OCR Text |
Show ¦ 256 THEIR BLACKFEET----THE ASSOCIATIONS. the number is not limited. 3. The prairie dogs. This is a police union, which receives married men : its badge is a long hooked stick, wound round with otter skin, with knots of white skin at intervals, and a couple of eagle's feathers hanging from each of them. 4. Those who carry the raven. Its badge is a long staff, covered with red cloth, to which black ravens' feathers, in a long thick row, are fastened from one end to the other. They contribute to the preservation of order, and the police. 5. The buffalo, with thin horns. When they dance, they wear horns on their caps. In camp, the tents of the unions are in the middle of the circle, which has a free space in the centre. If disorders take place, they must help the soldiers, who mark out the camp, and then take the first place. 6. The soldiers. They are the most distinguished warriors, who exercise the police, especially in the camp and on the march ; in public deliberations they have the casting vote, whether, for instance, they shall hunt, change their abode, make war, or conclude peace, &c. They carry, as their badge, a wooden club, the breadth of a hand, with hoofs of the buffalo cow hanging to the handle. They are sometimes forty or fifty men in number. Their wives, when they dance the medicine dance, are painted in the same manner as the men. 7. The buffalo bulls. They form the first, that is, the most distinguished of all the unions, and are the highest in rank. They carry in their hand a medicine badge, hung with buffalo hoofs, which they rattle when they dance, to their peculiar song. They are too old to attend to the police, having passed through all the unions, and are considered as having retired from office. In a certain degree they have descended from the union of active and distinguished soldiers. In their medicine dance they wear on their head a cap, made of the long forelock and mane of the buffalo bull, which hangs down to a considerable length. New members are chosen into all these unions, who are obliged to pay entrance; medicine men, and the most distinguished men, have to pay more than other people. If a woman, whose husband is in one of the unions, has had any intercourse with another, the union meets in one of the tents, where they smoke, and, in the evening, when all around are buried in sleep, they penetrate into the woman's tent, drag her out, ill-treat her as they please, and cut off her nose. |