DORSEY.) CULT OF THE YONI. 505 



The medicine mnu receives from oue of tlie spectators the knife with which the ope- 

 ration is to be performed. The partisan is bound to build thi' medicine lodge. 



During- the ceremony the spectators eat and smoke; the candidates take nothing, 

 and, like the partisans, are covered all over with white clay. The latter, when they 

 dance during the ceremony, remain near their pits, and then move on the same spot, 

 holding' in their hands their medicines, a buft'alo tail, a feather, or the like. None 

 but the candidates dance, and the only music is striking a dried buffalo hide with 

 willow rods. There have been instances of fathers subjecting their children, only 6 

 or 7 years of age, to these tortures. We ourselves saw one suspended by the muscles 

 of the back, after having been compelled to fast four days. No application whatever 

 is subsequently made for the cure of the wounds, which leave large swollen weals, 

 and are much more conspicuous among the Hi<latsa than among the Mandau. Most 

 of the Hidatsa have three or four of these weals in parallel semicircular lines almost 

 an inch thick, which cover the entire breast. There aresimilar transverse and long- 

 itudinal lines on the arms. 



Eeferriug to Maximilian's description just given, Matthews observes : 

 At this time, the Hidatsa call the Mamlan ceremony akupi (of which word proba- 

 bly akupehi is an old form) ; but they apply no such term to their own festival. Max- 

 imilian did not sjiend a summer among those Indians, and, therefore, knew of both 

 ceremonies only from description.' If the Minnetaree festival to which he referred 

 was, as is most likely, the Nahpike, lie is, to some extent, in error. The rites re- 

 semble oue another only in their appalling fasts and tortures. In allegory, they seem 

 to be radically different. 



CULT OF THE YONI. 



§ 320. An account of the great buffalo medicine feast of the Hidatsa 

 ("instituted by the women") has been recorded by Maximilian. Prayers 

 are made for .success in hunting and in battle. When the feast had 

 continued two hours, the women began to act the part, which bore a 

 slight resemblance to what Herodotus tells of the women in the temple 

 of Mylitta.2 



When the dance of the half shorn head was sold by its Mandan pos- 

 sessors, they received in part payment the temporary use of the wives 

 of the irarchasers, each woman having the right to choose her consort.^ 



Lewis and Clarke have given accounts of two of the Mandan dances, 

 the buffalo dance and the medicine dance, at the conclusion of which 

 were rites that astonished the travelers, but they were told that in the 

 medicine dance only virgins or young unmarried females took part." 



ABSAROKA FEAR OF A WHITE BUFFALO COW. 



§ 321. The Absaroka or Crow Nation have a superstitious fear of a 

 white buffalo cow. When a Crow meets one, he addresses the sun in 

 the following words : "I will give her (i. e., the cow) to you." He then 

 endeavors to kill the animal, but leaves it untouched, and then says to 

 the sun, " Take her, she is yours." They never use the skin of such a 

 cow, as the Mandan do.^ 



1 Tet Maximilian saya. " We ourselves saw one suspended, etc. " 



' Travels ' ' * in Xorth America, pp. 419-422. 



5 Ibid, pp. 426-428. 



" Ibid, voL I, pp. 189. 190. 



5 Ibid, p. 175. 



