They call the rainbow, “the cap of the water,” or “the cap of the rain.” Once, say they, an Indian caught in the autumn a red bird that had mocked him, releasing it after binding its feet together with a fish line. The bird saw a hare and pounced upon it, but the hare crept into the skull of a buffalo lying on the prairie, and as the line hanging from the bird’s claws formed a semicircle, they imagine that the rainbow is still caused by that occurrence.[268]
FOOD LORE.
§ 355. They have queer notions respecting the effects of different articles of diet; thus: an expectant mother believes that if she eats a part of a mole or shrew, her child will have small eyes; that if she eats a piece of porcupine, her child will be inclined to sleep too much when it grows up; that if she partakes of the flesh of the turtle, her offspring will be slow or lazy, etc.; but they do not suppose that such articles of food affect the immediate consumer.
FOUR SOULS IN EACH HUMAN BEING.
§ 356. “It is believed by some of the Hidatsa that every human being has four souls in one. They account for the phenomena of gradual death where the extremities are apparently dead while consciousness remains, by supposing the four souls to depart, one after another, at different times. When dissolution is complete, they say that all the souls are gone, and have joined together again outside of the body. I have heard a Minnetaree quietly discussing this doctrine with an Assinneboine, who believed in only one soul to each body.”[269]
SORCERY.
§ 357. “They have faith in witchcraft, and think that a sorcerer may injure a person, no matter how far distant, by acts upon an effigy or upon a lock of the victim’s hair.”[270]
DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD.
§ 358. The Hidatsa always lay their dead upon scaffolds. As the Lord of Life is displeased when they quarrel and kill one another, those who do so are buried in the earth, that they may be no longer seen. In this case a buffalo head is laid on the grave, that the herds of buffalo may not keep away, for, if they were to smell the wicked, they might remove and never return. The good are laid upon scaffolds, that they may be seen by the Lord of Life.[271]