RESPECTS NOTHING Takuni Oholašni
(c1854-1923). A member of the Oyuhpe Oglala
(Big Road’s band), he was approximately 22 years of age
at the time of his participation in the Little Bighorn.
A year later, his father, Bank (Maya), surrendered
at the Red Cloud Agency on April 18, 1877. The young man
cannot be identified in this document though he probably
came in with his family. Big Road and many of the Oyuhpe
Oglala fled the Red Cloud Agency that winter and escaped
into Canada.
Big
Road and his band surrendered at Fort Keogh in October 1880
and were transferred to the Standing Rock Agency the following
year. Bank and his son, known by this time as End (Ihankeya),
were counted in the Sitting Bull Surrender Census. End had
been married earlier, the details of which are not known.
He remarried about 1879-80 to White Cow Nation, with whom
he remained for the rest of his life.
In
May 1882, the Oglala at Standing Rock Agency were transferred
to the Pine Ridge Agency. He is referred to as Respects
Nothing for the first time in this document, suggesting
that he was given this name during the 1881-82 period. Nicholas
Ruleau noted that his name was also translated as Fear Nothing.
By 1890, he had settled in the Wounded Knee District at
Pine Ridge, still a member of Big Road's Oyuhpe
band.
Respects
Nothing died on the reservation on May 22, 1923.
Respects Nothing was interviewed about his experience at
the Little Bighorn by Eli S. Ricker on November 9, 1906,
recorded in Tablet 29 pp. 1-24, of the Ricker Collection,
Nebraska State Historical Society. The interview has been
published in: Richard G. Hardorff, Lakota Recollections
of the Custer Fight: New Sources of Indian-Military History
(Spokane, WA: A. H. Clarke Co., 1991; reprinted Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1997) pp. 24-34 and most recently,
in Richard E. Jensen (ed.), Voices of the American West,
Volume 1: The Indian Interviews of Eli S. Ricker, 1903-1919
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005) pp. 302-307,
figure 5. Unfortunately, neither of these authors provide
any biographical information on this man. The on-line list
by Gilbert lists Respects Nothing at the Standing Rock Agency
in 1929, however, this is not correct. —
Ephriam Dickson
