Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 307 



become pregnant without intercourse and instructed the virgin's mother to name 

 the child Unknown Man. The child's mother died and he was cared for by his 

 mother's brother and maternal grandmother. [Note how the pattern develops: 

 Two Men now have the supernatural powers and knowledge formerly possessed 

 by Long Arm. To transmit this power, they select a "son" thus establishing the 

 rule that rights in the ceremony are to be transmitted through "father-to-son" 

 relationships.] 



As a young man he was a good hunter for, in spirit, he was an arrow because 

 Two Men had taken him as their "son." Upon leaving for the winter camp, he 

 went out ahead and found that game was scarce so he returned to the summer 

 village with his grandmother. They learned that one family did not go along 

 because the husband, a gambler, was too lame to travel. The old couple had a 

 daughter who went out a great deal with Unknown Man hunting and butchering 

 so the old people asked them to marry. [One of the requirements for tribal 

 ceremonial purchases is that one must be married.] 



While out hunting shortly afterwards. Unknown Man met Two Men and in- 

 vited them to his camp where they promised him supernatural powers in hunting. 

 [Here the informants interpreted unusual skills in hunting as evidence that some 

 supernatural being was assisting him.] 



Two Men doctored Unknown Man's father-in-law for his lameness, using the 

 Black Medicine [red baneberry] root. They took out a buUsnake from each of 

 his legs, and instructed Unknown Man and his wife in doctoring. [Here again 

 we find the transfer of curing rites transmitted to a son and daughter-in-law. 

 Many of the snake curing rites went back to this incident; others owe their origin 

 to different traditional incidents. In either case, Black Medicine was used and 

 the methods differed little between bundle lines.] 



Two Men sent the buffalo herds to the village, as they had promised, in return 

 for the feast which Unknown Man and his wife had prepared for them. The Holy 

 Women butchered and hung the meat on corn scaffolds during a fog. [Here the 

 narrative introduces the Holy Women, an organized group of individual bundle 

 owners who met on most ceremonial occasions. See the accounts below for 

 further references to this group.] 



Scouts returned from the winter camp for corn since hunting was poor. They 

 discovered the meat on the various scaffolds of the village. They returned to the 

 winter camp and the people returned to the summer village. Sometime after- 

 ward. Unknown Man was sitting on his lodge when he was enticed from the village 

 by a buffalo which he followed. Each time he shot, the arrow was deflected 

 magically until he was taken into a large earth lodge occupied by a man, a large 

 snake, and the buffalo. 



Unknown Man lost his memory and was forced to hunt and wait on the 

 mysterious man. While hunting one day he remembered who he was and called 

 for Two Men, his "fathers," and they came immediately to help him. [This 

 pattern of action, calling for assistance of one's supernatural "fathers" was the 

 basis of Hidatsa rites.] 



They killed the snake and mysterious man, and were about to kill Buffalo 

 when he said, "I am also a prisoner; I am the one who brought the buffaloes that 

 the Holy Women butchered for the village. If my life is spared there will always 

 be buffaloes." 



Buffalo then gave instructions in making offerings to the buffaloes. [This 

 instruction by the buffalo was considered the traditional basis for the widespread 

 practices of offering sage and speckled eagle feathers to buffalo skulls, both at 

 household shrines or out on the prairies even far from the villages, whenever one 

 wished to secure supernatural assistance.] 



