Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 107 



household and return to his mother's lodge to eat, for it was not 

 considered proper to be in the lodge alone with only his parents-in-law. 

 His horses were grazed and cared for by the younger members of 

 his mother's household and most of his personal property was kept 

 there. Although he was expected to hunt for the wife's household 

 when living with her people and to supply meat for her to take to 

 her parents, a man's interest was at first primarily with his mother's 

 group. The mother would be ashamed of a daughter-in-law who 

 failed to keep her husband's clothing mended and his moccasins in 

 good repau\ If he needed a good horse and his wife's people had 

 none, he could use freely those of his mother's household. The 

 spoils of war went to his mother and her female relatives and they 

 were expected to mourn longest if he lost his life. 



Father-Son 



The father's relationship to a son was quite different from that of 

 the mother. In the first place, they were of different clans; but it 

 was to the father and his clansmen, nevertheless, that the son looked 

 for formal training in the ceremonies. The two parental groups 

 comprising the father and his brothers, and their sisters and their 

 children, on the one hand and the mother, her sisters, and brothers 

 on the other, were sharply differentiated both as to lineages and 

 functions. The father's obligations were both economic and ritu- 

 alistic. He should provide for the family by hunting game and 

 protecting them from their enemies. In the Hidatsa's mind, how- 

 ever, this was not an essential function, for households were known 

 which had had no adult male for a decade or more and in which the 

 members lived very well by exchanging garden produce for other 

 necessities. A man's status in the wife's household rose as children 

 came along. He was never present at the time of the birth of his 

 child. Once it appeared that the infant was going to live (at the age 

 of 10 days or so), however, he took the leading role in securing a name 

 for it. He could give the child a name from his own ceremonial 

 rites but ordinarily a man preferred to widen the field of supernatural 

 forces working for the child's welfare by selecting another of the same 

 clan to give the child a name suggested by the namer's ceremonial 

 rites. Even at the age of 10 days a child's individuality was reconized. 

 When approaching the person who was to supply the name, the father 

 would say "My son who has just come to live with us asks you to 

 give him a name and to receive these goods." The father's brother 

 or sister supplying the name would pray to his or her sacred bundles 

 to send the child good luck and the father would do hkewise. Each 

 time thereafter when the father offered the pipe and food to his 

 sacred bundles, he would ask that they send his children good luck 



