162 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194 



and effort to killing the animals. Some men, especially those of the 

 Black Mouth police society, were continuously engaged in policing 

 the camp or guarding the encampment to forestall a surprise attack 

 from their enemies. Others were at a distance from the encamp- 

 ment serving as scouts, guarding the horses at pasture, or seeking 

 buffaloes and planning the surround. It was customary, there- 

 fore, for those with good buffalo horses to do the killing while older 

 men with packhorses brought the meat to the camp. 



Once in camp, the meat was placed in centrally situated piles where 

 all could help themselves, irrespective of households. Older men too 

 feeble to engage in the heavy work of butchering and transporting 

 the meat would assist their households in erecting drying platforms. 

 As each platform was completed, the meat taken from the common 

 piles was sliced in thin strips and dried by households. One was 

 considered selfish to take meat or hides that could not be cured 

 immediately while others were able to give these things immediate 

 attention. From native accounts, these communal hunting expedi- 

 tions were happy times. A household with many active young 

 women, having all their meat cured, would pitch in and help the less 

 fortunate ones. Frequently the special officers refused their extra 

 share of hides and tongues because of the size of the kill and the 

 limited facilities for transporting it to the village. 



Animals taken in corrals were divided in a different manner. After 

 the special awards were made to those managing the rites and directing 

 the animals to the corral, a line was drawn through the center of the 

 enclosure from the center of the mouth to the opposite wall. Animals 

 lying on one side of this line went to the Three-clan moiety and those 

 on the other side belonged to the Four-clan moiety. Employing this 

 division in 1872, we would have found 22 households butchering on 

 the Three-clan side and 27 on the Four-clan side. Five additional 

 households, comprising two with Arikara female members and three 

 represented by both moieties, would have to be taken into accoimt. 

 According to Bears Arm, if the households were unequal in number, 

 mixed ones butchered on the weaker or smaller side. When butcher- 

 ing at the corral, each household group selected one animal until 

 there were no longer enough animals to go around, when related 

 households went together and shared the additional ones. 



The women of the household also frequently shared certain sacred 

 and secular rights, mythological lore, techniques of basketry and 

 pottery decorations and manufacture, household doctoring procedures, 

 and other activities which were transmitted through the household 

 lineage. 



Due to matrilocal residence and patrilineal inheritance of most 

 sacred rites, sacred bundles obtained by a male usually passed out of 



