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Updated: May 29, 2025
A single instance of clan action has been found among the East African Baganda the women of the Grasshopper clan undertake to increase the supply of their totem; why this duty is assigned to the women is not clear the custom appears to involve a relaxation of totemistic rules. The economic festivals and "dances" of the Siouan Mandans and Hidatsa are general tribal ceremonies.
Some of the Hidatsa Indians explain the phenomena of gradual death, when the extremities appear dead first, by supposing that man has four souls, and that they quit the body, not simultaneously, but one after the other, dissolution being only complete when all four have departed. Some of the Dyaks of Borneo and the Malays of the Peninsula believe that every man has seven souls.
Similarly, the Hidatsa Indians of North America believe that every natural object has its spirit, or to speak more properly, its shade. To these shades some consideration or respect is due, but not equally to all.
Among the Hidatsa, it is reported, there was a belief that spirit children might enter into a woman and be born into the world. The resemblance to the Central Australian belief is striking, but it does not appear that such entrance of spirit children was supposed to be the only mode of human birth.
From this account it will be seen that the Hidatsa as well as the Algonkins and Mexicans believed that four days were required before the spirit could finally leave the earth. Why the smell of burning leather should he offensive to spirits it would perhaps be fruitless to speculate on.
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