dbniq] THE ASSINIBOIN' 481 



right in their estimation and in conformity to their law of retaliation. 

 When the Blackfeet kill the whites at the Crow Fort it is from no 

 enmity to the whites as a people, for they could if they wished kill 

 plenty in their own country; it is that they do not wish the Crows, 

 their enemies, to have traders who supply them with the means of 

 killing them, by trading guns, ammunition, etc. The same reasoning 

 on their own side is the cause of their friendship toward their own 

 traders. Revenge, the great principle of destroying life, is strongly 

 contended for by the Indians as necessary to their existence, both 

 individually and as a body. The fear of the consequences of dispute 

 prevents it, or generally is settled amicably by payment. There being 

 no competent judiciary to try and punish crime renders it necessary 

 for each one to retaliate, or they would be liable to constant imposi- 

 tion. That revenge among them supplies the want of courts of 

 justice, prisons, and public executions. If the revenge is dispropor- 

 tionate to the offense, it can not be helped ; their habits, customs, and 

 organization all have that tendency. In all this they see no offense 

 to Wakonda nor any idea of moral wrong, even if they did 

 believe in future punishment, which they do not, yet they know it 

 is an offense to the individual and all his relatives, incurring their 

 retaliation, which is the only punishment they expect. 



Inasmuch as the warrior believes that by prayers, fasts, personal 

 inflictions of pain and sacrifices they can secure the aid of Wakonda 

 to effect the death of their enemies or for the gratification of private 

 revenge, by the same train of reasoning it must be manifest that the 

 soul of a warrior must occupy a high degree of happiness in Indian 

 paradise for accomplishing these acts through his instrumentality. 



The death of a man who killed another would suffice if it were 

 possible to stop there, but we have said enough on this subject to 

 show they have no power to stop. The taking of the second 

 life produces an obligation on the part of the kindred of the de- 

 ceased to revenge, and retaliation is continued. The original cause 

 of quarrel is lost in the greater necessity of defending life on either 

 side. Therefore in their yet deplorable state of ignorance the crime 

 of murder as an act of the same nature in our ideas can have no 

 existence among them, neither can anything be morally wrong in 

 which the aid of Wakonda is invoked and if successful ob- 

 tained. Robbeiy or theft is also an individual offense though not 

 by them considered as such to Wakonda. An Indian gives 

 for his reason for stealing an article that his necessities required it 

 and he could not get it any other way. He will not steal an article 

 he does not want or can not use and run useless risk of detection, 

 but a horse, gun, knife, or other things will sometimes be taken and 

 the act excused on the plea of his necessities. 



