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of carts from beyond the folds of long land. Several Assiniboine whooped Whisky! so loud that their horses leaped, but next morning the Cree left them to retreat north. As bad as whisky men were with their wooden barrels and stinking liquor pails and dippers, they always held a short gun in one hand while pouring, guns that fired six bullets as fast as they could pull the trigger.
    For seasons on end Maskepetoon and his two sons rode to the Blood and Peigan, who were often more open to talk than the Siksika, trying to renegotiate peace treaties with the Blackfoot. He argued, We all want to live, and we all needbuffalo. Honour the Creator with prayers, with the pipe and songs, and honour the promises between us in the hard life we all live. He carried a Bible with him now; he read it aloud in Cree and then translated the words into Blackfoot. He told them: This holy book tells of a Prince of Peace who would save all Peoples from evil. Listen to the Prince of Peace!
    But there were always enough Young Men mourning their brothers, both Blackfoot and Cree, who could not endure such words. They would leave Maskepetoon and the Elders to their talk and ride away, ashamed that they had not protected their dead or wounded comrades and dreaming not of peace but of bloody revenge.
    Into these years of the Buffalo Wars came pestilence. Scarlet fever attacked the Blackfoot, and during the winter of 1864–65 more than a thousand died. That same fall the supply brigade from Hudson Bay brought measles to Edmonton, and both Métis and Cree died, including many of Maskepetoon’s and Sweetgrass’s People. That did not stop the inter-tribal violence. Big Bear was trading in Pitt when Blackfoot laid siege to the tiny post on the flats beside the North Saskatchewan; they had a few rifles, bows, and knives, but they galloped around the palisade screaming war cries and taunting the Cree to come out and fight. Simpson hadleft the Company to breed horses near Red River, and the new factor offered Big Bear and his men Company horses to ride out and drive them off. But Big Bear refused. Let them scream, he said, they’ll soon get tired. And finally the Blackfoot did leave, with nothing.
    In the winter of 1864–65, Black Powder’s crier walked through the camp in The Little Hills shouting a sad message. The chief was dead. His body lay in his lodge but his soul was gone, his neck cold as ice.
    In deep mourning, the band began their death ceremonies, so that Black Powder’s soul would not need to wander long to reach the land of the dead. In life or death the band was one; communal song and sorrow and happiness and prayer held their world together. They dressed the body in ceremonial clothes, they recounted Black Powder’s war record and his long, wise leadership, they gathered around his body to weep. The family unbound their hair; several gashed their arms and legs until their bare bodies wept blood. Then four aged warriors lifted the corpse on a buffalo hide and, followed by the wailing band, carried it to the platform prepared between the forks of aspen. Big Bear sang the death song over the cries of mourning while the men wrapped the body in rawhide and bound it tight. Then they walked away between the pale trees, still weeping.
    After four days they gathered to the crier’s call for prayers, the pipe ceremony, the ritual opening of the chief’s bundle, and a final honour feast of buffalo meat and dried saskatoon soup.
    The Plains Cree band of some hundred People now needed a chief. Black Powder’s oldest son, Big Bear, was forty years old. All his life he had observed how a chief unites a band, even though anyone is free to leave at any time and join another band. A chief led by communal agreement, not by orders; People respected him for being wise and generous with gifts and hospitality, they followed him because he fought and hunted and cared for every person in his band. Above all else, a chief was a man who served others.
    The band