302 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194 



The Hidatsa and River Crow [collectively they are addressed by the term 

 mirokac which does not include the other Hidatsa-Crow groups as far as I was 

 able to determine; at least it refers to the population prior to the separation of 

 the two groups after which separate names were applied to each group], who had 

 gone far north to escape the flood, eventually returned southward to Devils Lake 

 and, finding the region uninhabited, concluded that the others had been destroyed 

 by the flood. [Note that by this time the original Hidatsa-Crow population 

 extended east and west from Devils Lake to the Missouri upstream from the 

 Mandan villages and onto the Plains west of the Missouri. Only the agricultural 

 groups were on the Missouri; the nomadic ones lived adjacent to the Missouri.] 



A hunting party from the camp at Devils Lake discovered Mandan villages 

 near the Heart River and, because the Mandans could not understand exactly 

 what was said to them across the river from the opposite bank, they called them 

 Minitari by which name the people of Hidatsa village are known from that time. 

 [The older Mandan still used the same term in historic times. The Awaxawi are 

 called maxaxa and the Awatixa mitixata.] The hunters returned to Devils Lake, 

 after promising that they would return with their people in 4 days. But the 4 

 days became 4 years when the Hidatsa-River Crow appeared on the opposite 

 bank after abandoning the Devils Lake region.^* 



A quarrel developed over the division of a buflfalo and one group moved farther 

 west, taking with them the seven Tobacco singers. The group leaving comprised 

 the kixaicas and those who remained behind to take up agriculture became the 

 Hidatsa. [Note that the Hidatsa account for the absence of the Tobacco rites 

 by the fact that the seven men possessing the rights in the ceremony happened 

 to be camped on the side which moved away.] 



The Hidatsa were living in tipis near the Heart River when they became fright- 

 ened by two owl spirits held sacred by the Mandan so they moved upstream to 

 build north of the Knife River. Before they left, the Mandan gave them corn 

 and taught them the Corn rites which they had lost while in the northland. 



This completes the first segment of the Hidatsa sacred narrative 

 and is concerned chiefly with the migration of the Hidatsa-proper, 

 River Crow, and the Awaxawi. We see that by 1932 — the date of 

 this study — events such as warfare with armed tribes are not men- 

 tioned; instead, the incidents have been completely reinterpreted in 

 terms of the supernatural. 



The Hidatsa, however, do not ascribe the foregoing legendary 

 history to the Awatixa who had separate traditions of long residence 

 on the Missouri. This is not a new native interpretation for, as 

 early as 1804, two distinct traditions were recorded by Lewis and 

 Clarli although they failed to recognize the independent and separate 

 histories of the various Hidatsa villages. They recognized dialectic 

 differences between the Awaxawi and the other two Hidatsa villages 

 and spoke of the Awaxawi as an independent "nation," a difference 

 indicated by my informants in speaking of the separation of the 

 Awaxawi from the Hidatsa-River Crow while living east of the 



** For a similar account supplied by the Mandan in 1833, see Maximilian, 1006, vol. 23, pp. 316-317. 



