The
Dakotahs, with their high pointed buffalo skin tents, above the town,
and their decorations and implements of flags, feathers, skins and
personal "braveries," presented the scene of a Bedouin encampment. Some
of the chiefs had the skins of skunks tied to their heels, to symbolize
that they never ran, as that animal is noted for its slow and
self-possessed movements.
Wanita, the Yankton chief, had a most magnificent robe of the buffalo,
curiously worked with dyed porcupine's quills and sweet grass. A kind of
war flag, made of eagles' and vultures' large feathers, presented quite
a martial air. War clubs and lances presented almost every imaginable
device of paint; but by far the most elaborate thing was their pipes of
red stone, curiously carved, and having flat wooden handles of some four
feet in length, ornamented with the scalps of the red-headed woodpecker
and male duck, and tail feathers of birds artificially attached by
strings and quill work, so as to hang in the figure of a quadrant.
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