Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 465 



Finally the buffaloes were still farther away and the people had only the things 

 from their gardens to live on. Time passed and even the garden products were 

 consumed. There was one man in the camp with many children, all of whom 

 were hungry. This young man was a good hunter and the old men had often 

 been invited in to eat and smoke with him. He respected the old men and they 

 liked him. 



One evening he said to his wife, "Fix up my moccasins. I am going to cross 

 the river [where Fishhook Village was built many years later] and see if there is 

 any game. Fix me a bag." ^^ 



Next morning he crossed the river immediately west of where the Fishhook 

 Village later stood. He was looking for roseberries for his children but he saw 

 that someone had been there ahead of him. At last he found some and made 

 balls of the berries for his wife and children. As he was crossing the river, he 

 saw a person standing on the river bank he had just left. He wondered who it 

 was since he could not remember having seen anyone go out ahead of him. 



Soon he saw two persons coming nearer. He did not know who they were and, 

 thinking they might be enemies, he ran faster. At Like-a-Fish-Hook Bend they 

 caught up with him. They stood in front of him and he stopped. The man was 

 on his right side and the woman on his left. 



The man said, "The buffaloes are far off and it is hard for your people to get 

 meat. Although it will be hard for you to do this, when you get home, secure full 

 outfits of new clothing for both a man and a woman. Bring them up here, put 

 up two ash poles, and hang the clothing on them. Bring someone along with 

 you. I know that your children are hungry for you have been picking berries. 

 When you put the clothing on the poles, the buffaloes will come to your winter 

 camp." 



The j'oung man observed that the two people were carrying clubs — painted 

 red — in their belts. The man said, "You will kill the buffaloes and get all the meat 

 you want. Each time you kill the buffaloes, new ones will come to take their 

 places. In the spring you will have so much meat that many families will take 

 their meat down the river in bullboats while the others will go overland with the 

 dogs. You saw us far off and coming towards you. When we travel, we do not 

 have to walk." 



They did not say who they were but they flew instead of walking and were 

 human. They flew even though they had no wings. Long afterwards Four 

 Bears thought that the place where they walked was holy because these people 

 had blessed the man, so we founded a village there. 



When he reached camp he directed his wife to build up the fire and prepare such 

 food as they had for he was inviting some of the old men in. She had a few corn 

 balls and she made the rose balls into soup. When the old men had eaten, he told 

 them what he had seen. 



He said, "I saw some holy persons who were strangers to me. They told of many 

 good things I should do and promised that I would be a chief some day. I am 

 depending on you, for I am poor and can't do all those things without help. I 

 have been asked to get full-dress outfits for a man and a woman." 



Between them and their wives, the old men had all the things that the young 

 man needed. They secured two ash poles; they took the white sage and made it 

 in the form of a head; they put two magpie tail feathers in the hair. He asked 



" Bags made of the paunch and used by the Holy Women in the Imitating Buffalo ceremony 



