120 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194 



trated in numerous myths. Women who were kind to their husband's 

 father were beheved to have good luck all through life. 



The grandparents' roles in the preservation of the tribal traditions 

 and cultural heritage were important. It was considered proper to 

 shift the physical responsibilities to persons of middle age, allowing 

 older people more leisure time. Thus, while the father was engaged 

 in warfare, hunting, or preparing for ceremonial feasts and rites, and 

 the mother and her sisters were busy in their various economic, 

 social, and ritualistic enterprises, the grandparents were free to teach. 

 It was the pattern of the culture for the younger people to seek out 

 the knowledge and skills possessed by the older people, particularly 

 those of their own households. In return, the society offered many 

 rewards to those possessing unique skills and knowledge. It seemed 

 to this writer that Hidatsa interest in the history of their tribe and its 

 institutions is not unique among the older people today. 



Much of their culture was transmitted through purchase from 

 those of the previous generations who had bought from their elders. 

 Thus, arrows were made only by those with ceremonial rights in 

 bundles carrying arrow-making songs; pottery was made by those 

 with bundles associated with Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies ; basket- 

 making was practiced by those with Holy Women rights; fish, eagle, 

 and game traps were controlled by those with Black Bear rights; 

 and buUboats and earth lodges went with River bundles. Since 

 these skills were related to the principal bundles from which the 

 original rights were given, there was an aura of sacredness about 

 them. A person wishing to learn to chip flint and to make aiTOWs 

 could buy the rights and receive the instructions from those with 

 the sacred bundle or he could buy the rights from one who had bought 

 secondary rights from the bundle owner. In practice, it meant that 

 a young man would go first to the people of his own household, 

 generally a maternal grandfather, for instruction and training. The 

 same rules would apply to a woman wishing to obtain the knowledge 

 of pottery making. One did not have the right to make those things 

 or perform those rites which were privately or group owned without 

 first getting permission. Thus, much of the knowledge which one 

 acquired during his or her lifetime, often at a high price, was shared 

 with the younger generations, while the goods received in payment 

 helped to sustain them in old age. 



Mother-in-Law-Son-in-Law 



A man classified as "mother-in-law" aU those females that his wife 

 and his own brothers' wives classed as "mother," "father's sister," 

 and "grandmother." In theory, all of a woman's sons-in-law's 

 extended "older brothers" and "younger brothers" were also "sons-in- 



