453
points, 350, 360
stone-headed, 301
with bark on, 453
Arzsberger site, 479, 480
Ash, trees, 325
poles, digging sticks, 166, 409
sticks, ceremonial, 326
wood clubs, 328
Assiniboin Indians, 5, 10, 11, 14, 21, 27,
30, 40, 56, 62, 92, 93, 164, 191, 192,
215, 217, 218, 258, 254, 255, 256.
258, 259, 260, 276, 287, 295, 301,
375, 425, 484, 489
Atutish area, 480, 481, 483
Awatixa Indians, vii, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15,
16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29,
30, 31, 34, 36, 37, 43, 45, 66, 76, 127,
159, 177, 178, 214, 215, 225, 288,
249, 256, 257, 275, 287, 293, 294,
300, 301, 302, 303, 309, 312, 327,
330, 331, 332, 342, 375, 406, 452,
463, 466, 467, 469, 470, 473, 474,
475, 481, 482, 486, 487, 488, 489
council, 28 (list)
traditions, 21, 22
village, v, 2, 3, 5, 17, 31, 32, 33, 68,
70, 74, 95, 100, 127, 169, 170, 174,
176, 178, 180, 181, 182, 183, 197,
216, 245, 260, 298, 296, 303,
308, 309, 312, 320, 341, 356,
363, 371, 374, 377, 379, 380,
412, 429, 431, 4384, 442, 452,
469, 470, 471, 473, 474, 476,
village groups, 27, 179, 200, 441

495

496

Awaxawi Indians, vi, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28,
29, 30, 34, 36, 37, 38, 42, 43, 45, 64,
65, 76, 127, 176, 177, 178, 181, 218,
214, 215, 216, 225, 232, 233, 236,
PAO. 256.) 251, 200;) 200, 200,, 200,
291, 294, 296, 297, 299, 300, 301,
302, 303, 309, 312, 331, 339, 340,
842, 349, 350, 375, 377, 379, 380,
392, 430, 441, 446, 463, 466, 474,
482, 486, 489
council, 28 (list)
groups, 430
village, v, 2, 31, 32,
101, 169, 170, 177, 178,
182, 183, 197, 201, 208,
245, 247, 260, 293, 300,
848, 850, 351, 368, 375, 3877, 380,
882, 889, 390, 391, 392, 412, 429,
434, 486, 447, 452, 454, 475, 476
Awigaxa Mandan, 339, 484, 485, 486, 487
Ax, stone, sacred, 180, 254, 306, 308, 309
Axes, 189, 248, 403

66, 70, 74, 95,
179, 181,
213, 216,
327, 341,

Baby, 147, 305, 373, 440
spirit, 127
Baby Hill, near Little Missouri River,
127129
Badgers, 54, 346, 393
Bad Gun, Mandan chief, 67
Bad Horn, Hidatsa chief, 38, 357, 472
Badlands, 283
Bad luck impersonator, 457, 460
Bad Water site, 475
Bag, 445, 465
Bagnall village, 39
Baker, James, interpreter, Iv
Baker, Mrs. Owen, 346
Baker, Percy, 247
Bald Eagle village, 468
Balls, 115, 334
berry, 465
clay (hair), 438
corn, 53, 329, 352, 355, 359, 360, 365,
367, 368, 369, 378, 384, 385, 414,
439, 448, 452, 461, 465, 468, 469,
470
Baneberry roots, red, 298, 307, 360
Barred-Speckled Eagle village, 468
Basket, 306
coiled, 443
sacred, 336, 347, 395
Basketmaking, 120, 162
Bassett, George, 150
Bastions, 479, 480
Bats, 355
Battles, sham, 380
Beads, 130, 131, 1389, 375
shell, 488
work with, 147, 167
Beads-Stick-Out-of-His-Side, Sioux man,
384
Beams, raised by men, 160
Beans, 46, 203, 339, 344, 345, 392

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

[Bull. 194]

Bear, 227, 254, 334, 344, 348, 351, 352,
355, 393, 472
black, 348, 349, 400, 446, 448
foot, drawing of, 229
grizzly, 253, 254, 334, 345, 348, 349,
350, 351, 352, 3538, 357, 358, 389
impersonator, 239, 241
medicine man, 241, 259
Bear Chief, Indian man, 228
Bear-Comes-Out, Indian man, 254
Bear Den Creek, 268, 270
Bear Heart, Indian man, 383, 389
Bear-in-the-Water, Indian man, 423
Bear-Looks-Out, Awaxawi chief, 38, 152,
153, 154, 181, 182, 201, 203, 341,
342, 348, 367, 383, 385, 386, 472
Bear-Lying-Against-Tree, Bears Arm’s

paternal grandfather, 97, 98
(chart)

Bear Necklace, Indian man, 221, 389,
444, 456

Bear-on-the-Flat, Indian man, 422
Bear-on-the-Water, 157
Bears Arm, interpreter, v, vir, vim, 2, 5,
12, 17, 18, 20, 27, 95, 96 (chart),
97, 98 (chart), 100 (chart), 101,
150; 155; 1162; 1%3) 1a a2 Zan
260, 291, 299, 300, 304, 349, 350,
352, 357, 374, 410, 417, 419, 422,
424, 426, 442, 444, 449, 458, 460,
473
and Walks, relationship between,
96 (chart)
and Yellow Coat, relationship be-
tween, 98 (chart)
narrative by, 252-257, 350-356, 374,
375-880, 390, 442-446, 460, 464—
466
Bears Heart, Indian man, 152, 158, 154,
253, 341, 367, 402, 422, 424
Bearskin, 229, 345, 352-357
black, 227, 231
Bears Nose, 99, 100 (chart)
Bears Teeth, Indian man, 228
Bear Woman, 99, 100 (chart)
Beavers, 166, 355, 357, 358, 371
claws, 378, 380
dam, 399
fur, 380
Beckwith, Martha W.., 3, 334
Bedding, 153, 311, 316
Beds, 143, 160, 163
Beheading, 248
Bell, signal, 40, 276
Bell, William, 146, 147, 152, 416, 417,
418
Bellen, —, 11
Bellen map, 10
Belly Up, Indian man, 367
Beloit College, vii, 463
Belt, 256, 444
Berdache, 105, 115, 132, 159, 166-168,
220, 256, 259, 260, 267, 315, 316,
325, 326, 330, 427, 488
dress of, 326, 330
function of, 330

INDEX

Berries, 465

Biesterfeldt site, 484

Big Bellies, see Hidatsa.

Big Bend, 218, 246, 479, 486

Big Black, Indian chief, 92,
374

Big Bull, Indian leader, 228, 233, 234,
235, 236, 237, 238, 402

Big Cloud (Fat Fox), Awaxawi chief,
88, 261, 262, 268, 269, 472

Big Coat, Indian man, 363, 403

Big-Foot-Bull, Mandan man, 150, 406,
407

Big Hand, Awaxawi chief, 38

Big Hidatsa 35 site, 216

Big Thief, Indian man, 416

Big Turtle, chief, 38

Big Wind, murderer, 77, 78

Bird Bear, Indian man, 366

Bird Bill Butte, 265, 360

Bird-Lying-Down, informant, v

Birds, 57, 180, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206,
208, 300, 347, 360

killdeer, 390
water, 336, 338, 340, 341, 346, 363

Bird Woman, Shoshoni guide, 95, 146,
147, 152, 385

Birth, 104, 109, 126-129, 289, 330

Bismarck, N. Dak., 265, 298, 369, 384,
479, 481

Bison, 301

Bites-in-Nose, Indian name, 340

Blackbirds, 334, 344, 345, 346

Black Eagle, Indian judge, 151

Blackens-his-Moceasins, council mem-
ber, 28, 31, 471, 474

Blackfoot Indians, 67, 1538, 485

Black Hawk, Indian man, 395, 396

Black Hills, 49, 51, 238, 259

Black Horn, Indian man, 424

Black Mouths, functions of, 32, 33, 39,
40, 46, 47, 48, 52, 58, 54, 58, 60, 62,
72, 125, 162, 177, 184, 185, 188, 189,
191, 207, 221, 276

Black Owl, Indian Man, 416, 417, 418

Black root, medicine from, 128, 373, 380,
381

310, 365,

Black Shield, Indian warrior, 239, 240,
241, 352, 353, 354, 355, 356, 446,
447, 448
Black-tipped Eagle village, 468
Black Wolf, Indian man, 396, 441, 446
Blankets, 227, 228, 311, 365, 398, 402,
403, 407, 471
to wrap dead, 109, 117
Blizzard, supernaturally caused, 196
Blood Man Impersonator, 442, 446, 448
Bloody, member of council, 28
Blossom, Indian woman, 444
Bluebird, Indian man, 264
Blue Buttes, 263, 471
Bluestone, Indian man, 254, 255, 258,
389, 422, 425
710-195—65—— 35

497

Bobtail Bull, Awaxawi chief, 38, 42, 43,
44, 225, 233, 236, 242, 248, 244, 245,
246, 248, 249, 250, 251, 257, 274,
343, 346, 422, 424, 435, 436, 438,
444, 451, 452, 456, 457, 459, 460,
461, 487
group, 45, 246, 438
Bobtail Wolf, Indian man, 363, 364
Bodmer, Karl, painter, 375
Body painting, 243, 282, 317, 367, 454,
458
of dead, 169
Boley site, 478, 484
Boller, Henry A., 3, 37, 39, 187, 205, 346
Bones (human), 322, 463
burial of, 171
separation of, from skull, 171
worn by fasters, 322
Bones, buffalo, 388, 414, 464, 466
Boomer, Mr. and Mrs. George A., III
Bradbury, John, 17
Brave-While-Young, Indian man, 349,
350, 354, 355, 358
Breathing, Bears Arm’s grandfather,
97, 98 (chart), 351
Breecheloth, worn by men, 406, 429
Bride, 140, 158
Bridle, 267
Broadus, Mont., 447
Broken Ax, Mandan Indian, 203, 204
Brother, 95, 105-109, 111-117, 122-124,
127, 129, 130, 182-135, 139, 145,
147, 150, 152, 154, 157, 158, 163,
167-172, 237, 245, 246, 248, 251,
261, 269, 279, 328, 330, 342, 344,
3538, 360, 361, 366-368, 371, 384,
397, 399-402, 404, 405, 407, 413,
414, 419, 434, 449, 456, 462, 470,
473
activities of, 112, 299
blood, 159, 279
children of, duties to, 113, 117, 123,
393
clan, 299
death of, 113
duties of, 113, 129, 130, 449
older, 140, 141, 158, 268, 269, 284,
318, 419
revenge upon, 279
widows of, duties toward, 113, 123
wife of, 80, 81, 123, 124, 168, 196,
367, 403
Brother-in-law, 88, 103, 115, 122, 128,
124, 130, 142, 152, 228, 234, 236,
237, 244, 333
“Brother-in-law,” 87, 88, 95, 97, 101, 103,
110, 122, 123
“Brothers,” 87, 94, 97, 99, 101, 111, 116,
1 123. 123), 140) 4 59) 231;
248, 248, 249, 258, 288
children of, 86, 117, 169, 202
“older,” 72, 80, 81, 86, 87, 88, 90, 99,
TOM 10354109) A eS NG; 120;
123, 129, 132, 185, 137, 248
“younger,” 80, 81, 86, 87, 90, 116,
120, 123, 127, 136, 220,

498

Bowers, Alfred W., 78, 342, 462, 474
Bowers, Gladys Monson, vil, 22, 78
Bowl, wooden, 206, 356, 448, 459
Boy, Indian man, 258, 254
Boys, 52, 54, 63, 112, 130-188, 135, 141,
208, 221, 256, 277, 305, 318, 334,
4138, 414, 426
clubs for, 179, 180, 181
discipline of, 131, 133
dress of, 180
killing of, 378
raids by, 221, 222
training of, 129, 180, 185-187, 220
prayers for, 128, 129
Brown Blossom, Mandan woman, 143,
144, 145
Brown Woman, Indian woman, 146, 383,
384, 404
Buckbrush, 316
Buckskin, tanned, 412
Buffalo:
blood, drinking of, 227
bones, 388, 414, 464, 466
calf, 180, 206, 208, 246, 300, 489,
462
corral, 434, 446, 447, 449, 450 (plan)
cow, 438, 439
drive, 446
fat, 381, 387, 400
hair, 388, 398
heads, 55, 266, 316, 318, 322, 424,
426, 438, 440, 443, 464
hearts, 381, 387
herds, 53, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 64, 131,
186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 192, 207,
242, 307, 337, 338, 413, 433, 486,

437, 440, 442, 446, 447, 448, 449,
451, 452, 461, 464

hide cradle, 128

hides, 146, 162, 266, 284, 314, 316,
818, 321, 328, 390, 399, 400, 403,
411, 412, 420, 421, 426, 482, 434,
488, 440, 442, 443, 444, 445, 448,
454, 458, 470

hocks, 397

hoofs, 452

horns, 356, 381

hunt, 28, 48, 50, 411, 486, 437

hunt, summer, 50-56, 186, 187, 227,
286, 375, 442

impersonators, 232, 455

intestines, 360, 373

meat, 337, 399, 486, 488, 440, 461

migrations, 58

mouths, 396

neckbones, 464, 466

paunch, 23, 227, 334, 375, 391, 437,
444, 465

pens, 447

robes, 311, 346, 347, 353, 355, 382,
418, 435, 437

sinews, rope of, 334, 337

skulls, 54, 55, 60, 95, 171, 187, 198,
199, 307, 314, 332, 333, 344, 353,
854, 355, 356, 357, 361, 364, 367,

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

[Bull. 194]

Buffalo—Continued
skulls—Continued
368, 371, 380, 381, 383,
391, 395, 397, 399, 404,
407, 408, 417, 419, 420,
428, 429, 481, 482, 434,
438, 439, 441, 442, 443,
446, 452, 454, 455, 456,
462, 466, 468, 470, 472
snares, 449
spirits, 127, 255, 259, 388, 486
tail, 316, 321, 399, 426, 461
tallow, 414
teeth, 388
tongues, 162, 305, 426, 449
trapping, 445
vertebrae, 463, 464
Buffalo Bulls, Indian man, 452
Buffalo Comes Out Butte, 12 (map),
436
Buffaloes, Iv, 12, 26, 34, 35, 44, 45, 51,
53, 54, 57, 59-62, 64, 79, 127, 182,
138, 146, 147, 149-151, 154, 162,
180, 183, 186, 187, 189, 198, 199,
205, 207, 208, 226, 227, 229, 244—
247, 255, 257, 259, 263, 268, 275,
300, 302-304, 311, 317, 318, 338,
347, 350, 358, 354, 364-366, 378,
383, 393, 399, 411, 418, 418, 433,
437, 489-446, 448, 454, 455, 457,
458, 461, 462, 464466, 468-473
coralling of, 79, 448-449
division of, 449
extermination of, 433, 485, 489
prayers to, 54, 461
sacred, 3038, 383
Buffalo Home Butte, 12 (map), 127,
227, 228, 255, 259, 369, 435, 436,
442, 462
Buffalo-with-Gray-Penis,
145
Buffalo Woman, Mandan woman, 374,
456
Buffalo Woman Impersonator, 439, 461
Bug Woman, Dog Bear’s wife, 448, 444,
445

384,
405,
421,
436,
444,
457,

Indian man,

Bullboats, 57, 120, 145, 146, 147, 262, 265,
276, 299, 360, 372, 378, 401, 420,
424, 465, 476
paddles for, 147
Bull Buffalo, Indian man, see Kidney.
Bullet, 255, 352, 426
Bull Looks, Indian scout, 377
Bulls, 311, 322
Bullsnake, 125, 307, 364, 365.
Bundlemakers, 420, 421, 422, 423, 425,
426, 427, 428, 429
Bundles, 6, 373, 397, 474
Acira, 358
assembling of, 332, 345-346
Bear, 38, 241, 349, 350, 351, 353, 355,
356, 357, 367, 389
Bear Bullet, 349
Big Bird, 188, 253, 360, 364, 370,
378, 374, 424

INDEX

Bundles—Continued

Black Bear, 398

Buffalo, 206

Buffalo Skull, 367, 405

ceremonial, v, 32, 38, 46, 118, 119,
160, 168, 171, 240, 285, 320, 389,
421

clan, 7, 32, 38, 471, 474, 475

contents of, 332, 380, 429, 4382

corn ceremony, 341

Corn Skull, 297

Creek, 382, 383, 387, 389

eagle-trapping, 57, 79, 183, 226, 227,
231, 261, 367, 424, 443

Earthmaking, 367, 455

Earthnaming, vi, 27, 31-33, 41-43,
174, 232, 238, 235, 236, 241-247,
249, 250, 257, 424, 433, 436, 443,
445, 456, 461

feasts to, 464

Good-Furred-Robe, 201, 339, 342

Grizzly Bear, 253, 348, 350, 358, 424

Hawk, 253

hereditary, 26, 65, 79, 116, 162, 163,
198, 201, 236, 260, 296, 348, 349,
350, 3538, 358, 362, 441, 464

Holy Woman, 167, 367, 392, 432

Horse, sacred, 283, 287

human skull, 475

Imitating Buffalo, 424, 442, 445, 446

Knife, 296, 468, 473-474

Long Arm, 253, 254, 312, 314

Mandan Corn, 152

Mandan Skull, 152, 201, 367

medicine, 128, 204, 230, 444

Missouri River, 95, 379, 380, 381,
383

Naxpike, 127, 274, 308, 309, 313, 367,
389, 424, 430

Old-Woman-Abovye, 398, 406, 432

Old-Woman-Who - Never - Dies, 43,
200, 246, 339, 341, 342, 348, 344,
367

owners of, 33, 40, 41, 57, 95, 120,
166, 179, 186, 199, 201, 202, 203,
233; 256, 250/251, 257, 261, 275,
320, 321, 324, 330, 332, 333, 340,
341, 348, 344, 345, 347, 350, 358,
355, 356, 357, 358, 363, 367, 369,
372, 378, 382, 392, 395, 397, 405,
412, 415, 419, 420, 421, 424, 425,
427, 4380, 433, 437, 488, 441, 442,
447, 455, 470, 471, 474, 488

People-Above (Mandan), 253

personal, 5, 136, 171, 198, 240, 242,
246, 250, 287, 288, 348, 362

Poor Wolf, 257

purchase of, 95, 120, 168, 192, 198,
238, 246, 250, 258, 268, 270, 287,
308, 382, 344, 345, 350, 353, 357,
362, 364, 366, 367, 389, 397, 418,
419, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426,
428, 429, 432, 464

Rainmaking, 203, 238

Red Grass, 428

499

Bundles—Continued

renewal of, 286, 332, 383

River, 120, 373

Robe, 348, 344, 346

sacred, 5, 6, 31, 33, 51, 54, 58-60, 72,
107-109, 116, 118-120, 123, 128,
132, 133, 135, 138, 141, 143, 152,
159, 160, 162, 168, 171, 179-181,
184, 186, 187, 192, 198, 201, 203,
209, 224-226, 228-230, 235, 237,
243, 247, 252, 259, 261, 263, 265,
270, 274, 276, 282, 284, 285, 287,
290, 295-297, 309, 314, 317, 319,
3238, 331, 333, 336, 340, 345, 347,
356, 358, 361, 363, 367, 371, 380,
3838, 385-888, 392, 393, 398, 399,
404-406, 420, 421, 431, 434, 436,
488, 448, 455, 462, 474, 475, 488

Sacred Robe, 70, 339

sale of, 42, 171, 332, 342, 420

Seven Dogs, 327

Shell Robe, 474

Singer, 451

Skull, 42, 201, 339, 340, 342, 343,
344

Snake, 373

Sun, 475

Sun Doing, 31

Sunrise Wolf, 397, 401, 406

Sunset Wolf, 430, 432

Thunder, 38, 183, 299, 358, 359, 367,
370, 381, 424

Thunderbird, 294

tribal, 31, 41, 91, 116, 136, 138, 171,
201, 203, 246, 250, 258, 287, 288,
441, 461

Waterbuster clan, 143, 174, 296, 359,
365, 383, 398, 455, 467-473, 474

White Fingernails, 300

Wolf 150) 225% 253)" 255: 250,261,
264, 273, 275, 367, 397, 405, 415,
417, 418, 419, 421, 424, 431, 432,
433

Wolf Woman, 392, 405, 410, 412,
430, 431, 432

Woman-Above, 261, 325, 329, 330,
332, 367, 424

Burgois site, 478
Burials, 169, 170, 463, 464

cache pit, 171, 475
clothing for, 168, 170
earth, 331

food provided for, 172
ground, 169, 170, 331, 475
mound, 169, 170, 171

pit, 76, 169, 170

rock, 170

scaffold, 169, 170, 171, 475
secondary bundle, 331, 475
tree, 169, 170

Butchering, camp activity, 54, 55, 124,

132, 154, 162, 167, 189, 449

Butchers, 55
Butte-with-Grass, 414
Buzzards, 419

500 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

Cabin, 5, 160, 161
Cache pits, 46, 130, 166, 440, 463
Caches, 59, 161
Cactus, 227, 411, 427
Calfskin, 329
Calf Woman, Hidatsa woman, 206, 300
Calicoes, offerings of, 60, 150, 310, 311,
319, 338, 365, 388, 385, 402
Campfire, 232
Camps:
areas, 22, 34, 35, 40, 41, 46, 47, 48,
186, 227
circles, 53, 56, 442
eagle-trapping, 39, 57
“in-between,” 62
leaders of, 34, 35, 51, 54, 55, 57, 58,
60-63, 186, 187, 207, 270, 472
selection of, 53, 54, 57, 187
temporary, 23, 216
tenders of, 134, 187, 222, 228, 224,
226, 269, 272, 422
winter, 56-63, 131, 161, 170, 185,
187, 188, 189, 192, 206, 215, 242,
263, 264, 266, 270, 286, 307, 484,
439, 440, 447, 464, 472
Canada, 294, 483
Canes, 411, 423, 429
chokecherry, 429
grandfather’s, 119, 379
Cannibalism, 277-278, 330-333
Cannonball River, 12 (map), 39, 125,
175, 213, 214, 217, 480
Cannonball site, 478
Cap, coyote head, 423
coyote skin, 411, 429
jackrabbit skin, 317
low, worn by clansmen, 361, 368
otter skin, 377, 378
wolf hide, 394, 397, 482
Captives, 260
Carbon-14 tests, 479, 488
Cataracts, eye disease, 380
Catlin, George, 17, 329, 474
Catlinite, 480, 488
Cattle, 250, 267, 274, 298, 299, 311, 322
Government rations, 245
Cedar, Indian man, 389
Cedar, 263, 349, 380
creeping, 443, 444, 445, 459, 461
incense, 386
post, 483
sacred, 38, 39, 297, 457
thickets, 386
Census, Government, 5
Central Plains Upper Republican cul-
ture, 479
“Ceremonial” mother, selection of, 104
Ceremonies, 38, 48, 45, 106, 117, 135, 136,
152, 157, 167, 185, 190, 192, 209,
225, 246, 251, 261, 267, 294, 311,
314, 325, 326, 379
adoption, 91
Akupehri, see Okipa.
arrow, 305, 349, 411
ash sticks used in, 326

[Bull. 194]

Ceremonies—Continued

Bear, 350, 352, 354, 355, 366

Big Bird, 253, 361, 363-370, 374

Big Bird Sweatlodge, 361

Bird, 435

“Bring the Robe,” death ceremony,
168, 169, 171

buffalo, 464

Buffalo Calling, 8, 32, 35, 57, 58, 59,
60, 149, 183, 187, 192, 205, 206,
207, 208, 209, 225, 236, 242, 290,
293, 296, 398, 4833-466

Buffalo corral, 446-451

buffalo masks, worn in, 206

Buffalo neckbone, 463-466

bundle purchasing, 350

clan bundle, 467-475

corn, 200, 346

Creek, 380-889, 432, 474

Cuts-Hole-in-the-Mouth, 316, 317

Daybreak, 38

Eagle trapping, 78, 79, 263, 298, 295,
310, 334, 363, 388, 441, 445, 446

Harthnaming, vi, 127, 208, 242, 245,
287, 483-488

Everything-Comes-Back, 370

fiSh trapping, 286, 446

formal, 224, 286

giver of, 458, 459

Grizzly Bear, 348-358

Hidebeating, 306, 308-323

Holy Women, 324, 326, 406, 464, 465

horse, 92, 283, 287

Imitating Buffalo, 383, 487, 488-446,
447, 465

initiation of, 1387

leaders of, 8, 32, 43, 119, 167, 188

Missouri River, 371-380

Moon, 324 (fig.)

Naxpiks, 2, 6, 28, 45, 46, 50, 73, 78,
167, 181, 226, 243, 266, 274, 284,
308, 309, 312-314, 320, 321, 323,
333, 349, 353, 375, 389, 390, 391,
426, 429, 467

Okipa, 38, 78, 199, 203, 206, 226,
309, 321, 337, 366, 389, 391, 424,
429, 430, 433, 443, 456

Old-Woman-Above, 398, 404

Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, and
related ceremonies, 333-348, 392

Painted Red Stick, 148, 183, 207,
229, 232, 244, 489, 441, 451-463

paraphernalia used in, 283, 344

participation in, 106, 113, 129-138,
193, 280

pledged, 47, 283

“Prairie People,” 414

public, 242, 247, 250

purchase of, 77, 91, 92

purchases through, 155, 158, 163,
209, 282, 289, 307

rainmaking, 179, 199, 208, 461, 471

Red Stick, 437, 456, 458 (plan), 459
(plan)

sacred, 175

Sacred Arrow, 335

INDEX

Ceremonies—Continued
Sacred Robe, 70
seating arrangements at, 78
Square Butte Harth-Naming,
(map)
summer, 47
Sun, 324 (fig.), 389
Sunrise Wolf, 295, 392, 393, 394-
409, 416, 417, 429
Sunset Wolf, 78, 248, 392, 393, 402,
410-430
sweat, 365, 366, 382
village building, 38
Thunder, 8, 293, 299, 310, 336, 358—
392, 474
Thunderbird, 299
tribal, 186, 171, 278, 303, 326
Tying-the-Pots, 179, 348, 375, 389-
392, 430
village, 56, 138
“walking,” 148, 144, 147, 148, 150,
151, 155, 229, 244, 248, 263, 270,
271, 286, 290, 451, 452, 453, 456
Water People, 377
winter, 57
Wolf, 2, 8, 50, 73, 150, 155, 199, 225,
PAX PBI PBI Patsy usps 2st) Pare
261, 267, 295, 391, 392-430
Wolf Woman, 392, 393, 395, 410,
419, 430433
Woman Above, 328, 325 (fig.), 327,
330, 397, 407
Chamberlain, 8. Dak., 478
Charboneau, —, explorer, 17
Chardon, Francis A., 192, 217
Charging Eagle, son of Four Bears, 237,
242, 244, 247
Charred Body Creek, 21, 174, 291, 304,
360, 467
Cherries, 353, 383, 386
Cherries-in-Mouth, Indian chief, 45, 58,
126, 127, 402
Cherry Creek, 17, 392
Cherry Creek village, 24
Cherry Necklace, Hidatsa chief, 34, 35,
97, 256, 257, 324, 329, 350, 352,
408, 409, 427
Cheyenne Indians, 21, 32, 215, 234, 236,
301, 338, 398, 410, 412, 424, 484,
486, 487
Cheyenne River site, 477, 479, 481
Chicken-Can’t-Swim (Yellow Coat), 97
“Chief of the Scouts,” 237, 238
Chief, 26, 78, 466
daughter of, 304, 305
duties of, 59
head, 27, 38, 46, 172, 246, 402, 488
lodge of, 290
“peace,” 91, 295, 484, 437, 438
responsibilities of, 57, 58, 61, 62
selection of, 56, 57, 77
tribal, 26, 59, 156
use of term, 26, 63, 172, 241
village or peace, 27, 32, 48, 44, 45,
56, 58, 155, 172, 232, 238, 244

12

501

Chief—Continued
war, 27, 32, 43, 46, 56, 58, 113, 172
winter, 41, 42, 57, 58, 59, 60, 63, 186,
471
Children, 50, 61, 64, 81, 103, 111, 119,
126, 132, 186, 150, 151, 152, 158,
160, 161, 167, 205, 218, 244, 260,
271, 274, 275, 342, 349, 369, 381,
385, 386, 387, 389, 407, 432, 486,
439, 449, 451, 465, 466, 472
adoption of, 7, 72, 94, 95, 118, 119,
129, 256
capture of, 413
eare for, 124, 128, 129, 249, 282
death of, 76, 95, 129, 169, 171
lack of supernatural powers in, 284
legends about, 205
naming of, 107, 128, 129
punishment of, 105
relation to step-parents, 93
training of, 129, 135, 219, 321
Chimney, 161
Chippewa, Indian man, 367, 383
Chippewa Indians, 93, 213, 215, 218, 219,
277, 278, 301, 378, 422
Chippewa Woman, 97, 98 (chart)
Chokecherries, 53, 226, 353, 386, 390, 399,
429
stick of, broken, 384, 470
wood of, 454, 461
Chokecherry, Indian man, 389
Chouteau Aspect, 480, 483, 488
Cicada, 66
Clam Necklace, Mandan Indian, 370
Clam shell, 262, 268, 305, 381
Clans, 7, 13, 64, 65, 77, 79, 80, 90, 103,
158, 188-190, 246, 270, 291, 293,
308, 314, 332, 489
adopted, 67-71
as integrating force, T7
AwaxEnawita, 28, 66, 67, 68, 69

(table), 96, 98 (chart), 100
(chart), 309, 358, 371, 416
Badger, 70
Bear, 70

brothers through, 151, 155, 169, 255,
256, 258, 266, 267, 274, 310, 318,
862, 403, 404, 423, 424, 425, 426,
429, 457, 458

Bunch-of-Wood People, 70

bundle deities, 95

discipline by, 126

duties of, 71-78, 160, 169, 261, 268

father of, 326, 355, 356, 423, 424,
426, 427

father’s, 129, 130, 133, 159, 164, 168,
169, 171, 223, 237, 284, 289, 308,
8310, 312, 352, 391, 417, 426, 427,
437, 451, 460

functions of, 72-73, 185

Hidatsa, 7, 31, 64, 65, 67 (list)

instructor of, 362

Itisuku, 66, 67, 68, 69 (table), 77,
95, 97, 98, 100 (chart), 159, 309,
398

502

Clans—Continued
Knife (Metsiroku), 28, 31, 32, 65,
67, 68, 69, 70, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100
(chart), 101, 1538, 309, 341, 358,
361, 362, 363, 368, 474
linked, 97, 124
Low Cap (Apukawiku), 65, 67, 68,
69, 97, 101, 352, 358, 361, 362,
363, 368, 474
Managoctadomak, 325
Mandan, 7, 31, 67 (list)
Masedomak, 334
Maxoxati, 28, 65, 67, 68, 69 (table),
70, 97, 101, 102 (chart), 248, 403,
416, 431
membership in, 5, 6, 28 (list), 65,
67-71, 129, 308
members of, 160, 202, 252, 279
Miripatihe, see Waterbuster.
mother’s, 129
names of, 64, 65
origins of, 64-66
other tribes, 67 (list)
“People in a Grove,” Mandan, 325
Prairie-Chicken, v, 28, 31, 66, 67,
68, 69 (table), 70, 74, 92, 97, 98
(chart), 144, 150, 153, 158, 159,
228, 248, 251, 296, 309, 340, 342,
364, 371, 382, 383, 393, 406, 407,
431, 456, 458, 474
Red-Hill-People (Snake), 70, 384
relatives through, 117, 266
sisters through, 95, 96, 169, 404, 456,
457
Speckled Eagle, v, 66, 67, 68, 69
(table), 70, 74, 92, 97, 159, 228,
251
Sunset Wolf, 38
Tamisik, 67, 69 (table), 70, 98, 127
Waterbuster (Miripati), 7, 28, 66,
67, 68, 69, 127, 143
Waterbuster (Thunder), 7, 28, 31,
32, 38, 42, 66, 68, 92, 97, 143, 144,
153, 159, 174, 256, 261, 262, 263,
266, 296, 309, 371, 377, 382, 386,
398, 416, 456, 467-478, 474
Waxikena, 67, 69 (table), 70, 406
Xura, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69 (table), 77,
92, 97, 101, 102 (chart), 159, 293,
381, 398, 474
Clansmen, 147, 149,
173, 212, 244,
269, 270, 284,
383, 407, 417,
473, 475
assistance by, 128, 169
children of, 139
duties of, 73, 74, 75, 76, 141,
419
Clapp, Major, Indian agent, 151
Clark’s Creek site, 339, 479, 484
Claws, hawk or owl, 444

153,
249,
289,
427,

155, 156,
257, 265,
317, 320,
458, 462,

157,
268,
344,
463,

182,

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

[Bull. 194]

Clay, balls of, 438
red and black, 438
white, 319, 321, 322, 394, 396, 411,
420, 423, 429, 482, 483
white, used for painting, 226, 310,
311, 317, 423, 426, 429, 482
Clay-on-Face, Indian brave, 70, 334, 393
Clothing, 110, 115, 132, 150, 153, 188,
206, 210, 243, 244, 247, 249, 280,
315, 316, 373, 380, 391, 398, 407,
428, 429, 465, 466
burial, 168, 169
ceremonial, 414, 427, 483
elkskin, 415
hide, 247, 376
mountain sheep, 325
mourning, 172
porcupine quill decorated, 432
symbolic, 197, 202, 251
See also Robes; Shirt.
Clubs, burnt ash wood, 328
carried by Black Mouths, 184
decorated, 452
red, 465
Coal, lignite, 165
Coals, used in rites, 229, 348, 405, 406,
464, 471
Coffee, 401, 402, 422
Cole, Fay-Cooper, III, VII
Collie, George L., 11, v1I
Conception, beliefs regarding, 126
Cooking, 132, 137, 151
Cooperation, intervillage and
tribal, 24
Corn, balls of, 58, 329, 352, 355, 359, 360,
365, 367, 368, 369, 373, 384, 385,
414, 439, 448, 452, 459, 461, 465,
468, 469, 470
basket for, 345
boiled, 451
chamber for, 305, 391
cooked, 310
cultivated, 15, 26, 46, 48, 49, 50, 52,
59, 1382, 164, 185, 187, 202, 203,
205, 213, 217, 297, 300, 302, 303,
307, 339, 344, 346, 365, 378, 392,
402, 403, 406, 414, 440, 469, 476,
477, 482
dried, 53
ground, 104, 439
growing of, taught by Mandan, 213
mill, 95
mush, 470
products of, 453
red, 334
roasted, 365, 384, 386, 395, 404, 453,
457
seaffolds for, 46, 440
trade in, 218
white, 346
yellow, 345, 346
Cornecobs, charred, 23, 328
Corn Father, Indian man, 342
Cornfields, 37, 56, 128
Corn People, 184

inter-

INDEX

Corn Priest, 347
Corn silk, 346
Corn Smut, Indian man, 266, 267, 274
Corn Woman, Indian woman, 152, 342
Corpse, disposal of, 168, 169
See also Burial.
Corral hunting, 162
Corrals, 53, 446, 447, 448, 449, 450
(plan), 451
Cottonwood, 229, 298, 315, 316, 347, 456,
457
Cottonwood sites, 485
Council of Twelve, 473
Councils, 27-40, 42, 46, 52, 54, 57, 125,
186, 187, 276
authority of, 47, 57, 276
decisions of, 34, 39, 51, 57
feast of, 28, 39
headquarters of, 51
intervillage, 156, 191
leaders of, 91
meetings of, 28, 34, 39
tribal, 27-29, 35, 36
village, 33, 35, 39, 124, 186, 191, 193,
PLT
Coup, Indian honors, 230, 232, 238, 241,
256, 258, 259, 279, 280, 316, 366,
410, 454
Courtships, 138, 139
Cousins, 81, 86
Cow, 415
Cowardliness, feelings about, 125, 192,
455
Coyote, Indian man, 263
Coyote, 148, 197, 227, 228, 235, 238, 393,
395, 397, 410, 422
hides, 404, 411
manes, with feet attached, 429
skin caps, 411
tail, worn on heels, 279, 411
Coyote Head, Indian man, 442, 443, 444
Coyote Necklace, Indian man, 228
Coyote Woman, Mandan woman, 159,
407, 408
Cradle, buffalo hide, 128
Cranes, 344, 374
Crazy Raven, Indian scout, 226
Cree Indians, 277, 301
Creek Indians, 226
Crime:
beating, a's punishment for, 148, 149,
152, 155, 157, 188, 221
cuffing, as punishment for, 112
disobedience, 276
ducking, as punishment for, 112,
269
elopement, 154
infraction of council regulations, 60,
188
murder, 74, 173, 305
manslaughter, 74, 77
rape, 134
scolding, as punishment for, 112, 1385
shaming, as punishment for, 269
theft, 72, 73, 112, 134, 135, 185, 190

503

Crime—Continued
whipping, as punishment for, 112,
123, 134, 149, 193, 221
See also Horses, stealing of; Police.
Crow agency, 315
Crow Bull, council member, 28, 350, 351
Crow Butte, 12 (map), 485
Crow-Flies-High, Indian leader, 438, 45,
225, 238, 240, 243, 245, 246, 250,
251, 341, 348, 372, 383, 487
group of, vi, 45, 67, 77, 149, 185,
225, 240
Indians, 5, 13, 16, 19, 27, 48, 44,
57, 67, 70, 74, 78, 80, 90, 92, 93,
1138, 158, 154, 164, 175, 176, 179,
TSS e213) 214 216.21 28 225.
230, 2438, 245, 249, 261, 267,
275, 283, 285, 298, 297, 300,
301, 303, 304, 338, 393, 447, 463,
464, 476, 478, 481, 482, 489
group relations with Hidatsa, 13,
21, 37, 482
Hidatsa-River, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23,
178, 179, 214, 216, 218, 250, 257,
275, 287, 290, 291, 294, 299, 300,
301, 302, 303, 312, 336, 358, 474
Mountain or Western, 16, 21, 22,
178, 257, 312, 485
Crows, 363, 393
feather from, 279
Crows Arm, Indian man, 456
Crows Breast, Indian scout, 226, 227,
229, 230, 231, 232, 265, 272, 367,
383, 424, 444, 456
Crows Heart, informant, v, vi, 2, 15, 101,
102 (chart), 103, 124, 125, 126,
127, 141 1525 203) 258, 200, 278,
310, 448, 463
narrative from, 152-154, 221, 370
Crows Paunch, 48, 44, 245, 253, 309, 327
Crying, by lodge members, 134, 185, 262
ceremonial, 263, 264, 290, 317, 319,
828, 351, 421, 424, 437, 440, 466
preparation for war, 46, 253
Crying Dog, Indian man, 309
Culture hero, 21, 78, 80, 95, 126, 286, 294,
295
See also Mythology.
Curtis, Edward S., v, 3, 17, 27, 184, 341,
343, 346, 347
Custer campaign, vit, 273, 274
Cuts-His-Hair, 126

Crow

Dakotas, 216
Dancers, 316, 318, 440, 448, 444, 445
evergreen worn by, 440, 444
Dances, 68, 151, 179, 182, 414, 440, 452
Big Grass, 176
Buffalo, 199
Cuts-Hole-in-the-Mouth, 316
fall, 346
Female Bear, 355
Goose Society, 152, 202, 203, 346
Grass, 91, 92, 176, 211, 283, 401, 402

504

Dances—Continued
Half-Shaved Head, 211
Hot, 176
“last,” 427, 428 (fig.), 429
Naxpikeg, vi, 6, 31, 46, 50, 73, 127,

167, 174, 180, 181, 219, 248, 266,
267, 277, 284, 291, 294, 308, 310—
313, 320-822, 333, 375, 383, 389,
390, 391, 426, 429
Night Grass, 176, 211, 402
sale of, 176
scalp, 329, 347, 396, 433
social, 489
society, 92
spring, 346
Squaw, 150
victory, 75, 121, 155, 193, 219, 222,
240, 241, 254, 271, 274, 300, 379
war, 62
White Buffalo, 152
Wolf, 415
Dancing, 55, 113, 135, 319, 402, 411, 423,
424, 429
Dancing club, 179, 180
Dancing Flag, Indian man,
2ol,, Zoe
Dancing spots, 321, 427, 488
Daughter, 80, 81, 88, 90, 93,
110, 139, 140, 141, 159,
165, 167, 168, 172, 307,
385, 393, 407, 413, 414,
434, 485, 437, 489, 440
husband of, 80, 159, 432
“Daughter,” 86, 88, 90, 99, 104, 105, 108,
ALT; 1193202; 206, 332: 344503844,
386, 393, 432
Daughter-in-law, 7, 106, 107, 118, 119,
123, 143, 144, 158, 307, 351, 355,
443, 446, 452, 4538, 454, 457, 459

“Daughter-in-law,” 99, 118, 445

Dead, disposal of, 169, 331
fear of, 169
messages to, 173
reunion of, 173

Death, 282
duties connected with, 75, 169
grief for, 76, 159, 283
supernatural causes for, 283

Decorations, war, 280

Deer, 53, 59, 145, 264, 271, 301, 344, 345,

350, 359, 361, 399, 400, 404
black-tailed, 400
hides, 401
skull, 346
skull and horns, 345
white-tailed, 335

Densmore, Frances, 3, 338

Descent, 81, 86—88, 114

Devils Lake, 23, 91, 213, 219,

294, 299, 300, 301, 302,

392, 482, 486
region of, 19, 20, 23, 26,

214, 215, 221, 300, 360,

Dickinson, N. Dak., 126, 227,

278, 290,
308, 359,

170, 218,
482, 483
399, 401

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

[Bull. 194]

Different Pipe, see Red Bird.
Different Sage, Indian woman, 153, 385
Different Snake, Indian girl, 143, 263,
raf ib
Different Wolf, Indian man, 243, 247,
248, 367, 383, 404
Digging sticks, 166, 256, 259, 409, 427
Dike, protective, 19 (map)
Dipper, buffalo-horn, 381
Disease, 168, 215, 269, 280, 449
epidemics, 35, 71, 94, 101, 173, 177,
178, 182, 215, 218, 308, 309, 327,
342, 344, 480, 481, 488, 441, 454,
468, 464, 477, 486
infections, 360
of White men, 212
paralysis, 330
rheumatism, 372
smallpox, 8, 4, 10, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24,
26, 27%, 30: 35, 36,51, 40,09, (0) tie
94, 152, 154, 170, 175, 177, 192, 197,
201, 215; 221%, 250; oer eae.
250, 256, 257, 261, 264, 268, 287,
300, 301, 341, 342, 348, 350, 351,
363, 371, 380, 390, 397, 402, 425,
446, 466, 485, 486, 487
stiffness, 372
stomach, 379, 381, 385, 386, 388
swellings and infections, 357
tuberculosis, 150
worms, 373
See also Medicine.
Dishes, 172
Ditch, protective, 13 (map), 18 (map),
20 (map), 56, 215, 216, 480
Divorce, 110, 111, 122, 142, 151, 159
Doctoring, 266, 307, 348, 350, 351, 357,
360, 364, 372, 381, 383, 385, 386,
387, 389, 411, 420, 433, 443, 445,
461
household, 162, 168
Doctors, Indian, 128, 168, 256, 260, 373,
377, 379, 385, 386, 387
Does Good, Indian man, 444
Dog Bear, Indian man, 264, 424, 442,
443, 444, 445, 446
Dog Den, 196, 197, 215, 337, 338, 345
Dog Den Buttes, 12 (map), 195, 196
Dogs, 55, 60, 182, 189, 195, 207, 254, 256,
344, 345, 350, 355, 377, 410, 418,
435, 436, 444, 452, 464, 465, 466
mad, 444
red-haired (horses), 486
teams of, 378
See also Mythology.
Dogs Urine, Awatixa man, 327
Dolls, 115, 131
Double-ditch villages, 484
Drags Wolf, informant, v1Ir
Dream experiences, 174, 226, 254, 263,
265, 272, 288, 324, 365, 366, 455
Dreams, belief in, 73, 173, 223, 224, 225,
240, 262, 266, 268, 270, 272, 274,
285, 310, 311, 319, 320, 322, 344,
350, 418, 488, 472

INDEX

Driftwood, use of, 167
Drumheads, 391
“Drum of Protection,” 457
Drums, 183, 313, 326, 344, 375, 403, 419,
452
buffalo hide, 424
circular, 345
hand, 256
protector, 458, 459
rainmaking, 390
sacred turtle, 206
Drumsticks, 326, 391
Dry goods, 403, 406
Drying frames, wooden, 54, 55
Drying platforms, 162
Dry Squash, Indian man, 365
Dry Squash-Wolf Eyes, Indian man, 363
Ducks, 344
eggs of, 255
green-head, 346
representation of, 201

Eagle, Indian woman, 416, 417, 418
Hagle children, 360
Eagle Hill, 301
Eagle Men skulls, 473
Eagle People, 358, 360
Eagles, 57, 138, 166, 174, 253, 254, 255,
259, 286, 296, 349, 357, 359, 360,
361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 371, 399,
400, 401, 410, 467
bait for, 400
claws of, 367, 368
down of, white, 332, 357, 364, 399
feathers of, 48, 127, 156, 255, 2683,
279, 307, 359, 364, 368, 385, 399,
401-4038, 414, 486, 461
nest of, 258, 422
“soft small,” 401
speckled, 359, 393, 467
spotted, 400
tail of, 279, 414, 432
traps for, 120, 286
wingbone, whistle from, 315, 317,
318, 424
Hagle’s Nose site, 478
Eagle Trapping, Indian man, 367
Eagle trapping, 78, 138, 195, 286, 310,
334, 348, 349, 357, 358, 388, 398,
399, 401, 410, 422, 445, 446, 448
bundle, see Bundles, eagle-trapping.
camp, 57, 79, 165
ceremony, see Ceremonies.
leaders, 187
lodges, 57, 160, 254, 3538, 361, 399,
400, 401, 422, 489, 474, 481
pit, 79, 195, 399, 400, 401, 410, 422
rights, 400
season, 160, 361
snare, 3538, 443
technique, 488
Eagle Villages in the Sky, 468 (plan),
473

505

Earth, 298, 381, 382, 394
Karth lodges, 10, 17, 22, 30, 39, 120, 126,
130, 148, 149, 160, 161, 165, 174,
179, 195, 208, 204, 213, 216,
234, 245, 288, 291, 304, 305,
316, 328, 336, 337, 345, 353,
373, 414, 421, 460, 464, 476,
479, 481, 482, 483, 485, 486
federation of, 217
household groups, 11, 20, 24
villages, 14, 21, 23, 24, 26, 29, 46,
56, 301, 304, 476, 477
EKarth-lodge sites, 2, 3, 10, 16, 381, 382,
474

Earthnaming Buttes, 435
Earth rings, ceremonial, 2
Edge-of-Rock, Indian leader, 45, 127
Edge-of-Stone, Indian man, 253
Effigies, 369
snake, 370
turtle, vi11, 337, 370
Eggan, Fred, vit
Phart-sah, see Hidatsa.
Elbowoods, N. Dak., m1, Iv, 170, 489
Elbowoods Agency, 150
Elk, 53, 59, 145, 195, 227, 265, 344,
350, 355, 360, 440
teeth, 355
skin, 345, 346
Elopement, 139, 154, 248, 249,
Hnemies, 228, 260, 262, 263,
266, 267, 270, 276, 277, 278,
319, 328, 336, 345,
356, 357, 365, 366,
3838, 384, 394, 402,
409, 411, 415, 421,
, 4383, 454, 456, 457, 465,
469, 470, 471, 472, 473
bands of, 191, 192, 224
bones of, 473
camp of, entering of, 135, 154,
376, 396, 410, 412
conquest of, by U.S. Army, 489
killing of, 248, 255, 258, 278, 280,
319, 322, 375, 376, 389, 404, 412,
425, 434, 466, 470
mutilation of, 277, 376, 396, 473
See also Cannibalism; Warfare.
Energy site, 216
Entryway, 481
Evil spirits, 64, 169, 275, 304, 349, 441
Expansion, N. Dak., 68
Expeditions, unauthorized, 193, 221
Explorers, 1, 3

345,

279
264,

279,

Face, Indian man, 452
Face blackening, 219, 230, 379, 396
Face painting, 263, 317, 325, 379, 397
girls’, 219
society, 200, 208, 244, 406, 409, 423,
443
war, 226, 238, 239, 242, 2438, 245, 251,
329, 365, 376
Fall Indians (Hidatsa), 11, 301

506

Families, 161, 221, 349, 451
elementary, 103, 160
extended, 487
head of, 449
matrilocal, 104, 105
matrilinear, 159
See also Brother ; Father ; Mother ;
Sister; ete.
Fargo, N. Dak., 480
Fast Dog, Indian man, 329
Fasters, 78, 203, 226, 266, 285, 310, 313,
317, 318, 320, 322, 323, 411, 419,
421, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428,
429, 438
Fasting, 59, 60, 106, 112, 113,
152, 153, 183, 184, 188,
193, 198, 207, 209, 219,
225, 234, 248, 246, 247,
261, 264, 266, 267, 268,
273, 274, 282, 290, 317,
328, 350, 351, 356, 372,
399, 417, 456
by population, 60, 73, 219
fingertips cut off during,
322, 3338, 351, 401
group, 181, 192, 310, 443
individual, 48, 46, 54, 55, 58, 59, 78,
75, 76, 80, 126, 129, 133, 135, 136,
1ST) 155, 205; 2095 22892505 251
255, 258, 262, 267, 270, 311, 375,
394, 412, 426
leader of, 73, 219
winter, 270
See also Self-torture.
Fasting:
places, 170, 219, 284, 331, 395
rites, 135
shelters for, 73, 318
spots, prayer at, 53, 112, 133
Father, 93, 97, 107-109, 116-118,
124, 129, 130, 183, 135-137,
144, 146, 152, 154, 158, 160,
172, 221), 223, 2338, 243, 248,
252, 256, 257, 261, 262, 264,
273-277, 284, 296, 308, 310,
314, 317, 319-321, 327, 328,
332, 338, 340, 344, 351, 352,
377, 379, 385-388, 391, 397,
400, 401, 404-409, 414, 417,
424, 426, 486, 487, 439, 440,
447, 455-457, 472
brothers of, 81, 94, 107, 108, 111, 414
clan of, 129, 130, 183, 159, 164, 168,
169, 171, 223, 237, 284, 308, 310,
312, 352, 391, 417, 426, 427, 437,
451, 460
clansmen of, duties of, 80, 220, 312,
344, 352, 362, 418
daughter relationship to, 103, 109
death of, 136
father of, 90, 119
sister of, 80, 81, 86, 98, 94, 1038, 107,
117, 128, 168, 170, 200, 393

116,
191,
222,
248,
269,
318,
390,

129,
192,
224,
250,
270,
320,
391,

172, 261

.

120,
143,
163,
251,
266,
311,
330,
362,
398,
419,
446,

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

[Bull. 194]

Father—Continued

son relationship to, 103, 107-109,
179, 181, 211, 241, 287, 288, 296,
307, 308, 347, 351, 427
spiritual, 129
“Father,” 73, 80, 81, 86, 87, 88, 91, 92,
93, 95, 97, 108, 112, 115, 119, 122,
185, 188, 148, 144, 157, 158, 193,
209, 210, 223, 231, 248, 248,
252, 264, 20 202 e214 wos,
287, 288, 307, 310, 312, 319,
322, 332, 364, 366, 383, 398,
404, 406, 428, 442, 455, 456,
459, 462
“sister” of, 81, 86, 87, 90, 91, 95, 97,
99, 101, 117, 118, 120, 158, 202
Father-in-law, 122, 142, 147, 159, 160,
307, 342, 373
son-in-law relationship to, 108, 122
taboo, 159
Fathers, ‘‘ceremonial,”’ 1386, 137, 274,
289, 314, 364, 366, 398, 405, 407,
446, 462
Feasts, 55, 108, 135, 140, 202, 209, 289,

286, 365, 382, 404, 422, 448, 464,
471

ceremonial, 341, 361, 437

funeral, 278, 282

marriage, 158

medicine, 246, 283, 288, 336, 348,
350, 451

renewal, 332, 383

ritualistic, 39, 48, 45, 46, 76, 106,
112, 115, 120, 155, 184, 192, 194,

198, 202, 204, 205, 223, 232, 237,
287, 295, 452
social, 252
transfer, 432
Feather-on-head, Indian woman, 444,
445
Feathers, 321, 376, 395, 396, 403, 409, 486
claw, 365
hawk, 4388
head, 365
raven, 279, 350, 411, 423, 429, 445
red, sacred emblem, 254
sleep, 365
speckled eagle, 307, 359, 436
swallow, 438
tail, 365, 399, 401, 406, 465
white, 365
wing, 452
worn by victors, 258, 270, 280
Fences, 132, 270
protective, 18 (map), 19 (map), 20
(map)
Ferret, 366, 367, 368
skin of, 364, 365, 366
File, Arikara man, 448, 444
Fire, 144, 226, 228, 352, 353, 354, 448,
453, 458, 459, 465, 468, 473
celestial, 290
extinguished in mourning, 172
prohibition of, 50, 60, 187, 189, 207

INDEX

Fire—Continued
rekindled, 60
restriction of, 471
tending of, 137
used in ceremonies, 405, 406, 424,
457
Firepit, 160
Fireplace, 161, 166, 354
“First Creator,’ role of, 33, 38, 197,
200, 298, 323, 335, 336, 337, 338,
353, 354
impersonator, 353, 354, 355, 356,
420, 422, 425, 456, 458, 459
See also Mythology.
Fish, 286, 301
traps, 120, 148, 270, 286
Fishhook Bend, 29, 257
Fishhook Village, vi, 2, 6, 24, 25, 27, 29,
30, 31, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 44, 45, 67,
68, 77, 78, 110, 145, 149, 150, 152,
1538, 157, 159, 161, 165, 170, 172,
180, 182, 185, 191, 192, 199,
219, 222, 225, 233, 238, 240,
245, 246, 249, 251, 261, 262,
276, 277, 284, 309, 312, 322,
342, 343, 352, 357, 364, 374,
392, 419, 429, 434, 488, 442,
, 447, 463, 464, 465, 466, 471,
472, 475, 487, 488
Fish trapping, 63, 286, 445, 446
groups, 63
rites, 293, 357, 455
Flakers, see Tools.
Flathead Indians, 17
Flint, 166, 370
chipping, 120, 364
knife of, 363, 368
used as knives, 351
Flirting, 52
Floor, earth, 161
Flour, 150
Flying Eagle, chief, 38, 44, 230, 232, 425
Fogs, treatment for, 369
Folds-her-Robe, Indian woman, 145
Food, 153, 160, 163, 181, 210, 222, 282,
386, 402, 403, 405, 429, 443
abstinence from, 135
division of, 443
offerings of, 60, 106, 109, 201, 385,
426, 457, 459, 461, 470, 471
provided by bride’s household, 140
provided for dead, 172
raids for, 134
See also Agriculture; Game; Meat.
Foolish Eagle, Indian man, 377, 378
Foolish Head, Indian man, 348
Foolish Wolf, informant, vir
Foot, human, drawing of, 229
Footraces, 132
Forests, 301
Forsyth, Mont., 483
Fort Berthhold Reservation, 111, tv, v, 1,
29, 30, 41, 293, 335, 487, 489

507

Fort Buford, vi, 30, 44, 45, 77, 149, 150,
233, 236, 238, 247, 251, 273, 343,
346, 364, 366, 368, 383, 420, 422,
438
Fort Buford Band, 142, 240, 251, 273
Fort Clark Station, 39, 56, 215, 216, 217,
219, 483, 485
Yortifications, 40, 47, 56, 480, 483
wall, 215, 216, 276
Fort Laramie, 41
Fort Laramie Treaty, 156, 252
Fort Rice site, 478
Forts, 239, 242, 389
Fort Stevenson, 2, 45, 78
Fort Sully site, 485
Fort Yates, 21, 486
Four Bears, Indian chief, 29, 37, 38, 40,
41, 45, 156, 157, 234, 235, 238, 242,
247, 252, 258, 254, 255, 256, 257,
258, 259, 260, 261, 416, 417, 425,
464, 465, 466
life of, 252-257
line, Wolf ceremonies in, 416 (fig. )
Four Dancers (informant), v, v1, 174,
233, 236, 237, 238, 240, 241, 242,
247, 248, 249, 251, 257, 259, 422,
434, 435, 4386
father of, ceremonial leader, v1
Fox, 345, 397, 410, 422
skins of, 342, 345, 346, 404
Fox Singing Butte, 12 (map), 435
“Friend,” 91, 92, 124, 245, 336
“Friends,” societies of opposite sex, 210,
PHL, BaP.
Frog, 358, 371, 372, 380, 381, 385
Frosty Mouth, Indian man, 356
Fruits, 461
Fuel, 47, 53, 56
Funerals, 75, 117, 157, 169, 170, 172,
210, 278, 282
See also Burials.

Gaines village, 39, 216
Gambler, 155, 307
Gambling, 130, 156, 452, 453
contests, intercamp, 39
sticks used in, 305
Game, protection of, 186
traps for, 120
winter, 186
Games, 66, 119, 130, 219
boys’ 105, 129, 131, 220
girls’, 130, 131, 219
“kick ball,” 131
marbles, 130
moccasin, 365
of skill, children’s, 40
“spin the top,” boy’s game, 130:
“tied up,” shooting game, 130
Gardens, vegetable, see Agriculture.
Gate, wall, 276
Gatherers, 4, 489

508 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194]

“Grandfather,” 80, 81, 87, 88, 90, 95,
97, 99, 119, 143, 470
Grandmother, 80, 81, 87, 88, 103, 117-
119, 157, 164, 249, 271, 307, 329,
334, 335, 427, 439, 472
brothers of, 72, 81, 350
maternal, 81, 94, 105, 117, 118, 128,
130, 158, 163, 350
paternal, 81, 118
“Grandmother,” 80, 81, 87, 88, 90, 95,
97, 118, 120, 131, 145, 336, 345,
355
“Grandmother’s Lodge,” 478
Grandparents, 81, 119, 120, 124, 489
Grand River, 24, 217, 340, 480, 484, 485,
486

Geese, 298, 344, 345
beliefs regarding, 204
dreams of, 202
representations of, 201
return of, 202, 203
Genealogies, 6, 65, 159, 177, 260
Generosity, regard for, 272
Gens-di-foulers, see Hidatsa.
Ghost Singing Butte, 12 (map), 435, 436
Gifts, compensation for misfortunes, 57,
63
exchange of, 91, 117, 141
given to sweetheart, 440
goods offered as, 106, 108, 115, 116,
120, 134, 186, 137, 140, 141, 153,
157, 163, 1771, 172; 189, 204, 207,
210, 220, 289, 3138, 345, 346, 354,
370, 444
offer of, 99, 133, 141, 180, 223
presentation of, 107, 128, 136, 158,
164, 167, 241, 244, 245, 249, 258,
280, 289
presented at graves, 76
Girls, 52, 95, 112, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133,
188, 141, 148, 208, 219, 268, 334.
413, 414, 445, 456
Gives-Away-his-Arrows, council mem-
ber, 28
Glencoe site, 478
Gods, offerings to, 333
prayers to, 59, 73, 455
sacred, 193
sky, 299, 358
water, 299, 358
See also Mythology.
Goes Around, Indian woman, 409
Golden Valley, N. Dak., 317, 369
Good Bear, Indian judge, 151, 226, 230,
309, 310, 318, 315, 321
Good Bear, Mrs., informant, vi, 5, 6,
174, 310, 318, 321, 322
Goodbird, Edward, 150
Good Bird, Indian man, 422
Good Squash, 97, 98 (chart)
Goose, 202, 345
Goose Flats, 12 (map)
Goose Women, See Societies.
Gophers, 54, 131, 219, 265
Gossip, use of, 190
Gourd, 353, 354
“Grandchild,” 80, 88, 90, 105
Grandchildren, 86, 117, 118, 119, 124,
164, 165, 288, 389
“Grandchildren,” 86, 88, 90, 395
Granddaughters, 118, 407, 408, 454
“Granddaughters,”’ 148, 144, 407, 454,
455
“of the buffaloes,” 263
“to the bears,” 355
Grandfather, 119, 120, 129, 233, 236,
259, 268, 269, 288, 301, 329, 350,
379, 407, 408, 427, 453, 454, 456
maternal, 81, 97, 117, 120, 128, 180,
131, 261, 470
paternal, 90, 97
sister of, 81, 90, 117

Grandson, 118, 262, 326, 334, 336, 385,
434

“Grandson,” 101, 164, 180, 196, 197, 286,
334

Grass, 427
beliefs regarding, 128
red, 411, 423, 426, 428, 429
sweet-smelling, 464
Graves, 109, 248, 268, 320, 322, 330, 477
See also Burials.
Grease, used in curing, 379
Great Lakes area, 214
Greenshield site, 24, 217, 485
Grey-Old-Man, Indian man, 439, 440
Gros Ventres, see Hidatsa.
Guardian Spirit, 223, 285, 288, 299, 455
Guidance, supernatural, 44, 50, 55
Gumbo flats, 235
Guts, Indian man, 41, 42, 233, 234, 235,
236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242,
243, 244, 245, 247, 248, 257. 434,
436, 488, 442, 446, 451, 456, 457,
460
narratives about, 238-240, 242-247

Hair dressing, 134, 380, 466
for mourning, 76, 172, 248
ornaments for, marks of victory,
280
Hairy Coat, informant, v, 228, 229, 327,
367, 369, 383, 398, 404, 405, 406,
407, 424, 444, 456
Half-Smoked-Tipi, Indian man, 436
Hammer, carved stone, society emblem,
180, 337
Hands, dried, 317
paintings of, 280
Hard Horn, Indian man, 228, 230, 231,
232, 364, 365, 366, 367, 368, 369
Harris, Leo D., vor
Hartle, Don, vi
Harvest, 50, 56
Hawks, 166, 245, 263, 270, 363
nest of, 228, 230, 231, 235
stuffed, 226, 227, 229, 231
tail feathers, 254
white, 359
Hayden, F. V., 3

INDEX

Headband, gooseskin with head at-
tached, 202, 341
porcupine quills, 414
white, 207
Headdresses, 403
foxskin, 342, 345, 346
wolfskin, 414
Heart Butte, 298
Heart River, 5, 10, 12 (map), 15, 16, 19,
21, 40, 126, 178, 200, 218, 215, 255,
290, 294, 302, 308, 331, 336, 339,
340, 341, 370, 392, 394, 410, 4683,
475, 476, 477, 478, 481, 482, 483,
484, 486, 489
region, 20, 22, 24, 216, 217, 339
Heart River Focus, 334, 391, 483
Heart Singing Butte, 12 (map), 485
Henry, Alexander, 16, 28, 276, 297, 339,
392
Henry Bad Gun, Indian man, 469
Hensler-Sanger region, 17, 21
Hensler site, 481
Herding, 139, 276
Herons, 374
Hidatsa-Crow group, 214, 290, 302, 402,
476, 488, 484
Hidatsa Indians, rv—vi, 1, 3, 5, 10, 11,
18, 21, 23, 36, 41, 4446, 48-52, 55,
56, 59, 60, 62, 63, 65, 67-69, 77-80,
91, 92, 94, 95, 99, 103, 107, 112,
120, 128, 124, 126, 127, 129-131,
185-188, 147, 152, 1538, 158, 159,
161, 163-167, 169-171, 173-175,
181, 185, 188, 192, 194, 198, 199,
201, 203, 205, 206, 208, 210-213,
215-218, 223, 224, 230, 238, 240,
242, 248, 252, 256, 258-260, 271,
278, 275-278, 283, 285, 293, 294,
299, 301, 302, 308, 328, 337-340,
342, 345, 350, 357, 358, 360, 362,
3638, 370, 371, 392-894, 415, 419,
430, 438, 437, 438, 441, 442, 447,
455, 462, 4638, 469, 474, 476-478,
484, 486-489
archeology of, IIT
ceremonial organization, vi, 8, 64,
282-476
clans, 67 (list), 71
community life, v1, 476
genealogies, 68
Sroups, 4, 11, Loses, 22. 24-026) 27.
30, 31, 32, 35, 38, 43, 47, 65, 190,
218, 214, 291, 342, 380, 382, 393,
483, 486, 488
intermarriages with Mandan, 69
(table)
lands, 12 (map)
language, III, vi, 8
migration, tradition of, 14, 213, 481,
482
traditions, 3, 8, 30, 70, 169, 184, 213,
340, 341, 342, 481, 482
village groups, 175, 177, 184, 233,
236, 250, 309, 327, 341, 410, 488,
463, 474

509

Hidatsa Indians—Continued
villages, 10,12 (map), 14,18 (map),
29, 38, 42, 49, 70, 76, 78, 90, 91, 93,
94, 155, 156, 165, 166, 169, 170,
178, 180, 181, 183, 191, 193, 194,
197, 198, 214, 216, 221, 234, 236,
248, 249, 250, 258, 261, 277, 301,
802, 303, 308, 312, 321, 330, 339,
341, 343, 350, 363, 371, 377, 379,
382, 389, 418, 429, 480, 434, 435,
436, 451, 452, 454, 456, 466, 475,
476, 483, 484
Hidatsa-proper, 2, 11, 23, 24, 26, 29, 30,
31, 32, 36, 37, 42, 64, 65, 169, 177,
18) 213, 214, 215, 232, 1233,) 256,
2571, 275, 287, 290, 291, 293,, 301,
302, 303, 309, 312, 327, 331, 342,
350, 410, 476, 482, 486, 487, 489
Hidatsa-River Crow Indians, 16, 19-28,
178, 179, 214, 294, 302, 482
Hides, 57, 136, 331, 340, 370, 401, 470
curing of, 50, 51, 55, 104, 110, 115,
128, 146, 150, 162
decorated, 138, 150
green, 150
hunters of, 399
painted, 409
soft tanned, 128
tanning, 150, 430, 434
used ‘as boats, 51
High Bird—Hungry Wolf conflict, 358
High Eagle, Indian man, 228
High Jump, son of Cherry Necklace, 350
His-Horse-Smells-Him, Indian man, 424
Historie times, 3, 22, 23, 471, 477, 478
Hits-on-Back, Indian man, 424
Hoes, 4, 23, 427
Holbrook site, 478
Holding Hagle, Indian man, 92, 424
home of, 293, 335
Holy Ghost, descent of, 322
Holy Women, 95, 298, 307, 315, 316, 322,
323, 324, 325, 326,327; 328, 329,
330, 331, 333, 383, 392, 405, 406,
408, 409, 427, 428, 431, 435, 438,
440, 444, 464, 465
See also Mythology.
Holy-Young-Man, Indian man, 466
singer for, 428
Hoop, sacred, 412, 413
willow, 317
Horn-Between-the-Water, Indian chief,
359
Horses, 34, 37, 40, 43, 46, 48, 52, 58, 54, 61,
62, 71-75, 95, 106-109, 115-117,
122, 124, 125, 128, 130, 132, 134,
136-147, 149-151, 153, 154, 157,
158, 172, 186, 191, 192, 207, 210,
215, 221-224, 226-232, 244-246,
249, 251, 2538, 256-259, 263-266,
268, 270, 271, 272, 276, 289, 301,
315, 318, 351, 356, 366, 369, 376,
385, 387, 388, 398, 399, 401-403,
412, 415, 417, 422, 435, 486, 442-
445, 456, 463, 472

510

Horses—Continued

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194]

adoption of, 446

bay, 486

buffalo, 48, 62, 141, 162, 171, 190

eare of, 56, 92, 110, 135, 160

effect on warfare, 213

exchange of, 151, 158

gray gelding, 149

horsehair, 48, 380

increase of, 447

introduction of, 214, 216, 260, 287,
326, 329, 430, 431, 435, 464

killing of, 188, 193

pack, 55, 162

pinto, 415

prayers to, 254

presents of, 245, 249, 319

protection of, 53, 135, 161, 162

racing of, 220

represented by sticks, 405, 406

riding of, 52, 238

saddle, 149

spotted, 402, 407, 415

stealing of, 53, 109, 112, 134, 136,
156, 190, 194, 217-221, 231, 237,
242, 255, 278, 280

tracks, as decorations, 280

used in torture, 267, 274

Hospitality, rules of, 49
Households, 75, 114, 115, 116, 117, 129,

134, 136, 142, 151, 152, 155, 159,
160, 161, 163, 168, 170, 178, 181,
185, 186, 188, 190, 223, 224, 272,
273, 274, 275, 290, 291, 341, 349,
376, 449

extended, 167

groups of, 5, 6, 29, 33, 34, 35, 55,
58, 60, 61, 62, 65, 77, 128, 1638, 304,
340, 345

mixed Mandan-Hidatsa, vI

related, 160, 161, 191

responsibilities of, 131, 132, 163

Household shrines, 307
Houses, 301, 311, 323

log, 263
See also Camps; Lodges; Villages.

Huff site, N. Dak., 22, 339, 478, 479,

483

Hunkpapa Indians, 230
Hunt, summer, 33, 49, 50-56, 136, 161
Hunters, 4, 23, 54, 55, 60, 105, 118, 119,

121, 129, 131, 133, 136, 140, 153,
154, 164, 186, 189, 271, 276, 307,
432, 442, 489

White, 150, 447

Hunting, 16, 60-62, 107, 110, 113, 119,

122, 124, 129, 136, 1389, 141, 142,
147, 161, 174, 189, 192, 252, 261,
284, 308, 339, 374, 389, 392, 404,
412, 435, 473

areas, 300

camps, 61, 153, 157, 214, 215

corral, 162

expeditions, 46, 147, 155, 162, 218

grounds, 52, 53, 216, 218, 3038

Hunting—Continued
instruction in, 106
leaders, 51, 186
parties, 29, 46, 57, 59, 71, 118, 123,
1388, 153, 260, 302, 435
premature, 187, 188, 207
restrictions, removal of, 61
territory, 16, 29, 32, 35, 387
Hunts Along, Indian man, 473
Hunts Turnips, 99, 100 (chart)
Husband, 80, 87, 101, 105, 110, 111, 114,
115, 118, 122, 128, 129, 136, 140,
148, 144, 146, 148, 154, 155, 157,
158, 159, 169, 218, 271, 320, 321,
322, 334, 335, 344, 351, 372, 384,
396, 397, 413, 482, 440, 448, 449,
456, 461, 463
brother of, 80, 113, 119, 321
father of, 119, 120, 157, 158
household of, 158, 159, 161
lodge of, 141
mother of, 128, 146
people of, 139, 140, 159, 161
relatives of, relation to former
wife, 93
sister of, 80, 81, 119, 128
Hyde, —, 3

Ice, 440
Images, 329, 464
Incense, 348, 375, 466
cedar, 386
pine spill, 314, 353
Independence, N. Dak., v, 263, 370
Indians of the Woods, 301
Informants, Iv, V, VII, 3-8, 11, 15, 16, 22,
26, 27, 34, 47, 49, 56, 60, 67, 68,
70, 77, 90, 101, 105, 111, 115, 126,
131, 139, 141, 159, 165-167, 172-
174, 178-181, 194, 198, 200, 204,
205, 209, 210, 213, 224, 287, 248,
259, 268, 272, 277, 284, 287, 294,
296, 302-304, 308, 309, 312, 325,
831, 340, 348, 348, 352, 374, 389,
391, 412, 417, 419, 485, 441, 442,
451, 454, 463, 464, 478, 482, 488,
489
Awaxawi, 65, 309
Hidatsa, vu, 25, 67, 165, 170, 212,
303, 330, 370, 485, 447, 480
Knife clan, 473
Mandan, 21, 67, 183, 184, 197, 341,
447, 463, 478, 488
Inheritance, clan, 26, 27, 79, 296, 3938,
474, 475
female, 91
Hidatsa-Awaxawi, 31, 179
matrilineal, 488
patrilineal, 162, 350, 371, 3938, 436,
441, 464, 475
pattern of, 46, 350, 381, 482
rights of, 32, 114, 119, 188, 432
Insanity, 330, 333
Insects, 345

INDEX

Intercourse, ceremonial, 108, 207, 272,
451, 452, 457, 460, 462, 463

Intermarriage, 24, 69 (table), 185

Interpreters, 111, Iv, 8

Intestines, offerings of, 360, 373

Iron Eyes, Indian man, 228, 229, 422,
424, 425, 429, 4438, 444, 445.

Tron Woman, Indian woman, 144, 145

Jackrabbit, 399
skin cap, 317
skins, 332, 399
James River, 22, 215
“Joking relative,” 124, 139, 144,
149, 152, 158, 155, 158, 190,
211, 222, 246, 248, 249, 262,
269, 271, 289, 319
Judges, Indian, 150, 151
Juneberries, Indian woman, 153,
385
Juneberries, 53, 144, 227, 263, 360
stick of, 470

145,
194,
268,

154,

Kettles, 147
“Kicked the stone,” derogatory terin,
193, 255, 259, 261, 265, 273, 366,
377
Kidney, Indian leader, 221, 222, 225,
227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 236,
238, 267, 275, 405, 442
Killdeer Mountains, singer, 435
Killdeer Mountains, 12 (map), 29, 51,
230, 233, 412, 413, 415, 423, 438,
434, 435, 436, 437
Kinship, 91
behavior, 103-126
bonds, 94
charts, 7, 80, 82-89
extension, 90-103
groups, 91, 237
integration, 90
relationship, intertribal, 92
relationships, 95
system, 4, 7, 71, 80-126, 427
terminology, v1, 7, 71, 80 (table),
81

Kit fox, 346

Kixa’ica’, see River Crow.

Knife, Long Arm impersonator, 45, 144,
309, 310, 458, 460, 461

Knife River, m1, v, vir, 1, 2, 5, 6, 11,
1S Ae 2324. 26, 2k 20) ol,
35, 36, 37, 40, 42, 48, 45, 47, 51.
68, 74, 77, 126, 153, 155, 169, 170,
174-176, 178, 179, 183, 191, 212-
214, 216, 218, 233, 234, 237, 238,
245, 252, 256, 261, 294, 301-3038,
309; 310; 312) 317.) 323; 330; 33,
336, 340, 341, 348, 360-362, 375,
376, 379, 381, 393, 394, 403, 410-
412, 415, 4380, 484486, 439, 441,
454, 464, 466, 467, 469, 470, 473,
476, 477, 480, 482-484, 486, 487

Knife River Mandan, 192

dll

Knife River Valley, 29, 36, 39

Knife River villages, 76, 275, 276, 410,
412, 413, 420, 466

Knives, 161, 234, 277, 280, 370, 380, 389,

403

flint, 363, 368, 370
stone, 65

Knotted, Indian man, 425

Kurz, Rudolph Friederich, 3, 39

La Vérendrye, Pierre Gaultier
Varennes, 10, 215
Lake Traverse, 11, 479
Lance, sacred, 254
Lariats, 315
Larson site, N. Dak., 4638, 481, 484
Laziness, results of, 455
“Leader of the Fast,” 220
“Leader of the Hunters,’ 54
“Leader of the People,” 638, 155
“Leader of the Warriors,” 402, 421
Leaders, 63, 167, 194, 223, 232
grading of, 26, 52, 61
jealousy among, 30
of the scouts, 224
selection of, 51, 58, 63
summer hunt, 53, 56, 58
unsuccessful, 193
See also Chiefs.
Lead Woman, 101, 102 (chart)
Lean Bull, Indian man, 265, 456, 460
Leavenworth campaign, 485
Leavenworth site, 481, 485
Leggings, 148, 202, 227, 234, 235, 244,
263, 264, 270, 279, 280, 407
decorated, 390, 395, 396, 403
LeRaye, Charles, 11, 14
Levirate, operation of, 123, 159
Lewis, Meriwether, 14, 17, 32, 308, 431,
474.

de

Lewis and Clark, 3, 14, 15, 16, 17, 32, 95,
213, 215, 216, 276, 302, 308, 451,
476, 477, 479, 485
Lifts Heart, Indian man, 255
Lightning, 359, 361, 362, 367, 390, 469
representation of, 367
Like-a-Fishhook Bend, 37, 464, 465

Like-a-Prairie-Chicken-Tail Butte, 412
Lincoln, Robert, 356
Lineage, 6, 64, 65, 86 (chart), 87

(chart), 88 (chart), 89 (chart),
90

household, 162, 163
maternal, 157
matrilineal, 64, 65, 72, 86 (chart),
87, 90, 97
patrilineal, 97
Little Bear, Indian man, 389
Little Black Bears, custodians of eagle-
trapping rites, 401
Little Heart Singing Butte, 12 (map),
435
Little Knife Creek, 372

512

Little Missouri River, 12 (map), 16, 17,
24, 26, 57, 126, 127, 145, 213, 214,
230, 246, 351, 372, 380, 392, 399,
412, 413, 430, 481, 484, 485, 447
Lodges, 2, 5, 17, 47, 49, 56, 60, 92, 119,
134, 146, 157, 160, 166, 216, 265,
271, 311, 367, 381, 396, 397, 405,
409, 418, 440, 443, 445, 453, 462
arrangement of, 22, 31, 32, 160, 161,
354 (fig.), 483
building of, done by men, 110, 160
burning of, 305, 461
ceremonial, 22, 39, 133, 419, 422,
423, 425, 426, 429, 445, 454, 456,
457, 458, 479, 481, 483, 488
circular, 477, 478, 479, 480, 481, 483
council, 187
dancing, 161
eagle-trapping, see Eagle trapping.
earth, see Harth lodges.
earth-covered, 481, 487, 488
enemy, 223
entrance of, 135, 161
fixed, 22
habitation, 483
hallway between, 161
inheritance of, 91, 119, 163
medicine, 321
Naxpiker, 318 (plan)
Okipa, 352, 383, 402, 405, 418, 443
Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, 339
posts for, 160, 165, 382, 420, 444,
457, 480
rectangular, 22, 477,
481, 484, 488
sacred, 78
sweat, 206, 205, 320,
355, 356, 365, 367,
881, 384, 387, 388,
407, 429, 470, 471
temporary, 439
tipi-shaped, 160
wooden, 56, 160
Log, carved to represent a snake, 391
Logan Museum of Beloit College, 11,
VII, vin, 2, 477, 478, 481
Loghouses, rectangular, 477
Lone Butte, see Buffalo Comes
Butte.
Lone Man, Mandan man, 70, 323, 393
Lone Man Impersonator, 437
Long Arm impersonator, 312, 314-320,
322
Long Bear, Indian man, 402
Looks-for-Medicine, 98 (chart)
Looks-for-Sweetgrass, Indian Woman,
146, 147, 151
Loud Walker, Indian man, 226
Love affairs, 271
Lower Hidatsa 34 site, 216, 294
Lower Yellowstone River, 26, 29, 57, 214
Lowie, Robert H., v, 3, 79, 183, 198, 200,
297, 341, 346
Lucky, Indian man, 403

478, 479, 480,

328,
368,
398,

353, 354,
369, 379,
405, 406,

Out

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

[Bull. 194]

Lucky Mound Creek, 170, 263

Ludick, Dale, vit

Ludlow Caves, S. Dak., 369

Lying Chicken, Indian man, 99, 100
(chart), 398, 405, 407, 424

McChesney, —, 161
Macduff, James, VIIt
McKenzie, Charles, 3, 321, 322
Mackintosh, —, 10
Magic, 276, 296, 303
Magpies, 325, 399, 401, 409, 410, 422, 440
feathers of, 180, 325, 329, 332, 406,
427, 465
Mahaha, see Hidatsa.
Maize, see Corn.
Mallards, 298
Mandan, N. Dak., 5, 14
Mandan City, 485
Mandan Indians, vi, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 14-
17, 19-21, 24, 28, 29, 31, 32, 36, 38,
39, 41, 44, 48, 55, 67-69, 74, 77-
80, 92; 97, 108, 113, 116, 122) 1245
135, 157-161, 178, 181, 189,
, 198-200, 205-207, 210, 212,
215-218, 225, 230, 238, 242,
260, 278, 276, 278, 281, 283,
290, 291, 295, 300-303, 309,
327, 330, 337, 339, 340, 343,
360, 362, 370, 371, 380-382,
406-419, 480, 486, 442, 451,
464, 472478, 480, 481, 484,
486, 489
and Hidatsa
(table)
chief of, 151, 287
clans, 66, 67 (list), 71, 91
genealogies, 68
groups, 190, 213, 294, 342, 430
language, 14, 301
mythology, 195, 197, 297, 477
Okipa, 199, 203, 226, 261, 321, 366,
389, 402, 405, 424, 433, 487, 443
sites, 22, 39, 265, 483, 484, 488
social and ceremonial organization,
VII
study of, Iv, v, 4
territory, 12 (map)
traditions, 3, 14, 22, 181, 184, 482,
488
village council, 29
village groups, 23, 29, 36, 40, 66, 175,
177, 179, 184, 215, 309, 339
villages, 14, 22, 24, 49, 170, 176, 194,
197, 198, 201, 234, 258, 291, 302,
325, 331, 342, 376, 377, 389, 429,
452, 463
See also Nuitadi Mandan; Nuptadi
Mandan.
Manitaries, 285, 451, 464
Mannhaven, N. Dak., 390
Manoah, French trader, 300
Mantanees, 10
Mantons River, 11

intermarriages, 69

INDEX

513

Man-who-Stays-at-Home-Smoking-and- | Medicine men, 167, 168, 174, 234, 239,

Jealous, 395
Man-With-Long-Hair, 248, 371
Many Growths, Hidatsa woman, Vv, 17,
96 (chart), 97, 98 (chart), 100
(chart), 149
Marriage, 66, 68, 80, 92, 93, 106, 109, 110,
117, 188, 151, 157, 159
arrangements for, 138, 140, 141, 142
feasts, 140, 158
first, 139
instability of, 99
interclan, 158
intertribal, 69
intervillage, 6
mother’s influence on, 104, 106
rules relating to, 64, 70, 92, 110, 114,
138, 139
separations, results of, 93, 111
with Whites, 94
Marries-by-Carrying-Water,
man, 253, 254, 424
Matthews, Washington, 2, 3, 39, 126,
161, 205, 297, 298
Maxaxa, see Hidatsa.
Maximilian, Alexander Philipp von, 8,
Ilr, ae sieay BC AN Ase elie
284, 297, 302, 321, 329, 347, 348,
451, 454, 464
Meadowlark, 305, 334
Meat, 122, 128, 134, 136, 145,
188, 189, 201, 228, 252,
385, 402, 406, 410, 422,
444
buffalo, 337, 399, 436, 438,
curing of, 50, 51, 55, 61,
123, 145, 146, 434, 435, 438
dried, 57, 147, 150, 329, 355,
387, 369, 370, 399, 400, 401,
404, 461
offerings of, 338, 340, 361, 362,
368, 383
roasted, 396, 422
securing of, 61, 108, 119, 141,
154, 161, 465
storing of, 55, 227, 228
transporting of, 162, 447
Medicine, 360, 409
big, 381
black, 307, 322, 354, 360, 366,
380, 381, 385, 394, 409, 461
earth, 434
feast, 246, 283,
451
for wounded, 222
objects, 256, 265, 347, 351
planting of, 40, 41
poles, 329
wolf, 264
See also Disease.
Medicine Bear, Sioux chief, 36, 218, 384
Medicine Bird, Indian man, 473, 474
Medicine Chief, see Different Wolf.
Medicine-in-Woods, 102 (chart)

Indian

185,
355,
439,

Spt}
365,
403,
363,

142,

372,

288, 336, 348, 350,

710-195—65—— 36

240, 241, 261, 348, 357
Medicine Robe, 95, 96 (chart), 97
Medicine root, black, 353, 354, 363, 365,
397
“Medicines,” 239, 245, 267, 321, 367, 388
Medicine Woman, 99, 100 (chart)
Medora, N. Dak., 247
Meleen, EH. E., 478
Men, 44, 46-48, 50-55, 57-59, 62, 63, 132,
155, 157 159, 162, 164, 167, 178,
179, 382-185, 197, 188, 192-194,
198, 201, 207, 220-224, 226, 234,
241-246, 248, 249, 251-253, 255,
259, 261, 262, 264-266, 269, 271-
276, 278, 288, 299, 310, 315, 316,
318, 321, 327, 329, 367, 368, 396,
405-408, 411, 419, 421, 429, 437,
440, 441, 451, 458, 460-463, 465,
466, 471, 472
clothing of, 316
hairdressing of, 360
“holy,” 43, 144, 203, 209, 225,
253, 255, 353, 368, 369, 383,
405, 408, 412, 414, 443, 446,
458, 459, 460, 461
intoxicated, 74
labor done by, 110
prominent, 32, 319
supernatural powers of, 168, 198
Menopause, 205, 315
Menstrual periods, 110, 205, 388
Metaharta, see Minnetarees.
Middle Missouri River, 479
Migration, 15, 300, 476-477, 482
Mile Post 28 site, 39
Minataries, see Hidatsa.
Minitadi, see Hidatsa.
Minitaries, see Hidatsa.
Mink, 358, 371, 381, 382, 383, 387, 389
skin, 380, 387, 408
Minnesota, 216
Minnetarees, see Hidatsa.
Minnetarees of the Willows, see Hi-
datsa.
Minot village, 376
Mirokae (collectively with River
Crow), see Hidatsa.
Miscarriages, 330
Mississippi cultural traits, Middle, 22
Mississippi River, 11, 204, 216, 290, 301
Missouri Basin Project, River Basin
Survey, vir
Missouri River, Indian chief, 29, 37, 38,
42, 371, 442, 448, 471, 472, 473
Missouri River, 2, 3, 10, 11, 13 (map),
14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23,
26, 29; 30; 31, (82, 35, Bi, oc, 47
51, 57, 64, 65, 66, 71, 78, 79, 80,
158, 165, 166, 169, 174, 175, 178,
179, 189, 200, 213, 214, 215,
ZAG 21S DAG. 255, 250.) 20,
276, 286, 290, 291, 293, 294,
297, 298, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304,
312, 315, 823, 327, B30, 33al, 332,

226,
384,
453,

514

Missouri River—Continued
339, 342, 346, 348, 349,
360, 361, 362, 363, 364,
372, 317, 378, 379, 381,
385, 392, 394, 413, 421,
447, 452, 454, 464, 467, 469, 474.
476, 477, 478, 479, 480, 481, 482,
483, 484, 485, 486, 487, 488, 489:

Missouri River Aspect, 479, 480

“Missouri River People,’ 359

Missouri Valley, 480, 488, 484, 488

Mitixata, see Awatixa.

Mitoxte, see Awatixa.

Mitutanku, Mandan village, 180, 183.
342

358, 359,
365, 370,
382, 383,
434, 441,

Moccasin Carrier, Indian man, 262, 269
Moccasins, 107, 1438, 169, 195, 202, 234,
237, 244, 305, 346, 350, 352, 354,
376, 395, 408, 407, 415, 428, 435.
437, 465
butfalo hide, 346, 443
decorated, 390
“straight toe,” 443
Moieties, 6, 124, 187, 289, 297,
431, 449
concept of, 78-80
Four-clan, 31, 68, 69 (table), 70,
79, 97, 99, 159, 162, 258, 448, 449,
470
headman of, 451
Mandan, 69
opposite, 79, 406, 456
Seven-clan, 70, 334, 489

385, 427,

Six-clan, 70

Three-clan, 28, 31, 65, 68, 69
(table), 70, 79, 97, 101, 159, 162,
262, 448, 449

Waxikena-Tamisik, 70
Monogamy, rare, 142
Moon, offerings to, 313, 325
Moose, 290
Morgan, Lewis H., 3
Mother, 65, 105, 106, 107, 110, 114, 115,
S20 os los alos 140,
148, 145, 146, 147, 148,
153, 157, 158, 161, 168, 168,
172, 173, 251, 298, 305, 306,
310, 326, 337, 338, 361, 373,
379, 381, 383, 384, 385, 386,
393, 398, 408, 409, 417, 439,
456
brothers of, 72, 81, 103, 107,
133, 140, 152, 158, 163, 307,
311, 352, 380
-daughter relationship, 103-105, 200
-daughter transfers, 93, 432
death of, 94, 129
father of, lineage, 89 (chart), 90,
91, 119
household of, 107, 129, 140, 163
lineage of, 87 (chart), 88 (chart),
90, 95, 105
mother of, 99, 158

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

[Bull. 194]

Mother—Continued
sisters of, 72, 81, 93, 94, 107, 108,
111, 118, 120, 140, 165
-son relationships, 103, 105-107
“Mother,” 80, 87, 88, 91, 97, 104, 105,
TT, AS ALO S20) 202 osama
442
brothers of, 81, 86, 116, 140
Mother-in-law, 103, 119-122, 143, 147,
148, 149, 161, 168, 249, 384, 385,
432
“Mother-in-law,” 120, 121
Motsiff site, 478, 484
Mounds, in ceremonial lodge, 313
(map), 318, 329, 330, 333, 411,
427, 428 (plan)
Mount Nebo, 369
Mourners, 172
gifts to, 172, 191, 277
mutilation among, 172, 234, 243, 270
official, 75, 171, 172
pay for, 75, 171
“camps,” 31, 300, 306
Mourning, 116, 237, 241, 242, 277
Mouse, field, 95
stuffed, prayed to, 134

Mouse River, 19, 22, 26, 215, 329, 376,
483
Moves Slowly, Indian man, 157, 181,

201, 2038, 226, 348, 346
Moves Sweetgrass, Indian woman, 150,
151
Mudhen, red-eyed, 298
Mule, 264, 265, 273
Muskrats, 358, 371, 380
Mythological period, sacred, 333,
372, 3738, 445
Mythology, 8, 64, 65, 68, 164, 173, 194,
299, 330, 354
Mythology, characters in:
Bald Eagle, 360, 467
Bear, 41, 2538, 305, 349, 350,
383, 386, 388
Beaver, 381
Big Birds, 253, 268, 270, 361,
364, 367, 370, 371, 372, 374,
390
Big Medicine, see Lodge Boy.
Big Owl, 195, 196
Bird, 262, 297, 298
Black Medicine, see Spring Boy.
Black Wolf, dog, 195, 196, 446
Blood (Clot) Man, 488, 440-446,
448, 449
Blows-Through-a-Hole, dog, 195
Brisket, dog, 195
Brush-Between-Horns, 473
Buffalo, 386, 408, 438, 441, 445
Buffalo-Blood-Man, 440
Buffalo Boy, 439
Buffalo Bull, 95, 143, 305, 440, 442,
452, 4538, 454, 455, 456, 459, 462
Buffalo Skull, 361, 381, 405, 408

358,

395,

363,
383,

INDEX 515

Mythology, characters in—Continued

Mythology, characters in—Continued
Man-with-F ir e-Around-his-Ankles,

Buffalo Woman, 438, 489-441, 453,
454, 461

Calf Wedge, 439, 441, 443

Cedar-Between-the-Hyes, dog, 195

Charred Body, 64, 71, 174, 180, 291,
298, 304, 305, 306, 310, 349, 360,
467

Chief of the Antelopes, 3386, 345

Chief of the Snakes, 390

Chief of the Wolves, 410

“Child,” 207

Cornhusk Earrings, 339, 342

Corn Silk, 339, 342

“corn spirits,’ 202, 203, 204, 336,
339, 341, 342, 345, 347

Coyote, see First Creator.

dogs, 194, 196, 197

Eagle Man, 469, 470, 472, 473

eagles, 467, 469

East Woman, 428

“Hdge-of-the Lodge,” 481

Fat Bird, 300

father, 299

fire, 300

Fire-Around-his-Ankles, 304, 305

First Creator, 282, 290, 291, 296, 297,
298, 301, 304, 305, 336, 349, 350,
352-355, 357, 360, 419, 488, 452

Flatland Wolf, 394

“Goddess of fertility,’ see Old-
Woman-Who-Never-Dies.

Goes-Along-Between-Hills, 473

Good-Furred-Robe, 181, 184, 190,
201, 210, 338, 339, 341, 346

Grandfather Snake, 65, 286, 346,
360, 361, 364, 369, 371, 372, 373,
377, 378, 379, 383, 454

Grandson, 293, 294, 326, 333, 334,
335, 337, 338, 340, 345, 348, 349

Hawk, 254, 329, 485, 436, 4388

High Bird, 251, 299, 300, 305, 358,
362

Hungry Wolf, 251, 299, 300, 305, 306,
358, 362, 410, 412, 423, 424, 428

Holy Man, see Holy-Young-Man.

Holy-Woman-Above, 166, 167

Holy-Women-of-the-Timber, 408

Iztakis, see First Creator.

Last Male, dog, 195

“Leader of the Wolves,” 337, 414

Lightning, 270, 283, 358, 372, 374

Littl eDogs-Whose-Names-Were-
Not-Known, 195, 197

Little Owl, 195

Lodge Boy, 291, 305, 306, 308, 314,
318, 349, 350, 352, 353, 354, 359,
467

Lone Man, 282, 290, 297, 298, 301,
4388

Long Arm, 180, 226, 254, 266, 291,
306, 307, 308, 309, 317, 318, 320,
359, 467

Magpie, 300

Male Buffalo, 298

304, 305

Man-with-No-Head, 305, 306

Moon, 95, 203, 208, 270, 293, 308,
311, 317, 325, 338, 334, 335, 337,
338, 349, 453, 454

Mousehawk, 338

North Woman, 428

Old-Woman-Above, 267, 398, 399,
404, 406, 409, 432

Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, 38, 66,
95, 120, 152, 195, 196, 201, 203,
204, 246, 250, 286, 298, 334, 335,
338, 339, 340, 341, 848, 344, 345,
346, 347, 348, 356, 358, 359, 372,
383, 385, 392, 3938, 395, 472, 478

Old-Woman-with-Basket, 305, 306

Orphan, 299, 300

Otter, 381, 383

People Above, 306, 308, 464

Red Fox, 338

Sharp Noses, 299, 300

Snake, 300, 307, 335, 359, 360, 377

snake, double-headed, 361, 371

snake, “Grandfather,” 65, 286, 346,
360, 361, 364, 369, 371, 372, 378,
3877, 378, 379, 383, 454.

Snake People, 345, 389, 414

Snake Woman, 390

South Woman, 428

Spotted Calf, 439

Spring Boy, 291, 305, 306, 308, 310,
314, 315, 317, 318, 320, 349, 350,
352, 353, 354, 359, 467

Spring Buffalo, 300

Stone Buffalo, 298

Striped Scalp, 195, 196

Summer Buffalo, 206

Sun, 95, 129, 155, 156, 196, 197, 208,
298, 299, 308, 311, 322, 325, 328,
330, 333, 335, 387, 358, 453, 454,
457, 461

Sunrise Wolf, 264, 332, 336, 392, 398,
404, 405, 406

Sunset Wolf, 418, 422, 430

Sun’s sister, 129

Swallow, 4385, 486, 488

Takatetas (Old Man Immortal),
298

Thunder, 270, 283, 303, 358, 472

thunderbirds, 65, 166, 253, 270, 299,
300, 308, 335, 358, 361, 362, 375

Thunderbird’s daughter, 361

Toad Woman, 333

TsikamahidiS (First Made), 298

Turtle, 381, 383, 468

Unknown Man, 307, 308, 323, 333,
349, 373, 441

Up-in-the-Sky-Holy-Woman, 408

Uses-His-Head-for-a-Rattle, 399,
342

Venus, see Grandson.

Village-Old-Woman, 3238, 324, 326,
328, 329, 330, 335, 392, 431, 488

516

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

[Bull. 194]

Mythology, characters in—Continued | Names, 105, 109

Village-Young-Man, 336, 345, 348,
392, 395, 396, 397, 485

Walks-at-Dusk, 412, 413, 415, 480

Water Buffalo, 299

Waterbuster Eagles, 398

Water Grass, 336, 337

West Woman, 428

White Beaver, 305, 306

White Dog, 196, 197

Wolf, 264, 265, 267, 335, 383,
407

Wolf of the Daybreak, 398

Wolf of the Sunset, 394, 397

“Wolf Woman,” 431

Woman Above, 95, 132, 167,
208, 245, 261, 286, 299, 323,
325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330,
332, 333, 383, 397, 404, 405,
409, 432

Yellow Weasel, 305

Myths, 64, 120, 164, 295, 296, 433

Buffalo Corralling, 446

Calf Wedge, 441

ceremonial, 464

corn, 382

creation, 21, 78, 127, 251, 290,
331

Dipper constellation, 195, 196

dog, 194, 197

Harthnaming, 434436

exodus, 339, 341, 359, 441

First Creator, 297-303

flood, 302, 303, 348

importance of, 7, 8, 9

Mandan, 197, 297

migration, 300, 476, 477

Okipa, 382

Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, 340

origin, 31, 127, 176, 184, 194, 198,
208, 212, 287, 291, 381, 389, 410,
421, 483, 488, 452, 464466, 467-
473, 475

original settlement, 30

Prairie Chicken, 66

sacred, 112, 127, 180, 182, 194, 198,
212, 286, 288, 294, 295, 296, 301,
303, 329, 338, 341, 344, 349, 350,
309, 371, 375, 389, 393, 397, 436,
487, 4389, 449, 462, 463

Sacred Arrow, 64, 290, 303-308, 331,
3338, 359, 441, 454, 481

snake, 334

Snow Owl, 195

Unknown-Man, 323

Walks-at-Dusk, 430

Waterbuster Bundle, 21

Wolf Woman, 264, 295, 340, 392,
395, 410, 412, 415, 424, 428, 4380,
431, 482, 433

398,

180,
324,
331,
406,

291,

Nadouasis Indians, 11
Nahathaways (Cree), 301

bestowal of, 107, 220
importance of, 129
ritualistic, 76, 107
Narrow Nose, Hidatsa man, 309
NaxpikE, see Ceremonies; Dances;
Lodges.
Nebraska, 480
Necklace, 243, 328, 329, 3387, 366
raven skin, 434
Negro, Indian man, 363
Never-Hats-Marrow, Indian man, 366
Never-Runs-Away, son of Guts, 242,
243, 247
New Awatixa village, 19, 20 (map)
Newman, Sam, interpreter, Iv
Nishu School, 277
Noises, prohibition of, 60
Nomads, 15, 18, 21, 25, 56, 164, 287,
303, 482
groups of, 215, 217, 251, 302, 476,
485, 487
hunters, 486, 487
No Milk, father of Good Bear, 309, 311,
353, 383, 422, 424
North Dakota, 111, 477, 478, 479, 483
courts, 74
North Dakota Historical Society, vm,
13, 18, 19, 20, 478
Northern Plains, 164, 481, 482
Hidatsa cultural position in, 476—
489
Nose, painted, 317
No Tears, Indian man, 235, 327
Not Mink, Indian woman, 416, 417
Nuitadi Mandan, 24, 30, 36, 37, 44, 339,
3438, 484, 485, 486, 487
Nuptadi Mandan, 24, 29, 36, 39, 40, 44,
66, 147, 176, 216, 219, 339, 343,
484, 485, 486
village of, 348, 384

Oak Creek, S. Dak., 485
Oak Creek site, 8. Dak., 479
Oakdale, N. Dak., 111
Oak tree, 235, 237, 325, 395
Offerings, made to gods, 55, 186, 330,
B31, 332, 347, 360, 428
See also Gifts.
Old Awatixa Village, 19 (map), 486
Old Bear, Indian Man, 145
Old Blossom, Indian woman, 444
Old Dog, Indian scout, 226, 227, 402, 407
Old Mouse, Indian man, 358, 355, 356
Old-Man-Shoots-With, Indian man, 327
Old-White-Man, 101, 102 (chart), 108,
289, 348, 366
and Lead Woman, relationship be-
tween, 102 (chart)
Old Wolves, war leaders, 224, 234, 252,
253, 254, 255, 258, 259, 378, 393
Old-Woman-Crawling, Hidatsa man,
(father of Bears Arm), Vv, 27, 95,
96 (chart), 98 (chart), 99, 100
(chart), 252, 258, 350, 351, 352,
3538, 355, 356, 390

INDEX

Old-Woman-Crawling—Continued
and Bear Woman, relationship be-
tween, 100 (chart)
On Buffalo, Indian man, 255, 256, 259,
260, 265, 376, 377, 379
One Bull, Indian man, 236
One-eyed, Hidatsa chief, 74.
One-eyed Antelope, Indian man, 28
One Wing, 230
Opposite Butte, 12 (map), 485
Oriole, red-shouldered, 347
Ornaments, symbolic, 197, 290
See also Hair dressing; Warfare.
Orphans, adoption of, 94, 167
care of, 71, 75, 94, 159, 164
Otter, 256, 257, 355, 357, 358, 365, 368,
S70 BO, Sie
beliefs regarding, 128
skin of, 256, 257, 317, 364, 373, 377,
378, 379, 380, 383
Otter Woman, Indian woman, 142, 147,
148, 151, 382 :
Overs, W. H., 478
Owl, 166, 360
prairie dog, 239, 241
feathers, worn by Dog Society, 196,
208
skin, 196, 350
speckled, 487, 438
spirits, 302, 433, 434
stuffed, 444
wings and claws, 438
wooden, 195
Owl Valley, 434
Owns-Many-Dogs, Indian woman, 299,
300
Owns-Many-Spotted Horses,
man, 255, 309

Indian

Packineau, Frank, 101
Packs Antelope, Indian man, 65, 286,
358, 360, 361, 362, 363, 368, 371,
474
Paddles, 147, 374
Pain, endurance of, 47
Paint, 171, 227, 229
black, 243, 244, 245, 317
blue, 367
red, 195, 325, 329, 365, 367, 368, 395,
405, 408, 409, 412, 448, 446, 452,
454, 458, 466, 470
white, 239, 248, 317, 325
white clay, 226, 411
Painted Woods, 12 (map), 360, 375
region, 16, 20, 21, 23, 27, 32, 36, 40,
64, 177, 178, 180, 214, 216, 217,
342, 430, 467, 486
tradition, 488
Painted Woods Focus, 483
“Pal,” kinship term, 80, 93, 94, 171, 185
Palliser, John, 3, 277
Pan, Indian man, 416
Pancreas, beliefs regarding, 128
Parades, victory, 200, 219

517

Parents, 103, 111, 187, 159, 193, 197, 318,
319, 386, 396, 426, 439, 457
Parents-in-law, 107, 110, 168
Pasture, 276
Patience, value of, 266
Pawnee Indians, 28, 301
Payments, for duties performed, 117
Peace emissaries, 34
Peace treaty, 28, 29, 186
“Peeagans,” 301
Pemmican, 445, 454, 468
given to dancers, 440, 443, 444, 445
given to girls, 139, 445
Pennyroyal, see peppermint.
“People Who Live in the Woods to the
East,’ 469
Pepper, G. H., 3
Pepper, G. H., and Wilson, G. L., 467,
470
Peppermint, Indian woman, 416
Peppermint, wild, 207, 380, 381,
387, 388, 467, 468, 469, 470
Phratries, 68, 97
Picture, Indian woman, 387
Piegan Indians, 301
Pierre, S. Dak., 11, 478
Pillows, 379
Pine, offering to gods, 314, 353
Pipe, 35, 41, 109, 156, 171, 189, 201, 204,
253, 255, 256, 263, 283, 303, 328,
329, 337, 344, 353, 364, 365, 366,
368, 383, 384, 398, 405, 406, 421,
422, 425, 443, 451, 457, 459, 461,
469, 470, 472
bearer of, 28, 41, 156, 191, 201, 222,
245
carved, 346
ceremonial, 222, 237, 245, 388
medicine, 234, 245, 246, 249
offerings made to, 469
red, 314, 385, 402, 456
redstone, 488
sacred, 207, 237, 298, 413
smoking, ceremonial, 135, 156, 189
wooden, 298, 342, 345, 346, 364, 365,
467, 488
Pipestem, ceremonial, 48
Pits, 384
burial, 76, 169, 170
cache, 46, 130, 166, 440, 463, 475
eagle-trapping, 79, 195, 376, 399, 400,
401, 410, 422
lodge, 56, 329
refuse, 56
storage, 23, 47
sweat lodge, 355, 369
trapping, 357
Placenta, disposal of, 128
“Place Where they Put Offerings for
the Buffalo,’ 366
Plains, 215, 216, 281, 287, 301, 302, 410,
430, 482, 487, 489
archeology, VII
area, 1, 477-479
groups, 277

385,

518

Plains—Continued
migrations onto, 16, 21, 23, 484
nomadic groups, 50, 482
northern, 358
warfare, 232, 241, 273, 276, 397
western, 486
Plain Tail, Indian man, 424
Plants, 461
Plates, 387, 459
Platform, four-post central, 160, 404, 470
Plaza complex, 483, 488
Pledgers, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 320,
821, 322, 332, 341, 346, 352, 366,
377, 400, 446
Plenty Yellow, Indian woman, 444
Plums, 356
Police, 34, 35, 48, 49, 50, 56, 60, 78, 131,
132, 181, 184, 185, 187, 188, 189,
190 191, 192, 250, 251, 256, 272,
273, 293
See also: Crime; Societies, Black
Mouth.
Poor Bull, Indian man, 149
Poor Wolf, informant, vit, 41, 42, 43, 44,
144, 157, 173, 183, 201, 233, 236,
244, 245, 247, 249, 251, 256, 257,
260, 264, 265, 272, 310, 311, 343,
346, 367, 371, 375, 380, 383, 390,
418, 425, 4384, 435, 436, 487, 4388,
442, 448, 444, 445, 446, 451, 456,
457, 460, 461
Poplar, Mont., 142
Poplar Creek, 150
Porcupine, 298, 333
quills of, used for decoration,
147, 153, 280, 316, 414
Porcupine Butte, 246, 247
Porcupine Head, household, 356
Porcupine Pemmican, Indian man, 226,
229, 267, 309, 310, 312, 313, 322,
323, 422, 424, 426
Postholes, 448
Posts, 448, 457, 464, 479
ash, 126, 330, 333, 391, 410, 464466
cedar, 483
central, 481
dressed, 464, 466
forked, torture implement, 306, 321
for Sun Dance ceremony, 167, 315,
318, 319, 354
peripheral, 480, 481
roof, 316
snake, 361, 390
wall, 480
Pots, burial of, 392
clay, 336, 345, 356, 348, 374, 375,
389, 390, 391
decoration of, 391
dressing of, 390
metal, 374
sacred, 345, 347, 348, 392
Potsherds, 464
trade, 22

131,

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

[Bull. 194]

Pottery, 22, 334, 345, 373, 478, 479, 483

Arikara, 478
Awatixa, 22
check-stamped, 22, 479, 483
complexes, 23, 214
cord-roughened, 22, 479, 483
cross-hatched rims, 479
dark colored, 479
designs, 374, 480
Heart River Focus, 334
incised-decorated, 480
S rims, 483
techniques, 162
thickened rims, 483
types, 22, 214, 482, 483, 489,
Pottery making, 104, 120, 165, 166, 345,
373, 374, 391
Powder and bullets, 145, 255
Powder horn, 379
Powder River, 22, 49, 214, 228, 229, 232,
447
Prairie, 276
Prairie chickens, 66, 131
Prairie Chicken village, 68
Prayers, to gods, 59, 61, 63, 76, 116, 129,
319

Pregnancy, 110, 128
Prehistoric times, 3, 15, 474, 477, 483
Prehorse times, 216
Price, N. Dak., 369
Prisoners, 95, 155, 167
Property, division of, 110, 171
personal, 171, 267, 289
Protector Drum, 458, 459
Protector robe, 458, 459:
“Protectors of the people,’ prominent
men, 32, 33, 38, 44, 45, 152, 232,
275, 276
Protohistorie times, 481, 485, 488
Puberty, 138, 290
Public opinion, regard for, 184
Puffball, 454
Pumpkins, 335, 344, 345
Puts-His-Hair-Away, Indian man, 126,
09

Quarrels, 24, 49
Quilts, 402

Rabbit Head, Indian scout, 226, 227,
309, 322, 402
Rabbits, 131, 219, 265, 272, 401
beliefs regarding, 128
cottontail, 485
skin targets, 130
See also Jackrabbit.
Radcliff-Brown, A. R., 111, vir
Rafts, 153, 379
Raids, 62, 113, 188, 193
Railroads, 57, 267
Rails, used for corrals, 448, 449
Rain, calling of, 468, 471
Rainmakers, 203, 263, 270, 363
Rainy Buttes, 227, 350, 375, 442

Rattles, 242, 243, 247, 332, 350, 364, 368,

383, 405, 406, 407, 409

INDEX 519

Ridicule, use of, 190
Riding gear, 52

buffalo hide, 367, 488, 443, 444 (fig.) | Riggs site, north of Pierre, 478

gourd, 332, 345, 346
medicine, 101, 263
rattlesnake pulverized, 128

Rattles Medicine, Indian woman, 442,

448, 444, 445
Rattlesnakes, 444
Raven Arm, Indian man, 444
Raven Bear, Indian man, 258, 255

Raven Necklace, Indian man, 434, 436,

438, 445

Raven Paunch, Indian man, 254, 256,

423
Ravens, 363, 410, 419

feather of, 279, 350, 411, 4238, 429,

445
skin of, 434
Raving Bear, Indian man, 358

Red Basket, Indian man, 266, 267, 269,
274, 327, 397, 398, 400, 406, 408,

409, 425
Red Bird, Mandan man, 342
Red Blossom, Indian woman, 374

Rights:

bundle, 27, 41, 108, 119, 198, 238,
257, 258, 280, 308, 320, 321, 332,
383, 421

Black Bear, 120

ceremonial, 43, 95, 120, 185, 161, 163,
168, 190

dance, selling of, 91, 92

Holy Women, 120

inherited, 373

Long Arm, 310

Naxpiker, 326

pottery, 373

Singer, purchase of, 326, 332, 353,
364, 419

Sunrise Wolf, 406

Wolf Woman, 412

women’s, 162, 165

Rites, 370

Acira, 357

adoption, 48, 218

Adoption Pipe, 295

Red-Buffalo-Cow, Indian man, 147, 148, against grasshoppers, 203, 204
253 agricultural, 138, 209
Red Buttes, 66 Bear, 334, 348, 351, 352
Red-Corn-Woman, Indian woman, 439 Bear Bullet, 349, 352
Red Feather, Indian man, 456 Bear with Arrow, 293
Redfield, Robert, 111 Big Bird, 360, 363, 369
Red Head, Indian woman, 388, 409 birth, 128, 129
Red Hilled People, Mandan clan, 70, 334 Black Medicine, 293
Red Hills, 334, 335, 393 branches used in, 222, 226, 229
Red Leaf, Indian brave, 58, 228, 425 Buffalo, 487, 439
Red River, 11, 22, 23, 32, 213, 290, 294, Buffalo-calling, 8, 32, 35, 57, 58, 59,
300, 301, 482 60, 149, 183, 187, 192, 205, 206,
region of, 213, 215, 389 207, 236, 296
Red River of the North, 482, 484, 486, buffalo corral, 293, 446-451
487 buffalo manure, used in, 222, 227,
Red River valley, 479 258, 263
Red Robe, Indian scout, 226, 227, 230 buffalo spirits, 127, 255, 259, 388
Red Spear, Sioux man, 384 bullboatmaking, 372
Red sticks, 452, 459, 461 bullet, 256, 259, 260, 349, 352
carriers of, 462 bundle, 30, 32, 44, 538, 54, 79, 108,
used in ceremony, 144, 244, 461, 462 109, 163, 198, 208, 225, 248, 261,
Red Tail, Pawnee chief, 28, 367, 383 287, 289, 291, 296, 327, 347, 4386,
Red Wing, Indian man, 402 437, 441
Refuse accumulation, 47, 294, 331 bundle transfer, 340
Reid, Russell, v1 ceremonial, 8, 70, 108, 120, 157, 160,
Reins, 267 162, 168, 289, 304
Relatives, see Father; Husband; cleaning, 429, 445
Mother; Wife; etc. corn, 46, 181, 202, 208, 302, 338, 339,
Religious activities, 282 340, 342, 343, 347
Religious leaders, 40 Corn Bundle, 176, 181
Reservation, 41, 57, 142, 150, 170, 179, Creek, 357, 369, 380-389, 4382, 474
199, 246, 268 curing, 260, 261, 307, 333, 489
Reservation Period, 281 director of, 437
Residence, 119, 218 doctoring, 333, 382
matrilocal, 77, 91, 110, 121, 159, 162, Eagletrapping, 78, 79, 263, 293, 295,
308, 4382 388, 441, 445, 446
patrilocal, 105, 110, 121, 122, 140, Earth lodge, 2, 3, 10, 16, 381, 382,
160 474,
Respect, symbols of, 34, 35 Earthnaming, 127, 208, 242, 245,

Rice, wild, 301 329, 433-438

520

Rites—Continued

fall, 363

fasting, 135

fertility, 203, 339

fish trapping, 293, 446

funeral, 76, 157, 210, 320

garden and fertility, 201

gardening, 104

Good-Furred-Robe, 176

Grandfather Snake, 371

grave, 76

Hawk, 486

gun, 241

horse, 295

household cleansing, 340

hunting, 54, 162, 369

Little Black Bear, 357

marriage, 218

medicine, 293, 415

military, 220

Missouri River, 360, 369, 380, 383

Moon, 208

naming, 117

Okipa, 199

Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, 152,
250, 298, 384, 335, 338, 340, 344,
348, 363

Painted Red Stick, 148, 208, 229,
232, 244, 438, 439, 441

preparation for, 312

purchase of, 136, 224

rain, 46, 203, 247, 296, 347, 364, 372,
375, 389, 390, 402, 430, 461, 468,
471

renewal, 283

sacred, 5, 6, 108, 109, 112, 122, 128,
157, 182, 194, 208, 209, 295, 296,
412, 430

Sacred Arrow, 21, 290, 293, 335, 356,
360, 361, 441

sacred bundle, 163, 179

sale of, 160, 208

snake, 46, 296, 361

snake curing, 293, 307

spring, 363

Star Bundle, 293

Sunrise Wolf, 295, 336, 410

Sunset Wolf, 410-430

swallow, 436

Sweat lodge, 320, 356, 369, 384, 429

symbolized by strings, 304

thunder, 208, 283, 310, 358, 474

tobacco, 290, 294, 300

transfer, 432

tribal, 5, 30, 31, 32, 39, 41, 44, 225,
240, 241

Tying-the-Pots, 179, 348, 389-390

victory, 210

village, 225

Wolf, 46, 150, 238, 269, 295, 340, 390,
3938, 397, 4380

wolf bundle, 150, 225

Woman Above, 299, 327, 330, 331,
397, 404, 4385

See also Ceremonies.

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

[Bull. 194]

River Basin Surveys, VII, VIII
River bathing, supernatural practice,
261
River Crow, with Mirokac, 1, 15, 21, 23,
24, 25, 29, 31, 36, 37, 45, 466, 482,
486, 487
Roadmaker, council member, 28, 371,
374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380
Robes, 48, 61, 75, 76, 134, 140, 145, 149,
180, 196, 202, 206, 207, 234,
244, 245, 252, 258, 256,
316, 319, 328, 329, 345,
354, 365, 366, 367, 368,
378, 388, 384, 385, 391,
407, 409, 411, 414, 415,
, 428, 481, 482, 437, 440, 448,
461, 463, 470, 471
buffalo, 311, 346, 347, 353, 355, 382,
418, 435, 437, 440, 448, 444, 445,
451, 457, 458, 460
calfskin, 329, 435
decorated, 169, 235, 280, 316, 373,
384, 390
kit fox, 346
medicine, 201, 235, 242
painted, 238, 280, 326
protector, 458, 459
sacred shell, 406
shell, 147
tanned, 61, 123
white, 206
See also Clothing.
Rockefeller Foundation, 111
Rock Village, of the Awatixa, viii, 5,
13, GQnap)), 17, 18, 21, 24.279 216
Rocky Mountains, 245, 258, 260, 298, 323,
359, 363, 467
Rocky Mountain valleys, 213
Rod, willow, 321
Roman Catholics, 6
priest, 322
Roots, Indian woman, 385, 409, 443
Rope, hide, 409, 410, 411, 424
Rose ball soup, 465
Roseberries, 465.
Rosebud Butte, 12 (map), 485, 436
Rose Creek, 261
Rubs Herself, Indian woman, 148, 149,
151, 152
Runners, 443, 451
Runs, member of council, 28
Rush, Percy, Indian, 385
Rygh site, 481

Sack, Indian man, 264

Sack Butte, 246

Sacks, 461

Sacred Arrow, 166, 196, 228, 245, 253,
254, 286, 290, 291, 292 (fig.), 303,
304, 306-308, 312, 322, 335, 345,
348, 349, 350, 358, 356, 360, 361,
871, 372, 374, 481

See also Myths; Rites.

Sacrificing for the dead, 35

Saddle blanket, 226

Saddle Buttes, 58

INDEX

Saddles, 259
Sage, 170, 202, 267, 307, 318, 317, 320,
326, 332, 333, 341, 342, 345, 346,
361, 364, 368, 369, 379, 380, 391,
412, 428, 488, 444, 454, 458, 465
hair, used in celebrations, 466
Sand Creek, 150, 151
Sandgrass, 440, 445
Sanger area, 3, 339
sites, 2, 56
Sanish, N. Dak., 30, 36, 256, 360, 361
Santee Sioux, 91, 92, 389
Saskatchewan River, 301
Saulier (Awaxawi), 16
Saulteurs, see Awaxawi.
“Savior of the Village,” 458
Scaffolds, building of, 171
corn, 307, 436
drying, 47, 55, 323, 329
for the dead, 31, 76, 109, 169, 170,
171, 172, 248, 262, 269, 278, 283,
305, 320, 322, 330, 331, 419, 444
Scalping, 279, 306
Scalps, 43, 48, 62, 63, 110, 121, 122, 125,
152) Wot. et, Lob, 225, 200) soos
235, 240, 241, 248, 244, 245, 249,
254, 255, 258, 2638, 264, 270, 277,
278, 279, 280, 299, 306, 317, 322,
329, 332, 336, 345, 347, 375, 376,
379, 384, 394, 395, 399,
406, 407, 410, 425, 432,

segments of, 279, 280

sticks for, carried by leaders, 279
Scarf, horsehair, 380
Scattercorn, Indian woman, 206
Scattered site, 478, 484
Scattered village (Awatixa), 5, 228, 485
Schooleraft, Henry R., 3, 10
Schultz sites, 213, 480, 483

521

Sex, 154

basis of lineage, 90, 97
dichotomy, 105, 110, 182
expression, 286
Sexual relations, 195, 198
ceremonial, 271, 451, 454
forced, 134
instruction in, 104
licenses with, 182, 282, 455, 462
restrictions on, 110
results of, 455, 461
Sheep, mountain, 325, 410
Shell Creek, 21, 30, 254, 469
section of reservation, 45
Shell Robe, of the Mandan, 406
Shell Robe, property of Prairie Chicken
Clan, 31
Shell village, 487
Shelter, brush, 306
ceremonial, 316
temporary, 232
Shermer site, N. Dak., 478, 479, 483
Sheyenne River, 22, 23, 213, 294, 480,
482, 483, 488
region of, 213, 214
Shields, 351, 366, 389, 411, 412
Shirts, 228, 234, 235, 237, 288, 240, 280,
403
decorated, 190, 279, 280, 329
Short Bull, Indian man, 142, 406
Short Missouri, 246, 335, 336, 346, 356,
359, 372
Shoshoni Indians, 95, 431
Shot-in-Nose Creek, 269
Shrines, 331, 333
household, 307
Sun Bundle, 475
Sibley Island, 485
Siblings, 130, 279, 381
relationships between, 71, 81, 90, 93,
95, 97

Scouts, Indian, 44, 50, 52, 53, 54, 60, | Sign language, 253
135, 137, 146, 162, 186, 187, 188, Signpost, 253
189, a 223; = 226, 221, ee Signs, belief in, 235, 238
229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235, 238, Simmons, Mr. and Mrs. Hal O., m1
245, 246, 253, 255, 256, 259, 264, | a.
3 a Singer Butte, 12 (map), 434, 436
265, 272, 273, 276, 279, 299, 307, | 3.
351, 376, 377 393, 395, 396 412, Singers, 179, 180-192, 200-208, 207, 208,
415, 422. 423 434 439, 440. 449 266, 300, 302, 310, 312, 317-320,
472, " } ; ‘ ’ 824, 329, 341, 344, 351, 353, 354,

Seraper, elk horn, 396

Seats, 160

Self-torture, 52, 55, 59, 73, 76,

116,

193, 219, 231, 237, 247, 254,
264, 266, 270, 274, 277, 284, 311,

191,
261,

383, 397, 407, 427-429, 434, 437,
439, 442, 445, 446, 458, 459, 461

Singing, 135, 316, 344, 353, 379, 404, 405,
406, 407, 419, 443

Singing Butte, 12 (map), 435

Sioux Indians, 14, 17, 20, 24, 35, 36, 40,

319
41, 48, 56, 57, 58, 62, 93, 125, 134,
ie oe tog met aie 150, 151, 156, 179, 191, 211, 215,
takes ie see 216, 217, 218, 219, 221, 230, 236,
SESE Ons 238, 239, 240, 242, 248, 247, 251,
See also Thongs. 256, 259, 268, 274, 276, 277, 278,
Sentinel Butte, 351 283, 301, 310, 315, 322, 327, 384,
Seven Bears, Indian man, 256, 380 393, 402, 425, 456, 472, 473, 477,
Seven Dogs, Awatixa man, 327 485, 486, 487, 489
Sewing, 104, 131, 132 | wars, 218

922

Sister, 65, 81, 101, 105, 107, 109, 111, 114,
115, 116, 118, 122, 123, 130, 131,
132, 134, 139, 140, 145, 147, 150,
154, 158, 159, 163, 168, 169, 170,
171, 172, 237, 244, 245, 249, 279,
305, 328, 329, 342, 344, 349, 361,
866, 367, 368, 373, 375, 376, 384,
385, 404, 406, 484, 435
children of, 65, 81, 86, 107, 116, 163
husband of, 80, 87, 122
“Sister,” 86, 87, 99, 101, 105, 116, 122,
123, 249, 328
son of, 99, 116
“older,” 80, 81, 86, 87, 88, 95, 101,
104, 105, 114, 123
“younger,” 80, 81, 86, 88, 105, 123
Sister-in-law, 117, 118, 123, 124, 249,
390, 396
“Sister-in-law,” 81, 87, 88, 90, 97, 99, 101,
128
Sites, fortified, 479
Site 32, 11, 17, 24
Site 33, 11, 14, 16, 17
Site 34, 19, 20, 21
Site 35, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 39
permanent, 23
temporary, 23, 56
See also specific site names.
Sitting Bear, Indian judge, 151, 327
Sitting Elk, Indian man, 45, 77, 78, 126,
127, 266, 309, 310
Sitting Owl, Indian man, 242, 243, 247,
402
Sitting Wolf, Indian chief, 253, 258
Siwaxuwa Indians, 467, 469
Skidi Pawnee, 477
Skin, human, offering to the gods, 322,
388
Skins, tanning, 142
Skulls, 174, 248, 277, 283, 322
buffalo, 54, 55, 60, 95, 171, 187,
199, 219, 307, 314, 332,
353, 354, 355, 356, 357,
367, 368, 371, 380, 381, 3
388, 391, 395, 397, 399,
406, 407, 408, 417, 420,
428, 429, 431, 482, 434,
438, 489, 441, 442, 4438,
446, 452, 454, 455, 456,
466, 468, 470
Buffalo Bull, 407, 458, 459
circles of, 31, 170, 171, 219, 262, 327,
329, 330, 331
disposal of, 170
human, 296, 331, 333, 470, 471,
475
painted, 170, 198, 470
prayers to, 472
removal of, 170, 171, 277
returned to village, 76, 170
shrines to, 76, 307, 327, 331
Waterbuster clan, 261
Skunk Woman, Indian woman, 408
Slant site, 478, 484
Sleds, 378

198,
344,
364,
384,
405,
423,
437,
445,
461,

473,

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

[Bull. 194]

Slope Aspect, 480
Small Ankles, Indian man, 42, 152, 261,
265, 268, 269, 270, 273, 274, 327,
330, 367, 369, 383, 386, 387, 388,
397, 398, 403, 404, 405, 406, 407,
408, 455, 456
Small Bull, Indian man, 144
Smallpox, see Diseases.
Smells, Indian man, 358, 359, 363,
3865, 366, 367, 368, 369, 383
Smith, Tom, interpreter, Iv, 4, 372
Smithsonian Insitution, 334
Smoke, use of, 448, 464, 466
Smoke hole, 328, 336, 345, 378, 424
Smoking, social custom, 154
Snake Cane, Indian man, 309
Snake Creek, 256
Snake Indian Butte, 351
Snake Indians, 11, 17, 351, 412, 413, 415
Snakes, 125, 128, 165, 299, 303, 334, 345,
346, 348, 358, 361, 362, 368, 371,
372, 3738, 374, 390, 391, 393, 444
beliefs regarding, 165, 372
effigy of, 370
poles for, 361, 390
water, 391
Snakeskin, 346, 372, 381

364,

Snares, sacred, 79, 3538, 354, 445, 446,
448, 449

“Snare vine,” 357

Snipes, 374

Societies :

age-grade, 6, 48, 59, 98, 103, 104,

112). 107, 186; 12) LH Ps4 200,
205, 207, 209, 210, 212, 314, 379,

391, 402, 427, 455, 462, 489

age-graded military, 174

announcer for, 208

Big Grass, 402, 403

Black mouth, 39, 42, 48, 46, 48, 60,
Gl, 45192, 131; 1325 15 to2:
163, 16" (table), 1G; 17 Lis:
179, 181, 183, 184-194, 198, 207,
210, 211, 221, 245, 250, 274, 276,
378, 443, 444 (floor plan), 445,
456, 458, 459

Black-Tail Deer, 178

Bull, 175 (table), 176, 178, 179, 184,
185, 198-199, 207, 208, 210

Crazy Dog, 92, 175 (table), 176,
177, 181, 182, 192, 194, 195, 196,
197, 200, 210, 337

Crow imitators, 175 (table), 176,
ILC

Dog, 175 (table), 176, 178, 179, 184,
185, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 208,
211, 212, 293, 337, 402

duties of, 208

emblems of, 180, 184

Enemy, 199, 200, 201, 210, 219

Foolish Dog, see Crazy Dog.

Fox, 147, 181, 210

INDEX 523

Societies—Continued

Goose, 163, 182, 184, 199, 200-204,
205, 207, 208, 209, 210, 295, 324,
338, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 344,
345, 346, 347, 364

Grass, 404

Half-shaved head, 175 (table), 176,
177, 178, 179, 183, 192, 211

Hidatsa-Awatixa, 178

Holy Woman, 95, 167, 293, 217, 315,
322-831, 333, 383, 411, 420, 443,
444 (floor plan), 445, 461

informal, 180

Kit fox, 175 (table), 176, 177, 178,
181-188, 187, 192, 457, 458, 459

leaders of, 134

Little Dog, 175 (table), 176, 177,
180, 181, 182, 192, 194, 196, 197,
337, 376

Lumpwood, 175 (table), 177, 182,
183, 192, 208, 210, 211

Magpie, 176, 180

Mangy Buffalo, 180

markings of, 134

members of, 237

men’s, 175-199, 208

military, 56, 174, 489

Night Grass, 404

Notched Stick, 175 (table), 176,
177, 178, 179, 182, 208

Old Dog, 175 (table), 176, 178, 179,
185, 194, 196, 197, 198, 211, 337

origin of, 175, 208

paraphernalia of, 206, 208

purchase of, 134, 178, 181, 182, 184,
194, 195, 198, 205, 324

Raven, 178

“Real Dog,” 194, 195

River, 199, 200, 210, 219

Skunk, 200, 210

Stone Hammer, 134, 149, 175
(table), 176, 177, 178, 179, 180—
181, 182, 192, 196, 197, 200, 208,
209, 210, 212, 293, 326, 329, 336,
337, 340, 375

system of, 175

Waschwkke-Achke, see Dog.

White Buffalo Cow, 60, 199, 202,
204-207, 208, 209, 210, 295, 324

Wood Rattler, 375

Wood-roots, 184

Son, 80, 81, 86, 88, 90, 91, 93, 105, 108,

109, 116, 137, 148, 151, 160, 165,
1G e168 eile Agee Age, lel 225;
242, 244, 247, 265, 266, 267, 269,
2 22) Bids 200, 290, G0l, SOS;
318, 320, 332, 334, 349, 365, 368,
884, 385, 394, 404, 405, 406, 407,
409, 411, 412, 421, 426, 432, 4365,
439, 454, 456, 462

education of, 105, 106, 129, 436

unmarried, 159

wife of, 80, 108, 482

“Son,” 86, 88, 90, 91, 101, 108, 121, 133,

171, 182, 198, 209, 211, 223, 228,

“Son”—Continued
232, 241, 245, 249, 252, 260, 287,
289, 306, 307, 319, 328, 329, 332,
387, 346, 347, 349, 404, 405, 406,
407, 427, 454, 455, 462, 463
wives of, 109, 267, 455
“younger,” 116
Songs, 483, 464
arrowmaking, 120
Bear, 353, 356, 386
Buffalo, 354, 355, 452, 457
cleansing, 320
doctoring, 381
Dog societies’, 196.
faster’s, 424, 428
Fox society, 147
holy, 226, 229, 230, 255, 256, 257,
262, 263, 266, 361, 366, 367, 368,
881, 383, 384, 385, 386, 394, 395,
404, 405, 407, 408, 430, 454, 459,
469, 472
honor, 148, 396, 456
invitation, 406, 421, 422
medicine, 230, 267, 381
Missouri River, 360
New Mink, 389
of praise, 118
Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, 344
Otter, 257
painting, 317
robe, 344
sacred, 6, 138, 166, 226, 241, 247,
256, 261, 268, 265, 266, 267, 268,
269, 288, 310, 315, 319, 3338, 344,
860, 364, 371, 372, 378, 384, 388,
443, 445, 464, 468
skull, 344
snare, 445, 446, 448
Spotted Eagle, 266
sweat lodge, 381, 382
thanks, 443
tobacco, 300
victory, 76, 219, 230, 233, 234, 241,
248, 247, 263, 300, 306, 329, 378,
379
war, 235, 239, 241, 483
Wolf, 226, 264, 394, 409, 411, 412,
415
Woman Above, 407
Son-in-law, 105, 120, 121, 122, 124, 140,
152, 159, 160, 161, 201, 271, 342,
389, 411, 439, 440, 443
“Son-in-law,” 88, 120
Son-of-Star, Indian man, 264, 367, 383,
456

Sororate, operation of, 109, 123, 159
Soup, rose ball, 465
South Dakota, 477, 478, 479, 480, 488
Spear, 280, 301, 395

sacred, 389
Speckled Eagle village, 467, 468
Speckled Owl, 12 (map)
Sperry site, 478
Spinal cord, 470

BUREAU

524

Spirit babies, 127
Spirit father, 174
“Spirit god,’ personal god, 171
Spirit people, 304, 305
Spirits, 126, 287, 288, 291, 433, 434, 485,
452, 453, 459, 466
evil, 64, 275, 304, 349, 441
guardian, 223, 285, 288, 299, 455
holy, 385
Owl, 302
protection against evil, 169, 275,
354, 381
“sky world,” 297
“ander world,” 297
vegetation, 336
villages of, 269
water, 371
world of, messages to, 75, 173
Spoon, 379, 448, 444 (fig.)
Spotted Bear, Indian man, 266, 274, 401
Spotted Bird, Indian man, 383, 384, 385
Spotted Horn, Indian man, 226, 403
Square Buttes area, 5, 12 (map), 20, 24.
26, 47, 213, 300, 480, 482, 485, 496
Squash, 46, 203, 243, 247, 339, 346, 392
Squaws, 38
Staffs, painted and carved, 183, 376, 377,
378
Standing Bear, Mandan Indian, 127, 149
Standing Coyote, Indian boy, 148, 151
Standing Rock, N. Dak., 264
Stanton, N. Dak., 3, 225, 476
Stanton Ferry site, 216
Stars, 298, 337
Status, loss of, 455
Steamboat, 150, 263
Stepfather, 93, 327
Stephenson, Robert L., vir, vu
Stevenson Flats, 256
Sticks, 366, 391, 397, 399, 403, 407, 424,
453, 454
ashwood, 319, 329, 332, 333, 398
bird, 361, 363, 364, 365, 367
decorated and carved, 183, 280, 325
(figs.), 326
gambling, 305
offerings placed on, 361, 368
Painted Wood sacred, 183
red, 452, 454, 456, 457, 458, 460
representing horses, 405, 406
sharpened, used in self-torture, 228
Stirrup, council member, 28, 31, 377,
378, 473, 474
Stockades, 275
Stone Indians, 301
Stones, 381, 382, 384, 412
fired, 165
hot, 329, 354, 407, 470
piles of, used in corral, 448
shrine, 334
sweat lodge, 353, 356, 369, 470, 471
Stoneworkers, 166
Storerooms, 161
Stores, common, 161

OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

{Bull, 194]

Strikes-Many-Woman, Indian woman,
382, 385, 386
Strong, William Duncan, 484
Strong Jaw, Hidatsa chief, 17, 412, 413,
430, 431
Suffering, endurance of, 73, 135, 315
Sugar, 150, 401
Suicides, beliefs regarding, 173
Summer:
activities, 46, 185
camp, 45-47, 49, 50, 51, 56, 62, 170,
215
ceremonies, pledged, 61
chief, 41, 56, 62
hunt, 50-56, 136, 161, 270, 312
hunt leaders, 186
ranges, 46
village, 439
Sun, offerings to, 3138, 325
Sun Dance, see Naxpiknr.
Sunflower, 46, 203, 344, 345, 346
Sun Impersonator, 456, 458, 460, 461
Supernatural:
assistance, 307, 347, 395, 455
beings, 41, 55, 65, 283, 291, 358, 392
experiences, 54, 198, 202, 225, 237,
358, 359, 363
guardian, 283, 433
guidance, belief in, 44, 50, 55, 268,
295.
instructions, 181, 202, 283, 4385
powers, 60, 63, 73, 117, 168, 172, 182,
194, 198, 202, 203, 209, 210, 220,
230, 231, 232, 239, 240, 241, 245,
256, 259, 260, 261, 264, 268, 282,
283, 284, 285, 286, 288, 289, 290,
295, 307, 308, 315, 320, 322, 329,
331, 335, 336, 337, 347, 355, 357,
362, 371, 395, 396, 412, 415, 417,
446, 454, 455, 461, 462, 463, 470
quests, 44, 209
visions, 55
See also Mythology.
Surrounds, hunting method, 54, 60, 61,
131, 162, 188, 227

i Swallow, 245, 329

Swan, Mandan Indian, 152
Swan Creek site, 481
Swan feathers, 280
Sweat bath, 305, 384, 404, 407
Sweat lodges, 205, 206, 305, 320, 328, 353,
354, 355, 356, 361, 365, 367, 368,
369, 379, 381, 384, 387, 388, 398,
405, 406, 407, 470, 471
pits, 355, 369
“Sweetgrass,” 227, 264, 325, 326, 329,
330, 332, 358, 356, 394, 397, 398,
399, 405, 406, 407, 427, 431, 432,
466
Sweetgrass Blossom, Mandan woman,
150
Sword, ceremonial, 253, 364, 371
wooden, 361, 364

Taboos, 121, 122, 159, 179

INDEX

020

Takes-the-Gun, Indian man, 228, 262, ) Turtle—Continued

269

“Taking in Friends,” society transfers,
211

Tanning, 138, 314

Targets, 130, 131

Teals, 298

Teasing, 113, 118, 119, 121, 123, 124, 125,
139, 140, 144, 158, 154, 155, 158,
249, 271, 272

Telescope, 226, 227

Tents, 262, 301

Tetons, 11

Thompson, David D., 3, 10, 11, 16, 213,
215, 301, 476, 482

Thongs, 315
used in self-torture, 267, 268, 269,
423
“Those Who Quarreled over’ the

Paunch,”’ see River Crow.
Three Coyotes, Indian leader, 238, 239,
240, 259
Three Rabbits, Mandan man, 242
Thunder, 363, 390
See also Ceremonies; Mythology.
Thunder Buttes, 361
Thunder Creek, 360
Timber, 37, 38, 56, 160, 408, 409, 415,
435, 439, 451, 464
Tipis, 52, 53, 62, 150, 157, 165, 195, 229,
238, 244, 268, 280, 302, 336, 337,
376, 377, 895, 399, 408, 422, 481
hide, 300, 489
Toads, 358
Tobacco, 298, 300, 303, 339, 365, 392
presentation of, 192
singers, 300, 302
songs, 300
Tools, 166, 480
Tops, 130
Torture ordeals, 52, 55, 59, 73, 76, 135,
136, 137, 266, 267, 310, 319, 320,
321, 391, 410, 426, 438
See also Self -torture.
Toys, 117, 126, 180
Traders, 10, 186, 192, 216, 462, 477, 478
fur, 1, 3, 38, 142, 145
White, 3, 10, 186, 192, 216, 462, 477,
478
Trading, 91
expeditions, 49
parties, 49, 191
post, 29, 48, 150, 192, 215
Traditions, 47, 60, 64, 70, 71, 173, 177,
225, 486
sale of, 71
Traps, communal, 161
Travois, 222
Tree ring study, 17, 479, 481
Trees, used as posts, 448
Tucks in, Indian man, 141, 142
Turnips, wild, 53, 256, 259
Turtle, 365, 371, 387
effigy, v11I, 337, 370
fat of, 337

sacred, .297, 337, 358, 387
scrapings from, 128, 379
shell, 364, 373, 380, 381, 387
Turtle Mountains, 12 (map), 22, 26, 215
Twelve, Sioux man, 315
Twins, 349
Twisted Wood, Indian man, 309, 327
Two Bears, Indian man, 384
Two-Bulls, Indian man, 97, 98 (chart),
149, 266, 366
Two Men, Indian man, 95, 180, 253, 286,
290, 294, 306, 307, 308, 309, 314,
323, 333, 334, 335, 336, 345, 346,
349, 350, 352, 354, 355, 358, 359,
360, 363, 365, 369, 371, 372, 373,
441, 454
Two Nights, member of council, 28
Two Shields, Indian man, 141, 142, 444,
456, 459, 460
Two Tails, council member, 28, 37, 155,
156, 157, 252, 257, 397, 416
Two Teeth, Indian man, 383, 384, 385

U.S. Army, 2, 45, 78, 489
post, 251
scouts, 246
U.S. Department of Agriculture, m1
U.S. Government, 45, 79, 273, 402
allotments, division of, 79
officials, 186
rations, 44, 245
treaty with, 41
University of Chicago, 111, vi, 2
University of Idaho, vir, v11r
Upper Missouri, 36, 217, 392, 474, 475
Upper Sanger station, 39, 216, 369, 483
Uprights, 481

Van Oosting site, 481
Vessels, 166, 478
“Village Builders,” 152
Village Council, see Councils.
Village Indians, 487, 488, 489
Village of the Dead, beliefs regarding,
173, 174, 282
Villages, 10, 14, 16, 17, 18, 25, 26, 30, 32,
33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 45, 78, 90, 174,
189, 190, 211, 212, 250, 251, 293,
300, 305, 327, 342, 345, 480, 437,
446, 484
activities of, 50, 111
announcer for, 38, 49, 186, 275, 276,
315, 396, 442, 456, 459
attacks on, 40, 275, 276, 278
earth lodge, 14, 21, 23, 24, 26, 29,
46, 56, 301, 304, 476, 477
endogamous, 77
feuds of, 44, 45
leaders of 40, 42, 49, 50, 52, 54, 56,
118, 155, 198, 194, 275, 277, 278
life in, 38, 160
organization of, 26, 63-64, 273, 482
policies of, 186
protection of, 22, 36, 40, 48, 50, 56,
245, 357, 484

526

Villages—Continued
sites, 3, 10, 30
structure of, 56
summer, 30, 33, 35, 37, 39, 40, 41, 45,
46, 47, 49, 51, 56, 57, 59, 61, 62, 63,
160, 161, 170, 186, 187, 188, 192,
216, 219, 307, 312, 447, 487
territorial grounds of, 29, 208
winter, 30, 33, 39, 45, 46, 56, 63, 149,
152, 161, 170, 186, 218, 357, 435,
442, 447, 471
Virginity test, 462
Visions, 106, 172, 173, 220, 223, 224, 284,
285, 288, 308, 317, 318, 330, 332,
836, 348, 349, 350, 375
experiences with, 30, 59, 174, 198,
225, 240, 241, 284, 285, 287, 289,
310, 311, 362, 371, 437
instructions from, 59, 188, 223, 238,
283, 287, 320
recipient of, 348
Visits, group, 191, 277
intergroup, 91, 93, 155, 218
intertribal, 47-50, 93
Vows, made to gods, 314

Wagon, 399, 401

Waistband, 444

Waiter, ceremonial position, 335, 352,
853, 355, 356, 357, 419, 425, 443,

452

Walking Chief, Indian man, 144, 266,
456, 460

Walking-in-Water Creek, see Knife
River.

Walks, 95, 96 (chart), 97
Wandering Minnetarees, see Hidatsa.
War bonnet, 245, 256, 375, 379, 400, 403,
428, 471
Ward, Joe, informant, v, 410, 412
Ward site, N. Dak., 478, 479
Warfare, 32, 40-46, 48, 58, 75, 112, 121,
122 14 loos lok hae. Os,
174, 183, 185, 186, 191, 194, 208,
209, 212-281, 302, 308, 312, 318,
328, 351, 398, 402, 414, 431
defensive, 62, 275-277, 281
effect of, 35, 94
honors in, 48, 62, 112, 116, 124, 125,
139° 1935-200; 2105, 252,205, 239)
246, 249, 251, 264, 271, 276-281,
306, 319, 332
importance of, 106, 138
interest in, 46, 136
intertribal, 212-219
intervillage, 77
leaders of, 27-29, 32, 34, 38, 40-63,
137, 155, 181, 191-193, 220-226,
231, 235, 241, 2438, 245-247, 257-
259, 261, 267, 270, 272, 274-276,
279, 280, 329, 396, 417, 444
military emblems of, 46, 172, 220,
280
offensive, 214, 223-275, 278, 281, 284,
286, 332, 366, 393, 397, 462

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

[Bull. 194]

Warfare—Continued
Plains, 232, 241, 273, 276, 397
records of, 153, 154, 179, 233, 252,
281, 319, 424, 426
ritualistic aspects of, 220, 225
training for, 109, 137, 219-223.
War parties, 34, 40, 47, 49, 61, 62, 66,
1105 a2: ‘116, 125, 133-138, 1s}5)-
156, 172, 181, 183, 184, 187,
193, 194, 200, 217-221, 224,
228, 229, 232, 233, 236, 244,
247, 249, 250, 255, 258, 259,
272, 216, 278, 279, 299, 306, 321,
326, 329, 333, 339, 358, 376, 371,
379, 392, 398, 395, 396, 412, 415,
418, 422, 430, 483, 4385, 445, 473
Warriors, 42, 129, 132, 140, 192, 193, 221,
224, 227, 275, 278, 289; 316, S21,
329, 340, 376, 379, 380, 395, 411,
415, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426,
453, 461, 469
Washburn, N. Dak., 21, 22, 24, 29,
264, 291, 304, 349, 485, 486
Water, 53, 54, 135, 137, 381, 382, 384, 386,
390, 394, 410, 411, 422, 423, 426,
428, 429, 461, 469, 470, 471
Waterbag, 66
Watersnake skin, 381
Weapons, 52, 153, 158, 161, 188, 189, 193,
200, 222, 301, 380
bow and arrows, 48, 60, 63, 106, 115,
130, 131, 157, 171, 219, 334-336,
350-352, 361, 376, 377, 380, 395,
466
firearms, 35, 48, 60, 180, 141,
145, 147, 151 15sec
189, 213-215, 230, 234, 235,
240, 256, 259, 276, 301, 351,
366, 377, 378, 379, 403
muzzle-loaders, 376
Weasel-Blackens-Himself, Indian man,

174,

142,
188,
239,
357,

Weidman, Bears Arm’s brother-in-law,

“Where People Died of Smallpox,”
Hidatsa village, 170

Whisky, 122

seen peur wingbone, 315, 317, 318,

sacred, 335, 336, 337, 345, 346
sunflower stalk, 335, 345
willow bark, 355
Whistling Ghost, Mandan man, 377, 378
White Belly, Indian man, 147, 148, 149,
151, 152
White Bird, Indian man, 403
White Butte, 12 (map), 485
White-Corn-Woman, Indian woman,
439, 440
White Duck, Mrs., informant, vi, 5,
173, 346, 484, 488, 448, 444
White Earth Creek, 12 (map), 255
White Fingernails, Indian man, 146,
299, 358

INDEX

White man, 4, 122, 212, 256, 260, 299,
311, 322, 399, 401, 462, 477, 484,
487
White River, 477
Widowers, 462, 463
Widows, 113, 123, 124, 157, 158, 159,
171, 218, 320, 321, 332, 355, 449
Wife, 45, 71, 75, 80, 97, 99, 103, 106, 109—
111, 121, 1238, 124, 142-146, 150,
153-158, 160, 162, 163, 166,
182, 196, 236, 242, 244, 249,
315, 316, 320, 334, 337, 344,
349, 353, 355, 373, 384, 385,
390, 395-400, 402, 403, 407, 408,
410-413, 429, 482, 440, 442, 443,
445, 451, 456-459, 461-463, 465
assistance given by, 314, 449
brother of, 80, 109, 122, 141, 144,
146, 237, 249
extended family of, 99, 163, 279, 482
household of, 107, 121, 122, 158, 161,
163
lending of, 144, 155, 182, 209
lodge of, 163
parents of, 80, 121, 401
potential, 87, 123
purchase of, 65, 139
remarriage of, 93, 157, 443
second, 110, 249
sisters of, 81, 123-125, 140, 163
stealing of, 74, 149, 157, 185, 279
surrendering of, 182, 198, 232, 248,
267, 271, 451, 452, 453, 457, 458, 463
younger, 158
Will, George, and Spinden, H. L., 477,
478, 479
Williston, N. Dak., 66, 370
Willows, 455
bark of, 355
brush, 316
curved, 391
hoop, 317
sandbar, 381
Wilson, Gilbert L., v, 3, 7, 357
Winchell, N. H., 10
Windbreak, 160
Winnipeg area, 214
Wolf Chief, informant, v, 2, 6, 28, 60,
63, 111, 130, 135, 142, 145, 150, 151,
152, 155, 156, 174, 220, 226,
PPA Pahl, Pail, Pah 236, 258,
261, 266, 267, 268, Sy Pal
272, 273, 274, 278, 310, 319,
324, 327, 330, 357, 364, 365,
366, 367, 368, 385, 394, 397, 400,
402, 403, 404, 406, 454, 456, 460,
461, 467, 468, 470, 471
life history of, 261-267
marital relationships of, 1438-151
narrative by, 225-230, 364-469, 381,
382-389, 394-397, 397-409, 452,
455-460, 460-461, 467-473
Wolf Den Buttes, 226, 227
Wolf Eyes, Indian man, 242, 364, 367,
383, 401, 402, 403, 404, 406, 418,
444, 456

527

Wolf Ghost, Indian man, 228, 264, 265,
472
Wolf Grass, Indian man, 2638, 456
Wolf Mountain, 150
Wolf Woman Impersonator, 392,
420, 421, 425, 427, 428, 433
Wolverine, 101
Wolves, 228, 229, 255, 298, 340, 393,
395-397, 404, 406, 409-415,
420-424, 428, 483
altar to, 426
claws, 414, 432
hide; (226) 227, 229; 230, 253;
265, 336, 394, 395, 397, 398,
406, 407, 409, 413, 420, 423,
425, 426, 429, 4382, 448
impersonator, 393
mane, 4238, 432
medicine, 264
Prairie, 2385
skin, 414, 421
Woman, Mandan woman, 150
Woman, 46, 50, 52, 55, 61, 110, 117, 118,
123, 134, 135, 189, 140, 155, 159,
160, 163, 165, 167, 169, 190,
201, 206-208, 234, 240, 256,
274, 275, 277, 288, 299, 306,
328, 348, 344, 345, 369, 405,
410, 412-414, 428, 431, 482,
453, 461
assistance to, 75, 165
captive, 95, 256, 260
holy, 95, 298, 307, 315, 316, 322, 323,
324, 325, 326, 328, 329, 330, 331,
333, 383, 392, 405, 406, 408,
414, 480, 481, 485, 488, 440,
461, 464, 465
killing of, 280, 413
menstruating, taboos for, 317
offerings made by, 373
pregnant, 147, 305, 342
protection of, 46, 50
supernatural powers of, 284
Woman-in-Water, 95, 96 (chart), 97,
371, 383, 444 (floor plan)
Wood, 54, 55, 56, 57, 160, 186, 214, 222,
263, 381, 382, 390, 440, 457
earriers, 456
cutting, prohibited, 60, 189, 192, 207
frames, 272
gathering, 106, 132
Wooden Bowl, Indian chief, 41
Woodland culture, 22, 479, 484
Woodlots, 189
Woodpecker, redheaded, 48
Woolworth, Alan R., 336, 478
Yankton bands, 36, 40
Yellow Coat (Chicken-Can’t-Swim), 97,
98 (chart)
Yellow Dog, Indian man, 196, 293, 337,
338
Yellow Hawk, Indian man, 376, 377
Yellow Head, Indian man, 431
Yellow Husk, Indian man, 438
Yellow Shoulder, Indian man, 397, 416

419,

394,
417,

264,
404,
424,

528 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194]

Yellowstone River, 12 (map), 21, 22,| Young-Man-Chief, Indian man, 329, 363,
23, 44, 146, 213, 214, 216, 283, 254, 435
246, 253, 283, 483, 486, 487 : P
u u 2 pitt &? Young-White-Bear, council member, 28
Yellow S haaihe Magpie’s mother, 300, Young Wolk) indian sn eape

Young Buffalo, Indian man, 377 Young Wolves, members of expeditions,
Young Eagle, Indian man, 278 224, 393

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE:1965

Ny Nia

ALS i es | nis
hi Joa. oe

a ama i
; ia " wus ie

pA ee TT he Pe
DEEPA GINA NE CLAD

Pee eee

OPPO aI PIP ae, PAI SIMA COIS PCD IE

{ill

9448

ih

|

3 9088 01421

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION LIBRARIES

Wh

Ye

*
SS
SSRN
SN
SS

SS

Zz
Gee

NS
WS

a

NY
Ss