Bowers] HID ATS A SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 301 



the accounts of David Thompson that these migration myths have at least some 

 historic validity.^^j 



These people who came to the Missouri in advance of the flood were the Awaxawi 

 who had separated sometime before from the Hidatsa and River Crow while still 

 living northeast of Devils Lake; those who were on lowlands were destroyed by 

 the flood. After the waters had subsided, the Awatixa were found living on the 

 Missouri also. [This is the first reference in this important sacred myth to the 

 Awatixa whose large village at the mouth of Knife River shows evidence of 

 longer occupation than the traditional villages of the Hidatsa and Awaxawi of 

 the same area.] 



When the waters subsided, there were lakes and sloughs to the northeast where 

 First Creator and Lone Man had roughened the earth with their heels. Fish 

 became abundant in all of the lakes. 



« Manoah, who had lived in an Awaxawi-Mandan village after the smallpox epidemic of 1782, supplied 

 David Thompson with considerable information on the Awaxawi. In the following quotations, my com- 

 ments and notes are within parentheses: brackets are la accordance with the source. Thompson writes 

 that— 



"The inhabitants of these Villages (obviously referring to the Awaxawi only), have not been many years 

 on the banks of the Missisourie River: their former residence was on the head waters of the southern 

 branches of the Red River; and also along its banks; where the soil is fertile and easily worked, with their 

 simple tools. Southward of them were the Villages of the PaT^Tiees, with whom they were at peace, except 

 [for] occasional quarrels; south eastward of them were the Sieux Indians, although numerous, their stone 

 headed arrows could do little injury; on the north east were the Chippeways in possession of the Forests; 

 but equally weak until armed with Guns, iron headed arrows and spears: The Chippaways silently col- 

 lected in the Forests; and made war on the nearest Village, destroying it with fire, when the greater part of 

 the Men were hunting at some distance, or attacking the Men when hunting; and thus harassing them when 

 ever they thought proper. The mischief done, they retreated into the forests, where it was too dangerous 

 to search for them. The Chippaways had the policy to harrass and destroy the Villages nearest to them, 

 leaving the others in security. The people of this Village removed westward from them, and from stream 

 to stream, the Villages in succession, until they gained the banks of the Missisourie; where they have built 

 their Villages and remain in peace from the Chippaways, the open Plains being their defence." (Thomp- 

 son, 1916, pp. 225-226.) 



". . . . As Manoah was as a Native with them I enquired if they had any traditions of ancient times; 

 he said, he knew of none beyond the days of their great, great Grandfathers, who formerly possessed all the 

 Streams of the Red River, and head of the Mississippe, where the Wild Rice, and the Deer were plenty, 

 but then the Bison and the Horse were not known to them: On all these streams they had Villages and cul- 

 tivated the ground as now; they lived many years this way how many they do not know, at length the In- 

 dians of the Woods armed with guns which killed and frightened them, and iron weapons, frequently at- 

 tacked them, and again.st these they had no defence; . . . ." (ibid., pp. 230-231.) 



David Thompson provides further information on the Hidatsa earth lodge village group and the Crow, 

 all of whom he calls Fall Indians: 



"Fall Indians who also have Villages, are strictly confederate with the Mandanes, they speak a distinct 

 language; (This seems to be the first reference in the literature to earth lodge groups other than the Mandan 

 In this area.) .... The Fall Indians are now removed far from their original country, which was the 

 Rapids of the Saskatchewan river, northward of the Eagle Hill; A feud arose between them, and their then 

 neighbors, the Nahathaways (Crees) and the Stone Indians confederates (Assiniboin), and [they were] too 

 powerful for them, they then lived whoUy in tents, and removed across the Plains to the Missisourie; be- 

 came confederate with the Mandanes, and from them have learned to build houses, form villages and cul- 

 tivate the ground. (Note that this is a contradiction of his earlier statement that the Falls were formerly 

 agricultural on the Red River and its tributaries. Obviously he is here referring to a southern group of 

 Falls who were agricultural and a northern nomadic group which he identifies with both Hidatsa and Crow 

 bands. This is in agreement with the sacred myth of both nomadic and agricultural groups of Hidatsa 

 moving westward and southwest ward to the Missouri.) The architecture of their houses is in every respect 

 the same as that of the Mandanes, and their cultivation is the same: Some of them continue to live in tents 

 and are in friendship with the Cheyenne Indians, whose village was lately destroyed, and now live in tents 

 to the westward of them. Another band of these people now dwell in tents near the head of this River 

 (Missouri ?) in alliance with the Peeagans and their allies; . . . ." (ibid., pp. 235-236.) 



Note that Thompson refers to two distinct groups of Crows; one living farther west who are allied with 

 the Piegan, and another group to the west of the Missouri and nearer the Hidatsa villages who are allied 

 with the Cheyenne. The Hidatsa consider the more western one to be an early offshoot of the Awatixa 

 and the group allied to the Cheyenne as an offshoot of the Hidatsa-proper. It is the latter that is called by 

 the Hidatsa kixaicas which refers to "Separation due to a Quarrel." 



