only some two hundred people. They never
have been a big people. Their number today, about eight hundred and
fifty, is as large as ever in their history.

[Illustration: Standing Bear. Courtesy of The American Bureau of
Ethnology.]

They and the Omahas warred with the Sioux, but they never warred with
the white men. They have always been friendly to the white men, except
once; and that once brings up the story of Standing Bear.

Back in 1817 the Poncas made a treaty of friendship with the United
States; and in 1825 they made another treaty, allowing white traders to
live among them, and agreeing to let their own bad men (if any) be
punished by the United States; and in 1859 they made another treaty,
selling their hunting grounds to the United States, and keeping a tract
on the Niobrara River for their own homes.

None of these treaties did they break. They were at peace with even
the Sioux. They had good farms, and were prospering.

But in 1868 the United States laid out a new reservation for the Sioux.
By a mistake this took in the Ponca reservation in Nebraska, and the
Poncas were not told. The way they found out, was this: The Sioux
began to come in and claim the land.

"That is not right," said the Poncas. "You do not belong here. All
this country is ours. Go back. We do not want you."

So there was fighting, every little while, and the Poncas lost many
warriors. This continued for nine years, until, by the raids of the
Sioux, one fourth of the Poncas had been killed or captured.

Still they had not been told by the United States that these lands were
theirs no longer; but, suddenly, in 1877, they were told that they must
get out.

At this time they had three villages, on the lower Niobrara River, and
eight bands, each under a chief. The chiefs were Standing Bear, White
Eagle, Big Soldier, Traveling Buffalo, Black Crow, Over-the-land,
Woodpecker, and Big-Hoofed Buffalo.

The United States informed the eight chiefs that they must remove their
people to the Indian Territory, but did not say why.

Standing Bear had been born in 1829, so he was forty-eight years old.
He stood high among the Poncas, because of his clan, the Wa-zha-zhe--a
clan that could cure rattle-snake bites and work other wonders.

He strongly opposed giving up the Ponca home-land, upon which the tribe
had lived for almost one hundred years, and which the United States had
agreed, on paper, to give them in exchange for thei