1920.] Lowie, Crow Tobacco Society. 163 



down her spoon. There are several miniature bags with Tobacco seeds 

 which she opens. Her husband sings four songs. At the fourth she 

 empties the entire contents of one bag into the bowl, next she adds other 

 ingredients of the mixture, and when these are well soaked the cow dung 

 is put in. By this time peeled cow paunches representing buffalo mani- 

 folds of old days have been prepared and the contents of the bowl are 

 emptied into one paunch. A big pipe with cloth over the mouthpiece is 

 taken and the smoke from it is blown into the paunch, which in order to 

 retain the smoke is quickly tied with sinew looped at one end. A stick 

 of cherry wood, hooked at one end and sharpened at the other, is painted 

 red, then the filled paunch is tied to the hooked part. Other paunches 

 are treated in the same way. Then they go to a big tipi, and the sharp 

 ends of the sticks are driven into the ground. 1 A rope is stretched 

 between two poles of the lodge and to this rope they tie the cherry sticks. 

 These labors consume the entire day. In the evening they begin to 

 dance in the Mixer's lodge and continue all night, then they go home. 



In this way each member in every chapter turns over his Tobacco 

 seeds to the Mixer, who receives a fee for mixing them. Lone-tree said 

 that generally there was only one Mixer couple in a chapter. In 1911 

 the Strawberries and Ducks had a joint mixing ceremony. 



Everything considered, the Mixers are probably the most important 

 officers of the society, which derives its name bacusua, from the soaking 

 of the Tobacco seed. 2 



THE PROCESSION. 



On the following day the members, sometimes accompanied by the 

 entire camp, set out towards the garden site. Before starting the mem- 

 bers of each chapter assemble in a separate lodge, where they are painted 

 by the Mixer. They are dressed in their best clothes, sometimes wearing 

 medicine blankets. The women carry blankets in their arms and large 

 Tobacco bags on their backs. As soon as these are secured, everyone 

 rises in the preparatory lodge, and the musicians intone a certain song. 

 By this time a woman known as the akbastiande ( = the one who goes 

 first), who carries a medicine, has taken up a position far in advance, 

 the distance between her and the remainder of the society being esti- 

 mated at from fifty to three hundred yards. It is her chapter that takes 

 precedence in the formation of the procession. The native term desig- 



!lt is nnt certain that this occurs in the tipi. 

 Hcuik', he washes, is a related stem. 



