Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 145 



While I lived with Iron Woman, another young woman named Folds-her- 

 Robe would watch for me and stop to talk. I liked to have her stop me that way 

 for some of my "joking relatives" were sure to see us. This made Iron Woman 

 angry, but she did the best she could to hold me. In a few months I brought 

 Folds-her-Robe to my father's lodge but I did not have to put up any horses for 

 her either. Then I had two wives who said mean things to each other all the 

 time. I got tired of their constant quarrehng and used to go out through the 

 village looking for other young women. When I came back I would find that 

 they had been fighting. I would talk to both of them and try to make peace 

 between them for it had not been long since my other wife, Brown Blossom, 

 had walked out and hidden during the ceremony. 



My mother would keep saying to my wives, "After a while you women will 

 have children and then you will get along better together." 



BufTalo-with-Grey-Penis was going out hunting with his wife and wanted me 

 to go along. I wanted to go for he was a good hunter and his wife was my "grand- 

 mother." They came to my mother's lodge and invited my two wives to go along 

 for they knew that I would not trust them alone in the village. I got powder and 

 bullets from the trader. I left Iron Woman with my parents for she did not care 

 to go along. We set out afoot, just the four of us, and walked to the mouth of the 

 Little Missouri where we camped. We hunted up the Little Missouri where we 

 shot elk and cured the meat, drying it over a slow fire. In all we killed five elk 

 and two deer. We made four bullboats of the four elk hides to float the meat 

 and the four of us to Fishhook Village. Before we returned, the women divided 

 the meat equally between them. When we reached the bank at the village my 

 wife called her brother. Old Bear, and her sister, who was BufFalo-with-Grey- 

 Penis's wife's sister, and the two came to the river bank. I thought that since 

 the meat belonged to my wife, it was her right to dispose of it as she wished, so 

 I took my gun and personal things and went to my mother's lodge. 



My wife came in shortly afterward with a bundle of meat as large as she could 

 carry on her back; what she could not carry she had given to her brother and sister. 

 Bringing so much meat to our lodge made my mother very happy, for my wife 

 did not have to do that since she had many relatives. My mother set to cooking 

 some of the meat. Iron Woman was still in the lodge but she did not say much. 

 She was as surprised as the rest of us that Folds-her-Robe had brought us so 

 much meat. Folds-her-Robe was with me all the time and sat down with me 

 when the food was ready but my other wife would not join us. My mother 

 dished out her share and took it to her. When I looked at her from where I sat 

 eating with Folds-her-Robe, she would put her head down and would not talk. 

 Then she refused the food, picked up two dry robes she had been decorating, and 

 went out. After she left, my mother told me that she had heard in the village 

 that Iron Woman's people had told her to come back home for Wolf Chief had 

 left one of his wives and would do it again for he was not good to his wives. 



While I had Folds-her-Robe with me, I found another girl that I became fond 

 of so one day I hid myself out in the woods so that I could talk to her. My wife 

 must have suspected us for she came along and found us talking. When I went 

 home she was angry. She turned her face from me that night; in the morning 

 she would not eat so I went out for a while visiting my friends. When dinner 

 was ready, she refused to eat and cried, saying to my mother, "I have been doing 

 the best that I can for your son, going out after meat, and caring for his things. 

 Now I do not think I can get along with him." Then she picked up her bedding 

 and walked out. 



