Taking it altogether, children were well treated in my tribe. Food was coarse, but nourishing; and there was usually plenty of it. Children of poor families suffered for clothing, but rarely for food, for a family having meat or corn always shared with any who were hungry. If a child’s parents died, relatives or friends cared for him.
My mother sighs for the good old times. “Children were then in every lodge,” she says, “and there were many old men in the tribe. Now that we live in cabins and eat white men’s foods, the children and old men die; and our tribe dies!”
But this is hardly true of the Christian families.
III
THE GODS
I have said we Hidatsas believed that an earth lodge was alive; and that its soul, or spirit, dwelt in the four big roof posts. We believed, indeed, that this world and everything in it was alive and had spirits; and our faith in these spirits and our worship of them made our religion.
Seeking His God.
My father explained this to me. “All things in this world,” he said, “have souls, or spirits. The sky has a spirit; the clouds have spirits; the sun and moon have spirits; so have animals, trees, grass, water, stones, everything. These spirits are our gods; and we pray to them and give them offerings, that they may help us in our need.”