Word: crow
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...CROW INDIANS-Robert H. Lowie -Farrar & Rinehari...
Eighteen years ago Ethnologist Robert Heinrich Lowie began studying the Crow Indians on their reservation southeast of Billings, Mont. Although even then Crow culture clearly revealed white influence, Ethnologist Lowie found it still spiritually alive, with old customs enjoying respect if not observance. He was, moreover, able to compare his researches with those of previous investigators, could thus measure with some accuracy the extent and significance of changes resulting from contact with white civilization...
...Prince Maximilian of Weid-Neuweid found the Crow a tribe of about 1,000 braves housed in 400 lodges, owners of perhaps 10,000 horses. That scientifically-trained German explorer learned that they robbed but did not kill white men, that their women were notorious for debauchery, that perversion was common among them. In 1871 the great U. S. anthropologist Lewis Morgan, whose studies of primitive society modified the views of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, wrote on the intricate structure of Crow family relationships, focusing the attention of many a lesser scientist on the haughty and dying tribe...
Most remarkable feature of Crow society was its system of clans or families. Children of a family all took their mother's clan name, and the clan included those related by blood on the mother's side as well as others merely considered kin. A man could never belong to the same clan as his children, since normal marriages could take place only between different clans. From Shot-in-the-Arm, Ethnologist Lowie learned that clans provided groupings for competitive entertainment, heard about war games between the Whistling Waters and Greasy Mouths. Clansman fought for clansman, avenged...
Ethnologist Lowie found that the Crow adhered quite strictly to their own curious codes. Although they held to the ideal of monogamy, faithful and austere wives and husbands were respected rather than imitated. A man automatically took possession of his wife's younger sisters if he wanted them. But he could not speak to his mother-in-law, nor could she speak to him. While adultery was sometimes punished, it involved no disgrace, and it was considered beneath a brave's dignity to show jealousy. For two weeks each year the Crow engaged in a curious custom...