464 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194 



as to indicate simultaneous burial. Maximilian (1906, vol. 23, p. 375) 

 also refers to a ceremony in which buffalo neckbones were used: 



The Manitaries [Hidatsa] are as superstitious, and have as much faith in their 

 medicines, or charms, as the Mandans. . . . Buffaloes' heads are Hkewise medicine. 

 In one of their villages they preserve the neck bones of a buffalo, as the Crows 

 also are said to do; and this is done with a view to prevent the buffalo herds from 

 removing to too great a distance from them. At times they perform the following 

 ceremony with these bones: they take a potsherd with live coals, throw sweet- 

 smelling grass upon it, and fumigate the bones with the smoke. 



After the epidemic in which the greater portion of the population 

 succumbed, some buffalo ceremonies no doubt died out or were 

 changed in outward ritual form since a number of the legitimate 

 officers died without providing for successors. Persons who could 

 not have been legitimate purchasers of bundles, because of the laws 

 of inheritance or transmission, purchased the right to own and relate 

 the ceremonial myths. In that way, some myths continued to be 

 vital parts of the total religious beliefs of the tribe long after the 

 related ceremonies became extinct. 



Actually, the site for the last Hidatsa village (Fishhook) was 

 selected because it was the locality where the Buffalo Neckbone 

 ceremony had its traditional origin. There is no evidence, however, 

 that the ceremony was celebrated after the village was built in 1845. 

 All that can be learned from informants is that this was a winter 

 buffalo calling ceremony of 4 nights' duration; that two posts were 

 set up, one dressed as a man, the other as a woman ; that it was in some 

 way related to the Holy Woman and People Above ; that feasts were 

 made to the bundle; and that the principal items in the bundle were 

 vertebrae from the buffalo. 



It is to be presumed that the rules of inheritance from father to son 

 were followed. There is no evidence that Four Bears was an owner 

 of one of the bundles even though he recommended that the new 

 village be built at this traditional shrine. Placing of ash posts on the 

 prairie and making up of images of a sacred character were common 

 ceremonial practices. The songs died out chiefly because they were 

 ritual songs and would not be sung except during bundle purchases 

 and renewals. 



Bears Arm provided the following sacred origin myth: 



The people came up the Missouri from Knife River to go into winter camp. 

 At that time the people used dogs, for horses had not come yet. As they traveled 

 along, they would take the loads from the dogs when they camped and use the 

 poles as frames for their lodges. At last they reached timber a short distance 

 below the Like-a-Fish-Hook Bend, where they built small earth lodges for the 

 winter. At first there were a few buffaloes around but these soon became scarce 

 and it would take the men 2 days to reach the herds. 



