In this way was my chief Ta-Tank-io-Tanka, The Sitting Bull, made what you would call “Secretary of War” over seven hundred lodges of my people. He had already attained rank as a valiant but not reckless warrior. The Rees knew him, and so did the Crows. He came of good family, though his father was only a minor chief. His uncle was Four Horns, and his grandfather, The Jumping Bull, was an active and powerful man whose influence undoubtedly was of use to the young chief. His name had never been borne by any other man of his tribe. At fourteen he had counted coup on a Crow. He had been wounded in the foot while dashing upon an enemy, and he still walked with a slight limp. He was active, unassuming, and capable of many things.
But his fame as a peacemaker had already far outrun his renown as a warrior. He had been made a chief by the Ogallallahs because of his firm sense of justice. Only a year before this time a band of the young warriors of his own tribe had stolen from their cousins a herd of horses while the two tribes were camped side by side, and The Sitting Bull, having heard of this, went to the young men and said:
“We do not make reprisals upon our friends. We only take from our enemies,” and thereupon had led the horses back to their owners.
In return for this good deed the Ogallallahs had made him a chief among them, though he took no part in their councils.
He was a natural leader and a persuasive orator. A chief among my people, you know, is a peacemaker, and The Sitting Bull was always gentle of voice. If he saw two men squabbling he parted them and said: “Do not make war among yourselves. What is the matter? Tell me your dispute.” Sometimes he would say: “Here is a horse for each of you. Go and wrangle no more.” When he was very successful in the hunt he always went about the camp, and wherever a sick man or an aged woman lived, there he left a haunch of venison or some buffalo meat. This made him many friends. He did not desire riches for himself, but for his tribe.
Therefore nearly all the tribesmen were glad when he was made treaty chief and given the charge of all such matters. He was at once what the white people would call Secretary of State and of War.
Immediately after his election he called the treaty messenger into his lodge and said: “Return to those that sent you and say this: ‘The Uncapappas have no need of your food or clothing. The hills are clouded with buffalo, the cherries are ripening in the thickets. When we desire any of the white man’s goods we will buy them. Go in peace.’”
In this way the white men first heard of The Sitting Bull.
Yes, in those wondrous days my people were many and powerful. The allied tribes of Sioux (as you white men call them) held all the land from Big Stone Lake westward to the Yellowstone River and south to the Platte—that is to say, all of what you call South Dakota, part of Wyoming, and half of Nebraska. We often went as far as the Rocky Mountains in our search for food, for the buffalo were always shifting ground. As the phantom lakes of the plain mysteriously appear and disappear, so they came and went.
Where the bison were, there plenty was; we had no fear. But they roamed widely. For these reasons my people required much territory, and, though the wild cattle were many, we were sometimes obliged to enter the lands of our enemies to make our killing, and these expeditions were the causes of our wars with the Crows on the west and with the Comanches on the south. However, these wars were not long or bloody. For the most part we lived quietly, peacefully, with only games to keep our sinews tense.