Curly, Custer scout, advanced with great readiness and [pg 196] ease, and took the hand of Chief Plenty Coups. According to the custom of the Crows he did not lay down his coup stick, but gestured with one hand. He said:
“Dear Brother Plenty Coups, I am here to-day to greet you, and to greet all these other chiefs, chiefs who were once my enemies. My heart goes out to that great battlefield and that great monument erected to my dear Custer, with whom, and for whom, I fought. He fell on yonder hilltop almost within reach of our arms from this council lodge. And my heart is glad that I can shake hands with these chiefs, some of whom I fought against with Custer on that great battlefield. I have pledged myself never to lay aside this coup stick so long as the blood runs through my fingers, but I have resolved this day, as I look into the faces of these great chiefs who were once my enemies, that I will never lift the coup stick again, that I will live as a brother to all the tribes, and at peace with all men. I say farewell to the chiefs, a last, sad farewell.”
After these and other eminent chiefs had made reply to the address of welcome given by Chief Plenty Coups, according to Indian custom they were all seated in rows on the ground in semicircles, the more eminent chiefs in the first row, the lines falling back until they reached the wall line of the lodge. Every chief wore his full war regalia and carried with him all of his ceremonial and sacred insignia. The small army of [pg 197] coup sticks, always held aloft, presented a suggestive picture, for these coup sticks of the many chiefs from many lands each told a story of struggle and achievement, but in the speeches made by the chiefs each coup stick was to become a pledge of peace.
Now, following the ancient custom, while still seated, an Indian woman belonging to the Blackfoot tribe and wearing the full costume of her people, together with two Cheyenne maidens, dressed in the costume of their particular tribe, entered the council lodge carrying wooden bowls filled with meat and bread. This they served to the chiefs with a wooden fork. This to them answered as a ceremony of communion. When all had partaken, Chief Plenty Coups took the two long-stemmed pipes with red sandstone bowls containing emblematic decorations the whole length of the stems—pipes that had been filled by the medicine men and placed on the ground before the standing place of the great chiefs in the centre of the lodge. Chief Plenty Coups then lighted one pipe and passed it to the chiefs at his left, and lighting the other he smoked it himself for the first, and then passed it on to the right, each chief in turn smoking the pipe, then passing it on to his brother chief, until all had smoked the council pipe. When the pipes were returned to Chief Plenty Coups they were again filled and lighted, smoked by the Great [pg 198] Chief, and passed on to the others. And this became the Pipe of Peace.
These Indian councils were the legislative halls of the tribes; thither all matters of importance were brought by the chiefs and the warriors. Here all tribal problems were discussed. Here the destiny of any particular tribe was settled. Here the decision to make war was reached. In these council lodges, around the blazing fire, the Indians have uttered speech more eloquent than a Pitt or a Chatham in St. Stephens or a Webster in a Senate hall, an oratory that aroused the disintegrated Indian tribes and far separated clans into such a masterful and resistful force that the Indian against odds many times mightier than himself has been able to withstand the aggressions of civilization.
When questions of such moment made the necessity, chiefs of all the tribes attended and entered into solemn council. Then the council meant war. The day finally dawned when the Indian as a race was conquered by the white man. The ranks of the chiefs became thinner and thinner until in this day only a few of the great warriors remain. These representatives of former greatness and prowess gathered from their peaceful wigwams from many and faraway lands to hold once again and for the last time a council of the old days. On this day the council was for peace, and the dominant, resonant [pg 199] note ringing through every sentiment uttered; if we did not know they were Indians and did not know that this was an Indian council, we would have said this was a Peace Conference at The Hague.
To stand in the presence of these mighty men of the plains, to witness their nobility, to listen to their eloquence, to think with them the mighty thoughts of their dead past, to watch their solemn faces, to tremble before the dignity of their masterful bearing, to cherish the thought of all that they have been and all that they might have been, to realize that as their footfalls leave this council lodge they have turned their backs on each other forever, and that as they mount their horses and ride away to their distant lodges they are riding into the sunset and are finally lost in the purple mists of evening, is to make the coldest page of history burn with an altar fire that shall never go out.
