their labors that their term of service was necessarily short.
The brevity of their term, however, was atoned for by the
greatness of their authority, for in the suppression of
disturbances no resistance was suffered. Their persons were
sacred, and if in the execution of their duty they struck even a
chief of the second class they could not be punished.

The Dakotas, who lived in the region where their name is still
preserved, inhabited that part of the great plain which is
climatically most favorable to great activity. It is perhaps
because of their response to the influence of this factor of
geographical environment that they and their neighbors are the
best known of the plains tribes. Their activity in later times is
evident from the fact that the Tetons were called "the plundering
Arabs of America." If their activities had been more wisely
directed, they might have made a great name for themselves in
Indian history. In the arts they stood as high as could be
expected in view of the wandering life which they led and the
limited materials with which they had to work. In the art of
making pictographs, for instance, they excelled all other tribes,
except perhaps the Kiowas, a plains tribe of Colorado and western
Kansas. On the hides of buffalo, deer, and antelope which formed
their tents, the Dakotas painted calendars, which had a picture
for each year, or rather for each winter, while those of the
Kiowas had a summer symbol and a winter symbol. Probably these
calendars reveal the influence of the whites, but they at least
show that these people of the plains were quickwitted.

Farther south the tribes of the plains stood on a much lower
level than the Dakotas. The Spanish explorer, Cabeza de Vaca,