American Indians are many peoples of diverse cultures and traditions. This website seeks to record some of the scattered data of their rich history. Records exist in various forms such as photographs, tribal records, winter counts, and oral histories. A group of people interested in the Northern Plains Indians began compiling this type of record at the Message Boards of www.littlebighorn.info. As their online friendship grew so did their contributions of primary source material and photographs. Dietmar Schulte-Möhring and Diane Merkel decided to collaborate on this website dedicated to that concept, with suggestions and guidance from a select few. The records here begin with a compilation of biographical and photographic images of Teton Sioux tribal members, principally during the Indian Wars period, 1866-1890. We hope to develop the site to include records from many more Indian nations.

There are occasional links for book purchases within this website (not on the Message Boards). As an Amazon Associate, Diane Merkel may earn commissions from qualifying purchases. Any funds received are used to offset the expenses of hosting this website.

Friends and contributors include:

Agnes is a contributor from Hungary.

 

 

 

AKhummingbird lives in Anchorage, Alaska, but has family ties to the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota.

 

 

 

 

LaDonna Brave Bull Allard is the Standing Rock Tourism Coordinator for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Marketing Manager for the Alliance of Tribal Tourism Advocates. She is from the Cannon Ball District of Standing Rock and was raised in Fort Yates, North Dakota. Her father was Frank Brave Bull who was descended from Tatanka Ohitika, a medicine man. LaDonna graduated from the University of North Dakota with a History degree. She has been researching winter counts and historical documents to compile her tribe's history. She is a national certified interpretive guide, has her own guide company, has trained in historical preservation, and has compiled all historical information for the Standing Rock Scenic Byway.

 

Andrew is a contributor from England.

Aurelia is from Cheyenne River Reservation, South Dakota.

BigGordie was the nom de plume for Gordon Harper, one of our contributors from Canada. His book was published posthumously in 2014: Fights on the Little Horn: Unveiling the Mysteries of Custer's Last Stand [paid link].

Bob Brewer often uses the nom de plume buffaloman.

 

 

Lisa Brainard (lisz) of southeast Minnesota is a reporter and photographer who enjoys NDN culture, especially in South Dakota and also her home area. She also enjoys rock art.

 

Kingsley Bray has spent more than twenty years researching the Plains Indians, especially Lakota history and ethnology. He is the author of Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life [paid link] (University of Oklahoma Press, 2006).

 

 

 

 

Brock is a documentary film maker who records Native oral history, predominantly Lakota, and has recorded around 100 hours of it so far. . .about 35 of those being in personal interviews with Lakota family members.

 

Charlie lives in Italy.

 

 

 

 

clw is a contributor from Florida who wishes she could spend more time in South Dakota with her NDN 'family'. She's seen here on the right with a friend on the old cavalry training field at Ft. Meade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dee Cordry (dcordry) is an historian of Oklahoma and an author of several books on Western History.

 

 

 

Crzhrs lives in New England.

Tom F. Cunningham runs the British National Buffalo Bill Archive (bnbba.co.uk), dedicated to preserving as much of the record as possible of Buffalo Bill's visits to the U.K. The emphasis of the site falls squarely upon the Lakota performers in the show.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frank is from Helsinki, Finland.

 

George Armstrong Custer is the nom de plume for a gentleman from the United Kingdom.

 

 

 

 

 

Ephriam D. Dickson III is the Acting Chief, Field Museums Division for the U.S. Army Center of Military History. He has authored numerous articles about the Plains Indians that have been published in many periodicals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carl C. Dupree lives in Pierre, South Dakota.

 

 

 

 

 

Dorothy Eiken, an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, connects with her past using traditional Sioux history, Lakota culture, and Native American spirituality. Her great, great grandmother, Yellow Eyes, was with Sitting Bull at the Battle of Little Bighorn, fled with him to Canada in 1877, and accompanied him on his return to this country and subsequent surrender in 1881. Presentation: "In the Spirit of Yellow Eyes: A Cultural Legacy"

 

 

Louis Garcia is a tribal historian of the Spirit Lake Reservation in North Dakota. He works for the Cankdeska Cikana (Little Hoop) Community College at Fort Totten, North Dakota.

Glenbow is a contributor from Canada.

Richard Gould (pawneemuseum) is administrator of the Pawnee Indian Museum State Historical Site located near Republic, Kansas.

Grandma is a descendant of Yellow Eyes.

hako is a member from Russia.

Hans Karkheck lives in Germany.

Shaw-lee Haynes has roots with the Brule Lakota and resides in New York City.

Henri, also known as Apsalooka, resides in the Netherlands.

HinTamaheca has family ties to Pine Ridge and Rosebud, South Dakota. He is a traditional powwow dancer and earned a B.A. degree in Cultural Anthropology.

HistoryNut1876 is an Indian Wars period author who lives in Brooklyn, New York.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hunkpapa lives on the Jersey Channel Islands.

 

 

 

inkpaduta1981

jinlian lives in Italy. She is a sinologist who teaches and translates Chinese as well as English. Native American history and culture, especially of the Apsalooka, is another of her passions.

Jmccalla44

Karl is from Germany.

karlkoz

 

 

 

 

 

Gary Leonard lives in the UK and is a member of the English Westerners Society and the Custer Association of Great Britain. He is seen here at the Washita River.

 

 

 

 

 

Emily Levine is a horticulturist and historian from Nebraska. She edited the book With My Own Eyes: A Lakota Woman Tells Her People's History [paid link] for the University of Nebraska Press.

 

 

Liverpoolannie was originally from England but now resides in Colorado.

Longcoatlilly resides in Texas.

Billy Markland is an Indian Wars researcher who lives in Kansas.

 

 

Diane Merkel is a former editor of the Little Big Horn Associates Newsletter and is currently the webmaster for www.littlebighorn.info and other history-related websites. She and her husband Chuck reside in Choctaw Beach, Florida.

 

 

 

 

 

Richard C. Miller (dickmill) is originally from Rochester, New York.. His ancestor was L. F. Spencer, Indian agent at Rosebud Reservation from 1886 to 1890, who was from Spencerport, New York, near Rochester. You are invited to visit Dick's Facebook page, Searching for Agent Spencer.

 

Miyelo is of Irish/Chippewa descent from Northern Michigan. He lives now on Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota and is considered a Lakota. He produced a DVD written by his grandfather Eli Tail Sr. called ?Through Lakota Eyes.?

mort aux vaches lives in Norway.

 

 

 

Naiches was born in Perm (City in the Ural Mountains Region) in 1970 and graduated from the Perm University in 1995 (Russian philology). He now works for a Russian TV-Channel and lives in Moscow. He is especially interested in Apache history.

 

 

Michael Nunnally's artwork has appeared on the covers of numerous Little Bighorn-related publications, and he authored articles and books about "sole survivor" stories of that battle. His most recent book was American Indian Wars: A Chronology of Confrontations Between Native Peoples and Settlers and the United States Military, 1500s-1901[paid link] (2007, McFarland & Co.). Mike's nom de plume was Scout. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2010.

Oyateunderground is a Hunkpapa/Miniconjou and a descendant from Chiefs White Swan, High Bear, and Horse with the Horn.

Tom Powers was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1971 for his articles on Weatherman member Diana Oughton. His books include Diana: The Making of a Terrorist (1971), The War at Home (1973), The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA (1979), Heisenberg's War: The Secret History of the German Bomb (1993), The Confirmation (2000), Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda (2002), The Military Error: Baghdad and Beyond in America's War of Choice (2008), and The Killing of Crazy Horse (2010).

 

 

 

 

J.R. Redwater is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and is nationally known as the "Reservation Sensation" for his stand-up comedy in which he spins the bitter hardships of reservation life into huge laughs.

 

 

Rico is a member of the Lakota.

 

Dietmar Schulte-Möhring has studied American Indians for many years and has an extensive collection of photographs. He studied Geography at the University in Münster, Germany, and he has co-written several history schoolbooks in German. Dietmar and his family live in Greven, Germany, where he and his son Janis occasionally camp out in a tent in their garden.

 

 

 

 

 

David Shanahan is an acclaimed artist who resides in England. His work is in private collections throughout the world, and his diverse subjects include American Indians and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Some of his acclaimed work can be enjoyed on his website.

Shatonska is the nom de plume for a contributor from Italy.

Philip Sheldon (fillupe) is the grand grandson of George C. Crager, a Lakota interpreter with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

Wendyll Smoke is a direct descendant from the Smoke Family of the Oglala Lakota.

Brent Stevens (brentnvicki) is from Michigan. He specializes his research on the artist David Humphrey Miller and his interviews of Little Bighorn participants.

Jean Sweeney

Jimmy Sweet is Sicangu Lakota, Yankton, and Mdewakanton Dakota. He studies American Indian History at Montana State University.

Tatanka

 

 

 

 

Jari Teilas is a history author from Finland, who has recently published a book about the Little Bighorn battle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rod Thomas, a retired US Army officer, is an author, editor, and speaker in Washington State and holds an MA in Strategy and an MS in Management. His works on Western US history and art history have been published in several publications. His book, Rubbing Out Long Hair (Pehin Hanska Kasota): The American Indian Story of the Little Big Horn in Art [paid ad], presents Indian art of the battle of the Little Bighorn. Future projects include a biography of the Crow warrior White Swan and The Picture is The Rope, surveying Indian battle art from before the US Civil War through the massacre at Wounded Knee.

 

 

Timothy Hunts-in-Winter

Tokaouspa

 

 

 

 

 

Jeroen Vogtschmidt is a Western artist from the Netherlands.

 

 

Wakalapi is a Hunkpapa/Oglala Lakota from North Dakota, who lives now in the Pacific Northwest.

Steve Wilk lives in Utah and volunteers a lot of his time to archaeological and historical projects in the West.

Wolfgang911

Grahame Wood resides in England.

 

Contributors are invited to send us more information and a photograph.