“Charata-Numakshi (the Chief of Wolves),” a Mandan, had a painted buffalo dress, which was his fetich. He valued it highly as a souvenir of his brother, who had been shot by the enemy.[248]
FOLK-LORE.
§ 335. When a child is born the father must not bridle a horse, that is, he must not fasten a lariat to the horse’s lower jaw, otherwise the infant would die in convulsions. Should the wife be enceinte when the husband bridled the horse ill luck would be sure to follow, frequently in the form of a failure to kill any game. If an Indian in such cases wounds a buffalo without being able to kill it quickly, he tries to take the buffalo’s heart home and makes his wife shoot an arrow through it; then again he feels confidence in his weapons that they will kill speedily.
The Indians affirm that a pregnant woman is very lucky at a game resembling billiards. If a woman passes between several Mandan who are smoking together it is a bad omen. Should a woman recline on the ground between men who are smoking a piece of wood is laid across her to serve as a means of communication between the men.
The strongest man now living among the Mandan, who has been the victor in several wrestling matches with the white people, always takes hold of his pipe by the head, for were he to touch another part of it the blood would suddenly rush from his nostrils. As soon as he bleeds in this manner he empties his pipe, throwing the contents into the fire, where it explodes like gunpowder, and the bleeding stops immediately. They say that nobody can touch this man’s face without bleeding at nose and mouth.
A certain Mandan affirms that whenever another offers him a pipe to smoke, out of civility, his mouth becomes full of worms, which he throws into the fire by handfuls.
Among the Hidatsa, when a certain man smoked very slowly no person in the lodge was allowed to speak nor to move a single limb, except to grasp the pipe. Neither women, children, nor dogs were allowed to remain in the hut while the man was smoking, and some one was always placed as a guard at the entrance. If, however, there were just seven persons present to smoke none of these precautions were observed. When the particular man cleared his pipe and shook the ashes into the fire it blazed up, perhaps because he had put into the pipe some gunpowder or similar combustible. When any person had a painful or diseased place this same man put his pipe upon it and smoked. On such occasions he did not swallow the smoke, as is the Indian custom, but he affirmed that he could extract the disease by his smoking, and he pretended to seize it in his hand and to throw into the fire.[249]
SORCERY.
§ 336. They believe that a person whom they dislike must die, if they make a figure of wood or clay, substituting for the heart an awl, a needle, or a porcupine quill, and bury the image at the foot of one of their “medicine poles.”[250]