1920.] Lowie, Crow Tobacco Society. 149 



In July 1911 I attended a Strawberry adoption, at which Medicine- 

 crow's wife decorated the women with four blue dots on each cheek 

 arranged in a line slanting downwards and outwards from below the 

 eyes. She painted herself with a single blue dot below the eyes and much 

 larger than the dots on the other women. At a Wolverene initiation 

 witnessed in the same year the women had a small semicircular area in 

 dark red in the middle of the forehead, the diameter coinciding with the 

 hair line. On each cheek a large quadrangular area was painted in the 

 same color, slightly curved towards the nose and extending to the ears. 

 The Painter decorated herself merely with a horizontal bluish line across 

 each cheek. 



Later I secured a number of comments on the painting employed. 

 An informant from the Mission district said that usually only one woman 

 paints the members, following a dream; the second group must have 

 been decorated by a different woman. The branched design was said to 

 represent the Tobacco and is accordingly called i*tsi*tsi9', it is character- 

 istic of one old woman, who always uses it. Gray-bull confirmed the 

 interpretation of the blue Tobacco design and said that it had been seen 

 in a vision by someone sleeping by the side of the Tobacco garden. The 

 finger marks, he thought, represented another part of the plant. Oddly 

 enough, he added that the group with the Tobacco design belonged to 

 the Wolverene chapter, the second group to the Tobacco chapter. Bear- 

 gets-up likewise interpreted the difference in paint as due to different 

 chapter affiliations. 



Since the painting depends on visions, it forms a ceremonial privilege 

 and there are no fixed rules concerning the designs. The adopter does 

 not himself paint the members and novices. The number of Painters 

 depends on the number of those who have acquired the privilege in the 

 respective chapters; some chapters have only one painter, and usually 

 there are not more than two. Gray-bull said it depended wholly on the 

 Painter whether she should use the same decoration on herself as on the 

 other members. 



Like other ceremonial privileges that of painting is transferable. A 

 woman acting in this capacity on July 7th, 1911 had only recently 

 purchased the office from an old woman. Gray-bull himself had once 

 acquired the painting privilege from his own mother, paying her an 

 ermine shirt, a horse, quilts, and money. He sold the right to Plenty- 

 coups for four horses. He owned one style for men, another for women; 

 the latter was put on by his wife. The men's faces were decorated all 

 over with red trade paint; the forehead and face including the cheek 



