Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 267 



him until he is done suffering and has rested." After a while they came back to 

 take the sticks out. They sang one sacred song but I could not jump for my legs 

 were too numb. Then they took the sticks out. Porcupine Pemmican, who repre- 

 sented Long Arm, sprinkled Corn Smut and me with water, using sage to cleanse 

 us. 



When I reached my father's lodge he said, "l am glad that Red Basket used 

 those particular songs for you when he cut your flesh, for the sacred songs he sang 

 have always been lucky in conquering the enemy. Now you will surely have good 

 luck." After a while I went to the river and bathed. When I got back, I ate a 

 httle too much and had terrible pains from it. 



My father had been offering smoke to all of his medicines while I fasted and he 

 said to me when I came back from the river, "Put these sacred things beside you 

 when you go to bed. I have asked my gods to send you good dreams." But 

 my wounds had swollen and my insides hurt from the food I had eaten after fasting 

 so long so that I was not able to go to sleep right away. 



Toward dayhght I went to sleep. I heard someone singing a song and saw a 

 man coming from the west. He was singing a new song in the Crow Indian 

 language. He sang, "There is plenty; I am satisfied." 



I could not understand what it meant, for in the earlier days when going for 

 the enemies, I had the best of success. I thought that since there were now no 

 enemies, it meant that I would have plenty of property. It seems that I was 

 right, for since that time I have had much property, once shipping 50 cattle in 

 a single year. 



A few years before fasting in the NaxpikE, I missed an opportunity to get a 

 dream. Kidney was giving the Wolf ceremony and since he was a clan brother 

 I was fasting to help him. I asked the same fathers I used in the NaxpikE fasting, 

 to put thongs through my back so I could lead my horse. Because the horse was 

 so high-lifed, they were afraid that the horse would drag and kill me. I said, "It 

 does not make any difference whether it kills me or not. I am not afraid. I want 

 to try to get a dream from the horse." 



They begged me not to do it, but when they saw how determined I was they 

 put a bridle on the horse and tied the reins to the sticks so that I could stop the 

 horse. I walked around between the earth lodges; once in a while the horse would 

 knock me down. When the young men came out from fasting, I went among them 

 leading the horse, while the old men sang the medicine songs. But I did not have 

 any dream. 



I often think how important it was in the olden days to do the same as the others 

 did and there was no way to get out of it.^^ We fasted and we went to war because 

 our fathers did. The fathers took their "son's" wives in the ceremonies. It was 

 hke a deep trail; one had to follow the same path the others before had made and 

 deepened. 



When I was 30 1 dreamt of my father's gods and I knew that the time had come to 

 put on the ceremonies to possess them. So I bought the Wolf and my brother, 

 Red Basket, bought the Old- Woman- Above. It was hard to do for the game was 

 scarce but our relatives helped us. But there were no enemies then so I never 

 tried it out as war leader as Kidne}^ had done a few years earlier. 



In the Wolf Chief narrative we have accounts of experiences during 

 that period between 1865 and 1880 when warfare rose to its highest 

 crescendo and then stopped abruptly with the establishment of 

 military posts, the building of railroads, successful military campaigns 



39 The berdache was one outlet. 



