Transcriber’s Note: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores:
_italics_.
[Illustration: WOODEN LEG, A WARRIOR WHO FOUGHT CUSTER, HOLDING A
RIFLE CAPTURED BY A CHEYENNE COMPANION WARRIOR AT CUSTER’S LAST
BATTLE]
A WARRIOR WHO
FOUGHT CUSTER
Interpreted by
THOMAS B. MARQUIS
_Illustrated_
[Illustration: (Colophon)]
MINNEAPOLIS
THE MIDWEST COMPANY
MCMXXXI
COPYRIGHT, 1931, BY
THE MIDWEST COMPANY
Printed in the United States
“I OFTEN THINK THAT IF I WERE AN INDIAN I WOULD GREATLY PREFER TO
CAST MY LOT AMONG THOSE OF MY PEOPLE WHO ADHERED TO THE FREE OPEN
PLAINS RATHER THAN SUBMIT TO THE CONFINED LIMITS OF A RESERVATION,
THERE TO BE THE RECIPIENT OF THE BLESSED BENEFITS OF CIVILIZATION,
WITH ITS VICES THROWN IN WITHOUT STINT OR MEASURE.”
--_From page 18 of General Custer’s book_, MY LIFE ON THE PLAINS,
_published 1876, a few months before his death_.
_The Author’s Statement._
The Indian story of Custer’s last battle has never been told, except
in a few fragmentary interviews that have been distorted into
extravagant fiction. There were no white men survivors of that most
thrilling of American frontier tragedies, so the veteran hostile red
warriors have exclusive possession of the key to the mystery as to
how it happened.
The present author, sixty-one years old and a resident of Montana
throughout the past forty-one years, decided in 1922 to apply himself
at probing into this matter. He served a few months as agency
physician for the Northern Cheyennes, a tribe allied with the Sioux
in the annihilation of Custer. Since then, the investigator has been
in close association with these Indians. He has learned the old-time
plains Indian sign-talk to a degree enabling him to dispense with
interpreters, except in rare instances. He has held out continual
invitation for Custer-battle veteran warriors to visit his home,
partake of his food and smoke his tobacco. After a long siege, they
began to come. Later, they began to talk, but only a little. Still
later, after they had found out that this ingratiating white man
was not scheming to entrap them into fatal admissions, they told the
whole story. Not only did they answer all questions, but they added
spontaneous information concerning every detail of the battle and of
the entire hostile Indian movements during that eventful summer of
1876.
Sixteen hundred of these Montana Cheyennes were with the Sioux horde
in the battle camps beside the Little Bighorn river. All of the
Sioux were settled soon afterward in the Dakotas, and they stayed
there. The Cheyennes were located on a reservation in the heart of
the region where had been the conflicts. During the subsequent more
than fifty years they have viewed over and over the central historic
spots. Thus they have kept their memories fresh or have kept each
other prompted into true recollections. This advantageous condition
has rendered them the best of first-hand authorities. Up to late
1930, seventeen Cheyennes who were adult warriors at Custer battle
were yet alive.
Wooden Leg became the author’s favorite narrator. It seemed that his
lifetime biography should surround his special battle story, so that
readers might learn what kind of people were the hostile Indians
of that day. Hour after hour, on scores of different occasions in
recent years, the elderly white man doctor has sat enthralled by
the well-connected and vivid sign-talk recountings of this companion
so congenial. Wooden Leg’s gestures often were supplemented by his
dainty pencil drawings and by his sketched maps--papers now treasured
as precious documents. A few stray English words from his extremely
scant vocabulary of them were besprinkled through the efforts at full
expression.
The principal story-teller’s statements of essential facts have
been amalgamated with those of his fellow tribesmen who fought as
companions with him. Groups of them, with him as the leader, took the
author many times into assemblage. Thus all points of importance have
been checked and corroborated or corrected. The helpers have been
Limpy, Pine, Bobtail Horse, Sun Bear, Black Horse, Two Feathers, Wolf
Chief, Little Sun, Blackbird, Big Beaver, White Moon, White Wolf,
Big Crow, Medicine Bull, the younger Little Wolf and other old men,
as well as some old women and a few Sioux, all of whom were with the
hostile Indians when Custer came.
THOMAS B. MARQUIS, M.D.
_Contents._
CHAPTER PAGE
I BOYHOOD WILD DAYS 1
II ROAMERS IN THE GAME LANDS 20
III CHEYENNE WAYS OF LIFE 56
IV WORSHIPING THE GREAT MEDICINE 123
V OFF THE RESERVATION 155
VI SWARMING OF ANGERED INDIANS 177
VII SOLDIERS FROM THE SOUTHWARD 193
VIII ON THE LITTLE BIGHORN 208
IX THE COMING OF CUSTER 217
X THE SPOILS OF BATTLE 258
XI ROVINGS AFTER THE VICTORY 272
XII SURRENDER OF THE CHEYENNES 295
XIII TAKEN TO THE SOUTH 310
XIV HOME AGAIN ON TONGUE RIVER 325
XV A TAMED OLD MAN 348
XVI CLEARING THE DOCKET 375
_Illustrations._
Wooden Leg, a warrior who fought Custer, holding a rifle
captured by a Cheyenne companion warrior at Custer’s
last battle _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Stone pen used by old-time Indians as lookout shelter for
sentinel. This one is on a hill overlooking Tongue river,
near Ashland, Montana 28
Cheyenne women setting up a tepee 76
A Cheyenne sweat lodge 112
A Cheyenne woman tanning 112
Wooden Leg making Custer battle drawings for the author 220
Limpy, a Cheyenne veteran of Custer’s last battle, standing
at the Little Bighorn ford where the Indians crossed to
meet the Custer soldiers 240
Big Beaver, a veteran Cheyenne warrior, standing at the
spot where he saw the last Custer soldier killed, June
25, 1876 296
Wooden Leg, his wife and their daughter, in 1914 360
MAPS
Camp sites and other salient points in vicinity of Custer
battlefield, Montana 387
Sketch map of hostile Indians’ course of travel in Montana,
1876 389
A WARRIOR WHO FOUGHT CUSTER
I
_Boyhood Wild Days._
Seventy-three years ago (1858) I was born when my people were camped
by the waters of the Cheyenne river, in the Black Hills. Both of my
parents were of the Northern Cheyenne tribe of Indians. My father had
two names, as often is the case among us. He sometimes was called
Many Bullet Wounds, because of such marks of warfare on his body.
But his preferred name was White Buffalo Shaking Off the Dust. My
mother’s name was Eagle Feather on the Forehead. Marriage during the
old Indian days did not change any woman’s name, so all through her
lifetime this same term was used for her.
My father’s father went to Washington, as a delegate from our tribe,
before I was born. He was known as No Braids. The differing words
to indicate my grandfather, my father, my mother, and myself show
our old way of keeping individuality, regardless of parentage or
marriage. My brothers and sisters each had a name different from
mine and from our father and mother.
I was known, during my boyhood, as Eats From the Hand. But this baby
name was set aside during my youth. The change came about in this
manner:
On a certain occasion, many years before my birth, the Cheyennes
were camped on the western side of the middle part of Powder river.
At this same time the Crows were assembled on a branch of what now
is known as the Mizpah river, which flows into the lower part of
the Powder river. They were only two or three days of travel from
our camp. The Cheyennes organized a war party and went to fight the
Crows. As a result of the battle the Cheyennes captured five Crow
women and one boy about ten years old. The women were made wives for
their captors. The boy was adopted as a son of one of them. All of
these captives stayed permanently thereafter with our people.
The Crow boy liked Eagle Feather on the Forehead, who then was
only a little older than he. He said, “This girl is my sister.”
She accepted him as a brother. In later years the girl was married
to White Buffalo Shakes Off the Dust, and these became my parents.
The Crow boy came to manhood and married a Cheyenne girl. Myself
and my brothers and sisters were taught to look upon him as our
uncle, since he had been an adopted brother of my mother. He was an
admirable man, brave and capable. All of the Cheyennes had a high
regard for him. He knew he was born a Crow, but he never showed any
desire to leave us for returning to them. He went, though, to the
Southern Cheyennes, following the great warrior Roman Nose. He died
there, in Oklahoma, a very old man.
This Crow-Cheyenne Indian man was a wonderful traveler on foot.
Even as a boy he could outwalk and wear down most of the young
men who journeyed with him. His capabilities in this regard were
so noticeable that people said: “His legs must be made of wood,
since he never becomes tired.” Then they fixed upon him a name,
Kum-mok-quiv-vi-ok-ta--Wooden Leg.
I also was a youthful wonder in the matter of walking. By the time I
was fifteen years old I could go all day following in the footsteps
of my uncle Wooden Leg. I was tall and gaunt, and I grew yet taller
in young manhood. Friends began jokingly to apply to me the name of
this enduring uncle, who then had become a middle-aged or elderly
man. I liked the name, I liked the man who bore it, and I liked the
honor of comparison with him. I told my father I wished to be known
as Wooden Leg. It was a common custom to pass down names to junior
relatives. My father told me that when the right time came he would
confer upon me the new name. The time came when I was about seventeen
years old.
The Cheyennes then were camped far up the Tongue river, on a small
creek branch at its western side. It was in winter, there was deep
snow and the weather was cold. One morning we discovered that twenty
of our horses were missing. A blizzard was whirling, so we could only
get glimpses of the trail of the thieves. We supposed them to be Crow
Indians, of course. Thirteen Cheyennes, including myself, mounted
ponies and set off in pursuit. We struggled all day through the
blinding snowstorm. We got the general direction of the trail, so we
kept on going during all of the succeeding night. None of us slept.
The following morning was clear, but a cold north breeze was sifting
the snow along as if it were sand. We then were far up the valley of
the Little Bighorn river.
We saw two Indians driving a band of horses out of the valley and
upon the benches to the westward. It was evident they were Crows
urging our lost animals toward their camp west of the Bighorn. We
approached them as rapidly as possible while concealing our presence.
When we arrived on the benchland we found the two men had stopped in
a sheltered gulch, had dismounted and were preparing to light their
pipe for a smoke. We charged upon them. One of them got to his horse
and dashed away, but Black Eagle’s rifle brought him down dead. The
other one was surrounded and cut to death with knives and hatchets.
We got back all of our horses and their two horses in addition.
My companions informed my father that I had shown great bravery in
rushing upon and helping to dispatch our Crow enemy. My father gave a
feast to honor me, and at this feast he proclaimed: “Henceforth the
name of this son of mine is Wooden Leg.”
As a little boy I used to ride in a travois basket when the tribe
moved camp. Two long lodgepoles were crossed over the shoulders
or tied to the sides of a horse. Thus they were dragged over the
country. Buffalo skins were used to stretch across between the widely
gaping poles behind the horse. Upon or into these bagging skins were
placed all of the family property, in rawhide satchels or as separate
loose articles. The smaller children also rode there. I have fond
recollections of this kind of traveling. Many an hour I have slept
in that kind of gentle bed. Roads were not needed for this kind of
vehicle. A travois can be taken anywhere a horse will go, and there
never is any jolting. The spring of the poles and the skin takes up
all of the shocks.
When I was six years old I asked my father: “Will you give me a
horse?” “Yes, you may have any horse of mine that you want, but you
must catch him,” he replied. He gave me a rawhide lariat rope. He
and my mother and some other older people laughed about it, but I
took the matter seriously. With the lariat looped and coiled I went
out among the herd to search for horses belonging to my father. I
selected a small pony as being my choice. I maneuvered a long time
before I could get the loop about its neck. It struggled, but I hung
on. When it quieted down I followed carefully along the line, talking
soothingly, until it allowed me to pat its neck. After a while I
got into its mouth and around its lower jaw a loop of the rawhide,
according to the old Indian way of making a bridle. When it had
calmed after this new advance I began to make strokes upon its back.
Then I tucked the long coil into my belt, the same as I had seen men
do, and I climbed quickly upon the little animal. It shied, and I
fell off. But I still had my rope, this uncoiling from my belt as the
pony moved away. I seized the tether and followed again its guidance
to the coveted mount. More petting and soothing talk. Another attempt
at riding. Off again. Before making a third try I spent a long
time at the gentle taming procedures. Nevertheless, the pony shied
and then bucked after I had mounted it. But I grabbed its mane and
stuck to my seat. Within a few minutes I had control. I rode to my
father’s lodge.
“Yes, that is your pony, to keep,” he told me.
Bands of us boys went out at times on horseback to hunt wolves. We
had only the bows and arrows. We killed many wolves with the arrows.
My father had given me a good bow and a supply of arrows when I was
nine or ten years old. We then were in the Black Hills country.
The only trading post I ever saw during those years was somewhere on
the Geese river.[1] The trader was known to us as Big Nosed White
Man. I was twelve years old the first time I went there, and I never
was at any other trading place during those times. My father got
me a rifle at this place. It used powder and bullets and caps, not
cartridges. I learned how to make bullets for it.
I recollect very clearly one certain boyhood hunting experience. We
were camped on Otter creek about two miles from the present white
man town of Ashland, Montana, situated by the Tongue river. It was
midwinter, the snow was deep, the weather was cold. My mother said to
me: “We have no meat.”
Another boy and I set off for a hunt. We were about the same age,
fifteen years old. We each had on a shirt, leggings and moccasins,
all of buckskin or other skin. The leggings had no seat in them,
as was the Indian way of clothing the lower limbs. We had no head
coverings nor any mittens for our hands. Although we were accustomed
to hardship, this was a cold day for us. We waded and wallowed
through snow up to our knees and our thighs. I had my muzzle-loading
rifle and a bow and arrows. My companion had only his bow and arrows.
A brush rabbit sat huddled under a shelter in a brier patch. I
fumbled out an arrow and placed it upon the bow. My numb fingers
scarcely could hold the arrow alone, surely could not draw the bow to
a tensity enough for accurate shooting. The arrow missed. I rubbed
and slapped together my hands to make them warm and mobile. Then I
strung another pointed missile and took a careful aim. This time the
rabbit’s body was perforated. We laid it beside our trail and went on
in pursuit of more game.
We saw four buffaloes on the land where now stand the Mennonite
missionary houses. They also saw us, and they ran away. They crossed
Tongue river on the ice, and soon afterward we got a view of them
clambering up the hillside beyond the river and going on to the
timbered benchland out of our sight. No chance to shoot at them. We
trudged on, though, rubbing and pounding our hands and our bodies in
order to keep from freezing. We crossed the river on the ice and
came out from the bordering timber near the present-day home of my
friend Joe Crow.
A deer jumped out and stood looking at us. The first shot from
my rifle brought it down. We rushed to it and cut its throat. We
hurriedly cut open the body and jammed our hands inside, to get them
warm. Many a time I have done that same thing in other instances.
After this limbering of the fingers we skinned the animal and cut off
all of the meat from the bones. The meat was wrapped into the skin,
then we set off on the back trail for the home camp. We took turns
at carrying the burden. As we plodded along we paused to pick up the
dead rabbit. About dark we arrived at our lodges, very tired but
contented.
On another winter hunt I went alone. My mother said, “We have no
meat.” So I took a packhorse and started out. The snow was deep. I
led the horse as I walked, to keep warm. It was a long and tiresome
day. I was becoming discouraged when I found the tracks of a buffalo.
I followed them, and finally I got into the right position and killed
the animal with a rifle. It was hard work, me alone skinning off the
hide, cutting off the meat, rolling the bundle and packing my horse.
I got through with it, though, and set out for the home lodge. My
legs carried me there, but it was after dark when I gave the horse’s
leading rope to my mother. All of our family laughed in joy, for we
had plenty of meat.
But I was in great bodily distress. I was snow-blind and the soles
of my feet were frozen. The firelight dazzled my eyes to the utmost
painfulness. My feet tortured me as they began to get warm in the
comfortable lodge. My mother sent for the doctor, a medicine man
named Red Bear. He got snow and rubbed the soles of my feet. He took
snowflakes between his lips, puffed flicks of them into my eyes,
and also he flipped snowflakes from his fingertips into my eyes.
Pretty soon I felt much better. Before he went away that night I was
entirely cured. He was a wise medicine man for sick people. Many of
our doctors in the old times made wonderful cures.
One time when I was on a hunting trip with others in the Bighorn
mountains I saw an eagle capture and carry away a buffalo calf.
The big bird took the little animal far up to the top of a cliff,
where there was an eagle nest. We sat on our horses and watched, to
see what would happen. Ordinarily a capturing eagle would drop its
prey from high in the air, so it would be killed by the fall to the
ground. But this did not happen in this case. As long as we stayed
there watching, we still could see the buffalo calf standing up there
on the cliff and wiggling its tail.
A band of soldiers fought our Cheyennes back and forth across a river
one time when I was seven or eight years old. It was the Lodgepole
river, near where it flows into Geese river. Members of our Crazy Dog
warrior society did all of our fighting that day. The Elk warriors
and the Fox warriors stayed back with the body of our people who were
looking on. My father belonged to the Elk warriors, so he was an
onlooker. Roman Nose and High-Backed Wolf were the specially brave
Crazy Dogs on that day.
The Shoshones, the Crows and the Pawnees were the tribes we fought
most during my time of growing up to manhood. The Pawnees, though,
were too far away from the regions where I spent a large part of
my early life--the Black Hills, the Powder, Tongue and Bighorn
countries. So my own youthful warrior experiences were mostly in
combat against the Crows and the Shoshones. One incident out of many
in this kind of warfare will show how it was carried on.
A band of Shoshones came at night and stole some of our horses. We
were camped on a divide between the upper part of Tongue river and
the Little Bighorn. Deep snow and winter weather. I then was sixteen
years old. I went with the party of Cheyennes who took the trail of
the thieves. After traveling all day and into the night we found a
small camp of Shoshones. Most of them, alarmed by their dogs, had
fled when we made our attack upon them. But repeated shots kept
coming from one certain lodge. We concentrated our assault upon this
lodge. Two Cheyennes were killed and another one mortally wounded
before we could suppress this destructive defense. White Wolf, eleven
years older than I was and yet living as my neighbor on Tongue river,
was the brave warrior who dealt the fatal blow to that Shoshone.
White Wolf crept along the ground and into the lodge. He had in
his right hand a six-shooter. It was totally dark in there, and he
fumbled about the interior, seeking whomsoever he might find. His gun
bumped into somebody, and he pulled the trigger. Later developments
revealed this was the only occupant of the lodge. The victim was an
old man. He was the only Shoshone we killed in that fight, so far as
we could learn. But we won the battle and got back our horses.
We cut up the body of the old Shoshone man. We cut off his hands,
his feet, his head. We ripped open his breast and his belly. I stood
there and looked at his heart and his liver. We tore down the lodge,
built a bonfire of it and its contents and piled the remnants of the
dead body upon this bonfire. We stayed there until nothing was left
but ashes and coals.
The Cheyennes during my youth associated much with the Ogallala
Sioux, the Arapahoes and the Minneconjoux Sioux. Many Cheyennes
learned the speech of these other tribes, and in turn they had many
members who used ours. Most of my outside mingling was with the
Ogallalas. By the time I was grown to full stature I could talk
Sioux about as well as I could talk Cheyenne. I still can use either
language.
Forty army mules were brought into our camp on Rosebud creek when
I was about nine years old. Three Cheyennes got them. These three
were Wrapped Braids, Old Bear and Pipe, a half-man-and-half-woman
Cheyenne. They had chased away a lone soldier herding the mules near
a soldier fort on the Bighorn river.[2] There were many attacks on
this and other forts by the Cheyennes and the Sioux, but I was too
young to take part in them.
Some Crow chiefs visited our camp on Rosebud creek. The Crows were
our enemies, but our people treated these visitors well, as was the
Indian custom when enemies came peaceably. After a feast and a smoke
had been given them they told our chiefs that the big chief of the
soldiers at the Bighorn fort had sent them to make peace with us and
invite us to join the Crows and the soldiers in warring against the
Sioux. They said the soldiers would give us lots of presents if
we would be friendly with them. All of our camp moved over there.
We were given some blankets, many boxes of crackers, and our women
received beads and other gifts. We then went back to the Rosebud
valley. I do not know what was done about making peace, but I know
that our young men warriors kept on doing as they had been doing.
Another soldier fort that was being fought by the Ogallala Sioux and
some of the Cheyennes was on what we called Buffalo creek.[3] Little
Wolf was then our most important old man chief. Crazy Head was next
in importance among us. Red Cloud was the leading old man chief of
the Ogallalas, with Crazy Horse as their principal warrior chief.
At a time when our whole tribe were in camp on Rosebud creek, just
below the mouth of Lame Deer creek, and when the Ogallalas were on
Tongue river, just below where Birney, Montana, is now situated, some
of their people came over the divide to us and asked the Cheyennes
to join them in a great attack on the Buffalo creek fort. Our chiefs
considered the matter. It was decided that whatever young men of us
might wish to go would be allowed to do so. Our camp then was moved
up Lame Deer creek to the base of the divide, a short day’s ride from
the Ogallalas on Tongue river. Our great medicine man, Crazy Mule,
showed that he could cause bullets shot at him to fall harmless at
his feet. A hundred or more of our young men said they could go to
fight the soldiers if Crazy Mule would go with them. He agreed to go.
Our second chief, Crazy Head, led the band of warriors. Little Wolf
stayed in our camp.
My oldest brother, named Strong Wind Blowing, was killed in that
midwinter battle with the soldiers.[4] He was about sixteen years
old. Chief Little Wolf’s younger brother also was killed. These two
were the only Cheyennes who fell that day. I do not know how many
Sioux may have been cut down by the soldier bullets, but I believe
there were not many. Our returning warriors said that more than a
hundred white men lost their lives, that Crazy Mule’s medicine caused
them to fall down dead without need for the Indians to kill them.[5]
There was rejoicing in our camp on account of the victory. But our
family and all relatives of the two dead Cheyennes were in mourning.
We wept and prayed for the spirits of our lost ones.
Some time after that battle a half-breed Indian came as a messenger
from the soldier fort chief to the Cheyennes. He said, “Come,
friends, and let us have peace.” Little Wolf told us we ought to go,
so the whole tribe moved near to them. Little Wolf and others of our
chiefs had a council with the soldier chiefs. The big chief of the
soldiers said to Little Wolf: “We are going away from this country.
I give to you all of these soldier houses. Your people may live in
them and learn how to cultivate the land.” A separate council of our
chiefs was held. They replied, “Yes, we will take the houses.”
The Cheyennes were pleased. “That one will be my house,” some one of
them would say, pointing out a certain building. “I want that one,”
another would claim, indicating some other structure. But Little Wolf
was not satisfied. He meditated and expressed his disapproval. “We
can not live here,” he urged. “It is impossible for Indians to live
in the same houses all the time and get enough buffalo and other meat
to sustain them.” The women especially implored him to change his
mind. The question was settled fully one morning when Little Wolf set
fire to the fort. He went from building to building, carrying his
firebrands. He did not cease his efforts until the entire evidence of
white man occupation was in ashes.[6]
Little Wolf had been a big tribal chief, the most influential one,
for about two years before that time. In his earlier manhood years
he was for a long time chosen over and over again as the leading
chief of the Elk warrior society. If during his time any Cheyenne
was looked upon as the bravest man of all, he was the man. He never
was afraid to speak the truth. The people all believed him. He was
a gentle and charitable man, but if insulted to anger he was likely
to hurt somebody. In either disturbed or undisturbed mood everybody
knew he meant just what he said. He was my uncle by marriage, one
of his two wives being a sister of my father. He used to tell me
many thrilling stories, both at his lodge and at my father’s lodge.
I recall one in particular, when he had a hand-to-hand combat with
a Shoshone. Each had a sheathknife. They grappled and wrestled and
slashed one another. Finally Little Wolf pinioned the arms of the
Shoshone, threw him to the ground, plunged upon him and stabbed
him to death. He gave me a great deal of good advice, both as to
warfare and as to how to carry myself uprightly as a man among my own
people. My conduct all throughout my life has been influenced by his
teachings, more than by those of any other preceptor except my own
father.
I think my body grew more rapidly than did my mind. By the time I
was eighteen years old I was among the tallest men of the tribe. I
believe there were but two who stood a little above me. Both of
these two were killed in the great battle against the soldiers of
Custer. Then remained myself and Tall Bull as the two topmost in
stature. We were the same in height, were about the same age, but he
was distinctly the heavier. We were close associates during youth and
manhood. He died at Lame Deer eight or ten years ago. I do not know
by any measurement just what was my height when I was a young man. I
think I have grown shorter as old age has crept upon me. My friend
the white man doctor measures me now at six feet two inches and
weighs me at 235 pounds.
Our tribe during my growing years moved here and there throughout
the region between the Black Hills and the Bighorn mountains and
Bighorn river. We never went north of the Elk river (the Yellowstone)
except on two occasions when some of the tribe went across for only a
few days each time. The places of crossing were just above and just
below the mouth of the Bighorn. Only one time was the tribal camp
circle made west of the Bighorn river. We considered that country as
belonging to the Crows. Our war parties went there, but our campings
were eastward from this stream. I do not know why we crossed to that
side on this occasion. We had been having a series of ceremonial
dances at successive camping places, and it may be that this
invasion of Crow land was intended as a challenge.
I was about fourteen years old, I believe. The season was what in
later life I have come to know as June. It was the time for our usual
early-summer religious devotions. A medicine dance had been led by
White Horse, an old man, when we were just below where Greasy Grass
creek flows into the Little Bighorn. We stayed there five sleeps.
Then we moved a few miles down the Little Bighorn, where Crazy Mule
led a buffalo dance. Camped there four sleeps. Moved again down the
Little Bighorn, this time placing our camp circle on the exact spot
where it was located four years later, at the time we killed all of
the soldiers. Bear Sits Down gave a buffalo dance at this place. Four
sleeps here. The movement was continued on down the Little Bighorn to
its mouth, where we crossed the Bighorn and set up our camp circle on
its west side. Here Brave Wolf led a Great Medicine or Great Spirit
dance, the ceremony known to the white people as a sun dance. Four
sleeps we stayed here, then we crossed back to the east side of the
Bighorn. That was the only time our people as a tribe ever crossed
that river.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] North Platte river.
[2] Fort C. F. Smith.
[3] Fort Phil Kearny, on Little Piney creek.
[4] Fort Phil Kearny fight, December, 1866.
[5] Suicidal acts, to avoid capture alive?--T. B. M.
[6] Autumn, 1868.
II
_Roamers in the Game Lands._
The first agency for our Northern Cheyennes that I heard anything
about was said to have been at the mouth of the Cheyenne river, east
of the Black Hills. But I never was there. Afterward it was located
south of the Black Hills, near the present Pine Ridge agency for
the Ogallala Sioux. I have been told the white people called this
the Red Cloud agency, but the Cheyennes knew it as the White River
agency. I was at this place two times, but only for a few days in
each instance. My father’s family was almost all of the time with
other Cheyennes moving about over the country between the Black Hills
and the Bighorn river. Here we hunted the game and the enemy Crows
and Shoshones, and here we lived in every way the life of the plains
Indians of those times. It was not an idle existence. We were busy
much of the time, fighting our enemies or gathering food and clothing
and sheltering skins.
As we were camped on lower Tongue river, when I was about nine years
old, one morning a herald startled the people by his cry:
“Our horses all are gone!”
There followed a lively stir among the young men. A party of them,
mounted on a few horses that had been overlooked by the raiders,
hurried away on the trail. A thin snow helped them. In the late
afternoon they caught up with the lost herd, apparently abandoned.
But after a search of the vicinity they discovered that somebody was
in a canyon cave there. One of the Cheyennes crawled into the cave,
in an endeavor to verify the supposition. The verification came in
the form of an arrow that hit him in the right eye. He quickly backed
out. “Everybody bring wood,” the Cheyenne leader ordered. They built
a fire at the cave’s opening. With blankets they fanned the flames
and the smoke into the hole. The prisoners fanned outward and thrust
sticks at the fire heap to push it away. “Bring more wood,” the
leader called. The one-sided contest went on until two Crow Indian
men burst out from the cave almost suffocated and in desperation.
The first one out was beaten and stabbed to death by the surrounding
Cheyennes. The second one got past them, sprang upon one of their
horses and dashed away. The Cheyennes pursued him. He happened to
mount a slow animal, so it was not long before the chase developed
into a beating by pony whip handles. The Crow suddenly jerked his
mount to a standstill. At the same moment he flashed out his
sheathknife and made a vicious sidewise stab. The blade buried itself
in the breast of a Cheyenne, who fell dead. The other Cheyennes
rushed upon the Crow. In a twinkling he had received many death blows
from various weapons. Somebody scalped him, and then they cut off his
feet, hands and head. I was not with this party, but I was in the
camp. I heard all about it when they returned.
I saw the killing of another Crow, though, when we were at this same
camp on Tongue river. One morning a Cheyenne horse was discovered
dragging a rawhide lariat looped about its lower jaw. This was
peculiarly the Crow way of bridling a horse, the Sioux and Cheyennes
ordinarily making a headstall and mouth bit with the rope. Evidently
some Crow had captured our horse and it had escaped from him during
the night. There was a scurrying out to inspect and count our herd.
Apparently no others were missing. The inquiry was directed then
toward an examination of the ground on the outskirts of the area
where the ponies were grazing. Three strange horses had come from
the hills to the westward and gone away in a gallop. Another trail
was of human footprints, these imprinted as if the maker of them had
been lame and had been using a stick for support. This trail led to a
hillside cliff. There under the shelter of an overhanging stone roof
lay a Crow Indian man apparently dead or sound asleep. A Cheyenne
leveled his rifle at close range and fired. The Crow partly jumped up
to a sitting attitude and then fell back dead. Investigation showed
him to have a broken leg and a broken arm. The horse he had captured
was not well tamed, and it had bucked him off. Perhaps it first had
carried him away from his companions, and perhaps either he or the
horse had made a noise that might have alarmed the camp, whereupon
the two other marauders had abandoned him and fled. As I now reflect
back sixty years, I pity that unfortunate Crow Indian. But at that
time I felt no pity.
Nine Crows came and stole a band of our horses at a time when we
were camped far up the Tongue river. I then was about sixteen years
old. I joined the pursuing party of Cheyennes. We rode fast and far,
following the trail over hills and valleys toward the Bighorn river.
Some of our horses, including mine, played out. Four of us turned
to go back while the others went on after the Crows. Porcupine was
the oldest of my returning group of four. Night was coming upon us,
so we stopped to sleep and to rest our horses. During the night a
sound of moving horses awakened us. We kept quiet, listening and
looking. Porcupine saw someone on horseback about a hundred yards
distant from us. He called out a challenge: “Cheyenne? Crow?” The
rider lashed his mount to dash away. Porcupine fired his rifle in
the direction of the fleeing prowler. We learned nothing then of the
outcome of this incident. But several months later an Arapaho friend
told us of the ending. He had been hunting in this region, and right
where we had slept that night he found the dead body of a Crow shot
through from back to front.
The others who had gone on after the Crows driving our herd caught up
with them just below the old soldier fort on the Bighorn river. My
older brother was with them, and he told me what happened there. The
horse band was across on the west side, and four Crows were having a
playful time at bathing in the river. They were swimming, splashing,
joking, laughing. The dozen or more Cheyennes kept themselves hidden
and hurriedly dressed themselves for a fight while their horses
rested a few minutes. Then they burst into their war-songs and
charged into the water upon the surprised and defenseless bathers.
Three Crows were killed, one escaped. All of our horses were
recovered and three of theirs were added to the band. The third Crow
killed was an old man, but he was very active. He dodged, jumped,
dived. But the Cheyennes had too many spears jabbing at him and too
many bullets flying toward him. My brother’s six-shooter put the
fatal blow upon him.
The following year, when our tepees were assembled on the west side
of Tongue river just across from the mouth of Hanging Woman creek,
my father and I went out one day to get an antelope. He was about to
shoot at one when the animal and some others with it suddenly ran
away. We were hidden, so it seemed certain their fright came from
someone else. We crept and peeped. Pretty soon we saw a group of
Indian hunters on horseback.
“They are Crows,” my father excitedly whispered.
Oh, what clever dodging we did! We got to our horses, mounted them,
kept them moving through gullies and brushy spots until we reached
the home camp. A band of Cheyennes joined us to attack the Crows. At
a long distance off we followed them until our horses tired out. By
this time we were at the upper branches of the Rosebud. We gave up
the chase. Nobody hurt.
Great herds of buffalo west of the Bighorn used to draw the Cheyennes
over into that Crow country for the hunt. We camped on the eastern
side, but our hunting parties crossed the river and went as far as
Shooting at the Bank creek.[7] Each hunter led one or more pack
horses to carry the meat and skins taken. Many times I have swam the
Bighorn or some other river while holding in my teeth the leading
rope of my riding pony. The pack horse rope would be held in the same
way or might be tied to the tail of this leader. My clothing would be
compressed into a bundle and strapped to the back of my head.
As we were camped on the east side of the Bighorn, about two years
before the great Custer battle, three Crows were seen one day chasing
antelope on our side of the river. Report of their presence there
was brought to our camp. An old man herald mounted his pony and went
about the camp circle calling out:
“Crows are after our antelope herds. They may steal our horses.”
Six Cheyenne young men got their war clothing packs, mounted their
war ponies and set out to find the bold Crows. I was not with them,
but a special friend of mine was one of the pursuing party and he
told me of their experience. They crossed the Bighorn river just
below where had been the soldier fort. During the course of the
pursuit they killed two Crows. The third one was followed on to the
main Crow camp beside Shooting at the Bank creek. The six Cheyennes
lingered there to spy upon the camp. The lingering was a little too
extended, for soon they found themselves engaged in a fight with
a much larger band of Crows. A Cheyenne wearing a double tailed
warbonnet had his horse shot down, then the man himself was shot
through the thigh, this disability rendering him an easy mark for
fatal blows that soon fell upon him. A second Cheyenne was killed by
arrows or bullets. A third one met death by the same means. The other
three escaped and made their way back to our side of the river and to
the home camp circle.
During this same summer the Crows made a raid one night on our horse
herd. Of course, when daylight revealed the situation a war party
of Cheyennes went out for revengeful retaliation. I was not in camp
at this time, being on a hunting trip toward the mountains, but
Braid told me of what happened. He was one of the band of avenging
Cheyennes. The Crows drove all of the horses to their camp on
Shooting at the Bank creek. The Cheyennes hid themselves to watch
for some opportunity for reprisal. But the crafty Crows evidently
discovered them or had planned thus to entrap them. Notice came
only when a horde of them charged out for a fight. Two of the Crows
were killed and two Cheyennes also met death. Braid’s horse was
shot down and he himself was hit by a bullet that broke the bones
in the lower part of one of his legs. A companion on horseback took
Braid up behind him and the two got away into safety. All of the
Cheyennes then fled from the field. Braid is yet alive, at the age of
eighty-nine years, his home being on the Rosebud side of this Tongue
River reservation. The white people call him Arthur Brady.
About a year before these events just related a big camp of Cheyennes
was located on the Little Bighorn a short distance below where Greasy
Grass creek empties into it. Fresh footprints of unknown horses
near the camp site aroused suspicion. Crows? Shoshones? People
conjectured. An old man herald rode about and notified everybody.
That night all of the horses were brought into the camp circle and
picketed among the lodges. Many watchful people slept lightly or
awakened from time to time and peered out from the tepee flaps. Last
Bull, asleep in a small tepee with his wife, was startled by the
snorting of a mule he had picketed near by. The mule snorted again,
then a third time. Last Bull saw a human form crawling along toward
his mule. The aroused man had no gun, so he crept under his tepee
wall and into the next one, there to borrow a six-shooter from an old
woman.
[Illustration: STONE PEN (IN FOREGROUND) USED BY OLD-TIME INDIANS
AS LOOKOUT SHELTER FOR SENTINEL. THIS ONE IS ON A HILL OVERLOOKING
TONGUE RIVER, NEAR ASHLAND, MONTANA]
Fire Wolf saw the wriggling form cut the rope and move off leading
the mule. He bravely jumped out, without any weapon, and seized the
intruder. They grappled and struggled. The stranger had a rifle.
During the scuffle it was discharged. The noise aroused the camp.
Cheyennes came running. Cries rang out:
“Kill the Crow! Kill the Crow!”
The thief jerked out a sheathknife and stabbed Fire Wolf again and
again until the Cheyenne had to let loose his hold. The freed man
sprang to his feet and ran, leaving the mule. A shot from Last Bull’s
borrowed six-shooter brought him down. A dozen Cheyennes closed in
upon him and beat him to death. Fire Wolf had some bad knife wounds,
but he recovered. The clothing, the bodily decorations in general
and the mode of hair dressing revealed the dead Indian as being not
a Crow. He was a Flathead, perhaps a visitor among the Crows or a
member of a band visiting and hunting with them.
A battle with the Shoshones was fought near the headwaters of Powder
river when I was about fifteen years old (1873). A small band of
Cheyennes had their lodges a day’s journey farther up the river from
the main body of the tribe. I was with the small band. Four or five
Shoshones came at night to our little camp and stole our horses. We
walked to the main camp and told of the raid. All were for immediate
war against the whole Shoshone tribe. “Kill all of the Shoshones,”
was the common cry. The main camp moved on up the river to our small
encampment. There preparations were made for the warfare. That very
night thirty-two Shoshone warriors came into the view of our night
sentinels. Evidently the enemies had planned to wipe out our little
band, not knowing of the presence now of the whole tribe.
The sentinels raised an alarm. Yet the Shoshones did not offer to
retreat until they found themselves overwhelmed by a great body of
our warriors. Their horses were tired from the journey to our camp
while ours were just taken from their picket ropes. Perhaps the
raiders had been saying, “We shall kill all of the Cheyennes here,”
but now they plunged their horses into a long and deep canyon in
their effort to get away from us. The Cheyennes strung themselves
all along both sides of the canyon. Shooting was kept up during the
balance of the night and until an hour or more after daylight. Two of
the enemy escaped. Thirty of them were killed in the canyon. Seven of
our Cheyennes also lost their lives. We recovered the horses the four
had stolen. This fight was on a small creek flowing into the west
side of Powder river from the mountains near by.
White Bull was leading a hunting party one time in the Elk river
country. I was yet a small boy, so I was not with them. Their scouts
observed the distant herds of buffalo excited. Crows? Shoshones?
White soldiers? The Cheyennes hid themselves for the night. In the
early morning they found moccasin tracks by a creek. The moccasin
trail led to a Blackfeet camp. There the Cheyennes stirred up a
fight, but I believe nobody was killed. The great warrior Roman Nose
rode back and forth in front of the Blackfeet and defied them. All of
them were said to have shot at him without a bullet or arrow having
harmed him. He had a powerful spirit or medicine protection for
himself. White Bull had taught him this medicine.
Soldiers got after a small band of mingled Cheyennes and Sioux near
the Black Hills one time. We were running away when a Cheyenne was
killed. Two Sioux, another Cheyenne and myself went back to recover
his dead body. We got off our horses and crept over a hill. We four
took our dead companion by his hands and feet and dragged him over
the knoll. There we rolled him into a blanket and we took the four
corners. Bullets were whistling all about us. The blanket ripped and
the body fell through the opening. We again took hold of the hands
and feet, and in this way we got him to our horses and delivered him
to his own people.
Several months before the great battle with Long Hair (General
Custer) and his soldiers, some Cheyennes coming from the agency
on White river told us that the white men were going to come out
and fight us. As parties went out for hunting, a lookout was kept
for these white enemies. My brother, myself and two other Cheyenne
young men went on a special scouting journey. We were camped then
far up the Powder river. At night we four slept out in the open
country. Early in the morning a fifth Cheyenne came to us. “Soldiers
are near us,” he said. We learned our horses were missing. The
soldiers had taken them. We all ran away afoot. We scattered in
different directions, except my brother and me, who went together
into a canyon. Soldiers rode along on both sides of the canyon and
shot at us. We shot back at them, first using up our bullets and
then resorting to our arrows. We kept creeping along the canyon.
The soldiers gradually dropped away. We were not harmed nor did
we know of our having harmed any of them. When they left us we
carefully worked our way on up the canyon and over a hill toward our
camp. Breathing hard, almost exhausted, frightened to the verge of
collapse, we stopped for a few minutes of rest. Then we hurried on.
At the outskirts of the camp circle we paused to send a warning wolf
howl. The people all gathered about us.
“What has happened?” they asked.
We told of our experience. At the same time the other returned young
men were giving the same kind of information. The chiefs ordered
everybody to pack up, and the camp was moved far on down the Powder
river. Some of us stayed back to watch the soldiers. One night I saw
them in their camp. Two sentinels were walking back and forth near
their horses. I or any of my companions could have killed either or
both of them. But this would have endangered our people, so we did
nothing of that kind. We stole back our horses, though. I got the
same horse they had taken from me a few nights before this. Our camp
kept on moving, and the soldiers never found us on this hunt.
A great band of Southern Cheyennes came for a visit to us in the
Black Hills about two years before the Custer battle on the Little
Bighorn. All of us joined together then for a long hunting journey to
the westward, to the Powder river, the Tongue and the Little Bighorn.
Many thousands of buffalo, deer, antelope. Many skins, much meat,
everybody happy and prosperous and in health. On the Little Bighorn
river we had one day of Great Medicine thanksgiving dancing just
below the mouth of Greasy Grass creek. Further down the valley the
camp divided, half of the people going northwestward to trouble the
Crows while the other half took a southwestward course toward the
country of the Shoshones.
I went to the Shoshone country. We did not see any of those Indians,
but a few of us saw their agency. We saw also the soldier houses
there. We kept clear of the soldiers, and I think they never knew we
were in that region until after we had gone. We rounded up and drove
off a herd of white man cattle and killed every beef. Game was scarce
there, and we needed the food.