DOBSEY] HIDATSA DIVINITIES. 513 



last sentence can hardly be of Indian origin; it is very probably due to 

 white influence. 



FOUR AS A MYSTIC NUMBER AMONG THE MANDAN. 



§340. According- to Catlin:' 



The Okipa iuvarialily lasts four days; four meu are selected l)y tlie first man to 

 cleanse out and prepare the mystic lodge for the occasion ; one of these meu is called 

 from the north part of the village, another from the east, a third from the south, and 

 the fourth from the ■n-est (see ^373). The four sacks of water, in the forms of large 

 tortoises, resting on the floor of the lodge, seem to typify the four cardinal points. 

 The four buiialo skulls and as many human skulls on the floor of the lodge, the four 

 couples of dancers in tlie buftalo dance and the four intervening dancers in the same 

 dance, deserve our studj'. The butialo dance in frout of the mystic lodge, repeated 

 on the four days, is danced four times on the first day, eight times on the second, 

 twelve times on the third, and sixteen times on the fourth. There are four sacrificea 

 of black and blue cloths erected over the entrance of the mystic lodge. The visits 

 of the Evil Spirit were paid to four of the buifalo in the buft'alo dance. In every 

 instance the young man who submitted to torture in the Okipa had four splints or 

 skewers run through the flesh on his leg, four through his arms, and four through 

 hia body. 



HIDAT.SA CULTS. 

 HIDATSA niVIXITIES. 



§ 341. The Hidatsa believe in the Man who Never Dies, or Lord of 

 Life, Ehsicka-Wahaddisli,- literally, the first man, who dwclLs in the 

 Rocky Mountains. He made all things. Another being whom they 

 venerate i.s called the Grandmother. She roams over the earth. She 

 had some share in creation, though an inferior one, for she created the 

 toad and the sand-rat. She gave the Hidatsa two kettles, which they 

 still preserve as a sacred treasure and employ as charms or fetiches on 

 certain occasions. She directed the ancestors of the i)resent Indians to 

 preserve the kettles and to remember the great waters, whence came 

 all the animals dancing. The red-shonldered oriole {PsaracoUus phoe- 

 niceus) came at that time out of the water, as well as the other birds 

 which still sing along the banks of rivers. The Hidatsa, therefore, look 

 on all these birds as " medicine" for their corn jiatches, and attend to 

 their songs. When these birds sing the Hidatsa, reiaemberiug the 

 direction of the Grandmother, fill the two kettles with water, dance and 

 bathe, in order to commemorate the great flood. When their fields are 

 threatened with a great drought tliey celebrate a " medicine" feast with 

 the two kettles, as they beg for rain. The shamans are still paid, on 

 such occasions, to sing for four days together in the huts, while the 

 kettles remain full of water. 



§ 342. The sun, or as they term it, "the sun of the day," is a great 

 power. They do not know what it really is, but when they are about 

 to undertake some enterprise they sacrifice to it and also to the moon, 



' Catlin, iu Smithsonian Kept., 1885, pt. 2, p. 372. 

 'So called by Haximaban, same as tlie Itsika-niahidiy of M^atthews. 

 11 ETH ^33 



