Once he had entered manhood, a Plains brave’s life revolved around the continuous competition for status and prestige, most of which came to him through excellence in warfare. Any man could organize a war party at any time; he only had to hang his rawhide shield before his teepee to announce his intentions. If he was a proven and successful warrior, or even if he had had a dream of a successful raid, he was usually able to rally many eager young men to his support. Those who accompanied him, however, did so voluntarily; there was never any force to induce others to participate. Any warrior who had an ominous dream or other bad omens along the way, which convinced him of the failure of this expedition, was free to return to the camp at any time. But the drive for prestige, the chance for loot or, just as often, the duty to avenge a death in the family, all were usually reason enough to motivate many young men to accompany a war leader.
Large formal battles were rare among the Plains Indians. They were used to hit hard and by surprise, withdraw, hit again, and then disappear. It was only in the late 19th century that huge battles were fought against the white man, which sometimes involved several hundred, or even several thousand warriors from different bands and tribes. But the Plains Indians were never particularly successful in such battles. Since they emphasized individual heroism and hand-to-hand combat, they usually lacked the cooperation and discipline to follow up on any advantages they might have gained in initial attacks.
Honors in battle came in many different ways. Wrestling a weapon from an enemy was considered a great deed, as was killing a man and scalping him. Making a vow to stand steadfast in one place during the fighting added great prestige to a warrior. But above all other honors stood the practice of what was known as counting coup: a warrior advanced on an armed enemy, touched him with his hands or a special coup stick, and escaped unharmed. So valiant an act was counting coup, that if the same enemy was later killed and scalped, the war honors went to the man who had first touched him, rather than to the killer.
In later years, counting coup came to mean an elaborate, almost immodest ceremonial ritual in which a warrior recited all his great deeds. These recitals went on endlessly, and each time a man received new honors, he used that as an opportunity to recount the others all over again. He even kept a pictorial record of these exploits on the outside of his teepee or on his buffalo robe. If a man lied about his honors, however, or even if he stretched the truth a bit, he was immediately corrected by someone who had been there, and his reputation was thereby permanently damaged. This accumulation of war honors was so deeply imbedded in Sioux consciousness that boys of age ten or twelve often begged their fathers to be allowed to go on war parties. Only the old men, whose war honors were well known and who had no new ones to add, refrained from recounting coup again and again in public.
A Sioux war leader, however, was seldom a chief – a man became chief among these people only if he held certain qualities, and only if those in his band or tribal group supported him. Good judgment, even temper, and concern for the general welfare of the group, all were important qualifications for the position, and so was generosity toward the poor and less fortunate members. But if a chief was thus expected to keep the peace within his group through wisdom and patience, he could never reach that position unless he was also able to recite a successful war record. It was only by his proven skill as a warrior that he was regarded as qualified to settle disputes and decide on matters of war and peace. The young and ambitious men of a group, at any rate, would never have accepted the advice or decisions of a chief who had had no experience in actual battle.
A chief, moreover, had to prove himself continuously, and any man who did not live up to the obligations of his rank was quickly replaced by that same public opinion that had elected him to begin with. War leaders thus seldom reached the rank of chief; they were usually the younger men in a group, quick-tempered and impulsive, lacking the experience and personal traits expected of a chief. Only in the later years of warfare against the white man did some of the war leaders gain such rank; the nearly continuous state of war elevated them to a position of importance and authority that would have been impossible in earlier times.
Though most Plains families included one or more members of the older generation, and though the elderly were usually well respected, if they outlived their families or became too old or too ill to keep up with the wandering groups, old people sometimes became a serious burden. The Sioux, as so many nomadic people, were known to abandon such members in the wilderness. Death in old age among the Plains tribes was accepted as a natural part of the life cycle, and none of the northern superstitions were applied in this case. A deceased person, moreover, faded quickly from the memory of the group; few Comanche or Sioux were able to recall their ancestors or any family history for more than two or three generations.
The supernatural world of the Plains was populated by a great variety of spirits and deities, some evil, some benevolent. Maka, the Earth, was a female deity, the mother of all life. The Sun and the Sky, the Wind, the moon, thunder, tornadoes, all were considered wakan, or sacred. And it was the shamans, the medicine men, who alone possessed the knowledge and spiritual power necessary to interpret the strange and often violent behavior of these deities. They also cured illness in long and complicated ceremonies, singing and dancing with rawhide rattles, and imploring the supernatural powers to free the sick from the influence of the evil spirits. At the same time, the shamans were called upon to predict future events, such as the outcome of a raid or the location of a bison herd.
It was only natural that the buffalo held a special place in the Plains Indians’ magic and religion. Buffalo were a puzzling phenomenon to all the people. Sometimes the rolling grassland around their campsite was all but overrun with the animals; at other times not a single bison could be found. The Indians believed that there was something supernatural in back of all this. They thought vaguely of a great invisible buffalo who ruled over all the animals and who either took pity on the people or retaliated for some offense. Rituals were performed regularly, and prayers implored the spirit to allow the buffalo to be plentiful; when the animals were scarce, the praying and singing and the rituals were intensified. The Indians often apologized to the Great Unseen Buffalo for killing the animals and were careful not to be wasteful, for an angry spirit could quickly bring starvation over the people.
But the most important duty in any Plains shaman’s life was the direction of an annual tribal affair known as the Sun Dance. In this role, the shaman became high priest of his tribe, one of the few people familiar with the complex ritual of this most impressive of all Plains Indians’ ceremonies. Nearly all the Plains tribes held the Sun Dance in one form or another, but its most elaborate and complex versions were found among the Arapaho, the Cheyenne, and among the Oglala Sioux.
The Oglala, like most of the Plains Indians, seldom functioned as a cohesive unit; for most of the year they roamed across their vast territory in small groups and bands, following the bison herds wherever they went. It was only for a few weeks during the summer that they came together for the annual tribal buffalo hunt, and it was during that time that the Sun Dance took place.
All during the previous year, young Sioux males had made vows to participate in the Sun Dance; perhaps it was a pledge made to the spirits in return for a cure, or it was made during a vision quest. At any rate, such vows were not made lightly, for participation in the Sun Dance required considerable courage and physical stamina, and it was at the same time a major religious and tribal event. In return, however, the successful candidate received extraordinary prestige for the rest of his life.
Preparations for the ceremony began days in advance. Each candidate came with a shaman who acted as his instructor in the complex ritual, and as tribal bands from all over the territory arrived ceremoniously and began to form a huge camp circle, the candidates meditated in a sacred and secluded hut. A specially selected tree was meanwhile felled and prepared as the Sun Dance Pole, which was erected in the center of the camp circle. These were days filled with ceremonial dances and mock battles against evil spirits, and there were continuous rounds of feasts. The day before the big event, however, the entire camp fell into contemplation of the sacred rites to come. At sundown everyone entered their tents, and the camp remained quiet until the following morning.
Early the next day, the candidates rose to greet the rising sun and were formally installed as dancers, and each received his final instructions, depending on which of the three dances he had pledged. The Sun Dance symbolized capture, torture, imprisonment, and escape, and the three versions differed mainly in the degree of pain and the courage required of the participants. In one version, the dancer had slits cut into the flesh of his back or chest, through which wooden skewers were passed and which, in turn, were attached with thongs to bison skulls which the dancer dragged behind him during the ceremony. In another form, the skewers were inserted through the skin of the breast and the dancer was attached with thongs to the Sun Dance Pole. The third version was similar, except that the dancer was actually lifted off the ground.
The Sun Dance itself consisted of twenty-four songs, any of which could be repeated a number of times. During the dance, each participant kept his eyes fixed on the sacred pole and blew continuous short notes on an eagle-bone whistle. The ritual lasted many hours, often continuing into the night. At its climax, the dancers jerked and pulled against the skewers in an attempt to break free. Those who succeeded in tearing the skewers from their flesh had escaped, and they had thereby completed the Sun Dance in the most honorable manner. Some of the young men, however, fainted long before that time, and in that case specially selected female attendants removed the skewers. Successful candidates enjoyed great prestige from that time on, for their scars marked them for life; each could also expect a personal vision from the sun during the coming year.
No other event united the Plains Indians as did the summer hunt and the Sun Dance. Family ties were renewed, marriages arranged, and property was traded. All the past year’s deeds and accomplishments were retold, and the warriors endlessly recounted coup. Above all, this was the time of the year when the entire tribe assembled for a deeply religious experience, when the spirits’ aid was called upon to assure another prosperous year for the people of the Great Plains.