Bowers] HID ATS A SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 229 



first day we found some old horse tracks and came back in the middle of the day 

 to eat and to report. Kidney had selected a good place to camp in high cotton- 

 woods for we were now in enemy territory. 



After we ate we talked to our gods, asking for good luck and advised the younger 

 fellows to do likewise. Each war party had its separate fire about 100 feet apart 

 so that each group could hold its separate ceremonies. ludney instructed our 

 group to cut some cottonwoods and construct a lodge tipi with the door facing 

 the southeast. It did not take us long to stand the logs up like a tipi for it was 

 really a corral of posts standing upright. When Kindey completed building it, 

 we saw that it was a symbol of the Walking-with- Woman [Painted Red Stick 

 ceremony, see pp. 451-463] that the people gave for the buffaloes back at the 

 village. Then Kidney told us to scrape the ground smooth, leaving no grass 

 standing on the flooi, and we did. 



When the lodge was ready, Kidney went inside with his sacred bundles and 

 began to sing. He asked us to bring him a cottonwood branch sharpened so that 

 he could stick it into the ground. The leader stuck the branch into the ground 

 in front of his sacred bundles. Then he called for us to bring some coals and place 

 them in front of his bundles. He was then ready to perform the rites so he called 

 to us "Come in and gather around me; sit in a circle and be quiet. One of you 

 draw a human foot on the ground and have the tracks reach up to my bundles; 

 draw a bear's foot on top of the human tracks. Each of you others draw a 

 bear's foot on each side of the human foot. The last one will draw a mark of 

 a bear seizing a human." 



He had the painted hawk on the stick, the bear skin beneath it, and the wolf 

 hide lying on the ground nearby. He said, "My gods, this will be the last chance 

 you will have to tell us whether we are going to discover an5i;hing or not." 



He picked up the painted hawk and lifted it toward the south, sang the holy 

 songs belonging to the hawk, and said, "Everything is all right for us." Then 

 he picked up the bear and pointed it to the south and said that it was going to 

 be all right. 



Then he picked up the wolf hide and said, "It is all right; it will be ready 

 tomorrow. While I was singing these holy songs, I saw off in the distance on 

 Powder River a flat place and on it was a dead human. The wolves and ravens 

 were eating the body; all that will be happening tomorrow. As its head was to 

 the east and the animals were eating, it means that it will be tomorrow. Get 

 ready, for tomorrow you will need to be prepared. Take your paint along." 



Kidney stood up and called to Hairy Coat and Iron Eyes who were at their 

 fires and when they answered he said, "There will be the three of us leaders. 

 The leader of the man who kills the enemy, will get the credit. All you scouts do 

 the best you can to discover this enemy tomorrow and don't miss the place T 

 described to you." 



By this time Crows Breast's foot was well again so he took his place as head of 

 the scouts. Crows Breast said, "Do the best you can to kill that enemy given to 

 Kidney but if you can't, we will all have to go together and kill him." 



Before daylight we scouts went out. We climbed each high butte we came to 

 and looked around. At last we saw the place Kidney spoke of and from a dis- 

 tance it looked just like the place he had described to us. The others came up 

 and we stopped to eat. Porcupine Pemmican had walked off a short distance. 

 He saw a rider coming towards him. He ran back to us and reported. We 

 stopped eating and prepared to attack but when we went out, the enemy had 

 run away. We should not have gone into the low place but should have stayed 

 on the high ridges. We had been in too great a hurry to eat. 

 710-195 — ©5 16 



