Abstract
THE United States Geological and Geographical Survey deserves the highest credit for publishing a work which pedantic red-tapeism might have thought did not belong to its province, and Mr. Matthews deserves equal credit for the care, thoroughness and scientific precision with which he has compiled it. We hope that so good an example will find many imitators. The Hidatsa (Hidacha), or Minnetari Indians, are a branch of the Dakota family, and now form one of the three tribes whose scanty relics inhabit the permanent village at Fort Berthold. The two other tribes are the Mandans and the Arickaris, and the linguistic relations of the community form one of the most interesting and important facts ever presented to the notice of the philologist. “This trio of savage clans,” says Mr. Matthews, “although now living in the same village, and having been next-door neighbours to one another for more than a hundred years on terms of peace and intimacy, and to a great extent intermarried, speak, nevertheless, totally distinct languages, which show no perceptible inclination to coalesce. The Mandan and Hi-datsa languages are somewhat alike, and probably of a very distant common origin; but no resemblance has yet been detected between either of these and the Arickaree. Almost every member of each tribe understands the languages of the other tribes, yet he speaks his own most fluently; so it is not an uncommon thing to hear a dialogue carried on in two languages, one person, for instance, questioning in Mandan, and the other answering back in Grosventre (Hidatsa), and vice versâ. Many of them understand the Dakota, and use it as a means of intercommunication, and all understand the sign-language.” It should be added, as another curious philological fact that reduplication in verbs, which is a prominent feature of the Dakota, occurs in only one instance in the closely-allied Hidatsa. As in many other savage idioms, slight differences exist between the language of the women and of the men, the former tending to substitute r for d, and the latter preferring l and n. But the ethnologist as well as the philologist will find plenty of materials for study and reflection. Polygamy is practised, and a man usually marries his brother's widow, unless she object to the arrangement. Elopement sometimes takes place, divorce very rarely. “As with other western tribes, it is improper for a man to hold a direct conversation with his mother-in-law; but this custom seems to be falling into disuse.” Males sometimes have four names, all containing the same noun, but a different adjective, and the. names are afterwards solemnly changed once or even oftener. Coloured beads and pendants are made of pounded glass procured from the Europeans; the process of making them is very elaborate, and the antiquity of the art may be gathered from the fact that triangular pendants were used, “not as ornaments only, but as evidences of betrothal, as long ago as the oldest men can remember.” Morally, the Hidatsa seem among the best of the Indians; they are described as industrious, honest, and peaceable, with fine physiques, light complexions, and great powers of endurance.
Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians.
By Washington Matthews. (Washington: Government Printing-office, 1877).
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Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians . Nature 16, 338 (1877). https://doi.org/10.1038/016338b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/016338b0