óhate (society)
All residents of the Awatíkihu (Five Villages), at various points in their lives, were members of age-appropriate óhate, roughly translated in English as “societies.” Starting in late childhood, cohorts of boys and girls would join together to gather the material goods necessary to buy óhate rights. Once the goods were obtained and those holding the rights agreed to the transfer, elaborate ceremonies held over many days trained the new cohort in the associated knowledge, songs, dances, ceremonies, and objects of the procured óhate. When the cohort was practiced enough and gained the goods necessary for the next transfer—usually several years later—the process was repeated.
Members of óhate had specific communal and ceremonial roles that could be carried out in the public arena, within and among specific Native communities, or privately, for the óhate only. For an adoption in the Numak'aki village of Nuptadi (Second Village), for instance, Mató-Tópe’s óhate of Íschohä-Kakoschóchatä attended to “dance the medicine pipes,” enacting the calumet ceremony. Later, however, Mató-Tópe led the same óhate to Fort Clark, where the group’s dance enforced their fictive kinship with American Fur Company personnel. Any ceremonies and dances carried out for the former, which involved a Numak'aki-specific audience, were likely very different from the latter, which included non-Awatíkihu and non-Native outsiders. Óhate members also shared rights, songs, ceremonies, and knowledge among themselves that only fellow members could know.
In the Awatíkihu, all men who hoped to be chosen as leaders had to have memberships in óhate. They could also be members of multiple óhate simultaneously; Mató-Tópe was a member of at least two at the time of Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied’s visit. Both Mató-Tópe and Péhriska-Rúhpa posed for their portraits with objects that were associated with their óhate memberships. The ka-ka (keeper) of óhate objects were often those voted to óhate leadership positions by their cohorts.
Related themes:
- Awatíkihu (Five Villages)
- calumet
- counting coup
- hó'pini (to be holy)
- ka-ka (keeper)
- miti ko-mne-ka (“one who is the village door”)
- nápe (dance)