Counting Coup

The Crow had four ways of counting coup: stealing horses, knocking the enemy down, touching the enemy, and leading a war party.

The first way is stealing a horse from a different tribe. In the Native American Testimony, it describes how Joseph Medicine Crow counted all four coup in WWII. He went up to the German’s horse stable and walked up to a horse saying “Whoa, whoa, now, whoa now.” Joseph wrapped a rope around its snout and attempted to get on with his mud caked boots. He had some troubles at first but finally got on and rode to the gate that his partner will open at his whistle. Thats how Joseph got his first coup.#

Then, Joseph got a coup by knocking an armed German down. Another one of the four ways to get coup is to knock down and armed enemy while unarmed. They were both going the same direction and Joseph jumped up and knocked him down. There was another story Mr. Johnson told us about when Plenty Coup got on his horse, rode over to three armed Flathead indians, through his gun to the side, and jumped off his horse on to two of the armed Indians collecting coup. Then killed them with his bare hands.

The Third way is to touch an enemy. When he knocked him down he put his hands around the german’s throat but let go before he killed him counting one more unthought about coup. Plenty Coup also did this but in a different way. He dove to a man hiding behind tall grass trying to not be seen or hurt by the armed man or his feather would have to be painted red meaning he got injured in the attempt to gather coup. He reached around and grabbed the man’s coup-stick and struck the man with his own coup-stick then kept it, proof that he counted coup with someone elses coup-stick on pg. 222.# The final way to get the fourth coup is to lead a war party. In the Native American Testimony, Joseph led a war party earning his fourth and last coup required to be a chief. He took six men and led them up the hill covered in mines. they through a bunch of smoke grenades until the whole side of the hill was covered with white smoke. They didn’t know where the mines were so they just ran blindly up the hill while the Germans shot mortars at the hillside some coming awfully close.

There were four ways of counting coup that were required in order to become a chief that Joseph and Plenty Coup got and became chiefs.
by wyatt