About two years after this fort was completed, Tokulki went upon his first war expedition. The “uncle” of his group was to be one of the party, and took this occasion to initiate his nephew into the cardinal tribal institution, man-killing, the one great avenue for the attainment of personal glory and social standing. The leader of the party was to be none other than the tastanagi lako, the head warrior of the town, and therefore when he sent out to drum up volunteers there was a great outpouring of the ambitious youth of the nation. For four days they remained shut up in the tshokofa, fasting, taking war medicine, dancing, and singing war songs to lash themselves up to the proper degree of martial fury. Each was provided with a war club, a bow, and a quiver of arrows, a shield of cane or bison-hide, and a sack containing fire sticks, paints, and a slender ration of parched corn meal. The ceremonies completed, they set out quietly in single file very early in the morning. With them they carried a sacred box made of splints which was usually borne on the back of the chief’s assistant, and at every camp was placed upon a log, or hung upon a tree or post. Among other things it contained some of the painted bones of an enormous panther which the ancestors of this people had slain on their way from the far western country, and a part of one of the horns of an aquatic horned serpent. On occasion it was believed that this box gave forth oracular utterances, informing the party in what direction to proceed, or warning them of an attack.