Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 25 



not an easy one. None of the groups composing the population of 

 Fishhook was sufficiently numerous to survive in an independent 

 village. Were it not for the pressures of nomadic enemies, the rem- 

 nants of each village would have lived alone. Those Hidatsa who 

 were unwilling to continue as agriculturalists at Fishhook moved west 

 and united permanently with the River Crow. 



In the chapters that follow, through field investigations and inter- 

 views with many Hidatsa informants, I have examined the cultures of 

 the three original village groups, recorded cultural differences where 

 it was possible to do so, indicated something of the cultural elements 

 common to the three groups, and have traced out in some detail 

 those cultural processes and native concepts of the history or "road" 

 by which the Hidatsa groups achieved the cultiu*al status they knew 

 when Fishhook Village was abandoned for the move onto the reserva- 

 tion. The Hidatsa still (1932) think strongly in terms of these orig- 

 inal village groups. 



