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Show 174 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. the war, in order that we, with so respectable an escort, may pass over to the somewhat perilous rendezvous at La Bonte's camp?' Still this remained in doubt. Characteristic indecision perplexed their councils. Indians cannot act in large bodies. Though their object be of the highest importance, they cannot combine to attain it by a series of connected efforts. King Philip, Pontiac, and Tecumseh, all felt this to their cost. The Ogillallah once had a war-chief who could control them; but he was dead, and now they were left to the sway of their own unsteady impulses. This Indian village and its inhabitants will hold a prominent place in the rest of the narrative, and perhaps it may not be amiss to glance for an instant at the savage people of which they form a part. The Dahcotah (I prefer this national designation to the unmeaning French name, Sioux) range over a vast territory, from the river St. Peter's to the Rocky Mountains themselves. They are divided into several independent bands, united under no central governmentJ and acknowledging no common head. The same language, usages, and superstitions, form the sole bond between them. They do not unite even in their wars. The bands of the east fight the Objibwas on the Upper Lakes; those of the west make incessant war upon the Snake Indians in the Rocky Mountains. As the whole people is divided into bands, so each band is divided into villages. Each village has a chief, who is honored and obeyed only so far as his personal qualities may command respect and fear. Sometimes he is a mere nominal chief· sometimes his authority ' is little short of absolute, and his fame and influence reach even beyond his own village; so that the whole band to which he SCENES AT THE CAMP. 175 belongs is ready to acknowledge him as their head. This was, a few years since, the case with the Ogillallah. Courage, address, and enterprise rna y raise any warrior to the highest honor, especially if he be the son of a former chief, or a member of a numerous family, to support him and avenge his quarrels; but when he has reached the dignity of chief, and the old men and warriors, by a peculiar ceremony, have formally installed him, let it not be imagined that he assumes any of the outward semblances of rank and honor. I-Ie knows too well on how frail a tenure he holds his station. I-Ie must conciliate his uncertain subjects. Many a man in the village lives better, owns more squaws and more horses, and goes better clad than he. Like the Teutonic chiefs of old,- he ingratiates himself with his young men by making them presents, thereby often impoverishing himself. Does he fail in gaining their favor, they will set his authority at naught, and may desert him at any moment; for the usages of his people have provided no sanctions by which he may enforce his authority. Very seldom does it happen, at least among these western bands, that a chief attains to 1nuch power, unless he is the head of a numerous family. Frequently the village is principally made up of his relatives and descendants, and the wandering community assumes much of the patriarchal character. A people so loosely united, torn, too, with rankling feuds and jealousies, can have little power or efficiency. The western Dahcotah have no fixed habitations. Hunting and fighting, they wander incessantly, through summer and winter. Some are followina the herds of buffalo over the waste 0 of prairie; others are traversing the Black I-Iills, thronging, on horseback and on foot, through the dark gulfs and sombre gor- |
