to the dead chief (whether this be proximate or remote is immaterial)
her appointment is approved and confirmed.

The chiefs are looked upon as the heads or fathers of the tribe,
and they rely, to a large extent, for their influence over the tribe,
upon their wisdom, and eminence generally in qualities that excite or
compel admiration or regard. In an earlier period of the history of the
Indian communities, when their forests were astir with the demon of war,
eligibility for the chiefship contemplated in the chief the conjoining
of bravery with wisdom, and these were the keynote to his power over his
people. He, by manifesting on occasion, these, desirable traits, had his
followers' confidence confirmed in his selection; upheld those followers'
and his own traditions; and often assured his tribe's pre-eminence. The
chief, in addition, by bringing these qualities to bear in any contact or
treaty with a hostile tribe, compelled in a sense the recognition by his
enemies of the prestige and power of his entire following. Hospitality
was also considered a desirable trait in the chief, who, while habitually
dispensing it himself, strove (having his endeavors distinctly seconded
by the advocacy of the duty enforced in the kindly precepts of the old
sages of the tribe) to dispose the minds of his followers to entertain
a perception of the happy results which would flow to themselves by
their being inured to its practice, the expanding of the heart, and the
offering of a vent to the unselfish side of their nature.

If the chief do not, in the main, conserve the qualities that are deemed
befitting in the holder of the chiefship; or if he originate any measure
which finds popular disfavour, his power with the people declines.

A number of the chiefs have supplementary functions, conferred upon
them by their brother dignitaries. There is, for example, one called