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.  He knows too well on how frail a tenure he holds his station.  He 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 much 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 ranking feuds and jealousies, can have little power or efficiency.

The western Dakota have no fixed habitations.  Hunting and fighting, they wander incessantly through summer and winter.  Some are following the herds of buffalo over the waste of prairie; others are traversing the Black Hills, thronging on horseback and on foot through the dark gulfs and somber gorges beneath the vast splintering precipices, and emerging at last upon the “Parks,” those beautiful but most perilous hunting grounds.  The buffalo supplies them with almost all the necessaries of life; with habitations, food, clothing, and fuel; with strings for their bows, with thread, cordage, and trail-ropes for their horses, with coverings for their saddles, with vessels to hold water, with boats to cross streams, with glue, and with the means of purchasing all that they desire from the traders.  When the buffalo are extinct, they too must dwindle away.

War is the breath of their nostrils.  Against most of the neighboring tribes they cherish a deadly, rancorous hatred, transmitted from father to son, and inflamed by constant aggression and retaliation.  Many times a year, in every village, the Great Spirit is called upon, fasts are made, the war parade is celebrated, and the warriors go out by handfuls at a time against the enemy.  This fierce and evil spirit awakens their most eager aspirations, and calls forth their greatest energies.  It is chiefly this that saves them from lethargy and utter abasement.  Without its powerful stimulus they would be like the unwarlike tribes beyond the mountains, who are scattered among the caves and rocks like beasts, living on roots and reptiles.  These latter have little of humanity except the form; but the proud and ambitious Dakota warrior can sometimes boast of heroic virtues.  It is very seldom that distinction and influence are attained among them by any other course than that of arms.  Their superstition, however, sometimes gives great power, to those among them who pretend to the character of magicians.  Their wild hearts, too, can feel the power of oratory, and yield deference to the masters of it.