74 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194 



clan. When a clansman's wife was stolen, the whole clan felt injured 

 and would assist the one whose wife had been stolen by demanding 

 payment collectively from the aggressor's relatives and clans. Since 

 some of the aggressor's relatives usually had advance information that 

 an elopement was contemplated, it was customary for them to take 

 goods and horses to the injured man even before he discovered his 

 loss and had enlisted the assistance of his clan; otherwise they were 

 permitted to kill the aggressor's horse and cut up his property. 



The clan revenged the murder of a member by killing the offender 

 and demanding goods of his clansmen as indemnity. There is no 

 recorded instance of murder by one of a different clan in recent years 

 so it was not possible to study a case history of manslaughter. When 

 a person killed another of the same clan, restitution was between 

 households. Since the clan as an organized group could not extract 

 indemnity from itself, the matter was allowed to drop if the murderer 

 escaped from the village. During the last century there have been 

 at least three murders committed within the clan by males while 

 intoxicated. In two cases the murderer was aided by his household 

 in making his escape while his household and closer clan relatives 

 made restitution to the dead man's household. The third case was 

 committed during a drunken brawl after the Agency was estabUshed 

 and was handled by the North Dakota courts. In former times, mur- 

 der was of such great importance that the Black Mouths took charge 

 immediately to see that matters did not get out of hand, otherwise 

 a portion of the population was likely to break away and establish 

 an independent village. In former times when the Hidatsa occupied 

 three villages, since each village had essentially the same clan repre- 

 sentation, murderers escaping from one village were not secure in 

 another one because of the presence there of the murdered one's 

 clansmen. Generally they would escape to the Crow but frequently 

 the Mandan or Arikara would harbor them. At first those of Hidatsa 

 village who had committed crimes against persons of the Prairie 

 Chicken and Speckled Eagle clans were prohibited refuge with the 

 Mandan, where these clans were also represented. Because of the 

 numerous marriages between the Mandan and the Hidatsa villages of 

 Awaxawi and Awatixa, it was never considered safe for men of these 

 villages to seek refuge with the Mandan. After the Mandan moved 

 north to the region of the Hidatsa villages near Knife River, refuge 

 with the Mandan was less common due to the equating of the Mandan 

 and Hidatsa clans and intermarriage between these village groups. 

 One-eyed, a chief of the Hidatsa, is said to be the last from Hidatsa 

 village to seek temporary refuge with the Mandan with whom he 

 lived for a short time after killing a clansman whose wife he coveted. 



