18. Ibid., 71.
19. Cloud Shield winter count, 1844–45, Mallery, Dakota and Corbusier Winter Counts, 141 and pl. 45; C. E. Hanson, Jr., David Adams Journals, entries for Jan.–Feb. 1845.
20. C. E. Hanson, Jr., David Adams Journals, 85–87; Powers, Winter Count of the Oglala, 31.
21. Lakota informants, interviews by Kingsley M. Bray and Jack Meister, 1993–2005, Cheyenne River and Pine Ridge. Several informants requested anonymity, especially in the sensitive matters of Crazy Horse’s family life. Many contributed vital information on the death of Rattle Blanket Woman. At Rosebud, Victor Douville, Lakota Studies Department, Sinte Gleska University, supplied background information: conversations with the author, Sept. 26, 2001, and May 7, 2002. This interpretation of a controversial sequence of events, however, is mine. The alleged affair between Rattle Blanket Woman and Male Crow was first hinted at by family relative Victoria Conroy, writing to Josephine F. Waggoner, Dec. 18, 1934, and quoted in full in Hardorff, Oglala Lakota Crazy Horse, 29–31. Hardorff skillfully unravels the confusions of this document and is the first to identify the suicide of Curly Hair’s mother. Additional genealogical data was published in Lakota Times, Nov. 12, 1986.
22. DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 181; Lt. Col. L. P. Bradley to Adj. Gen. (AG), Dept. of the Platte, Sept. 7, 1877, SW File.
23. Ruby, Oglala Sioux, 97; Flying Hawk, in McCreight, Firewater and Forked Tongues, 138–39, the invaluable memoir of Moses Flying Hawk, Crazy Horse’s cousin and comrade-in-arms. For a Lakota child’s developmental progress, see especially Hassrick, The Sioux, 315ff; also Mirsky “The Dakota.”
24. Important details of the remarriages of Crazy Horse (Curly Hair’s father) are preserved in family testimony given at Rosebud Reservation in 1934, printed in Gonzalez and Cook-Lynn, Politics of Hallowed Ground, 402–404. Leo Combing testimony, Aug. 13, 1920, Clown family heirship files, Cheyenne River Tribal Office (copy supplied by friends at Cheyenne River). Again, I respect requests for anonymity in these controversial matters. Victor Douville provided invaluable background information (conversations with the author, Sept. 26, 2001, and May 7, 2002). See also genealogical data in Lakota Times, Nov. 12, 1986. Information collected by Donovin Sprague, historian at the Crazy Horse Memorial Museum, states that Curly Hair’s stepmothers were named Gathers the Grapes and Corn, and affirms that they were considered sisters of Spotted Tail (conversation with the author, Jan. 13, 2004).
25. Eastman, Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, 85–86. Eastman’s work is cloyed by a sentimental boy-scout reading of Lakota culture, but he was a full-blood Dakota, and he obtained stories from old Oglalas during his term as Pine Ridge physician.
26. Miller, Custer’s Fall, 94.
27. Douville, in conversations with the author, Sept. 26, 2001,May 7, 2002, discussed Crazy Horse as holy man. On the transition to holy man as a stage in adult development, see W K. Powers, Oglala Religion, 59–63.
28. Little Hawk’s mother was Good Haired Otter. Born ca. 1812, she still lived in her son’s household in 1891.
29. Frank Grouard, 180–81.
30. DeBarthe, Ibid.; Eastman, Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, 90. Eastman implies a significant “difference in age” between Curly Hair and High Backbone, with the latter the senior. To a direct question, He Dog replied that High Backbone was “[j]ust about the same age as Crazy Horse and I” (He Dog, in Riley,” Oglala Sources,” 15). This problem is not as intractable as it seems. A difference of five or even ten years in adulthood means little; in childhood, it is crucial.
31. In 1877 Frank Grouard stated that, as a child, Curly Hair and his family were regular visitors to “one of the Missouri River Agencies,” definitely Fort Pierre: Bourke diary, Dec. 4, 1876, vol. 15, 1454, Bourke Diaries. Since Oglalas did not regularly visit the Missouri River posts after 1835, this is best understood as part of a regular Miniconjou visit.
32. Sources on Miniconjou connections: Lakota informant interviews, 1993–2005, by K. M. Bray and Meister, at Cheyenne River and Pine Ridge; Douville conversations; Conroy to Waggoner, Dec. 18, 1934, quoted in Hardorff, Oglala Lakota Crazy Horse, 29–31; Lakota Times, Nov. 12, 1986; Gonzalez and Cook-Lynn, Politics of Hallowed Ground, 402–404. Combing testimony, Aug. 13, 1920, Clown family heirship files; Waggoner to Dr. Raymond A. Burnside, July 6, 1934, quoted in DeLand, Sioux Wars, 355; Sprague conversation, Jan. 13, 2004.
33. Chittenden and Richardson, Life, Letters, and Travels of Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, 2:631; also K. M. Bray, “Lone Horn’s Peace,” 30; Lucy W. Lee, dispatch of Sept. 18, 1877, to Greencastle (Indiana) Star, in Brininstool, Crazy Horse, 69–70. This source claims that, “Through Father De Smet and other missionaries who had visited the Missouri River country, [Crazy Horse] had gained a very clear knowledge of Christ and His life upon this earth, and he had taken Him as an example and pattern for him to imitate. In his troubles with the whites, he likened them to Christ’s persecutors.” Although uncredited to any primary source, and to be assessed critically given Mrs. Lee’s role as Spotted Tail Agency schoolteacher, the statement squares nicely with the evidence for regular visits to Fort Pierre. De Smets 1848 trip is the only one that fits the chronology. During the days after Crazy Horse’s death, Lucy’s husband, Lt. Jesse M. Lee, extended much kindness to the mourning family—so this may be evidence of the highest caliber.
34. McCreight, Firewater and Forked Tongues, 138–39.
35. The literature on Lakota religion is truly vast, but for orientation see DeMallie, “Lakota Belief and Ritual,” 25–43; and W K. Powers, Oglala Religion. Fundamental texts are in Walker, “Sun Dance” and Lakota Belief and Ritual.
36. Mathew H. King, in Kadlecek and Kadlecek, To Kill an Eagle, 126.
37. Eastman, Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, 88.
38. Lakota buffalo hunting practices are vividly rendered in Densmore, Teton Sioux Music and Culture, 436ff.
39. Name changes conventionally followed a significant accomplishment or threshold experience. He Dog stated that Curly Hair was given the name His Horse on Sight at “about 10 years old.” He Dog, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 9–10. In a follow-up interview with Mari Sandoz, June 30, 1931, He Dog rendered the name Horse Stands in Sight. Sandoz Papers, part II, box 31. He Dog’s son Eagle Hawk renders it Horse-Partly-Showing: R. A. Clark, Killing of Chief Crazy Horse, 68.
CHAPTER 2
1. Fitzpatrick to CoIA, Sept. 22, Nov. 24, 1851,ARCoIA, 1851,332–37. Man Afraid of His Horse’s role is indicated in an autobiographical statement by Sam Deon, Dec. 26, 1902, MS 2039, box 59, Sheldon Papers. Deon, a longtime trader with the Oglalas, states: “Old Man Afraid—great Sioux chief-—took Indians of near Ft Pierre” to the Horse Creek Treaty in 1851.
2. No detailed exposition exists of the prewar Lakota–U. S. relationship. This discussion leans on K. M. Bray, “Teton Sioux Population History.” For 1831 spending figures, see undated “Remarks” by upper Missouri sub-agent Jonathan L. Bean, UMA, LR, OIA. Bean’s entire spending budget was $1,420.
3. A vivid contemporary insight into changing Lakota attitudes is Denig, Five Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri, 19 (includes quotation). For oral tradition and the epidemics, see Bettelyoun and Waggoner, With My Own Eyes, 44–47; Left-Hand Heron (Makula) winter counts, Waggoner Papers. For the ca. 1850 deaths of Crazy Horse’s stepsisters, see Brave Bird and Afraid of Eagle testimony, July 7, 1934, in Gonzalez and Cook-Lynn, Politics of Hallowed Ground, 403–404; Combing testimony, Aug. 13, 1920, Clown family heirship files (copies courtesy of family descendants).
4. Wissler, “Societies and Ceremonial Associations” ; Walker, Lakota Society, 21–39.
5. The fullest account of the 1851 treaty is in the pages of the Missouri Republican, Oct. 6, 17, 22, 23, 24, and 26, Nov. 2, 9,30,1851. My narrative follows this source. See also Fitzpatrick’s official reports (Fitzpatrick to CoIA, Sept. 22, Nov. 24, 1851), and those of Mitchell to CoIA, Oct. 25, Nov. 11, 1851, ARCoIA 1851, 288–90, 324–26. Valuable details are provided by De Smet in Chitten
den and Richardson, Life, Letters, and Travels of Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, 2:653ff; and Lowe, Five Years a Dragoon, 76–83. Lakota perspectives on the treaty-making process are ably reconstructed in DeMallie,” Touching the Pen,” 38–53. In the following account, I restrict notes to quotations and points of interpretation.
6. Missouri Republican, Nov. 2, 1851 (includes quotation from Clear Blue Earth speech). At this session, September 10, the more amenable Cheyennes and Arapahos presented their candidates for head chieftainship, respectively Medicine Arrow and Little Owl. On Man Afraid of His Horse’s refusal to stand as head chief, see Left-Hand Heron statement, Sept. 18, 1931, in Mekeel, “Field Notes,” 51.
7. Cheyenne warrior societies also validated the treaty and approved the nominations of delegates to Washington. Denig, trading among the Lakotas in the mid-1830s, viewed the warrior societies as “of no importance in their government and with the Sioux. . . are only recognized as separate bodies during their dances and other ceremonies.” Denig, “Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri,” 434. Clearly, this situation was changing by mid-century.
8. Missouri Republican, Nov. 23, 1851.
9. Text and signatories of the 1851 treaty are printed in Kappler, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, 2:594–96. Signing after Scattering Bear were Clear Blue Earth, Big Partisan, Yellow Ears (Brules); Smutty Bear (Yankton); and Long Mandan (Two Kettle).
CHAPTER 3
1. Chittenden and Richardson, Life, Letters, and Travels of Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, 2:683–88. See also Nadeau, Fort Laramie and the Sioux, 81–82.
2. Bernard Moves Camp, in Steinmetz, Pipe, Bible, and Peyote, 19–20. This statement, by a great-grandson of Horn Chips, is fundamental to understanding the hunka relationship between Curly Hair and Horn Chips. Although brief and confused in detail about Curly Hair’s family predicament (stating that his mother had remarried, her new husband and Curly Hair being unable to get on), it accurately reflects the boy’s unhappiness and his feeling of solidarity with his uncles (i.e., his mother’s Miniconjou brother). For Young Little Hawk’s status as child beloved, consider Eagle Elk statements to John G. Neihardt, November 1944, Neihardt Papers.
3. Bernard Moves Camp, in Steinmetz, Pipe, Bible, and Peyote, 19–20. Details on the 1851 movement of the Badger-Eaters from Bad Wound’s band are drawn from Mekeel, “Field Notes,” 40, 62, 64, Mekeel Papers: see statements of Charles Turning Hawk, Joseph No Water, and Grant Short Bull. The fact that No Water I, the ranking Badger-Eaters elder, is not mentioned in these statements suggests that he fell victim to the epidemics that killed Horn Chips’s parents. Leadership devolved on his twin sons. Black Twin seems to have been one of the akicita leaders at the 1851 treaty (note that he was a cousin of Scattering Bear). Black Twin was probably in his mid-twenties in 1851; his brother No Water II, significant in Crazy Horse’s adult life, was a youth of seventeen. Grant Short Bull statement to Mekeel, “Field Notes,” 64, Mekeel Papers.
4. Ruby, Oglala Sioux, 52.
5. Fundamental to any understanding of the hunka is the work of James R. Walker. See his invaluable interviews with Oglalas, documents 71–82, and his fullest synthesis, “Hunka Ceremony,” document 83, Walker, Lakota Belief and Ritual. The most comprehensive regional assessment is Blakeslee, “Plains Interband Trade System.” See also Hall, Archaeology of the Soul, ch. 10; and for a profound reading of the Pawnee ceremony, Fletcher, Hako.
6. The following generalized account of a hunka ceremony leans heavily on Walker, Lakota Belief and Ritual, documents 71–83. Comparative materials and incidental details have been drawn from Black Elk, J. E. Brown, Sacred Pipe, ch. 6; Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle, 27–32;Densmore, Teton Sioux Music and Culture; Ella Deloria, in Mirsky” The Dakota,” 414–15. Deloria is particularly good on the social implications of the ceremony.
As to the identity of Curly Hair’s hunka father: Horn Chips’ 1907 statement, “Bull Head at Cheyenne River Agency has the feather that Crazy Horse wore to his honor,” may refer to the eagle down plume worn by hunka candidates (Horn Chips interview, tablet 18, Ricker Papers.) Perhaps Bull Head (1831–1923) was returned the plume after Crazy Horse’s death. He Dog names Bull Head, along with Ashes and Spotted Crow, as an uncle of Crazy Horse. Complicating these issues, Sans Arc Leo Combing (born 1851) identified another Bull Head, who died before Combings birth, as a brother to Crazy Horse’s stepmothers. My feeling is that all these men (including both Bull Heads) were “sons,” possibly by several wives, of the Miniconjou chief Corn.
7. Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle, 28.
8. Walker, Lakota Belief and Ritual, 237.
9. Horn Chips interview, tablet 18, Ricker Papers. The Badger-Eaters were considered a Bad Faces sub-band after 1851.
10. For Oglala-Miniconjou 1852 activities, see K. M. Bray, “Lone Horn’s Peace,” 32–33; H. H. Anderson, “From Milwaukee to the California Gold Fields,” 58–59; “Cloud Shield Winter Count,” Mallery, Dakota and Corbusier Winter Counts, 142 and pl. 46. An excellent source on John Richard and his family is Jones, “Those Wild Reshaw Boys.”
11. Flying Hawk, in McCreight, Firewater and Forked Tongues, 139.
12. On the roles of fathers, brothers, and uncles in a Lakota boy’s education, see Mirsky, “The Dakota,” 422–23.
13. Eastman, Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, 87
14. Horn Chips interview, tablet 18, Ricker Papers.
CHAPTER 4
1. Lt. R. B. Garnett to Asst. Adj. Gen. (AAG), Jefferson Barracks, June 30, 1853, Old Files, AGO, RG 94, NA.
2. On Hunkpapa isolationism, see Bray and Bray, Joseph N. Nicollet, 261; Denig, Five Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri, 25–27; K. M. Bray, “Teton Sioux Population History,” 184, and “Before Sitting Bull.”
3. The fullest accounts of the Miniconjou incident are Lt. Garnett’s official report (Garnett to AAG, Jefferson Barracks, June 30, 1853), and Lt. H. B. Fleming to Lt. R. B. Garnett, June 16, 1853, Old Files, AGO. Good secondary accounts are Nadeau, Fort Laramie and the Sioux, 86–89; Hafen and Young, Fort Laramie and the Pageant of the West,209–10. Hyde, Red Cloud’s Folk, chap. 5, remains an insightful introduction to the period 1853–56. A major synthesis is Paul, Blue Water Creek and the First Sioux War. Consistently useful for a military overview of Plains Indian relations with the United States, with unusual sensitivity to Indian politics, is Utley Frontiersmen in Blue, and its sequel, Frontier Regulars.
4. Fitzpatrick to CoIA, Nov. 19, 1853, ARCoIA 1853, 127–29. The text of the treaty amendment and the list of Lakota signatories is printed in H. H. Anderson,” Controversial Sioux Amendment,” 203–205. Red Cloud’s resistance is suggested by John B. Sanborn to Vincent Colyer, 1870,ARCoIA 1870. Description of Red Hawk’s opposition is based on Robert Holy Dance in Lewis, Medicine Men, 165. The only “treaty” that fits Holy Dance’s story is the 1853 amendment. For antiannuity Oglala factions, see also Wissler, “Societies and Ceremonial Associations,” 9, 28.
5. Miniconjou winter counts all speak of trading Spanish/Navaho blankets from a trader White Bull calls “Jar” (Richard): Howard, Warrior Who Killed Custer, 18.
6. Captain E. Johnson to Bvt. Lt. Col. William Hoffman, Oct. 11, 1854, Main Series, LR, AGO. Other primary sources on the Grattan “Massacre” used in the subsequent discussion are collected in ARCoIA 1854 and U. S. House, Information Relating to an Engagement. See also Man Afraid of His Horse statement, LR, DPW Several good secondary accounts exist, but see especially McCann, “Grattan Massacre” ; Hyde, Spotted Tail’s Folk, 56–62; Hafen and Young, Fort Laramie and the Pageant of the West, 222–32; Nadeau, Fort Laramie and the Sioux, 89–110.
7. Johnson to Hoffmann, Oct. 11, 1854.
8. Ibid.; Man Afraid of His Horse statement.
9. James Bordeaux, in U. S. House, Information Relating to an Engagement.
10. Ibid. Bordeaux does not name the speaker, but the context suggests Man Afraid of His Horse.
11. Man Afraid of His Horse statement; Hoffman to AGO, Nov. 29, 1854, Main S
eries, LR, AGO.
12. Hoffman to AGO, Nov. 29, 1854.
13. Ibid., 4–5.
14. Ibid., 5. On Spotted Tail’s role, see Hyde, Spotted Tail’s Folk, 67–68.
15. Hoffman to AGO, Nov. 29, 1854, 5. Upper Missouri Agent Vaughan’s reports trace the escalation of hostilities in the Missouri River zone: see Vaughan to CoIA, Oct. 19, 1854, ARCoIA 1854; Nov. 21, 1854; Feb. 17, May 19, 1855, UMA, LR, OIA.
16. Thomas S. Twiss to CoIA, Sept. 3, 1855, ARCoIA 1855, 79.
17. Twiss to CoIA, Oct. 1, 1855, ARCoIA 1855, 80. On Harney’s preparations, see Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue, 115f
18. Twiss to CoIA, Aug. 20, Sept. 3, Oct. 1, Oct. 10, 1855,ARCoIA, 1855, 78–85.
19. Twiss to CoIA, Oct. 1, 1855, ARCoIA, 1855, 80–81.
20. Mattison,” Harney Expedition,” 110ff. On the Battle of Blue Water Creek, the best secondary accounts are Paul, Blue Water Creek and the First Sioux War, ch. 6; Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue, 116–17; and Clow, “Mad Bear.” Primary sources used in the following account are Harney’s official report, Secretary of War, ARCoIA 1855, 49–51; Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke statement, Senate Executive Documents, 34th Cong., 3rd sess., 1857, S. Doc. 58; Drum,” Reminiscences of the Indian Fight” ; Lt. G K. Warren, journal, Sept. 2–3,1855, J. A. Hanson, Little Chief’s Gatherings, 103–106. In contrast to the rich documentary record, Lakota accounts of the battle are scanty, but see Bettelyoun and Waggoner, With My Own Eyes, chap. 8. Note that Mari Sandoz’s influential contention that Curly Hair was present as a visitor in the Blue Water camps is nowhere stated in the oral and traditional record. See Crazy Horse, chap. 4. It is best interpreted as dramatic license. Sandoz keys the visit to He Dog’s statement that Curly Hair spent one year among the Brules, when he was about seventeen or eighteen. The Brule sojourn and its chronology are dealt with in chapter 5.
21. Bvt. Brig. Gen. William S. Harney to AAG, HQ of the Army, Sept. 25, 1855; Harney to Secretary of War, Nov. 10, 1855(includes quotation),both LR, AGO. Twiss to CoIA, Oct. 1, 10, 1855,ARCoIA 1855, 81–85;Warren journal, J. A. Hanson, Little Chief’s Gatherings, 108–110.
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