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Posts Tagged ‘Grahame Wood’

In  June 1876, a young warrior named White Swan was one of six Crow scouts assigned  to the 7th Cavalry. The outnumbered Crow had aligned themselves with the U.S.  government against their traditional enemies, the Sioux and Cheyenne, in  exchange for a promise from General George Armstrong Custer of a return to their  old way of life, and a return of land stolen from the Crow by other  tribes.

History would have  been altered had Gen. Custer followed the advise of the Crow scouts who urged  him not to lead his forces into the valley of the Little Big Horn. In the  ensuing battle, White Swan was severely injured, and after a long recovery,  returned to Crow Agency seriously disabled.

In 1894 White  Swan, crippled and unable to hear or speak, created a series of drawings on  pages from an accounting ledger book to explain his role in the famous battle to  his friend, the pastor at the Congregational Church.

—  Billy Markland

The  photo below is White Swan around 1899 taken at the Crow Agency, Montana, by  Arthur M. Tinker, an inspector for the Indian Office and amateur photographer.

National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum®

Another photo of  White Swan holding his war club:

TMI number 00466, Photograph by F. A. Rinehart, 1898, © Omaha Public Library, 1998

TMI number 00467, Photograph by F. A. Rinehart, 1898, © Omaha Public Library, 1998

Painted at Crow Agency, 1897 by Elbridge Ayer Burbank

Joseph Henry Sharp (1859 - 1953) oil on canvas

Sharp moved to the West,  establishing homes in Montana and New Mexico, in order to live among the  subjects he wanted to portray. Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Whitney Purchase  Fund (18.61)

— Grahame Wood

White Swan was at  the battlefield with some of the survivors of the LBH battle on June 25th  1886:

http://sirismm.si.edu/naa/4605/01605403.jpg

— Dietmar  Schulte-Möhring

Long Chin (ca. 1800-ca. 1889) was a half-brother to Tall Bull. Both were the leaders of the Dog Soldiers in the 1850s and 1860s. The mother of the two headmen was indeed a Lakota woman. Long Chin was a council chief in 1854. In 1863, when he was already 63, he still led the Dog Men.

— Dietmar Schulte-Möhring

There was an 84 year-old Long Chin in the Darlington Cheyenne census in 1887.

In Life of George Bent, he makes reference to the Dog Soldiers and Spotted Tail‘s Brules trading with Little Gerry in 1863, noting that Long Chin was a leader of the Dog Soldiers and there’s a footnoted reference to the fact that Gerry married one of (the Cheyenne) Long Chin’s Sioux nieces… He was also an uncle of Bent.

— Grahame Wood

Some of the Cheyenne who participated in the 1879 outbreak:

Left to right.: Tangle Hair, Wild Hog, Strong Left Hand, George Reynolds (interpreter), Old Crow, Noisy Walker, Porcupine, Blacksmith

• Tangle Hair, a half-Sioux by birth, was a dog soldier headman
• Wild Hog, a headman of the Elkhorn Scraper warrior society, was the leader of all the warriors in Dull Knife’s band during the flight to the North
• Strong Left Hand, also known as Strong Left Arm or simply Left Hand, was a headman of the Crazy Dog warrior society and was at the Little Bighorn
  
• Noisy Walker or Noisy Walking (not the son of White Bull) or Old Man was a mature Northern Cheyenne dog soldier warrior
• Old Crow or Crow was a council chief who had a bad reputation because he had scouted for the soldiers when Dull Knife´s village was destroyed in 1876
• Porcupine (1847-1929) was also a mature dog soldier warrior, he was the son of White Weed, an Arikara and a Lakota woman, but was married to a Northern Cheyenne woman. He was later a Ghost Dance teacher and a council chief (see P. Powell)
• Blacksmith was an older warrior

— Dietmar Schulte-Möhring

The photographs of the Cheyenne prisoners were sold by the firm of Leonard & Martin of Topeka, Kansas, presumably the original photographers. (J. H. Leonard and his partner H. T. Martin).

Here is another version of the same individuals:

— Ephriam Dickson

Here is the same group with some of their women and children in a studio setting. I just recently saw this photograph in a German translated version of “Life of George Bent”. It is interesting, I think, because it shows a rather young George Bent (interpreting at this trial), who looks more like an Indian here than in other photos with mustache.

Note that Old Crow, as one of the 44 council chiefs of the Cheyenne the highest ranking member of this group, sits in the center:

Front row, left to right: Old Crow´s son, Wild Hog´s daughter. Second row, sitting: Porcupine, Old Crow´s wife, Old Crow, Wild Hog. Back row, standing: Old Crow´s daughter, Noisy Walker, Strong Left Hand, George Bent, Blacksmith, Tangle Hair, Wild Dog´s daughter.

— Dietmar Schulte-Möhring

Fort Robinson outbreak, Frank Leslie's Illustrated, Feb. 15, 1879.

— Grahame Wood

Here are possibly three men from the photographs made at the trial in Kansas, pictured in later years:

Porcupine:

Tangle Hair:

Old Crow:

Strong Left Hand, the Elkhorn Scraper chief, ca, 1890 in Montana:

— 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

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

Bear Who Walks on a Ridge or Ridge Bear was a little chief or headman of the Kit Fox Society among the Northern Cheyennes.

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