ny and faraway lands to hold once again and for the last time a council
of the old days. On this day the council was for peace, and the dominant,
resonant note ringing through every sentiment uttered; if we did not know
they were Indians and did not know that this was an Indian council, we
would have said this was a Peace Conference at The Hague.

To stand in the presence of these mighty men of the plains, to witness
their nobility, to listen to their eloquence, to think with them the
mighty thoughts of their dead past, to watch their solemn faces, to
tremble before the dignity of their masterful bearing, to cherish the
thought of all that they have been and all that they might have been, to
realize that as their footfalls leave this council lodge they have turned
their backs on each other forever, and that as they mount their horses and
ride away to their distant lodges they are riding into the sunset and are
finally lost in the purple mists of evening, is to make the coldest page
of history burn with an altar fire that shall never go out.

[The Council Pipe]

The Council Pipe

INDIAN IMPRESSIONS OF THE LAST GREAT COUNCIL

To the student of Indian affairs it might at first seem that the gathering
of the great chiefs from all the Indian tribes, wearing war-shirt and
war-bonnet, carrying their coup sticks, tomahawks, spears, bows and
arrows, guns and tom-toms, would necessarily reemphasize to the Indian the
glory of his former prestige, and this impression would gather such
momentum that deleterious results would follow; but an alert and studious
effort was always manifest to inculcate in the Indian mind that this last
great council of the chiefs had for its dominant idea the welfare of the
Indian, that he should live at peace with his fellows and all men, and the
making of a lasting historic record of the fast-fading manners and customs
of the North American Indian. This paramount idea gained such fast hold
of the Indian mind that the council became not only a place of historic
record but a school for the inculcation of the highest ideals of peace.
That the lesson was well taught and well learned becomes strikingly
evident in the peace sentiments of the chiefs expressed in their speeches
at the council, and their impressions of the council now to follow:

[Chief Plenty Coups Addressing the Council]

Chief Plenty Co