Bull Chief and protection leading to his long life and many honors. Three of his first coups were against the Sioux, one of the enemies of the Apsaroke tribe, and two of his first coups were on Indians killed by white men, but these coups according to Bull Chief were, "Not good." Bull Chief recounted memories of how he captured guns three times from enemies who were, "Alive and shooting at him." He remembered taking two revolvers and a bow from a Sioux Indian and also capturing two tethered horses. Bull Chief never led any war-parties out of camp, but on four
Sitting Bull Later historians and ethnologists have refuted this concept of authority, as the Lakota society was highly decentralized. Lakota bands and their elders made individual decisions, including whether to wage war. Sitting Bull's band of Hunkpapa continued to attack migrating parties and forts in the late 1860s. When in 1871 the Northern Pacific Railway conducted a survey for a route across the northern plains directly through Hunkpapa lands, it encountered stiff Lakota resistance. The same railway people returned the following year accompanied by federal troops. Sitting Bull and the Hunkpapa attacked the survey party, which was forced to turn back. In