Hidatsa \hi-'dat-so\ North American Plains Indian people of Siouan stock living mainly on Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota, U.S. They speak a Siouan language. They were mistakenly identified as a group known to French trappers as Gros Ventres, and sometimes they are called Gros Ventres of the Missouri. Originally the Hidatsa (whose name means “People of the Willow”) lived on the upper Missouri River in semiper¬ manent villages. They raised corn, beans, and squash and hunted bison. Hidatsa social organization included age-graded military societies; there were also various clans based on maternal descent. The sun dance was the major religious ceremony. Together with the Mandan, with whom they had peaceful relations for more than 200 years, they exchanged traditional goods with European traders for guns, knives, and other items. In the mid-1800s disease and war with the Dakota (Sioux) sharply reduced their number. Only some 625 people claimed sole Hidatsa descent in the 2000 U.S. census. Together the Mandan, the Arikara, and the Hidatsa form the Three Affiliated Tribes.
Hideyoshi See Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Hierakonpolis X.hl-o-ro-'kan-pa-bsN Ancient city, Upper Egypt. Located south of Thebes, it was the prehistoric residence of the kings of Upper Egypt. Now an archaeological site, it reveals the beginning of Egypt’s historical period. It was at its height from 3400 bc to the Old Kingdom (c. 2575 bc). Thutmose III later completely rebuilt the Archaic temple. During the New Kingdom, el-Kab, across the river, became eco¬ nomically more important, but Hierakonpolis retained its place as a reli¬ gious and historical centre.
Hierapolis \ l hI-9-'ra-p9-bs\ Ancient city, now in Syria. Its remains lie northeast of Aleppo. As a centre of the worship of the Syrian goddess Atargatis, it became known to the Greeks as the Holy City (Hierapolis). One of the great cities of Syria in the 3rd century ad, it thereafter declined. The 'Abbasid caliph HarGn al-Rashid restored it at the end of the 8th cen¬ tury. Captured by Crusaders in the 12th century but reclaimed by Saladin in 1175, it later became the headquarters of the Mongols, who completed its ruin.
hieroglyph Vhi-ro-.glifA Character in any of several systems of writing that is pictorial in nature, though not necessarily in the way it is read. The term was originally used for the oldest system of writing Ancient Egyp¬ tian (see Egyptian language). Egyptian hieroglyphs could be read iconi- cally (the representation of a house enclosure stood for the word pr, “house”), phonetically (the “house” sign could have the phonetic value pr), or associatively (a sign representing one thing could stand for a homophone meaning something else). Unlike contemporary cuneiform
Wild Bill Hickok.
CULVER PICTURES
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874 I hierophant ► Highland Games
writing, phonetic hieroglyphs denoted consonants, not syllables, so there was no regular way to write vowels; by convention, Egyptologists insert the vowel e between consonants in order to pronounce Egyptian words. The standardized orthography of the Middle Kingdom (2050-1750 bc) employed about 750 hieroglyphs. In the early centuries ad, use of hiero¬ glyphs declined—the last dated text is from ad 394 —and the meaning of the signs was lost until their decipherment in the early 19th century (see J.-F. Champollion; Rosetta Stone). The term hieroglyph has been applied to similar systems of writing, notably a script used to write the ancient Anatolian language Luvian and a script used by the Maya (see Mayan HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING).
hierophant Vhl-o-ro-.fant, hl-'er-o-fontV Chief priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries in ancient Greece. His main task was to display the sacred objects during the celebration of the mysteries and explain their secret meaning to initiates. The priest was usually an old, celibate man with a forceful voice, chosen from the Eumolpids, one of the original clans of Eleusis. Upon election, he cast aside his former name and was called only hierophantes.
hieros gamos \ , he-3- l r6s- , ga- l mos\ (Greek: “sacred marriage”) Sexual relations of fertility deities enacted in myths and rituals, characteristic of societies based on cereal agriculture (e.g., Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, and Canaan). At least once a year, people dressed as gods engaged in sexual intercourse to guarantee the fertility of the land. The festival began with a procession to the marriage celebration, which was followed by an exchange of gifts, a purification rite, the wedding feast, preparation of the wedding chamber, and a secret nocturnal act of intercourse.
Higgs particle or Higgs boson Carrier of an all-pervading funda¬ mental field (Higgs field) that is hypothesized as a means of endowing mass on some elementary particles through its interactions with them. It was named for Peter W. Higgs (born 1929) of the University of Edinburgh, one of those who first postulated the idea. The Higgs mechanism explains why the carriers of the weak force are heavy, while the carrier of the electromag¬ netic force has a mass of zero. There is no direct experimental evidence for the existence of either the Higgs particle or the Higgs field.
high blood pressure See hypertension
High Commission, Court of English ecclesiastical court instituted by Henry VIII to enforce the Act of Supremacy (1534). It became a contro¬ versial instrument of repression, used against those who refused to acknowledge the authority of the Church of England. Its main function, and the most controversial, was administration of the oath ex officio, committing one to answer even self-incriminating questions; those who refused to take the oath were turned over to the feared Court of Star Chamber. Opposition, mainly from the Puritans and the common lawyers, resulted in the court’s abolishment by Parliament in 1641. See also pre¬ rogative court.
High Court of Admiralty In England, formerly the court presided over by the deputy of the admiral of the fleet. It was established c. 1360 to deal with matters of discipline and cases of piracy and prizes (ships and goods captured at sea), but it eventually had jurisdiction over mercantile and shipping matters. In 1875 it was merged with the other great courts of England into the High Court of Justice.
high-definition television (HDTV) Any system producing signifi¬ cantly greater picture resolution than that of the ordinary 525-line (625- line in Europe) television screen. Conventional television transmits signals in analog form. Digital HDTV systems, by contrast, transmit pictures and sounds in the form of digital data. These numerical data are broadcast using the same high radio frequencies that carry analog waves, and com¬ puter processors in the digital television set then decode the data. Digital HDTV can provide sharper, clearer pictures and sound with very little interference or other imperfections. Of perhaps greater importance, digi¬ tal television sets will potentially be able to send, store, and manipulate images as well as receive them, thereby merging the functions of the tele¬ vision set and the computer.
high-energy physics See particle physics
high jump Track-and-field event of jumping for height. The equipment includes a semicircular runway allowing an approach run of at least 49 ft (15 m), the raised bar and its vertical supports, and a cushioned landing area. Jumpers must leave the ground from one foot. Three failed jumps at a height result in disqualification. Early jumping styles, including the
near-erect scissors jump and the facedown Western roll-and-straddle, were largely superseded from 1968 by the faceup “Fosbury flop,” named for its leading proponent, the U.S. jumper Dick Fosbury.