chief was placed according to the rank that he held in the tribe. Each one took a few puffs. When the ceremony of the calumet was finished, the head chief addressed me, saying, ` Speak, Black-robe, my ears are open to hear your words.' All this was done with the greatest gravity and amid a profound silence."
Father De Smet then arose and lifted his hands to heaven and offered a prayer to the Great Spirit, imploring his blessing upon this solemn occasion. Then for an hour he talked to them of his mission; the purely disinterested motives that had brought him there; the wish of the Great Father for peace; the atrocious crimes that had been committed on both sides; the readiness of the Great Father to aid them, and the uselessness of contending against his strength, so many times greater than their own. These points were all discussed at considerable length. Four chiefs spoke, but Father De Smet gives us only the speech of Black Moon, which, he says, was essentially the same as the others. With all the solemnity and stately form of Indian ceremony, ‘he rose, calumet in hand, and addressing his people, said: `Lend an ear to my words.' Then he raised the calumet solemnly to heaven and lowered it to earth; thus invoking, by the Indian interpretation, heaven and earth as his witnesses. At his request I touched the calumet with my lips, putting my right hand on the stem. Then he said in a loud voice: ` The Blackrobe has made a long journey to come to us; his presence among us makes me very glad, and with all my heart I wish him welcome to my country. I can understand all the words that the Black-robe has just said to us; they are good and filled with truth. I shall lay them up in my memory. Still, our hearts are sore; they have received deep wounds. These wounds have yet to be healed. A cruel war has desolated and impoverished our country; the desolating torch of war was not kindled by us; it was the Sioux east of us and the Cheyennes south of us who raised the war first, to revenge themselves for the white man's