IV PREFACE 



However competent informants may be, it takes good interpreters 

 to bring out the information one seeks. Tom Smith, my first and 

 oldest interpreter, had worked with me in assembling the data I used 

 for my Mandan study. He had attended school at Hampton, Va., as 

 a young man, but had returned home to hunt buffaloes and participate 

 in the ancient ways. He had done much of the preliminary work in 

 acquainting the older Hidatsas with the nature of the study to be made 

 and had assisted me in preparing a preliminary census of lodge 

 groups as of 1870-72, even before the Hidatsa study was undertaken. 

 Without his help I could not have secured the data I received from a 

 few of the more conservative non-Christian Indians. When I came to 

 Elbo woods in 1932 he had already written me that his health was not 

 good. I found him too ill to work for me, but he did give me much 

 assistance in selecting good informants and he talked to them of my 

 work when he saw them. He died about 2 months after this study 

 was begun. He had told me that Sam Newman would be an excellent 

 interpreter if I could get along with him. Mr. Newman was without 

 question the most competent interpreter I ever used. He had had 

 extensive experience interpreting for various Government officials. 

 Although he was with me most of the time for 9 months, I cannot say 

 that I came to know him well. He never discussed his family or 

 neighborhood matters with me. He always came on time, even 

 though the winter of 1932-33 was a severe one, with deep snow. He 

 would come to my informant's home, take off his heavy wraps, sit at 

 his place at the table, and, without commenting on any of the events 

 of the day, say, "Will you read me the last paragraph, please, so I can 

 collect my wits?" 



I used James Baker as interpreter during the late winter while I 

 worked in the Independence district of the Fort Berthold Reservation 

 and lived in his home. Jim, as he was known by everyone, made no 

 claim of competence as an interpreter, his only experience being 

 with White stockmen of the district who came to call on non-English- 

 speaking Indians about ranching problems. He was warm and friend- 

 ly, and we became close friends and kept track of each other as long 

 as he lived. Whereas Sam Newman's facial expression never changed 

 throughout the day and one would have never been able to anticipate 

 humorous or serious matters coming up in translation, Jim was con- 

 tinually responding to the informant. One moment he would say to 

 me on the side, "Get ready to shed tears" or "You are going to get a 

 laugh out of this" or "Hold onto your hat." Sam Newman's precise 

 manners and lack of response to emotional scenes was always bringing 

 informants up short of tears. This was not so with either Tom 

 Smith or James Baker. Informants freely expressed their emotions 

 to them, laughing at the obviously humorous events of theu- lives and 



