DOnt^EY.] 



FOLK-LORE. 511 



"CliarataXuiuakslii (the Cbiel' of Wolves)," a Maiulan. had a 

 painted buffalo dress, which was his fetich. He valued it highly as a 

 souvenir of liis brother, who had been shot by the enemy.' 



FdLK-I.OKK. 



§ 335. When a child is born the father must not bridle a. horse, that 

 is, he must not fasten a lariat to the horse's lower jaw, otherwise the 

 infant would die in convulsions. Should the wife be enceinte when the 

 husband bridled the horse ill luck would be sure to follow, frequeiitly 

 in the form of a failure to kill any game. If an Indian in such cases 

 wounds a buffalo without being able to kill it quickly, he tries to take 

 the buffalo's heart home and makes his wife shoot an arrow through it ; 

 then again he feels confidence in hjs weapons that they will kill speedily. 



The Indians aflflrm that a pregnant woman is very lucky at a game 

 resembling billiards. If a woman passes between several Mandan who 

 are smoking together it is a bad omen. Should a woman recline on 

 the ground between men who are smoking a piece of wood is laid 

 across her to serve as a means of communication between the men. 



The strongest man now living among the Mandan, who has been the 

 victor in several wrestling matches with the white people, always takes 

 hold of his pipe by the head, for were he to touch another part of it 

 the blood would suddenly rush from his nostrils. As soon as he bleeds 

 in this manner he empties his pipe, throwing the contents into the fire, 

 where it explodes like gunpowder, and the bleeding stops immediately. 

 They say that nobody can touch this man's face without bleeding at 

 nose and mouth. 



A certain ^Mandan affirms that whenever another offers him a pipe 

 to smoke, out of civility, his mouth becomes full of worms, whicli he 

 throws into the fire by handfuls. 



Among the Hidatsa, when a certain man smoked very slowly no per- 

 son in the lodge was allowed to speak nor to move a single limb, except 

 to grasp the pipe. Neither women, children, nor dogs were allowed to 

 remain in the hut while the man was smoking, and some one was 

 always placed as a guard at the entrance. If, liowever, there were just 

 seven persons present to smoke none of these precautions were obsei-ved. 

 When the particular man cleared his pipe and shook the ashes into the 

 fire it blazed up, perhaps because he had put into the pipe some gun- 

 powder or similar combustible. When any person had a painful or 

 diseased place this same man put his pipe upon it and smoked. On 

 such occasions he did not swallow the smoke, as is the Indiani custom, 

 but he affirmed that he could extract the disease by his smoking, and 

 he pretended to seize it iu his hand and to throw into the tire.- 



SORCERY. 



§ 330. They believe that a person whom they dislike must die, if 



' Travels * » * in JTorth America, p. 178. 

 2 Ibid., pp. -103.404. 



