60 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 80 
No. 18. “The First Wife Laughs” (Catalogue No. 906) 
Recorded by YELLow Harr 
VOICE d - 48 
Drum not recorded 
Analysis —This song contains four rhythmic periods, the second 
containing two measures and the others containing three measures. 
A taunting effect is given by the count divisions in the middle por- 
tion of the song. Other songs expressing derision are Nos. 93 
and 107. Other songs containing syncopations are noted in the 
analysis of No. 1. With the exception of an ascending major sixth, 
the melody progresses entirely by intervals containing two, three, 
or four semitones. 
Eacir CaTcHING 
Early travelers in the Northwest mention the custom of eagle 
catching, but Matthews states that his is the first complete descrip- 
tion of it.°° This differs from the accounts given the present writer 
in that, according to him, the birds were allowed their liberty after 
their tail feathers had been removed. The writer’s Mandan and 
Hidatsa informants agreed that the eagles were killed, and the 
Hidatsa informants stated that they were buried with some cere- 
mony. The custom appears to have been common to both tribes and 
widely practiced in that region. The principal information, with 
the songs herewith presented, is from the Mandan, but certain notes 
are given from the Hidatsa. 
® Matthews, Ethnography of the Hidatsa, pp. 58-60. Cf. also Pepper and Wilson. 
An Hidatsa shrine, pp. 310-314. In this account a black bear instructed a man in the 
art of eagle catching, and the stuffed skin of a young black bear was the eagle catcher’s 
fetish. The writer’s interpreter stated that the animal referred to in the tradition was 
“something like a bear,’ but that “as near as he could make out it must have been a 
wolverine.” Because of his uncertainty, he used the term “little animal” in his inter- 
preting, but, with this explanation, the word ‘‘ wolverine’’ is used in this material. The 
eatching of eagles by means of pits was practiced by the Blackfeet, Sioux, Cheyenne, 
and Arapaho, and presumably by all the Plains tribes. The custom among the Black- 
feet, with a mention of ‘‘ eagle songs,” is recorded by George Bird Grinnell in Blackfoot 
Lodge Tales, pp. 236-240, 
