184 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194 



Black Mouth Society 



Unlike some Plains tribes where the responsibilities of group 

 management were passed around from society to society, the Hidatsa 

 and Mandan village groups entrusted police duties to one society, 

 the Black Mouths. Curtis (1907 a) lists two societies with police 

 duties; the Black Mouths and the Wood-roots. The names actually 

 refer to a single society. The name "black mouth" refers to the 

 particular painting of the members of this society, whereas "wood- 

 root" refers to the clubs carried by the members. The society is of 

 Mandan traditional origin, according to the Hidatsa. My Mandan 

 informants claimed that the society was organized by Good-Furred- 

 Kobe to protect the Corn People. For that reason, the Black Mouth 

 society had the right to meet whenever the feasts were given for 

 the Goose society. The Mandan claim that the society was borrowed 

 by the various Hidatsa village groups and, in light of Hidatsa tra- 

 ditions that the society is of recent introduction from the Mandan, 

 we can assume this to be the correct order of diffusion. The Mandan 

 have sacred origin myths relative to the founding of the society, 

 which I was unable to discover for the Hidatsa. 



The Hidatsa comprehended the Black Mouth society as occupying 

 an intermediate and transitional position between the lower societies 

 (whose members had recently begun their first fasts, ceremonial ad- 

 ventures, ritualistic feasting, and participation in the war expeditions 

 as beginners and immature men) and those older males who had 

 attained the principal objectives prescribed by the culture. In the 

 process of society purchases, the individuals comprising the various 

 groups were tested. Those who failed to measure up to the highest 

 standards of the society dropped from the system. In the process of 

 advancing through the lower societies, recognition was given to those 

 showing special skills when officers were selected to wear the badges 

 of the society or to perform certain honored roles. Young men who 

 had advanced to the point of buying into the Black Mouth society, 

 were frequently stopped at that point for a number of years. When 

 the Black Mouths were asked to sell by a younger group, they would 

 invariably present the matter to the two older Dog and the Bull 

 societies for their approval. If the older and better-informed men 

 felt that the younger men were moving along too fast and were not 

 ready to assume such important obligations, or if conditions in the 

 village or relations with neighboring tribes were not right, the sale 

 was delayed. Opposition to sale usually took the form of individual 

 advice from one's own relatives. The Hidatsa were very sensitive to 

 pubhc opinion, whether in the purchase of age-grade societies, sacred 

 bundles, or other activities. When pubhc opinion was against a 



