post. The Indians were ordered not come within two miles of the post except that they might send a delegation in of one hundred, to accompany their speakers to the place of rendezvous. Our sutler, Ben Gallagher, had started in to build a large sutler store, twenty-five feet square. Holes for the doors and windows had been sawed from the logs, and most of the roof was on. But it had no floor nor any furnishing. It had a large doorhole in the north and one in the south; the opening on the south side faced our camp. With great pomp the Indians to the number of about one hundred, all fully armed and finely mounted, came down towards our camp about nine o'clock. Then seventeen chiefs threw off their weapons, leaving them behind with their escort, and came forward to the new sutler-house with great pomp and ceremony. Then all of the officers of the post, coming up to within about fifty feet of the building, took off their sabres and revolvers and left them in a pile with a guard. We had three interpreters, the principal one of whom was named Watts. He had been with the Indians and traded with them for many years. His usual name was 'Snell,' which was an abbreviation of his Indian name, which was Wah-see-cha-es-snel-la (The 'lonesome white man'). There were two other interpreters besides Watts. Among the Indians there was an Indian who, it was said, readily understood English. The Indians formed a semicircle, in the building, sitting down on the ground, and we formed one, sitting on crackerboxes opposite them, except that General Mitchell sat in a large camp-chair. He looked like a king. He was an exceedingly handsome man, with a full, dark-brown curly beard and mustache. Major George M. O'Brien sat on his right, also a fine-looking man, standing six feet one inch. He afterwards practiced law in Omaha, and on his death was buried there.
On the left of the General sat Captain O'Brien, six feet high. I was six feet, and we tapered off at both sides, making a pretty good showing, in full uniforms, with our red silk sashes on, which hadn't seen the light for several months. Back of the General was a man whom the General had brought along with him, and from whom he appeared to take advice as to preliminaries and procedure. I didn't find who he was. To the left front of the General, and immediately in front of Captain O'Brien, on a cracker-box, sat the interpreter, Watts. The Indians all through this matter seemed to be unusually important, and punctilious. They all had their blankets on, and although they had ostensibly left their arms behind, every one had probably a sharp butcher-knife in the folds of his blanket. At least, Watts said so. As a sort of stand-off, we, who had left our arms behind us, each had a pistol in his hip pocket so as not to be taken unawares. Nothing was said for several minutes, and we all sat in silence. Every once in a while an Indian made a sort of sign or signal, and it would go around like penitents crossing. It was some kind of a slight significant sign made instantly and simply, which would be taken up and gone through with as if it were a signal of some kind, or an invocation of some kind. Directly opposite General Mitchell was Shan-tag-a-lisk, which is translated as 'Spotted Tail.' He was the greatest warrior in the Sioux nation, said to be the greatest either past or present. He was said to be able to count twenty-six 'cooz.' He belonged to the Brulй Sioux. On his right was my friend, 'Bad Wound.' On the left were 'Two Strike,' and 'Two Crows,' and the 'Big Mandan.' On the opposite side were 'Prickly Pear' and 'Eagle Twice.' These are all the names I have preserved. 'Two Strike' was said to have killed two Pawnees with one bullet. These Indians represented the four tribes of the Sioux that were nearest to us. Those south of the river were the 'Ogallallah,' of whom 'Bad Wound' was chief. Northwest were the 'Brulйs,' of whom 'Shan-tag-a-lisk' was chief. North of us and east of the Brulйs were what were called the 'Minne-kaw'- zhouz.' The latter word signified shallow water. The 'shallow water' Sioux lived upon the streams which through a great scope of country were all shallow. 'Two Strike' was said to be their chief. East of them on the Missouri river were a lot of Indians represented by the Big Mandan. The word Brulй, which is a French word, means 'sun-burnt'; it was derived from the Indian name which in the Indian tongue meant 'burnt-thighs.' Their thighs exposed to the sun were sunburned in their constant riding on horseback. The words meant more than at first appeared; for, Indians who walked on the ground did not get their thighs burned more than other parts, especially as the Indians went practically naked when the sun was hot. Hence the words 'burnt-thighs' meant that the Brulй Indians were riders; that they belonged to the cavalry, that is, the Chivalry; in other words, they were of the equestrian class. The words constituted a boast that they were better than others and were the Rough-Riders of the plains. Such was the tradition of the name. Peace or war upon the plains, as to us, depended largely upon our satisfying all these Indians.
Strange as it may appear, all of the Indians had extremely feminine faces, except the Big Mandan. Spotted Tail looked exactly like a woman; and in short, as I had already observed, and often afterwards observed, the Indian men seemed to have a feminine look and the women to have a rather masculine look, which increased as they grew older. An old Indian woman had a much more dangerous-looking face than an old Indian man. So much has been written about the noble looks and appearance of the red man, and his fine physique, and all that kind of stuff, that it seems strange to contradict it; but as a matter of fact, the
Indian warriors as a whole looked more like women than like men, and their extermination, I believe, is due to the fact that they did not have the surviving power nor the sufficient fibre. In addition to this, these Indians had revolting and beastly habits and vices, just as bad as could be, and their names, many of them, were such that no interpretation in the English would be printable.
The word 'Ogallallah' meant 'the split-off band,' because in former years the band had split off from the main Sioux tribe, and gone down into what was said to have been Pawnee territory. But concerning those facts I could never get anything but contradictory stories. The 'split-off' must have been a long while before. They called themselves 'Lah-ko-tahs.' The interpreter told me that the separation had been so long, and so distant, that one part of the Sioux tribe had lost the consonant 'd' and the other the use of the consonant 'l,' and one called themselves 'Lah-ko-tahs,' and the other 'Dah-ko-tahs.' Once I talked with two Irish travelers in regard to the Indians. One of them asked me what the word 'Ogallallah' meant, and I told him that it meant 'the split-off band,' and be spoke up and said, 'That is a pure Irish word, and in the old Irish language means, 'secessionist.'' I may say here that it was not unusual for persons in referring to the language of the northern Sioux to say that there were words in use among them that were distinctly Irish and Welsh. I took no note of them at the time, considering them to be merely accidental coincidences, and now I remember only the word 'Ogallallah.'
It was very interesting, the silent way in which we sat on both sides and gazed at each other. When it came to muscle and physique, our men, man for man, could have thrown them all outdoors and walked on them, except perhaps as to the 'Big Mandan.' We were all larger than the Indians except him, and he was about six feet four, and about a yard across, about forty years of age, and very light-colored for an Indian. it would have been a close tussle between him and Major O'Brien. Finally, one Indian got out a pipe from under his blanket. It had a stem about two and a half feet long. It was made of red pipestone, and had a good-sized bowl, but the orifice was scant for the tobacco. It was filled with great pomp and solemnity by the man who took it and he did it little by little, as if it was a great function. He felt the weight and importance of the ceremony. Then he passed the pipe down to the end of the line, and there an Indian with a flint-and-steel and a piece of punk started the pipe. Then it went from mouth to mouth, the parties each taking three whiffs. When it had gone along the entire Indian line, it struck the end of our line. We were all trying to look solemn. The Indians were dreadfully solemn, They acted as if they thought they were doing the greatest deed in their lives; we did not wish to hurt their feelings by impairing the solemnity of the occasion, so we just looked as wise as we could. But when the pipe struck the end of our line, where Lieutenant Williams was, before he put the pipe into his mouth he drew it under his sleeve, saying as he did so, 'I don't believe I want to swap saliva with that crowd.' This being said in a ponderous and thoughtful way, perhaps impressed the crowd on the other side as being a mental benediction on receiving the utensil. We all kept looking solemn, however, although it was hard work. When the pipe got to the General he pulled out his silk handkerchief and polished off the mouthpiece, took three profound whiffs, and passed it on. After it had gone through with our line it went across to where it had started from.
Finally Spotted Tail said something which, being interpreted, was: 'The white brother has sent for us. What does the white brother want?' Then Genl. Mitchell, with much assumed and natural dignity, combined, began to tell the Indians how the whites and Indians had lived side by side in peace for so many years, and how the Indians were prosperous through contact with the whites, and were getting guns, and killing game more easily, and having a better time of it generally; and how persons had conspired to bring about a want of amity and friendship; and how it was his desire to meet the red brother, and tell him what the Great Father in Washington wanted. It was a long preamble which General Mitchell had evidently conned over in his mind, because he wound up with a statement that the white man wanted peace, and wanted the Sioux to keep out of the Platte Valley.
Thereupon the Big Mandan rose up, throwing off his blanket, and standing out with nothing on but breech-clout and moccasins. He commenced a speech which started out slow and low, beginning to rise in volume and increase in rapidity, until he was spouting away like a man running for office before a county convention. No report that I know of was ever made of what took place at this powwow, and my notes concerning it are meager. But the 'Big
