Months of arduous labour were spent in the effort to make a comprehensive
and permanent record of an old-time Indian council. For this purpose
eminent Indian chiefs were assembled in the Valley of the Little Big Horn
in Montana, from nearly every Indian tribe in the United States. This
council involved permission and unstinted aid from the Bureau of Indian
Affairs at Washington, the cooperation of the Indian superintendents on
all the reservations; the selection of the most distinguished
chiefs—chiefs eminent for ability and honourable achievement among their
tribes. The council involved the necessity of interpreters from each
tribe, for they could only talk in the sign language. It involved the
construction of a primitive council lodge along the lines of history and
tradition, and again, the reproduction of primitive customs and
traditions, both in paraphernalia, costume, and conduct.
These imprints are the trail marks left by this Great Council of
Chiefs—the last Great Indian Council that will ever be held on American
soil. The story most faithfully records the idiom and phrasing and
atmosphere of the Indian’s speech as it came from Indian lips. The
language of the landscape where the Indian made his home, where he fought
his battles and lived his life, where this solemn council was held, is
manifest in the accompanying photogravures. On the Indian trail, we may
note as a hint of the many, a few of his imprints.
[Singing to the Spirits]