392 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194 



the ceremony was an expression of the greater emphasis placed on 

 agricultm-e by the Awaxawi.^ 



The rites were abandoned a few years after moving to Fishhook 

 Village when the principal sacred bundle owner died. The people at 

 first returned to Awaxawi during the simimer for the annual perform- 

 ance, but the rituals never became popular at Fishhook when the three 

 village groups united there. Due to the prohibition against moving 

 the pots, they were never taken from Awaxawi. The exact spot where 

 they are buried is unknown ; the last person to possess that information 

 died a few years prior to the time of this study. According to native 

 concepts, the Tying-the-Pots ceremony originated after this village 

 group reached the Missouri, this belief being based on incidents that 

 occurred on or near the Missouri. 



Wolf Ceremonies 



The Hidatsa recognized three distinct hereditary Wolf ceremonial 

 complexes, Wolf Woman, Sunrise Wolf, and Sunset Wolf. Each 

 ceremony was transmitted independently of the others through 

 established hereditary lines although the Wolf Woman impersonator 

 officiated also during all performances of the Sunrise and Sunset Wolf 

 ceremonies. Traditionally, the thi*ee ceremonies were founded rather 

 late. The Wolf Woman is conceptualized to be one of the females 

 created by Village-Old-Woman during earliest times. Nevertheless, 

 the sacred origin myths related by the Wolf Woman bundle owners 

 and the Holy Women attribute the origin of this specific Wolf Cere- 

 mony to incidents occurring after 1800 when a small group of Hidatsa 

 quarreled and moved onto the Little Missouri to build a village near 

 the mouth of Cherry Creek.^^ The Hidatsa consider the recency of 

 the events leading to the establishment of these bundle rites merely 

 as the recognition of a supernatm-al being who was with the people for 

 a long time, gave them personal dreams and sacred bundles, but was 

 not recognized by formal tribal ceremonies until recently. 



The Hidatsa date the establishment of the Sunrise Wolf ceremony 

 by the fact that it was instituted by Village-Young-Man from visions 

 experienced while living at the mouth of Heart River ^^ subsequent 

 to residence at Devils Lake and to the fact that his war party found 

 Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies still living on the Upper Missouri. 

 The Sunset Wolf rites were believed to have been established after the 



2» "The Mandanes and Saulteurs (Awaxawi) are a stationary people who never leave their villages except 

 to go hunting or on a war excursion. They are much more agricultural than their neighbors, the Big Bellies 

 (Hidatsa and Awatixa), raising an Immense quantity of com, beans, squashes, tobacco" (Henry, 1897, p. 

 338). 



>> George F. Will dates this settlement as about 1811. See WiU, 1946, pp. 16-17. 



>* These rites also bear close similarity to Mandan practices and may well have been borrowed from the 

 Mandan while at Heart River. 



