Old Crow

THE CROW INDIANS--Robert H. Lowie --Farrar & Rinehari ($4).

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.

In 1833 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 a murder by killing the murderer or a member of his clan. Since clansmen were considered brothers, and since men could take all manner of liberties with a blood-brother's wife, the wives of fellow-clans-men were practically common property within the clan. It was this involved matter of Crow etiquette that deceived Prince Maximilian, led him to list Crow women as immoral.

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 of wife-stealing, and after a general reshuffling of households the stolen wives were usually turned loose, could enter any wigwam save that of a onetime husband. Gray-bull, a chief who gave Ethnologist Lowie much information on ancient Crow ways and legend, had been a savage Galahad in his youth. Deeply loving his wife, he had nevertheless forced her to accompany her kidnapper out of respect for Crow etiquette. "If you have ever been married, you know how I felt," the old Crow told Ethnologist Lowie. Had he resisted or taken her back, he would have been forever disgraced. When Gray-bull stole a wife in turn, her last husband, ravaged with grief, became a Crazy-Dog- Wishing-to-Die, pledged to court death. Dismayed, Gray-bull returned his new wife, whereupon the husband broke his pledge to die, was always looked on with contempt.

The Crow never whipped their children, punished them by holding them down and pouring water up their noses. Little Crow boys played at being warriors and hunters, shot at targets, went on mock hunts of pet buffalo calves. One of their games was to throw stones into the water, crying "icbirikyu' babirikyu'p" so that the last syllable coincided exactly with the splash. Little Crow girls played house, enjoyed the women's game of shinny. Dice was also considered a woman's game. Gray- bull spoke of squaws who were always shooting dice with the impatient air of a white husband complaining about his wife's bridge.

Although Ethnologist Lowie writes for plain readers, avoids the technicalities of advanced ethnology, laymen are likely to find his conclusions too cautious, may be irritated by the qualifications and exceptions he notes to the general patterns of Crow behavior. That even primitive society was complex, dense, marked with restrictions and taboos, is plain from The Crow Indians, and readers who follow Ethnologist Lowie's account of his difficulties with native language and customs are likely to be made permanently skeptical of most popular accounts of life among the Indians. Where more superficial observers, for example, might be content to list Crow customs on the warpath, Ethnologist Lowie traces down all aspects of Crow war psychology, discovers an underlying philosophy in contradictory practices. Scalps were taken, but did not confer honor. A great achievement was to enter an enemy camp and cut loose a picketed horse, the exploit counting for more than the material gain. The Crow went regularly on the warpath, yet considered fighting as such disgraceful. Although killing enemies was meritorious, the Crow who first touched a helpless adversary with a magic stick received more credit within the tribe than one who won a desperate hand-to-hand encounter. Cruelty, vanity, greed, foolhardiness and magnificent courage blended in Crow war psychology, fleetness counted for more than skill or valor, and war was less armed conflict as white men know it than an incredibly dangerous game played according to difficult rules.

The Author. Born in Vienna in 1883, Ethnologist Lowie arrived in the U. S. at the age of 10, was educated at City College and Columbia, became associate curator at the American Museum of Natural History in 1913. A member of the staff of the American Anthropologist from 1912 to 1933, he served as its editor for nine years, has been professor of anthropology at the University of California since 1925. Of his twelve published volumes, five deal with the Crow Indians. Married two years ago, he now lives in Berkeley, Calif.

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