"The scale of honour with the several tribes may vary, but the essential features are the same. Among the Dakota tribes an eagle's feather with a red spot denotes that the wearer has killed an enemy, a notch cut in it and edges of the feather painted red indicates that the throat of an enemy has been cut. Small consecutive notches on the front side of the feather, without paint, denote that the wearer is the third person that has touched the dead body; both edges notched, that he is the fourth person who has touched it; and the feather partly denuded that he is the fifth person that has touched the slain. "On the blanket or buffalo robe worn by the Dakota Indian a red or black hand is often seen painted. The red hand indicates that the wearer has been wounded by his enemy, the black hand that he has slain his enemy. "The warlike tribe of the Chippeways, on the sources of the Mississippi, who, from a national act in their history, bear the distinctive name of Pillagers, award a successful warrior who shoots down and scalps his enemy three feathers; and for the still more dangerous act of taking a wounded prisoner on the field, five--for they conceive that a wounded enemy is desperate, and will generally reserve his fire for a last act of vengeance, if he die the moment after. Those of the war-party who come up immediately and strike the {69} enemy, so as to get marks of blood on their weapons, receive two feathers; for it is customary for as many as can to perform this act.... Those who have been of the war-party, and merely _see_ the fight, although they may have no blood-marks of which to boast as honours, and may even have lacked promptness in following the leader closely, are yet allowed to mount one feather. These honours are publicly awarded; no one dares to assume them without authority, and there are instances where the feathers falsely assumed have been pulled violently from their heads in a public assemblage of the Indians. They never, however, blame each other for personal acts denoting cowardice or any species of timidity while on the war-path, hoping by this elevated course to encourage the young men to do better on another occasion. "All war-parties consist of volunteers. The leader, or war-captain, who attempts to raise one must have some reputation to start on. His appeals, at the assemblages for dancing the preliminary war-dance, are to the principles of bravery and nationality. They are brief and to the point. He is careful to be thought to act under the guidance of the Great Spirit, of whose secret will he affects to be apprised in dreams, or by some rites.