Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 435 



were: Killdeer Mountains, the singer; Ghost Singing Butte situated northwest 

 of the Killdeer Mountains, so named because Swallow and Hawk were buried 

 there; Crow Butte; Singing Butte; Heart Singing Butte; Little Heart Singing 

 Butte; Fox Singing Butte; Rosebud Butte; White Butte; Opposite Butte; Buffalo 

 Home Buttes; and others not now remembered by Hidatsa informants. The 

 spirits came and established the ceremony. [See map 1 for location of these 

 buttes.] 



The precise beliefs associated with many of these buttes are no 

 longer known. Poor Wolf had no sons and refused to instruct his 

 daughter. Bobtail Bull had not completed the training of his son, 

 Four Dancers, when he died, for the rites were no longer practiced 

 and the rewards for learning the rites seemed insignificant to Four 

 Dancers once the buffaloes had ceased to exist. Theoretically, each 

 butte had independent rites which collectively comprised the Earth- 

 naming ceremony. One of these. Ghost Singing Butte, was of 

 special importance since the spirits of Swallow and Hawk lived there 

 and were believed to have introduced horses into the tribe. Both 

 informants supplied the sacred myth which was briefly as follows: 



The people were traveling upstream from Hidatsa village on the Knife River 

 to go into winter camps. Swallow and Hawk, who had died and whose spirits 

 resided in Ghost Singing Butte, exerted supernatural influences on a poor young 

 man and his wife, causing them to leave the main party at the mouth of the 

 Little Missouri and to go up this stream where they found a washout in which 

 they made their camp for the winter. 



Swallow and Hawk who, while living, had helped Young-Man-Chief " came as 

 spirits and visited the young man and his wife during the winter telling them how 

 they happened to be buried at this butte. Swallow told how he had been out with 

 a war party against the Blackfeet and had died of his wounds while returning to 

 Knife River. Hawk told how he had gone out later with a hvmting party, had 

 died away from the village, and had been buried beside his friend. 



Swallow and Hawk ate and smoked with the poor young man and sent him good 

 hunting. They informed him that they would bring horses down from the heavy 

 timber to replace the dogs; they described horses which the people had never 

 seen before, and gave instructions as to their care and use. They told the young 

 man not to place moccasins on the ground with the toes pointed to the east or 

 the spirits would call the owners back. 



While the poor young man and his wife lived well from the game sent them by 

 Swallow and Hawk, the winter village was without meat and had resorted to 

 snaring cottontail rabbits. Swallow and Hawk secured the aid of the Holy Women 

 to cure meat for the poor young man. The people from the winter village dis- 

 covered this meat and learned that the poor young man was now holy. Swallow 

 and Hawk had given him instructions in the Bird ceremony of Swallow and 

 Hawk who resided in one of the Earthnaming Buttes. 



When the chief learned that the poor young man had become holy, he instructed 

 his son to marry his two sisters to the poor man since the two women belonged 

 to the same clan as the poor man's other wife. The oldest sister had a white 

 buffalo robe and the younger one had a calfskin robe which they gave for the 

 ceremony. 



" See Woman Above rites, given above, for an account of the role of these two In protecting Village-Young- 

 Man from the enemy who had been blessed by Woman Above. 



