Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 463 



with young women, but also received rich rewards in robes and even 

 horses from the husband in return for promises of success to the 

 young man. 



Often a small group of three or four clansmen, widowers who no 

 longer participated in the active events of the day, would send for a 

 distant "son" whose young wife met their fancy and offer to bring 

 the young man good luck if he would leave his wife to them. Infor- 

 mants thought that this practice was more common among the Hidatsa 

 and Crow than with the other two Hidatsa village groups, the Awatixa 

 and Awaxawi, or the Mandan. My Mandan informants considered 

 the practice improper, since one should not offer to part with his 

 supernatural powers. This seemed to be the case also with many of 

 the Hidatsa who had been in closest association with the Mandan. 

 Many informants questioned the sincerity of those who sought inter- 

 course with some young woman on the pretense of sending her husband 

 good luck. Nevertheless, it was widely practiced, especially by those 

 whose wives were dead or had left them. Informants joldngly re- 

 marked that it was sometimes necessary to send invitations to a num- 

 ber of young men before one agreeable to the proposition could be 

 found. If the old men had not distinguished themselves during their 

 younger days, owned no rights in important ceremonies, or were not 

 generally well thought of, the matter was usually taken lightly. 

 Since, however, the sacred myths refer frequently to supernatural 

 manifestations by old and poor men not thought to possess any 

 supernatural powers, unless overdone, the old men were likely to find 

 some yoimg man who was willing to take a chance of obtaining 

 supernatural powers by offering his wife or wives. After settling at 

 Fishhook VOlage the community was divided in its views with respect 

 to supernatural power transfer on the initiative of the old men but 

 took no action other than public disapproval, leaving the matter 

 largely to the parties involved. 



BUFFALO NECKBONE 



This ceremony died out shortly after the epidemic of 1837, but the 

 localities considered sacred in the ceremony continued to be so re- 

 garded until the aboriginal culture broke dovvm. Crows Heart, whose 

 father was Hidatsa and whose mother was Mandan, thought that both 

 the Mandan and Hidatsa had the ceremony. When the author was 

 conducting archeological work in ancient Mandan villages upstream 

 from the mouth of the Heart River, for Beloit College in 1929, burials 

 were discovered at the Larson site with articulated buffalo cervical 

 vertebrae in such close association with the human bones in cache pits 



