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War bonnets, along with a warriors other good clothes and favourite
possessions went to the grave with him. His best horse was usually
killed at the graveside. The reason for this was that he would need all
these things in the next life. Basically if you didn't take it with you,
you did without it in the next life. Hence a man who had been
scalped in this life would have no hair in the next. Although a lot of
the symbols on clothing and weapons gave the wearer protection the basic
idea of wearing your best clothes to go to war was in case you died.
This way you had something to wear in the next life.
Although
each band had a war chief or chiefs these were only really used when the
whole band or tribe was at war. At other times any warrior who chose
could lead a war party to steal horses, get revenge on an enemy or
obtain glory and standing through an attack on another tribe. Naturally
this man could only lead if others chose to follow him and he would have
been a warrior proven in battle, preferably able to show he had good
medicine which would protect himself and those who followed him.
A man
who had never led a war party before would be expected to ask the help of
an experienced warrior in preparing for his first raid. The preparation
would take several days, sometimes weeks. Solemn prayers would be
offered, the participants personal medicine invoked or strengthened, the
omens read and supplies prepared for the journey. If a member of the
party considered he had received a bad omen before leaving, or if he
dreamt he would die in the ensuing battle, he could withdraw with no
loss of face. If a warrior was to develop a toothache for instance
before the battle this was considered a bad omen and the warrior would
be sent home.
To
really receive the glory a warrior craved his enemy must be considered
worthy of the victory. When the white man first appeared on the plains
he was not considered a worthy enemy as he was so strange and it was
considered to be beneath a Sioux warrior to kill a white. This changed
out of necessity later on as the white man hounded the plains Indians
from their lands and the Sioux had to fight to survive. The
Sioux, like all plains tribes were fairly undisciplined in battle due to
the over-riding rule of each man's independence. Each man wanted to be
first to count coup or kill an enemy so it was usually a race into
battle. Many a trap would be sprung early by a young man wishing to get
battle honours, who would thereby ruin the trap.
Only with the emergence
of leaders such as Crazy Horse who realised the necessity of discipline
and planning did the Indians start to prove themselves an efficient
fighting force. The Indians found it very hard to understand the white
man's ways of fighting although they did see the advantage in having
good guns, especially once they realised how they had to change their
fighting methods to stay on par with the white man. Indians preferred
the stealth attack or ambush to an all out charge but if there was no
choice they would exhibit great bravery in their attempts to flush out
an enemy or count coup on him. Unlike in the movies the Indian in
general realised the stupidity in attacking a well defended fort or
circling around a wagon train just to get shot at like a duck at a
fairground rifle range.
The
rift between the white man and the Indian grew wider every time they met
simply because neither could understand the other. To the white man the
Indian was a savage, a thief and a beggar who had no morals and would
kill anything or anybody and probably eat it afterwards. Because the
white man was used to having people in authority acting for them and
telling them what to do they could not really understand the Indian's
over riding sense of independence or
the
roles of the chiefs, who were there to advise or see the wishes of the
councils were acted upon. When an Indian signed a treaty it was just for
himself. He did not have the right to sign for someone else and neither
did he want that right. After Red Cloud's War the white man insisted Red
Cloud signed the treaty that followed. This confused the Sioux as Red
Cloud was not a chief They actually had to make him a chief so that he
could sign the treaty.
Eventually
the whites insisted that the Sioux declared one man overall chief of
the Sioux nation, a concept that the Indian could not get to grips with
at all.
The
Indian saw the white man as a lower form of life, big only in numbers.
There is an old Sioux saying; "you do not go to the top of a
mountain for water or to a white man for the truth" which summed up
the dealings they had with the white man very well. Every treaty the
Sioux made with the whites was broken and NEVER by the Sioux. The
American government would always change it's mind about what it wanted
and if a new treaty could not be agreed it would force the Indians to
give up land or rights.
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