Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 161 



lodge structures, two or more with entrances facing each other were 

 usually built for each household. One lodge would then be occupied 

 by the mothers-in-law and their husband, and the other by the 

 younger married people. Children were quartered in either lodge. 

 After 1860, the Hidatsa largely abandoned the large circular earth 

 lodge for winter village use. When returning to a foimer winter 

 camp, the lodges stUl usable were repaired as shelters for the horses, 

 storerooms, and dancing lodges, while small rectangular log cabins 

 were built nearby with an enclosed hallway leading into the earth 

 lodge. Often as many as four such cabins were built adjacent to the 

 earth lodge when the household was composed of several families. 



The log cabin was in general use for winter camps by 1860, and by 

 1865 was replacing the large circular earth lodges of the summer 

 village as well. In 1872 McChesney reported 35 earth lodges and 

 69 log cabins occupied by the Mandan and Hidatsa of Fishhook 

 Village (Matthews, 1877, p. 4). 



The household economic pattern seems to have been affected little 

 by the adoption of the log cabin. Although two or more cabins were 

 built to house a former earth lodge household, the lodges were built 

 adjacent to each other or as double-roomed cabins with separate 

 entrances and an intervening doorway. Each room had a fireplace 

 with a plastered chimney and an opening in the roof to admit light 

 and air. When the lodge was completed, certain women sldlled in 

 making chimneys were paid to make the fireplace and construct the 

 chimney. This right to buHd chimneys and fireplaces was bought 

 in the matrihneal line like other ceremonial rights. Each room had a 

 cache under the earth floor. Having a separate room away from the 

 mothers-in-law, a man felt freer to invite in his friends. The eco- 

 nomic life of the household, however, was unaffected by the change 

 in living quarters. The women continued to plant and harvest the 

 crops according to the ancient system. The gardens were held by the 

 linked households and the women worked as a group curing and 

 storing the produce without consideration to the small family lodge 

 units. They also shared the common stores as before. A young 

 wife living with, or adjacent to, the husband's people continued to 

 plant crops with her mother's group, at least until she had children 

 and was an established member of the husband's household. The 

 son-in-law provided meat for both his own and his wife's family. 



In theory, a man provided the meat and hides for his wife and her 

 household while the wife's household provided him with the necessary 

 horses, weapons, and knives. For the communal trips and summer 

 hunts, however, the Hidatsa employed a more equitable system of 

 dividing the products of the chase. These hunts being highly or- 

 ganized activities, aU able-bodied men could not devote equal time 



