CLUB MAN, Cannaksa Yuha (c1835
-- early 1880s). Oglala Lakota. Also translated as War Club,
Has a War Club, Keep the War Club, and Owns the War Club.
Born
about 1835, Club Man was the older brother of Little Killer
and a brother-in-law of Crazy Horse.(1)
He was apparently also related to the famous Man Afraid of
His Horse’s family.(2) Nothing is known
of his early years except that he married Crazy Horse’s older
sister sometime before 1869.
When
the Great Sioux War of 1876-77 broke out, he was living with
his family among the northern bands, probably with the Hunkpatila
Tiyospaye of the Oglala Lakota. He fought at the Battle of
the Rosebud and at the Little Bighorn where he reportedly
“took an active part.”(3) He probably
also participated in the fighting at Slim Buttes later that
fall and at the Battle of Wolf Mountains against General Miles’
troops in January 1877.
Club
Man surrendered at the Red Cloud Agency with Crazy Horse in
May 1877.(4) Shortly afterward, he enlisted
with Crazy Horse, He Dog and other prominent northern men
in Lieutenant William Philo Clark’s Indian Scouts and that
summer, as part of a detachment of Indian Scouts, was sent
to accompany General Phil Sheridan’s party to the scene of
the Little Bighorn. A correspondent from the Chicago Tribune
walked the battlefield with Club Man on July 21, learning
from him some of the details of the fight.(5)
He remained in the Indian Scouts through three enlistments
and was mustered out for the final time on Dec. 31, 1877 as
a corporal.(6)
Club
Man and his family were among the northern Oglala who fled
from the Red Cloud Agency in the winter of 1877-78, eventually
joining Sitting Bull in Canada. He surrendered three years
later, probably with Low Dog at Fort Buford in April 1881.
All of the northern Lakota at Forts Buford and Keogh were
transferred to Fort Yates and the nearby Standing Rock Agency
that summer where Club Man is recorded in the Sitting Bull
Surrender Census with his wife, a son named Eagle Horse and
two daughters: Recognizing Horse and Wounded Twice. Club Man’s
brother Little Killer is listed as the next family in the
census.(7) Club Man’s name also appears
in the famous Big Road Roster as a member of Low Dog’s band.(8)
By December 1881, he and his family had joined Iron Crow’s
band of Oglala.(9)
All
of the Oglala at Standing Rock, including Club Man, were transferred
to the Pine Ridge Agency in the spring 1882.(10)
There is a gap in the records at Pine Ridge for the next four
years. By the time that the first official Pine Ridge Agency
census was taken in 1886, Club Man was gone, presumably having
died sometime between 1882 and 1886. His wife, apparently
now giving her name as Walks in the House, and their three
children however are listed.(11) Club
Man’s family lived in the White Clay District as part of Little
Hawk’s group within the larger Tapisleca or Melt Band at least
up through 1888.(12) No further record
of the family could be found.(13)
---------------------
1. Little Killer Interview with Eleanor Hinman, July 12, 1930,
Hinman Papers, Nebraska State Historical Society (published
in: “Oglala Sources on the Life of Crazy Horse: Interviews
Given to Eleanor H. Hinman,” Nebraska History vol. 57 no.
1 (Spring 1976) pp. 42-43). Little Killer noted that Club
Man “had married Crazy Horse’s older sister. He had eight
children, but none of them lived long enough to get allotments
from the government… Crazy Horse’s sister and her children
all died before 1901.”
2.
He Dog later recalled that Club Man and Man Afraid of His
Horses were closely related, that they “called each other
brothers.” He Dog Interview with Mari Sandoz, June 30, 1931,
Sandoz Collection, University of Nebraska (published in Richard
G. Hardorff, The Death of Crazy Horse: A Tragic Episode in
Lakota History, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001)
pp. 119-120. Hardorff incorrectly identifies Club Man as a
Minneconjou.
3.
Chicago Tribune; reprinted New York Times, Aug. 4,
1877.
4.
Thomas R. Buecker and R. Eli Paul (eds.), The Crazy Horse
Surrender Ledger (Lincoln: Nebraska State Historical Society)
p. 162. His name is translated here as War Club. His younger
brother Little Killer is probably the man listed as Owns Arrow
in the same lodge.
5.
Chicago Tribune, loc cit.
6.
Register of Enlistments, Indian Scouts (microcopy 233 roll
70), enlistments W486, 514. 541. Muster Rolls, Indian Scouts,
National Archives.
7.
Sitting Bull Surrender Census, 1881, family sheet #523, Standing
Rock Reservation, National Archives Regional Branch, Kansas
City. His wife’s name is given in Lakota as Mni okin ci win
which the enumerator was not able to translate fully, listing
her as “Water -------”. Her name may have been Asks for Water
or Water Beggar.
8.
Big Road Roster, manuscript 2372, Garrick Mallery Collection,
National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
(published in: Mallery, “On the Pictographs of the North American
Indians,” Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology
(Washington, D.C.: Govt. Printing Office, 1886), p. 174-175).
9.
Annuity List, Dec. 1881, Standing Rock Agency, National Archives
Regional Branch, Kansas City.
10.
Pine Ridge Agency ration list, 1879-82, Oglala Lakota College
Archives, Kyle, South Dakota.
11.
Pine Ridge Agency census, 1886:414; 1887:2492; 1888:4228,
Records of the Office of Indian Affairs (RG75), National Archives.
12.
Club Man’s wife disappears by the time of the 1890 census
and one daughter, Shot Twice, is listed with the family of
Lone Eagle. Pine Ridge Agency census, 1890:850, loc. cit.
The family of Eagle Horse is shown as part of Little Hawk’s
group in an undated record. Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne Consolidation
list, probably late 1880s, Pine Ridge Reservation records,
National Archives Regional Branch, Kansas City.
13.
An Oglala woman named Mrs. Eagle Horse was interviewed by
Walter Camp who said that her mother was Crazy Horse’s sister.
She may have been one of Club Man’s two daughters or possibly
even the wife of Club Man’s son. Camp Papers, Box 4, Folder
8 (transcript p. 271), University of Indiana Library.
—
Ephriam Dickson
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