"Since such a thing had never happened before" ... Never more than 4000 Cheyennes at most. 1883 Bull Hump declined his father's nomination of himself on grounds that chiefs were no longer needed.

Date things to Custer's command at the Indian village on the Little Big Horn, June 25, 1876.

(Sticks Everything Under His Belt) ... Smoke, talk to him, help him in any way ... went to his heart ... "I feel sorry for ..." ... several years ... "I am going to give a Sun Dance to bring him back in. ... He has suffered long enough." ... "If he remembers these things, he may come back." ...

Cries Yia Eagle (away for a murder) ... came back one day, leading a horse packed with bundles of old-time tobacco. ... "I am begging to come home." ... told the soldier chiefs ... convince his family that it is all right ... "The stink has blown from him." ... He had always been mean, disliked by everyone, but a fierce fighter against the enemies. After he came back to the camp, however, he was always good to the people.

Or else it may mean that the 5 cases are violently non-typical of the run of events. Which?

THE COUNCIL OF 44

Bull Looks Back said, "Those monstrous children of mine killed their own mother out there and have eaten her flesh. That is why I left them. Tell the people that even though they are my own offspring, I say they should be staked to the ground and abandoned." ... She said, "It will do me no good. They have been telling lies about us. This person has not come here to speak the truth." ... When her father finished eating, the lion and the bear killed him for her. ... She filled her pipe and held it to each stick, showing the people what would be expected of them. "You will have to ... take an oath that you will be honest and care for all the tribe." ... Pick 2 men to sit on each side of the entrance ... "Every ten years you must renew the chiefs. But each time keep 5 of the old ones." ...

The summer organization ... the only season during which the whole, or most of the tribe, could risk living together.

One member of the Council of Chiefs was always an alien Indian (possibly derived from the inclusion of Those Who Eat With The Sioux among the Cheyenne bands), thus serving as a constitutional measure.

The poor profited handsomely from four days of gift-giving and celebration.

"Payments" by the newly installed chieftains to their predecessors. After, the inaugural ball, the Chief Dance. All the chiefs had to be there, old and new alike. To start it a holy song was sung; then a single brave was called forth to dance--a man of proven bravery. When he had finished his steps, he recited all his coups, ending his recital with a proclamation to the chiefs, "As I have done it, so must you protect the people." The whole tribe rose in a shrill chorus of praise, whereupon they all danced together. After four dances the pipe was filled for all the chiefs to smoke, the old and the new."

The chiefs were in effect public opinion itself. The chiefs must not be angry. "Four times wronged by the same person said to have been justifiable to act." A chief who was sore beset was wont to seize his pipe to smoke and renew his pledge not to speak harsh words. A head chief who weakened would be despised by the people. Whatever was asked for or hinted after he was expected to bestow as a gift. (It is possible that after White Civilization had taught the lesson of greed, some Cheyennes hang back from the possibility of chieftainship, because they feel the chief's obligations are too great an imposition upon their possessions.) Should a chief of the 44 fall short of the standards, he was still unimpeacable. Tenure of office was not to be abridged.

Pollution of the medicine by Little Wolf's killing of Starving Elk.

"We're in pretty bad shape out there. Pray have pity on us, you warriors." ... They all called meetings of their troops. Meeting separately to decide what they thought about it. Still, none of them could come to a decision. They told her to bide in the camp until the morrow. Then they would take it up once more. The next day they had a big meeting of the tribal chiefs. "It is enough. They have been away 2 years now. He is one of our chiefs. Let us permit him to return." All agreed that he had said the right thing. Awful pounding at the time of the murder. He had his position in the chiefs' lodge; ha had a right to talk, and he did so. (Name of chief not remembered)

Though exiled ... the killer's character as holder of chief's office---though in banishment--is alleged to have been maintained. ... The law defined the situation, it was appealed to, and it was heeded and obeyed. The mechanisms of control were effected. A real contrition. Fits one line of Cheyenne rehabilitation of likely men. You may impose a new frame of behaviour on him, by making him a chief. Smoke the chiefs' pipe ... present at the Medicine Arrows ceremonies.

"Well, I am going up on that hill by the bend of the creek. If anyone wants me, I'll be there." This was the invitation for judgement or revenge. Because Little Wolf had been drunk, and because they admitted he had cause for the grudge. Northern Cheyennes began to drift into the reservation and settle about him, for his influence was still great. He was still a chief and treated as such by his people, but he on his side continued his withdrawal. 

Murderer's stigma ... could not touch his lip to the pipe with other men ... did not eat from other men's bowls. A chief could not be deposed, yet was a man apart. His deed was a tribal calamity. (ADD TO make war easy). "I didn't want to say it, but he wears that medicine over his shoulder slung under his left arm. I think it has begun to smell." Sun Road succeeded later and took the chiefship without accepting the Sweet Medicine bag. (A radical innovation, almost like taking judges office while denying responsibility to precedent. ... The murder odor seems never to have faded out. Reduced to bearability.

The procurement of general acceptance of a decision.

"Let us know what you think of it. Tell us what you think is best to be done."

Face-producing, as well as face-saving, procedure.

The chiefs' and the soldiers' messengers moving back and forth between the meeting lodges, sensing, reporting, and subtly influencing the state of both 'expert' and 'lay' opinion until the decision was accomplished. ... That drama is a vital line  of reconciliation hit on by the Cheyennes, between the urge toward form (pattern, ritual) and their urge toward individualizing self-glorification.

They packed their tipis in the night and stole off into the dark without hindrance from anyone. The challenge to tribal authority which they had exhibited in their daylight defection was dissipated by their capitulation before the eyes of the majority. Their sneaking off in the night permitted them to attain their goal, true, but at the same time the face, if not the ultimate power, of the legal agencies was saved. Since such a method of flaunting authority was veiled and hardly valiant, it was not likely to set a precedent which many Cheyenne would wish to emulate.

Criers were usually retired chiefs. Except on the buffalo hunt or in battle all soldiers orders in the camp at large had to go through a crier. Aided in keeping the military power subordinate to the civil government. An aura of sacredness about his position. A man who had murdered could never qualify because 'his breath stank.' Accession to and departure from chieftainship were ceremonially marked with sacred ritual.

You can see that the directly legal activities of the Council, which centered on cases of intratribal homicide, dealt with aspects of law in which religious sanction was even more to the fore than secular. ... However the machinery was at hand for going too far to coopt into the Council a sufficient number of such leaders to maintain a running balance of prestige against brute power.

THE MILITARY SOCIETIES

There was no band or guild of these; they were merely brave individuals bound by certain beliefs.

Thus the Dog Society became a band--a band which was governed not by the usual band chiefs, but by the military chiefs of the society (p100). This extraordinary feature endowed the Dog Society with a unique cohesiveness and gave rise to a situation pregnant with great--but largely unrealized--possibilities of governmental formation. ... summer ...

The fact that some arrogant soldier chiefs "were just as mean to the enemy as they were to the people" is what caused them to be suffered. Willful leaders among them were not reluctant to use physical force. ... Yet an authoritative officialdom was needed and sought by the Cheyennes to hold in check the impetuous individualism which Cheyenne military practice nourished and which the Cheyenne sense of order feared.

economic transactions (as, the Anglo-American 'special agency'). Cheyennes out of social life rather than economic.

They are found to be at once the machinery which tightens, and the machinery which disturbs, orderly government.

p115