94 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 1&5 



we should always do good, and help the others in the tribe. Then the pipe was 

 started around from the door, which was to the east, going around to the left. 

 Each man took three puffs and then passed the pipe on to his neighbors. Prayers 

 were interspersed with the smoking of the pipe. When the pipe got clear around 

 to the door it was passed back around the way it had come. It was never passed 

 over the doorway. 



The head chief is the man who owns the pipe, and he is the only one who can 

 make chiefs. He keeps the pipe wrapped up all the time except when it is taken 

 out to be smoked. No man is a chief until he has smoked the sacred pipe. The 

 right to the head chieftainship descends from father to son, and the pipe is passed 

 along this way. 



OK's account of the chief-making rite agi-ees quite well with that 

 given by Dorsey (1884 a, pp. 359-360), but is much simpler. In 

 OK's time the Ponca "tribal" pipe, together with the tribal chieftain- 

 ship, had been removed to Oklahoma. Birdhead, the chief referred 

 to in the account, was the last chief of the first rank in the Northern 

 band, and as such, ranked as head chief of the Northern Ponca 

 (pi. 21, d). The pipe he used was a clan pipe, which, by virtue of 

 its being the only one in the north, had come to be regarded as the 

 tribal pipe. The Ponca tribal pipe, as I learned in 1954, is still kept 

 by Mrs. Grace Warrior, who lives near Ponca City, Okla. 



In the southern band the last first rank chief was Horse-chief-eagle. 

 His eldest son, David Eagle, would be the present chief if the former 

 political system had survived. OK, as he indicates, was the last 

 "little chief" in the northern band, Leslie Red-leaf, who died in 1955, 

 was the last second-rank chief in the south. At the present time chiefs 

 no longer govern the Ponca. In both bands a tribal council, whose 

 members are elected by popular baUot, decides upon questions relating 

 to the tribe. For several years Perry Le Claire, of Ponca City, has 

 ably served as chairman of the Southern Ponca tribal council. 



The tribal Buffalo -police or The-wanqse were the executors of the 

 wishes of the chiefs. Each chief apparently had one or two of these 

 policemen at his beck and call the year around. For special occasions, 

 however, such as the tribal bison hunts or the Sun dance, additional 

 police were recruited. Skinner (1915 c, pp. 794-795) writes: "As 

 police . . . for any occasion the chief would appoint the bravest 

 warriors of some society, but not the whole organization. For another 

 occasion he would take men from another society." The duties of 

 the tribal police on the bison hunt are described by PLC in 

 his "History" (p. 19) and by Skinner (1915 c, pp. 796-797). In 

 1954 LMD and Charles Gives-water were the only Buffalo-poUce 

 left in the Ponca tribe. 



Being a chief or policeman in a small, highly interrelated tribe such 

 as the Ponca was not easy, for right or wrong, the actions of these 

 men were liable to earn them the ill will of not only the persons 

 directly involved, but the clansmen of all those persons as well. No 

 wonder, then, that chiefs hesitated to punish unruly young warriors. 



