240 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuU. 194 



for it, but others thought that it was too far. Three Coyotes and his coleaders 

 decided to run for the brush, fighting their way through the Sioux lines. He 

 selected Guts, who was a great medicine man, and Black Shield, who was a good 

 shot, to take the two ends while the others sneaked out, following a narrow coulee 

 part of the way. The two went onto the hill to attract the Sioux's attention 

 and when the others were on the flat, they ran too. When all were near the brush, 

 the Sioux rode in front of them but they were not prepared for the attack and were 

 easily driven out of the way. When they got into the brush, the Sioux returned 

 to their camp and did not try to follow them further. 



The two on the corners were the ones who saved them, one a great medicine 

 man, the other a good shot. The sickly one had been killed at the fort and one 

 other was lost running towards the brush. 



Because they lost two, even though killing many of the enemy that they could 

 not strike, the party came back in mourning. But the Sioux kept Three Coyotes 

 from dancing the victory dances for they kept their dead out of reach of the 

 Hidatsa. It was too bad that he could not possess any of them for the Sioux 

 camp was in mourning when they left from losing so many young men. If Three 

 Coyotes had taken even one scalp, the relatives of the two dead men would have 

 called for the victory dances after a period of mourning. 



The above narrative by Four Dancers of the Three Coyote military 

 expedition imparts a number of factors not included in previous 

 accounts. He emphasized that what one dreamed was more important 

 than what one got through public purchase from the father. He 

 rationalized the war record of Crow-Flies-High who did not, even 

 though receiving the appropriate dreams, buy his deceased father's 

 ceremonial bundle rites until he was along in years. Instead, he made 

 up personal bundles based on vision experiences without the benefit 

 of pubhc performances. He stated that the people who split away 

 did not have as many tribal ceremonies but that their men were just 

 as successful as those who stayed in Fishhook because they fasted to 

 compensate for ceremonies which the Fort Buford group did not own. 

 In this respect, the Crow-Flies-High band showed strong similarity 

 to the Crow religious pattern. By contrast, the other Hidatsa groups 

 preserved more of the formal pattern of ceremonial transfer whereby 

 vision experiences were organized and classified in terms of existing 

 tribal rites. 



We note that Guts showed his bravery by asking to wear a red 

 shirt so that the enemy would think he was chief and that by killing 

 him, the enemy might caU off the attack. One often wonders to what 

 extent behavior is affected by confidence in supernatural powers. 

 Here we have an instance in which, in selecting the men to occupy the 

 end positions in the line. Guts was selected for his supernatural 

 powers while Black Shield was selected because he was a good shot. 

 When this narrative was recorded, after hearing of Black Shield's 

 rites of "pouring powder and shot" out of his ears, I presumed that 

 Four Dancers was referring to him as the possessor of great super- 

 natural powers. He explained, however, that it was Guts who was 



