DBNSMoRD] MANDAN AND HIDATSA MUSIC 99 
are the people of the Missouri River,’ and they told the young 
women to bring food for a feast. The young women took food 
and gifts into their lodge. The spirit women ate but did not talk— 
they only whispered to each other. After the feast they taught 
certain songs (Nos. 39-43) to the maidens, and because they were 
spirit songs they were easy to learn. The maidens learned them all 
that night. The spirit women also taught them the Little River 
Women ceremony in which the songs were to be sung. Around their 
heads the spirit women still wore the living snakes, but they taught 
the Mandan maidens to braid grass to resemble snakes and told them 
to make and wear such headdresses whenever they held a ceremony 
of the society. 
Then the spirit women went away, but the Mandan women did 
everything as they had been instructed by the spirit women. 
CEREMONY OF THE LITTLE RIVER WOMEN SOCIETY 
This ceremony, as already stated, took place in the spring of the 
year, but could be held also in the fall. Four days were required 
for the ceremony, and during the intervening nights the women 
slept in the ceremonial lodge. They could go to their homes during 
the day, and usually worked in the gardens in the mornings. A pro- 
cession was held in the early evening, the crier summoning the 
women to their lodge to prepare for it. At the time of the procession 
the men singers, usually five in number, took their places at the 
drum in the center of the village. The Little River women formed 
in a line within their lodge. All wore headdresses of braided grass 
representing snakes and having an eagle feather in the front. The 
procession was in a regular order. At the head and also at the end 
of the procession walked a woman wearing a necklace of bear claws 
and midway the length of the line was a woman wearing ah otter skin 
ornamented with a polished shell.8° The procession passed around 
the village circle, moving from east to west, and at the cardinal 
points the maidens paused and danced for a few moments. When 
they had completed the circuit of the village they formed a circle 
outside their lodge and danced, singing the four principal songs 
that were taught them by the spirit women (Nos. 39-42). Then 
they danced into the door of the lodge, two by two, singing a dance 
8 Scattered Corn said that the spirit women came to the Mandans when they were 
living in two villages, both of which seem to have had the ceremony at the same time. 
Some said, however, that ‘as the real Mandans lived at Deapolis the spirit women 
probably went there and the women from Deapolis took the ceremony to the women 
at the Fort Clark village.” At a later time one of the villages was destroyed and the 
societies of the two villages combined, so that there were twice as many wearers of bear 
claws and special ornaments as were indicated by the spirit women. Thus in later years 
there were four women with necklaces of bear claws and two with ornaments of otter 
skin and polished shell. This narrative, however, gives the original number. Scattered 
Corn was one of the women who wore a bear-claw necklace. 
