SEVENTH CHAPTERKINSHIP, CLAN COUSINS
SEVENTH CHAPTER
We Hidatsas do not reckon our kin as white men do. If a white man marries, his wife is called by his name; and his children also, as Tom Smith, Mary Smith. We Indians had no family names. Every Hidatsa belonged to a clan; but a child, when he was born, became a member of his mother’s, not his father’s clan.
An Indian calls all members of his clan his brothers and sisters. The men of his father’s clan he calls his clan fathers; and the women, his clan aunts. Thus I was born a member of theTsistska[8], or Prairie Chicken clan, because my mother was aTsistska. My father was a member of theMeedeepahdee,[9]or Rising Water clan. Members of theTsistskaclan are my brothers and sisters; but my father’s clan brothers, men of theMeedeepahdee, are my clan fathers, and his clan sisters are my clan aunts.
[8]Tsïst´ skä[9]Mēē dēē päh´ dēē
[8]Tsïst´ skä[9]Mēē dēē päh´ dēē
[8]Tsïst´ skä
[9]Mēē dēē päh´ dēē
These relations meant much to us Indians. Members of a clan were bound to help one another in need, and thought the gods would punish them if they did not. Thus, if my mother was in need, members of theTsistskaclan helped her. If she was hungry, they gave her food. If her child was naughty, my mother called in aMeedeepahdeeto punish him, a clan father, if the child was a boy; if a girl, a clan aunt; for parents did not punish their own children. Again, when my father died, his clan fathers and clan aunts it was, who bore him to the burial scaffold and prayed his ghost not to come back to trouble the villagers.
Another clan relative ismakutsatee,[10]or clan cousin. I reckon as my clan cousins all members of my tribe whose fathers are my clan fathers. Thus, my mother, I have said, was a Prairie Chicken; my father, a member of theMeedeepahdee, or Rising Water, clan. Another woman, of what clan does not matter, is also married to aMeedeepahdee; her children will be my clan cousins, because their father, being aMeedeepahdee, is my clan father.
[10]mä kṳt´ sä tēē
Clan cousins had a custom that will seem strange to white people. We Indians are proud, and it makes our hearts sore if others make mock of us. In olden times if a man said to his friend, even in jest, “You are like a dog,” his friend would draw his knife to fight. I think we Indians are more careful of our words than white men are.
But it is never good for a man not to know his faults, and so we let one’s clan cousins tease himfor any fault he had. Especially was this teasing common between young men and young women. Thus a young man might be unlucky in war. As he passed the fields where the village women hoed their corn, he would hear some mischievous girl, his clan cousin, singing a song taunting him for his ill success. Were any one else to do this, the young man would be ready to fight; but, seeing that the singer was his clan cousin, he would laugh and call out, “Sing louder cousin, sing louder, that I may hear you.”
I can best explain this custom by telling you a story:
A long time ago, in one of our villages at Knife river, lived a man namedMapuksaokihe,[11]or Snake Head-Ornament. He was a great medicine man. In a hole in the floor of his earth lodge, there lived a bull snake. Snake Head-Ornament called the bull snake “father.”
[11]Mä pṳk´ sä ō kēē hĕ
When Snake Head-Ornament was invited to a feast, he would paint his face, wrap himself in his best robe and say, “Come, father; let us go and get something to eat.”
The bull snake would creep from his hole, crawl up the man’s body and coil about his neck, thrusting his head over the man’s forehead; or he would coil about the man’s head like the headcloth of a hunter, with his head thrust forward, as I have said.
Bearing the snake thus on his head, Snake Head-Ornament would enter the lodge where the feast was held and sit down to eat. The snake, however, did not eat of the food that Snake Head-Ornament ate. The snake’s food was scrapings of buffalo hides that the women of the lodge fed him.
When Snake Head-Ornament came home, he would say to the bull snake, “Father, get off.” And the snake would crawl down the man’s body and into his den again.
Snake Head-Ornament fasted and had a vision. In the vision his gods, he thought, bade him go to war. He made up a war party and led it against enemies on the Yellowstone river. The party not only killed no enemies, but lost three of their own men; and they thought Snake Head-Ornament was to blame for it. “You said your prayers were strong,” they said; “and we have lost three men! Your gods have not helped us.”
Snake Head-Ornament thought his gods were angry with him; and when he came home he went about crying and mourning and calling upon his gods to give him another vision. “Pity me, gods,” he cried, “make me strong that I may bring home scalps and horses.” He was a brave man, and his bad fortune made his heart sore.
In those days, when a man mourned he cut off his hair, painted his body with white clay, and threw away his moccasins. He also cut his flesh with a knife or some sharp weapon. Now when a man sought a vision from the gods, he wept and mourned, that the gods might have pity on him; and for this he went away from the village, alone, into the hills. So it happened, that Snake Head-Ornament, on his way to the hills, went mourning and crying past a field where sat a woman, his clan cousin, on her watch-stage. Seeing him, she began a song to tease him:
He said, “I am a young bird!”If a young bird, he should be in his nest;But he comes here looking gray,And wanders about outside the village!He said, “I am a young snake!”If a young snake, he should be in the hills among the red buttes;But he comes here looking gray and crying,And wanders aimlessly about!
He said, “I am a young bird!”If a young bird, he should be in his nest;But he comes here looking gray,And wanders about outside the village!He said, “I am a young snake!”If a young snake, he should be in the hills among the red buttes;But he comes here looking gray and crying,And wanders aimlessly about!
He said, “I am a young bird!”If a young bird, he should be in his nest;But he comes here looking gray,And wanders about outside the village!
He said, “I am a young bird!”
If a young bird, he should be in his nest;
But he comes here looking gray,
And wanders about outside the village!
He said, “I am a young snake!”If a young snake, he should be in the hills among the red buttes;But he comes here looking gray and crying,And wanders aimlessly about!
He said, “I am a young snake!”
If a young snake, he should be in the hills among the red buttes;
But he comes here looking gray and crying,
And wanders aimlessly about!
When the woman sang, “He comes here looking gray,” she meant that the man was gray from the white-clay paint on his body.
Snake Head-Ornament heard her song; but, knowing she was his clan sister, he cried out to her: “Sing louder, cousin! You are right; let my ‘fathers’ hear what you say. I do not know if they will feel shame or not, but the bull snake and the bald eagle both called me ‘son’!”
What he meant was that the bull snake and the bald eagle were his dream gods. That is, they had appeared to him in a dream, and promised to help him as they would a son, when he went to war. In her song, the woman taunted him with this. If she had not been his clan cousin, he would have been beside himself with anger. As it was, he but laughed and did not hurt her.
But the woman had cause for singing her song. Years before, when Snake Head-Ornament was a very young man, he went out with a war party and killed a Sioux woman. When he came home the people called him brave, and made much of him; and he grew quite puffed up now that all looked up to him.
Not long after, he was made a member of the Black Mouth society. It happened one day, that the women were building a fence of logs, set upright around the village, to defend it from enemies. Snake Head-Ornament, as a member of the Black Mouths, was one of the men overseeing the work. This woman, his clan cousin, was slow at her task; and, to make her move more briskly, Snake Head-Ornament came close to her and fired off his gun just past her knees. She screamed, but seeing it was Snake Head-Ornament who had shot, and knowing he was her clan cousin, she did not get angry. Nevertheless, she did not forget! And, years after, she had revenge in her taunting song.
Young men going out with a war party had to take much chaffing from older warriors whowere clan cousins. My brother was once out with a party of fifty, many of them young men. They were fleeing from a big camp of Sioux and had ridden for two days. The second night one of the younger men, a mere lad, fell asleep as he rode his pony. An older warrior, his clan cousin, fired a gun past the lad’s ear. “Young man,” he cried, “you sleep so soundly that only thunder can waken you!” The rest of the party thought the warrior’s words a huge joke.