Howard] 



THE PONCA TRIBE 



135 



English name Ponca name Translation of Poncu name 



Crow (variant) HupatlSa [Perhaps a Bigiha corruption of 



the variant Dakota name for the 

 tribe, Psaloka. This, in turn, is 

 a corruption of the Crow name, 

 for themselves, Apsdruke.] 



Dakota of Lower Brule Kuda-witsasa Lower people [a term adopted from 



Reservation. the Dakota without modifica- 



tion]. 



Dakota of the Rosebud §qxti Real or pure Sioux. 



Reservation (Brule 

 band of Teton 

 Dakota) , 



Dakota of Pine Ridge Sitsqxu Burnt-leg [the Dakota term for 



Reservation (Oglala the Brul6, adopted without modi- 



and Brule bands of fication by the Ponca]. 



Teton Dakota). 



Tonkawa Nikadath [Not given by Fletcher and La 



Flesche, but translated "Canni- 

 bals" by George Phillips, 

 Omaha.] 



To Army officers and ottiers accustomed to Western-Em-opean 

 tectmiques, the American Indian manner of waging war seemed 

 unorganized and the "troops" lacldng in discipline. Thus J. O. 

 Dorsey (1884 a, p. 312), commenting on the military organization of 

 the Omaha and Ponca, writes: 



War was not carried on by these tribes as it is by nations of the Old World. 

 The ^4giha and other tribes have no standing armies .... no militia, ready to be 

 called into the field by the government. On the contrary, mihtary service is 

 voluntary in all cases, from the private to the commanders, and the war party is 

 usually disbanded as soon as home is reached. They had no wars of long duration ; 

 in fact, wars between one Indian tribe and another scarcely ever occurred; but 

 there were occasional battles, perhaps one or two in the course of a season. 



In spite of Dorsey's statement that the Ponca maintained no militia, 

 in a later work he (1897, p. 214) indicates that the ^xida and Nika- 

 pdsna clans served in somewhat such a capacity: "The ^ixida gens 

 and part of the Nikapdsna gens of the Ponka tribe are considered 

 to be the warriors of the tribe, though members of other gentes have 

 participated in war." The names of these two clans, which mean 

 "Blood" and "Bald Head" (i.e., a scalped head) are certainly ap- 

 propriate for warrior groups. 



Defensive warfare was the only type sanctioned by the tribe, and 

 chiefs were forbidden to engage in any other form of warlike activity. 

 Raids on other tribes, even though these groups were traditional 

 enemies, were undertaken solely upon the responsibility of the leader 

 who had organized them, and leaders of unsuccessful war parties 

 were held accountable for the deaths of their followers. Whitman 

 (1939, p. 180) writes: "If a man tried to lead a war party without 



