1920.] Lowie, Crow Tobacco Society. 195 



It is worth noting that in all these serious ceremonials women play 

 a definite and by no means always a subordinate part. They exhibit 

 their shamanistic powers as freely as men at the Bear Song dance, they 

 may act as hostesses at the Cooked Meat ceremony, and in the Sun 

 dance the position of the virtuous women is an eminently honorable 

 one. The prominence of women in the Tobacco society is clear from the 

 foregoing account. They may act independently as Painters or Mixers 

 and in a variety of ways in conjunction with their husbands, the principle 

 followed being that husband and wife are ceremonially one person. In 

 the dancing the women are certainly far more conspicuous than the men, 

 whose role at times seems reduced to that of musicians. 



As an organization the Tobacco society is unique among the Crow. 

 The military societies and the modern clubs completely lack a formal 

 adoption, which figures so prominently in the Tobacco cult; and the 

 Horse society is an Assiniboin innovation limited to one local division of 

 the Crow. Moreover, the form of entrance differs wholly from that 

 characteristic of the Hidatsa or Mandan age-societies. In the latter 

 membership was bought by one group from another group, which thereby 

 renounced all title to the society; the Tobacco novices merely paid an 

 entrance fee which entitled them to participate in the activities of a 

 chapter as additional members. Finally, the Tobacco society does not 

 resemble the bundle fraternities of the Hidatsa, which so far as I under- 

 stand them are strictly hereditary in constitution, purchase being 

 obligatory on and restricted to the owner's children. 



The one significant trait which the Tobacco society shares with the 

 secular organizations of the Crow relates to the presenting of gifts to a 

 person to make him join a chapter; but this is possibly an innovation 

 (p. 134) and in no case interferes with the regular initiation ceremony. 



It appears, then, that structurally the Tobacco society is an indepen- 

 dent product, presumably of indigenous growth. Indeed, its central 

 idea, that of adoption, is one very prominent among the Crow. Even so 

 common an undertaking as a war party was in Crow theory the result 

 of a vision. The visionary, instead of himself leading, might equip a 

 delegate with mysterious power to steal horses or kill an enemy, and this 

 established the ceremonial relationship of 'father' and 'son' between 

 them. 1 To go back another step, the supernatural power that favors 

 a visionary invariably adopts him, the stock greeting in such cases 

 being, dl bartik' btiwik' , "I shall make you my child." Of course the 



*See Lowie, (d), 8. 



