DENIG] THE ASSINIBOIN 439 



will pay high and give many horses for peace. The Crows are good 

 warriors, and the whites say good people and will keep their word. 

 Whatever is decided upon let it be manly. We are men ; others can 

 speak. I listen — I have said." 



This speech was received by a slight response by some of Hoo-o-o-o 

 and by the majority in silence. After a few minutes' interval he 

 was replied to by another chief, the third or fourth from where 

 he sat. This was a savage, warlike, one-eyed Indian, and his speech 

 was characteristic. He said : " He differed from all the old chief 

 had said regarding their enemies. Individually as a man and as 

 their leader he liked his father, the chief, but he must be growing 

 old and childish to advise them to take to smoke the tobacco of 

 their enemies, the Crows. Tell the whites to take it back to them. 

 It stinks, and if smoked would taste of the blood of our nearest 

 relations. He thought (he said) his old father (the chief) should 

 make a journey to the banks of the Yellowstone, and speak to the 

 grinning skulls of 30 lodges of his children, and hear their answer. 

 Would they laugh? Would they dance? Would they beg for 

 Crow tobacco or cry for Crow horses? If horses were wanted in 

 camp, let the young men go to war and steal and take them as he had 

 done — as he intended to do as long as a Crow Indian had a horse. 

 What if in the attempt they left their bones to bleach on the prairie? 

 It would be but dying like men ! For his part it always pleased 

 him to see a young man's skull ; the teeth were sound and beautiful, 

 appearing to smile and say, ' I have died when I should and not 

 waited at home until my teeth were worn to the gums by eating 

 dried meat.' The young men (he said) will make war — must have 

 war — and, as far as his influence went, should have war. I have 

 spoken." 



This speech was received with a loud and prolonged grunt of 

 approbation by more than two-thirds of the assembly. 



Other speeches followed on both sides o^ the question, some long, 

 some short, until the council became somewhat heated and turbulent; 

 not, however, interrupting one another, but mixing a good deal of 

 private invective and satire with the question in their speeches. At 

 a point of violent debate and personal abuse, two soldiers advanced 

 to the middle of the lodge and laid two swords crosswise on the 

 ground, which signal immediately restored order and quiet. The 

 debate was carried on with spirit for about two hours but it was 

 easily to be perceived long before it terminated, by their responses 

 and gestures, that the war faction greatly predominated. The chief, 

 after asking if all had spoken and receiving an affirmative answer, 

 remarked they could go and eat the feast that had been prepared for 

 them. The warriors gave a loud yell and when out commenced 



