Bravery was an important part of Native American culture. It meant a lot to show bravery to your tribe. Every Native American wanted to prove himself to his tribe. Two of the greatest acts of bravery are when someone would either touch an enemy with their bare hands, or they would just touch them with a special stick that was long and it was called a coup stick. It was more important to do this as an act of bravery than to actually kill someone.
There was a scoring point system that recorded points for hitting an enemy with the coup stick. A warrior would get a few points for killing someone with his bow and arrow, but get the maximum amount of points for getting close and hitting someone with the coup stick. All the coup sticks would be carefully counted and the warriors would show them off for all to see with feathers or war bonnets on them.
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