Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 167 



formed attachments to older men, generally men without children 

 and having trouble keeping their wives, and set up separate house- 

 holds. At the time this study was made, informants could remember 

 two such people in the generation above them, but they had heard 

 that in former times there were sometimes as many as 15 to 25 ber- 

 daches in their villages. 



Since the berd aches were viewed as mystic possessors of unique 

 ritual instructions secured directly from the mysterious Holy Woman, 

 they were treated as a special class of religious leaders. Although a 

 berdache might have lived within an extended household as one of the 

 cowives, informants thought that separate households more commonly 

 were maintained. According to tradition, these were well-to-do 

 households. The "man-woman" worked in the garden, did bead 

 work, and butchered as did the women. Being stronger and more 

 active than the women, the berdache could do many things more 

 efficiently and was never burdened down with childbearing. Ac- 

 counts we have of the berdaches tell of industrious individuals work- 

 ing harder than the women of the village and exceeding the women 

 in many common activities. Informants felt that separate house- 

 holds established around the berdache were very often better fixed 

 than those where the men carried on active military duties. 



The berdache performed many ceremonial roles. When the Sun 

 Dance ceremonies (NaxpikE) were to be performed, it was the ber- 

 dache's duty to locate the log for the central post from driftwood in 

 the river. Whenever a major ceremony was being given, the berd- 

 ache would dress hke the other members of the Holy Woman Society 

 and receive gifts as an equal member with the women of the society. 



The berdaches comprised the most active ceremonial class in the 

 village. Their roles in ceremonies were many and exceeded those of 

 the most distinguished tribal ceremonial leaders. There was an 

 atmosphere of mystery about them. Not being bound as firmly by 

 traditional teachings coming down from the older generations through 

 the ceremonies, but more as a result of their own individual and 

 unique experiences with the supernatural, their conduct was less 

 traditional than that of the other ceremonial leaders. 



The berdache was a brother or the son of a man holding tribal 

 ceremonial rights in the Woman Above and Holy Woman bundles. 

 There are no known instances of exceptions to this rule and the 

 Hidatsa believed that only persons standing in these relationships to 

 those bundles ever assumed the woman's role. The berdache com- 

 monly adopted orphans from the village or secured young daughters 

 and sons through the capture of prisoners by their relatives, transmit- 

 ting their property and their ceremonial knowledge to their younger 

 adopted children. Like certain male medicine men, they sur- 



