Yellow Eyes was an informant for Sitting Bull. She joined Sitting Bull at the Battle of Little Bighorn, escaped with him to Canada in 1877 and later returned and surrendered with him in 1881.

Photo by Frank Fiske 1906

— Frank

In regard to my great-great-grandmother, Yellow Eyes, a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux with Sitting Bull's band. That I have evidence that she and her husband and children were at the Battle of the Little Big Horn and stayed with him into exile in Canada is true. I have Frank Bennett Fiske photos of her in 1903 at Fort Yates and lots of oral history from my grandfather and his siblings.

She is on the twelth census of the United States in 1900 and states she was approx. 72.

She was living on the Standing Rock Sioux Resevation from 1886 until her death in 1905 or 1906. She left Canada when Sitting Bull surrendered in 1881 but went to Fort Peck with some of the warriors, possibly her sons and husband.

The 2 husbands I have researched of Yellow Eyes were Ihanyake and Holy Bear. I have three different spellings of Yellow Eyes. The one on the 1900 census is very difficult to make out. Our family has know her as Ishtazi or Istha Zha Zha in Lakota. — Dorothy Eiken

I was trying to find Yellow Eyes in the Sitting Bull Surrender Census, taken at Standing Rock in Aug.-Sept. 1881. There are several women named Yellow Eyes:

#48. age 30. Wife of Fine Voice Eagle, Crow King's band, Hunkpapa.

#309. age 70. Grandmother of High Hill and Brings Plenty. Circle Bear's Band, Sans Arc.

#318. age 25. Wife of Afraid of Enemy. Circle Bear's band, Sans Arc.

#352. age 21. sister-in-law of Mato Yahapi. Hump's band, Minnecoujou.

#714. age 10. daugher of Boy Horse, Grass' band, Blackfeet Lakota.

#494. Brown Eyes, age 40, wife of Good Thunder. Big Road's band, Oglala. — Ephriam Dickson

Yellow Eyes would not be on the surrender census at Standing Rock in Sept. of 1881. She did not accompany Sitting Bull and his people to Fort Buford or Standing Rock, or Fort Robinson in 1881. She went with the warriors who were afraid to surrender to Fort Peck in Montana Territory. She didn't get to Standing Rock until
1886. So none of the people on the list would be her. In 1881 she would be approx. 53 years old. — Dorothy Eiken

Amy Wizi (Yellow Eyes) is the daughter of Walks Among the Pines and Wizi. She is the granddaughter of Rebecca Red Woman and Brown Cloud. She also attended the Hampton Institute April 1884-1885. — "grandma"

I haven't been able to trace Yellow Eyes mother or father. She stated her birthday as May, 1828 on the 1900 census. She would have been about 72 then. I believe that may have been a guess. My grandfather had to go to the elders to try and find his birthday. His mother, Obosawin (daughter of Yellow Eyes) died November 1895 at Fort Yates when he was about 9. Obosawin was 38 when she died and had 9 or 10 children.

I know the Yellow Eyes I'm related to didn't attend Hampton Institute. She never lived in anything other than a tipi. There is no record of her being educated nor is there record of Obosawi being educated though she may have spoken some English. My grandfather, Yellow Eyes' grandson attended Hampton from 1900 to 1907. He spoke Lakota as well as English and did some translating at Fort Yates. My older sister remembers going along when he was translating from English to Sioux. — Dorothy Eiken