Bowers] HID ATS A SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 375 



different individuals, than do the sacred myths relating to the various 

 ceremonies. 



Roadmaker was one of the members of the tribal council during 

 the first half of the 19th century and is still recognized as one of the 

 outstanding Awaxawi leaders. Bodmer, who painted his picture in 

 1833, lists him as a Mandan (pi. 7). This error is probably due to the 

 close cultural ties which the Awaxawi maintained with the Mandan 

 of Painted Woods prior to the removal of the Hidatsa and Mandan 

 village groups to Knife River. The name is readily recognized from 

 the Bodmer spelling of the name, Addih-Haddisch. Bears Arm's 

 account of Roadmaker follows: 



Roadmaker {art hiris), who lived in the village of Awaxawi, had a full sister 

 and she had a son, Poor Wolf, who told me these things. When Roadmaker was 

 a young man he joined the Stone Hammer and other societies. In the lodge where 

 the men met he said, "Now that I have joined the Wood Rattler society, I want 

 to fast and seek visions from the spirits." 



The old men said, "That is a wise decision; that is the way to become famous." 



They were making the ceremony called "Tying-the-Pots" in which one of the 

 pots was a man and the other a woman. These pots were given to the Awaxawi 

 by the watersnakes. These large pots were dressed up like a man and a woman 

 with war bonnets on both of them. The headman who had charge of the pots 

 would burn incense over them and ask for rain, good crops, and other things the 

 people wanted. Then they would remove the clothing from the pots and a drum- 

 head from the lining of a buffalo paunch was put over them and tied down securely 

 to make drums of them. This putting on of the drumheads was called "Tying- 

 the-Pots." Then the singers would take sticks bent in a loop to beat the drums 

 with.99 



This ceremony required 4 nights to perform. Roadmaker fasted 4 days and 

 nights during the ceremony; then the ceremony broke up and the whole popula- 

 tion went out on the summer buffalo hunt to the neighborhood of Rainy Buttes.' 



The camp moved farther west, but Roadmaker stopped at the buttes and fasted 

 7 days and nights. When he finished, he lay down to sleep. In his dreams he 

 saw black clouds coming from the west and in the clouds he saw a large bird with 

 huge claws coming down. As the bird approached the butte, it closed it claws 

 and a voice from above said, "These claws which you see never fail to catch 

 something." 



Then he awoke and knew that it was the Thunderbird he had seen and heard 

 talking to him. Later he fasted 4 days again in the Tying-the-Pots ceremony. 



There was a battle with the Assiniboin near the village and Roadmaker was in 

 it. They killed many of the enemies. When night came, Roadmaker went to the 

 place where the dead and scalped Assiniboins lay. He carried some of the bodies 

 to one spot and lay between them with their heads on his arms, crying. Road- 

 maker afterwards said, "I do not know if I was awake or asleep. I heard voices 

 from the west; I thought that it might be the friends of the dead Assiniboins re- 

 turning and that I would surely be killed. However, it was only the wind and 

 in it were voices. The voices came back a second time with the wind and I could 

 hear them say, 'Take this bead; when you have taken a scalp, put the bead on the 



M See the Tying-the-Pots ceremony below for the details. 



' This ceremony seems to have occupied the position of the NaxpikE of the other two villages. I found no 

 evidence that any of the older people of this village had ever given the NaxpikE. 



