Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri: Edited with Notes and Biographical SketchDenig, Edwin Thompson
History
Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri: Edited with Notes and Biographical Sketch
Denig, Edwin Thompson
Assiniboine Indians; Indians of North America -- Missouri River Valley
In conclusion he turns it slowly three times round, and lays it down,
all responding hoo-o-oo as the pipe is placed on the ground. The chief
now sits down in his place, and the Chief of the soldiers rises. He
lights the pipe with a piece of the sweet-smelling grass—if the
strangers are of the Crow nation a piece of dried buffalo dung is used
to light it—stands up and presents it precisely to the same points as
the chief had done without singing, giving three puffs or whiffs of
the pipe to every presentation, finishing in the same way the chief
had done, and, receiving a loud prolonged universal hoo-o-oo or grunt
of approbation, he then resumes his seat. The chief now rises the
second time and having had the pipe relighted, holding the stem in
his hand advances and presents it, or rather places it in the mouth
of the head man of the strange deputation, allowing him to take a few
whiffs, passes to the next and the next, they sitting and he moving
round from one to another until all the strangers have been smoked,
then he hands the pipe to the chief of the soldiers and sits down. This
officer now presents the pipe in the same way to his own chief and
going round the other side smokes all his people, and hands the pipe to
another soldier, who goes the whole round again, and this is repeated
over in silence for at least two hours, when the pipe is laid down
by the chief, and speeches or signs begin by which they arrange the
preliminaries of a peace. After all is settled the pipe undergoes the
ceremony of rolling up, which is fully as long, though not in silence,
conversation becoming general and ordinary pipes being introduced. The
termination on this occasion is a grand feast in the soldiers’ lodge to
the strangers, and invitations to 50 or more other feasts in camp, to
all of which they must go, and when all is finished the strangers are
accommodated with temporary wives during their short residence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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