174 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BaU. 194 



Another view held by other informants was that many others were 

 the descendants of the 13 initial family groups from the sky who estab- 

 lished a village on Charred Body Creek below the present town of 

 Washburn, N. Dak., led by Charred Body who had first discovered 

 this land below. Mrs. Good Bear, whose husband was one of the Sun 

 Dance makers, believed that on death they returned to the sky. 

 This view was shared by Wolf Chief whose father held one of the 

 Waterbuster clan bundles consisting of two human skulls believed to 

 have once been of two eagles who transformed themselves into men; 

 one man came from their village at the headwaters of the Missouri 

 River, where the sky and land meet, to live in Awatixa village. 



Another view, held by Four Dancers, was that the vUlage of the 

 dead was on the earth. He based his views on instructions and in- 

 formation given by the owners of the Earthnaming bundles. Other 

 older informants believed that when they died they would return 

 downstream to the mouth of the Knife River or to Devils Lake and 

 join their deceased relatives there. 



Another view held was that when a prominent medicine man died, 

 his spirit father would come to meet him and escort him to the 

 village of his spirit people. In addition to these views, there were 

 individual views not generally shared by very many people and which 

 were based on individual visions and dream experiences in which 

 they had seen their deceased relatives Uving in earth lodges, practicing 

 agriculture, hunting buffaloes, and conducting warfare with their 

 enemies in much the same manner as when they lived. 



The Age-Grade System 



The Hidatsa placed great importance on relative age in determining 

 behavior between individuals. The same concepts were extended to 

 include status of the members of the organized societal and rehgious 

 groups. Theoretically, the entire male and female population was 

 arranged in a series of groupings based on age. For the greater 

 part of the population, these groups were formally organized with 

 names, symbols of membership, songs, and prescribed rights and 

 rules of behavior. The system for men was more complexly devel- 

 oped into a series of age-graded military societies. Individuals were 

 not organized into formal societies during two periods in their hves: 

 prior to reaching the age of 12 (depending upon the village group), 

 and after they had achieved old age and had passed through the 

 age-grade system. The social and ceremonial system imposed so 

 many burdens and obligations on the individual that it was prac- 

 tically impossible to fulfill his traditional roles and assume his cus- 

 tomary positions in the village life except with the assistance of the 



