Plains Indian Studies - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

82 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ANTHROPOLOGY
1920s. The most apparent difference was that
elderly ritual leaders had great influence over
Arapahoe political process, but among the Gros
Ventres they withdrew from political life. To
understand the reasons why the business council
was not the instrument of assimilation that the
BIA thought it would be and to account for the
apparent differences in political reorganization
between these two tribes, it is necessary to compare
Arapahoe and Gros Ventre political process
in the nineteenth century.
Divergent Patterns of Political Reorganization
in the Nineteenth Century
The business council role was basically that of
political middleman or intermediary in Indian-
White relations. Earlier, in the nineteenth century,
both intermediary leadership and the mechanisms
of consensus formation that helped motivate
support for intermediaries were well developed
among Arapahoes and Gros Ventres. Variations
in political culture were due to differences
between the Arapahoe and Gros Ventre age
group systems in interplay with the differing contact
conditions experienced by the two peoples.
AGE GRADING AND CONSENSUS FORMATION
In the first major study of traditional Plains
political organization, Robert Lowie (1916:931)
compared the age group systems of the Arapahoes
and Gros Ventres and considered them virtually
identical. Some sixty years later, in the most
comprehensive comparative study of Plains age
group systems since Lowie's effort, Frank Stewart
came to the same conclusion. Stewart (1977:323,
326-327) drew structural parallels between the
two tribes, indicating that in age set systems, age
grade dances, and transition ceremonies the two
tribes basically were alike. Up to a point the age
group systems of the two tribes did have much in
common, but the contrasts were also striking.
All Arapahoe ceremonies were directed by the
Water Pouring Old Men, a small group of ritual
authorities who supervised the participants in
religious rituals and motivated social conformity
year-round through a complex of supernatural
sanctions. No comparable group of ritual authorities
directed Gros Ventre ceremonies or intervened
in secular matters. Also, the Arapahoes'
strong value orientation toward social cohesion
was reflected in the fact that each of the age
grade statuses was occupied by only one age set.
(An age set is a group of peers who as youths are
inducted into the first age grade and move
through a series of age grades together. Age
grades are categories of persons who are in the
same life stage and who have a particular status
and role or roles in their society.) Occupying each
Gros Ventre age grade there were several age sets,
between which was a strong spirit of rivalry
(Kroeber, 1908:232-233).
Arapahoes viewed the life course as a progression
through four general age categories, the "four
stages of life": child, unformed or immature
youth, mature adult, elder. Males were organized
into seven unnamed age sets and progressively
passed through a series of grades or "lodges." A
lodge ceremony was undergone by the age set
members when one member vowed to complete
the ritual. Youths first joined the Kit-Fox Lodge,
then the Star Lodge, both of which were viewed
as primarily secular in nature. With their fellow
age set members, mature males entered four sacred
lodges: the Tomahawk Lodge, the Spear
Lodge, the Crazy Lodge, and the Dog Lodge.
Elders entered the Old Men's Lodge. In essence,
progression through the lodges bestowed increasingly
greater sacred knowledge. Individuals in all
the age sets could vow to enter the Sacrifice Lodge
or Sun Dance. Superordinate to all the lodge men
were the Water Pouring Old Men, seven elders
who had earned a requisite number of "degrees"
through personal ordeals and sacrifices and who
directed all tribal rituals and acted as custodians
of seven tribal medicine bags. The primary tribal
medicine bundle was the Sacred Flat Pipe, which
was in the lifelong custody of the Pipe Keeper.
The Water Pouring Old Men and the Pipe
Keeper served as mediators between the Arapahoe
people and the Creator; their authority was