wigwam is only limited by the institution of
war. Yet, if an enemy should honor us with a call, his trust will not
be misplaced, and he will go away convinced that he has met with a royal
host! Our honor is the guarantee for his safety, so long as he is within
the camp.

Friendship is held to be the severest test of character. It is easy, we
think, to be loyal to family and clan, whose blood is in our own veins.
Love between man and woman is founded on the mating instinct and is not
free from desire and self-seeking. But to have a friend, and to be true
under any and all trials, is the mark of a man!

The highest type of friendship is the relation of "brother-friend" or
"life-and-death friend." This bond is between man and man, is usually
formed in early youth, and can only be broken by death. It is the
essence of comradeship and fraternal love, without thought of pleasure
or gain, but rather for moral support and inspiration. Each is vowed to
die for the other, if need be, and nothing is denied the brother-friend,
but neither is anything required that is not in accord with the highest
conceptions of the Indian mind.

III. CEREMONIAL AND SYMBOLIC WORSHIP

Modern Perversions of Early Religious Rites. The Sun Dance.
The Great Medicine Lodge. Totems and Charms. The Vapor-Bath
and the Ceremonial of the Pipe.

The public religious rites of the Plains Indians are few, and in large
part of modern origin, belonging properly to the so-called "transition
period." That period must be held to begin with the first insidious
effect upon their manners and customs of contact with the dominant race,
and many of the tribes were so influenced long before they ceased to
lead the nomadic life.

The fur-traders, the "Black Robe" priests, the military, and finally the
Protestant missionaries, were the men who began the disintegration of
the Indian nations and the overthrow of their religion, seventy-five to
a hundred years before they were forced to enter upon reservation life.
We have no authentic study of them until well along in the transition
period, when whiskey and trade had already debauched their native
ideals.

During the era of reconstruction they modified their customs and beliefs
continually, creating a singular admixture of Christian with pagan
superstitions, and an addition to the old folk-lore of disguised Bible
stories under an Indian aspect. Even their music shows the influence of
the Catholic chants.