Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 259 



convenient to get off to fix their saddles, thus permitting others to 

 do the actual fighting. 



We see that after Four Bears has been out several times, the old 

 men tell him that if he can go out as leader four times without "kicking 

 the stone" he wiU be a great man. This imparts that even the greatest 

 military leaders gave but a small amount of time to actual military 

 campaigns of their own. When the men go out to look for their 

 horses stolen by the Assiniboin, we see a war party being organized 

 sometime after leaving the village and Four Bears is not pleased 

 because he is not selected to be the leader of the scouts. Why? 

 The informant did not know what One Buffalo had in mind but, in 

 any case, he was shown to be in error since Four Bears was first to 

 win the honors. We see in this account how quickly the Hidatsa 

 terminated a military expedition once they had the better of the 

 enemy. Once an enemy is killed and coups struck on his body, the 

 search for the horses is called off. 



When Four Bears planned a fourth expedition, he acknowledged 

 that his sacred bundles had brought him good luck to that time and 

 wondered if they had begun to lose their supernatural powers. Thus, 

 he selects a clan brother, One Buffalo, to be his assistant and they 

 strike out afoot toward the Black Hills until they come to Buffalo 

 Lodge (Home) Butte, the home of the buffalo spirits. We see that 

 when the young men complain of being hungry, the Old Wolves seem to 

 agree with them, thus setting the stage for the magical Bullet rites 

 by One Buffalo. Here we have a variant of a ritual which Four 

 Dancers described above when his grandfather accompanied Three 

 Coyotes. In the former case, a similar ritual was employed to kill 

 the Sioux Bear medicine man. The two scouts were out when the 

 buffalo was seen about 2 miles ahead, so the reader must suspect 

 that, since guns did not shoot 2 miles at that time, the appearance 

 of the two scouts on the scene at the time the buffalo was killed was 

 scarcely accidental. 



The encounter with the two Sioux women and a berdache discloses 

 interesting reactions by the party. In the first place. Four Bears was 

 not looking for women, so they are content to strike coup on them 

 and let them go. This was commonly done and is not unique in 

 itself, but the recognition of one as a berdache altered the situation. 

 The Hidatsa berdaches, although considered to be somewhat queer, 

 were also possessed of great supernatural powers and customarily 

 carried digging sticks as a part of their ritualistic paraphernalia during 

 certain tribal rites. Here they encounter a Sioux berdache carrying 

 a digging stick which was being used for digging wild turnips. When 

 the berdache said, "You can't kill me for I am holy. I will strike 

 you with my digging stick," he was repeating a ritual similar to one 



