340 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETEDSTOLOGY [Bull. 194 



According to Hidatsa traditions, however, the Goose society was 

 bought from the M and an shortly before 1800 and the Skull bundle 

 reached the Awaxawi through intermarriage after 1837. According 

 to the Mandan, this society and bundle both are late additions to their 

 rites by migration of southern groups out of the Grand Eiver to the 

 region intermediate to the mouth of the Knife and Heart Rivers. 

 If we eliminate these two additions to the Hidatsa Corn rites, the 

 Old-Woman- Who-Never-Dies rites would be common to both tribes 

 and represent the most popular Corn rites before the last Mandan 

 migration northward. The Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies myth as 

 related by people of the two tribes, shows only a few insignificant 

 differences dealing chiefly with Grandson who, in the Plidatsa myth, 

 founded the Stone Hammer society. 



Probably no Mandan or Hidatsa myth is as widely related and 

 discussed as that of the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies. Most of my 

 informants had performed rites of one kind or another to this "Old 

 Woman," ranging from simple household cleansing rites after a day 

 in the fields to the major bundle transfer rites when buying from 

 their fathers. Likewise, the varieties of ritual forms within one 

 village were greater than for any of the other ceremonies. The 

 simplest and most universal rites were performed by women as 

 individuals or household groups of females and consisted primarily 

 of simple offerings of meat and pieces of hide placed on sticks in the 

 garden during the northward or southward flights of the water birds. 

 This was often done without benefit of public gatherings or payments 

 to bundle owners. On other occasions a woman, while working in 

 the garden, often dreamed of those spirits associated with the gardens 

 and set up within her garden a high post on which a newly composed 

 personal sacred bundle was hung as a "protector" of the garden. 

 It was customary to bring these sacred bundles to the lodge when the 

 crop had been gathered and to return them to the gardens again in 

 the spring at the time of cultivation. 



A woman who allowed her sacred bundle to hang in the garden 

 all winter, however, would have bad luck. The story is told of a 

 woman of the Prairie Chicken clan who dreamed that the Wolf 

 Woman would work in her gardens all day and appear at the camp of 

 warriors far from the village when the ribs were cooking." She for- 

 got to bring in her bundle and during the winter a wolf came into camp 

 and bit her on the nose while she slept. When the men came, hearing 

 her cry, they killed the wolf and found that it was so old that its teeth 

 were worn down to the gums. After that the name Bites-in-Nose was 

 given to young men of both the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes. 



" See Wolf rites, below, for an account of this woman. 



