Waheenee: An Indian Girl's Story

by Waheenee; Gilbert Livingstone Wilson

SEVENTH CHAPTER

KINSHIP, CLAN COUSINS

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 the Tsistska[8], or Prairie Chicken clan, because my mother was a Tsistska. My father was a member of the Meedeepahdee,[9] or Rising Water clan. Members of the Tsistska clan are my brothers and sisters; but my father’s clan brothers, men of the Meedeepahdee, are my clan fathers, and his clan sisters are my clan aunts.

[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 the Tsistska clan helped her. If she was hungry, they gave her food. If her child was naughty, my mother called in a Meedeepahdee to 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 is makutsatee,[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 the Meedeepahdee, or Rising Water, clan. Another woman, of what clan does not matter, is also married to a Meedeepahdee; her children will be my clan cousins, because their father, being a Meedeepahdee, 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.