I looked through the pages of “People of the Sacred Mountain” by Father Peter Powell. He listed the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs in 1876 and who of them was at the Little Bighorn in detail.

The traditional 44 Cheyenne Chiefs were chosen in a ceremony after a Sun Dance in 1874. This “Renewing of the Chiefs” took place normally every ten years. For the first time the Northern Cheyenne elected their own Council of Chiefs independent of the Southern branch of the tribe. The following Cheyennes were chosen in 1874:

Old Man Chiefs:
Little Wolf, Northern Suhtai and Sweet Medicine Chief
Morning Star (a/k/a Dull Knife), Head Chief of the Omisis
Old Bear, Omisis
Black Moccasin (a/k/a Limber Lance)

Council of the Forty-Four:
Box Elder, Head Chief of Northern Suhtai
American Horse, Northern Suhtai
Black Wolf, Northern Suhtai
Black Eagle, Head Chief of Northern Scabby
Little Chief, Little Chief’s band of Lakota/Cheyenne
&
Turkey Leg, (Young) Spotted Wolf, Old Wolf, Black Moccasin (a/k/a Iron), Bald Bear, White Dirt (a/k/a Powder), White Head (a/k/a Gray Head), Old Crow, Strong Wolf (a/k/a Big Wolf), Plum Man, Magpie Eagle, Crazy Head, Black Crane, Medicine Bear, Medicine Wolf, Twin, Standing Elk, Spotted Elk, Living Bear, Black Bear, Cut Foot, Broken Dish (a/k/a Calfskin Shirt) and some others.

The great majority of these Chiefs were at the Little Bighorn in 1876.

Only Morning Star/Dull Knife, Turkey Leg, Spotted Elk, Standing Elk, Living Bear, and Black Bear remained at the agency that year. Little Wolf arrived shortly after the battle and was harangued badly by the Lakotas.

In addition to the Chiefs all of the thirty headmen of the Northern Cheyenne warrior societies were probably present at the Little Bighorn, with the exception of Little Wolf, head chief of the Elkhorn Scrapers.

Elkhorn Scraper:
Lame White Man
Wild Hog
Broken Jaw
Crow-Split-Nose
Tall White Man
White Hawk
Left-Handed-Shooter
Goes-After-Other-Buffalo
Plenty Bears
Wolf Medicine

Kit Foxes:
Last Bull
Two Moon
Bear-Who-Walks-On-A-Ridge
Wrapped Hair
Plenty-of-Buffalo-Bull-Meat
Little Horse
Sits-Beside-His-Medicine
Mosquito
Rattlesnake Nose
Weasel Bear

Crazy Dogs:
Old Man Coyote
Strong Left Hand
Little Creek
Snow Bird (a/k/a White Bird)
Crazy Mule
Iron Shirt
Black Knife
Beaver Claws
Red Owl
Crow Necklace

The most important holy men in the Little Bighorn village were Coal Bear (Keeper of the Sacred Hat), Box Elder, and White Bull (Ice).

— Dietmar Schulte-Möhring

By De Lancy Gill, 1913

Charles Milton Bell

By Charles Milton Bell (Two Moons, second from left, American Horse, third from left)

By Richard Trossel, 1907

By Richard Trossel, 1907

Two Moons addressing council, by Joseph K. Dixon

— Dietmar Schulte-Möhring

Early L.A. Huffman Photo

Two Moons by Burbank, 1896

— Grahame Wood

Shown here are some of the Cheyenne chiefs present at the Little Bighorn battle, from left to right:

Sits in the Night; Red Cherries; Brave Wolf; Two Moons; American Horse; Buffalo Hump; Spotted Wolf; Old Wolf.

According to Frink/Barthelmess in “Photographer on an Army Mule” the photo was made at a council with General Nelson A. Miles at Lame Deer in 1889.

Two Moons was the spokesman of the Cheyenne at this council. I guess that Buffalo Hump is Bull Hump, son of Dull Knife. Spotted Wolf (or Young Spotted Wolf) and Old Wolf were both members of the 1873 delegation to Washington.

— Dietmar Schulte-Möhring

This was taken at Little Bighorn in 1909.

— Grahame Wood

Two Moons’ grave in Busby, Montana:

— Diane Merkel

The Indian holding the star-spangled banner on the right of Two Moons (on his left) looks like Laban Little Wolf.

— Dietmar Schulte-Möhring

Two Moons at Little Bighorn

A different view of the 1909 shot:

Taken by Joseph Kossuth Dixon, 1909

— Grahame Wood

Wanamaker photo:

Two Moons and Major McLaughlin dated circa 1900:

— Henri/”apsalooka”

By Dixon

This photo is also in Powell’s “People of the Sacred Mountain”. It was made in 1908 at a great gathering in the valley of the Little Bighorn. Two Moons and other Cheyennes along with representatives of other tribes assembled some thirty years after the battle. Wooden Leg also described the gathering in Marquis’ book about him.

— Dietmar Schulte-Möhring

— Henri/”apsalooka”

By Edgar S. Paxson from 1902

— Agnes

Two Moons (left, facing the camera) and other Cheyennes at the Little Bighorn monument.

Two Moons by Joseph Henry Sharp. Painted at Lame Deer, Montana

— Grahame Wood

Little Wolf at Laramie by Alexander Gardner, 1868

Little Wolf was married to Quiet One and Feather on Head, and he had two sons, Pawnee and Woodenthigh, and a daughter, Pretty Walker.

— inkpaduta1981

Little Wolf and Others at Fort Laramie by Alexander Gardner, 1868

According to P. Powell, the man on the left is Short Hair, a Cheyenne council chief, who was obviously in mourning at the time and kind of feebleminded. I remember reading somewhere that the man in the center could be Dull Knife.

— Dietmar Schulte-Möhring

Little Wolf and Dull Knife in Washington, 1873

Little Wolf and His Wife by George Bird Grinnell, 1898

Little Wolf by Grinnell (from the Roberts Article in Montana Magazine)

— Dietmar Schulte-Möhring

• The first one was a Southerner, a member of the Dog Soldier band, who was also called Young Bull Robe.

• The other Little Hawk was a Northern Cheyenne, who was a Elkhorn Scraper society member. He was fighting in the battles at the Rosebud and Little Bighorn when he was twenty-eight years old. He left his account to Grinnell in 1908 (see Jerome Greene: Lakota and Cheyenne and Peter Powell: People of the Sacred Mountain).

Here is a photo labeled Little Hawk, Northern Cheyenne, 1880s:

Little Hawk

Because there are several Indian individuals named Little Hawk, it is not definite that this is the Cheyenne. Instead this also could be a Brule of that name.

— Dietmar Schulte-Möhring

LittleWolf and Dull Knife, 1873

Dull Knife (or Morning Star, as he was called by the Cheyennes) was not at the Little Bighorn. He was one of the few Northern Cheyenne Council Chiefs that had remained close to the White River Agency to show the whites that he wished to remain at peace. Other Chiefs who stayed at the agency were Turkey Leg, Standing Elk, Spotted Elk, Living Bear, and Black Bear.

The most important Cheyenne Chief Little Wolf only arrived shortly after the battle ended.

Most of the other 44 Council Chiefs of the Northern Cheyenne were at the Little Bighorn at the time of the battle. The two Old Man Chiefs Old Bear and Black Moccasin (a/k/a Limber Lance) were regarded as the principal Chiefs. (See Father Peter Powell: People of the Sacred Mountain.)

In some Indian accounts you can find the name Dull Knife. Often he is confused with Lame White Man. I guess the other reason is that Dull Knife’s son Bull Hump, often called Dull Knife himself, was in the battle.

— Dietmar Schulte-Möhring

Apparently Dull Knife was either unlucky or did not have enough skill as a leader.

It was his village that was attacked in November 1876 by the military that broke the back of the Northern Cheyenne. This after several warriors insisted that the village stay put and celebrate all night over some minor victory over other Indians.

It was Dull Knife and Little Wolf that separated the band. Dull Knife’s people were eventually captured and sent to an army fort and imprisoned in barracks after they refused to go to another reservation. They broke out of barracks on a winter night after the military refused them food, water, and heat only to have most of them shot down. Little Wolf’s band hid out for the winter and eventually surrendered under better conditions.

— Crzhrs

Dull Knife was one of the most peace-loving chiefs of the Cheyenne. He was elected as a council chief in 1854 when he was some forty-six winters old. Although he was a brave warrior in his younger days, he by then already possessed the wisdom of years. He was a strong peace man, who believed that the Cheyenne and the Whites must get along together. 

— Dietmar Schulte-Möhring

I read in Joe Starita’s book about the Dull Knife family that Chief Dull Knife (or Morning Star by his Cheyenne name) had one son (Bull Hump, his eldest) and four daughters with Pawnee Woman, his first wife, who he had stolen once from the Pawnee.

He had a second wife named Short One (or Slow Woman) who bore him three sons and three daughters.

So altogether he had four sons and seven daughters, who were called the “Beautiful People” by the army troops.

His wife Short One, his son Little Hump, and two daughters were killed on the flight back north in 1879.

His youngest son was George Dull Knife, born in 1875. Because he was only about three years old in 1879 and too weak to travel the hard way, he was left behind at the Darlington agency in Oklahoma with some Cheyenne relatives. He came to Pine Ridge in 1883 with 300 other Cheyenne and settled down in Yellow Bear’s Oglala camp. Since then George Dull Knife and his family is rated as Lakota not Cheyenne.

— Dietmar Schulte-Möhring

This is often said to be a photo of Dull Knife. Perhaps it’s Buffalo Hump, his son:

Dull Knife or perhaps his son Buffalo Hump

— Grahame Wood

He was in the village at the Bighorn Mountains that Reynolds attacked in early 1876, fighting there together with Two Moons, another Kit Fox little chief. Like all the other warrior society headman of the Northern Cheyenne, Ridge Bear was present at the Little Bighorn in June 1876. In spring 1877, he was among those Cheyennes surrendering to General Miles at the Yellowstone.

Some other sources indicate that Ridge Walker was another name for Bear Who Walks on a Ridge.

Ridge Walker was known to be an army scout in the 1880s. Later he and Porcupine were the Cheyennes who visited the prophet Wovoka to learn something about the Ghost Dance.

Does anybody know if these men are one and the same?

Here are two photos of Ridge Walker:

Ridge Walker

— Dietmar Schulte-Möhring

Elva Stands In Timber, Northern Cheyenne Tribe:

I believe myself to be a bearer of the Cheyenne sacred traditions. They were taught to me by my Grandfather Robert Ridge Walker and Grandmother Ethel Ridge Walker. Both were born close to the time of the Little Big Horn fighting. My Grandmother Ethel was born three days after the battle, as the victorious Cheyennes were moving South to hunt buffalo, where Sheridan, Wyoming is today.

Ridge Walker was a bit older, and later he joined the Cheyenne Scouts at Fort Keogh. A strong traditionalist, he was one of the Piercing People. He offered the sacrifice of his own flesh eight times, twice the sacred four times, to bring Maheo’s blessing to our people. Later, he was Stock Association Manager for the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. Strong in the old holy ways, he and his Grandmother carried that strength through-out their lives of nearly a century each.

The name “Ridge Bear” was also known among the Arapaho at Darlington.

— Grahame Wood