Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 357 



make and use arrows for daily use to present simple offerings to an 

 Arrow bundle owner to enhance the arrow's efficiency. Those leaving 

 for war customarily made offerings to a bundle owner who would 

 add arrows to be used against the enemy. 



Bear bundles were primarily for doctoring. Bears were considered 

 to be the great doctors because they cared for their own young and 

 because of their great strength. The beaver and otter were also 

 included in the bundle, for they too were considered to be great 

 doctors. ^^ The arrows were used to bleed patients who had swellings 

 and infection. The bundle was also used in warfare. Bears Arm 

 explained that only very brave men ever owned Bear bundles before 

 guns came, for the purchaser, having made his vow, was required 

 to kill a grizzly bear unassisted. He considered killing a bear a 

 most dangerous undertaking since a wounded grizzly was more 

 dangerous than any other animal the Hidatsa knew. The bundles 

 acquired through inheritance were considered major bundles because 

 of the possession of the buffalo skull, and owners were rated of suffi- 

 cient distinction to be placed in charge of winter villages and even, 

 as in the case of Bad Horn, to be selected as "protector of the north 

 direction" at Fishhook Village. It would appear that this concept 

 had universal acceptance, for Wilson secured information from Wolf 

 Chief in 1911 which the latter restated for me when I made this 

 study. Wilson (1934, pp. 351-353) wrote concerning the ceremonial 

 arrangement of lodges and the selection of "village protectors" 

 during the initial building of Fishhook Village in 1845: 



Then the medicinemen addressed Bad-horn. "You stand up and choose a 

 place for your lodgel" "My gods are the (grizzly) bears," said Bad-horn. "The 

 mouths of bears' dens always face the north. Therefore I want my lodge to open 

 towards the north; my bear gods will remember them and I will wish this village 

 to stand a long time." What Bad-horn said of (grizzly) bears is true; they always 

 have the mouths of their dens toward the north. 



Ownership of these bundles did not include the rights to eagle trap- 

 ping but there were certain practices and beliefs common to both the 

 Grizzly Bear bundle rites and the Acira or Little Black Bear rites of 

 eagle and fish trapping. Both bundles had sacred snares made of the 

 fiber of the "snare vine." Bear bimdle snares were used ceremonially 

 for ensnaring the enemy, while Acira bundle snares were believed to 

 possess supernatural powers for "pulling" the eagles down out of the 

 air to the trapping pits. White eagle down was used as a ceremonial 

 offering to the bearskins of both bundles. The altars for both bundles 

 were set up on the west, i.e., sacred, side of the lodge. The waiter in 

 both ceremonies was called ixtakis. Beyond these common elements, 

 the ceremonial similarities were no greater than between other major 



M For additional belief regarding the beaver and otter, see Greek rites, pp. 380-389. 

 710-195 — 66 — —24 



