68 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194 



The Three-clan moiety was composed of the Maxoxati, Knife, and 

 Low Cap clans. Although differing greatly in relative size, each was 

 of equal status in the moiety. In recent years it has become common 

 practice to identify oneself as "three clan," and in some instances 

 the actual clan membership is not now known. The other moiety 

 is spoken of as the "Four-clan moiety" although it actually comprises 

 five clans, excluding the Speckled Eagle which is of Mandan origin. 

 The clans of this moiety are grouped into phratries of linked clans. 

 One phratry is composed of the Prairie Chicken-AwaxEnawita clans. In 

 mythological times, so the people say, the Prairie Chickens would kill 

 and scalp people of the other clans. They lived in a separate village 

 near Expansion and above the mouth of the Knife River. The people 

 of the AwaxEnawita clan went to the people of Prairie Chicken 

 village and said, "It is not right for us to fight, for we speak the same 

 language." Then the Prairie Chicken people "united" into a friend- 

 ship band with the AwaxEnawita people. When no other relationship 

 was known, persons of the two clans treated each other as distant 

 clansmen. Nevertheless, marriages between the two clans were 

 common. The close ties of the Waterbuster, Xura, and Itisuku clans 

 are indicated by the mythologies. When the Xura village group 

 moved away and disappeared, one household joined the Waterbusters 

 of Awatixa village and is now largely incorporated into that clan 

 as a named lineage. The union of the Waterbusters into related clans 

 is of long standing, according to the mythology, and stems from the 

 belief that at one time a minor group of Waterbusters, who later were 

 identified as Itisuku, went on the warpath together. The tables 

 show that this phratry was largely exogomous. This is consistent 

 with native beliefs that the Prairie Chicken and AwaxEnawita inter- 

 married more frequently than the Waterbuster-Itisuku. 



Table 1 was prepared from genealogies of the Hidatsa and Mandan 

 living at Fishhook Village in 1872 and was compiled from the informa- 

 tion supplied me by about 15 informants. Table 1 enumerates 

 marriages which were of some permanence and does not include brief 

 elopements. These marriages were, in general, those that occurred 

 between 1825 and 1885. Approximately 80 percent of the marriages 

 occurred after 1855 while the Mandan and Hidatsa were living at 

 Fishhook Village. Figures for the Mandan are included in the table 

 to indicate the extent of intertribal marriage. 



Table 1 shows that of 128 marriages within the Hidatsa tribe, 7 

 were within the clan. According to custom, it was considered im- 

 proper for one to marry a person of the same clan, but the instances 

 of marriage with one of the father's clan are equally rare. This is in 

 sharp contrast with data from the Mandan genealogies which show 

 a frequency of nearly 25 percent. Table 1 shows 59 marriages with 



