picked up at the town when we were on our way to the South. For
keeping my comb and paints I have a flat pouch made from a bootleg.
The boots I got at the White River agency the next day after my
hunting party went there to surrender. Another young man and I were
walking in the neighborhood of the soldier tents there. I found a
pair of soldier boots among some other articles also cast aside by
the white men. The soles were worn, but the tops were good. I knew
how to make use of them. I cut off the worn bottom parts and kept
the tops. My mother sewed one of them into the pouch. I know of some
Cheyennes who still have such carriers made from bootlegs of Custer
soldiers.
I lost the medicine pipe given to me by the Ogallala Sioux man at
the White River agency. That was my second medicine pipe. The third
one came to me when I was somewhere past forty years old. An Uncpapa
Sioux visiting me at my place gave it to me. I still have it. It
is made of the red stone found in their part of the country. After
he had given to me this pipe I went on a journey into the Bighorn
mountains. There I got some blue stone of the kind used for making
Indian pipes. I made two of them. I now have three pipes, one red one
and two blue ones. I have kept all three of them for several years,
and I do not expect to sell any of them.
I was baptized by the priest at the Tongue river mission when I was
almost fifty years old. My wife and our two daughters were baptized
too. I think the white people pray to the same Great Medicine we do
in our old Cheyenne way. I do not go often to the church, but I go
sometimes. I think the white church people are good, but I do not
believe all of the stories they tell about what happened a long time
ago. The way they tell us, all of the good people in the old times
were white people. I am glad to have the white man churches among
us, but I feel more satisfied when I make my prayers in the way I
was taught to make them. My heart is much more contented when I sit
alone with my medicine pipe and talk with the Great Medicine about
whatever may be troubling me.
Our old ways of worship were kept up through several years after
we came to this reservation. Our Great Medicine dances and other
old ceremonies were carried out as we had them in the days when we
traveled over the whole hunting region. Then the government compelled
us to quit them. I think this was not right. Lately, though, the
conditions have changed. We were allowed to have our Great Medicine
dance in 1927, again in 1928 and in 1929.
We had good medicine men in the old times. It may be they did not
know as much about sickness as the white men doctors know, but our
doctors knew more about Indians and how to talk to them. Our people
then did not die young so much as they do now. In present times our
Indian doctors are put into jail if they make medicine for our sick
people. Whoever of us may become sick or injured must have the agency
white man doctor or none at all. But he can not always come, and
there are some who do not like him. I think it is best and right if
each sick one be allowed to choose which doctor he wants. When Eddy
was agent he let us keep our own old ways in all these matters. Our
people liked him the best of all the agents we have had.
A policeman came to my place, one time, and told me that Eddy wanted
to see me at the agency office. He did not say what was wanted. I
thought: “What have I done?” I went right away. I never had been much
about the agency, and I did not know Eddy very well. But the people
all the time were saying he was a good man, so I was not afraid. When
I got there, a strange white man was at the office. The interpreter
told me this man was from Washington. Eddy and the other man talked
to me a little while, about nothing of importance. Then Eddy said:
“We want you to be judge.”
The Indian court was held at the agency. My home place was where
it now is, over a divide from the agency and on the Tongue river
side of the reservation. I accepted the appointment. I was paid ten
dollars each month for going to the agency and attending to the court
business one or two times each month. Not long after I had been
serving as judge, Eddy called me into his office. He said:
“A letter from Washington tells me that Indians having two or more
wives must send away all but one. You, as judge, must do your part
toward seeing that the Cheyennes do this.”
My heart jumped around in my breast when he told me this. He went on
talking further about the matter, but I could not pay close attention
to him. My thoughts were racing and whirling. When I could get them
steady enough for speech, I said to him:
“I have two wives. You must get some other man to serve as judge.”
He sat there and looked straight at me, saying nothing for a little
while. Then he began talking again:
“Somebody else as judge would make you send away one of your wives.
It would be better if you yourself managed it. All of the Indians in
the United States are going to be compelled to put aside their extra
wives. Washington has sent the order.”
I decided to keep the office of judge. It appeared there was no
getting around the order, so I made up my mind to be the first one to
send away my extra wife, then I should talk to the other Cheyennes
about the matter. I took plenty of time to think about how I should
let my wives know about what was coming. Then I allowed the released
one some further time to make arrangements as to where she should go.
The first wife, the older one, had two daughters. The younger wife
had no children. It seemed this younger one ought to leave me. I was
in very low spirits. When a wagon came to get her and her personal
packs I went out and sat on a knoll about a hundred yards away. I
could not speak to her. It seemed I could not move. All I could do
was just sit there and look down at the ground. She went back to her
own people, on another reservation. A few years later I heard that
she was married to a good husband. Oh, how glad it made my heart to
hear that!
I sent a policeman to tell all Cheyennes having more than one wife to
come and see me. One of them came that same afternoon. After we had
smoked together, I said:
“The agent tells me that I as the judge must order all Cheyennes to
have only one wife. You must send away one of yours.”
“I shall not obey that order,” he answered me.
“Yes, it will have to be that way,” I insisted.
“But who will be the father to the children?” he asked.
“I do not know, but I suppose that will be arranged.”
“Wooden Leg, you are crazy. Eddy is crazy.”
“No. If anybody is crazy, it is somebody in Washington. All of the
Indians in the United States have this order. If we resist it, our
policemen will put us into jail. If much trouble is made about it,
soldiers may come to fight us. Whatever man does not put aside his
extra wife may be the cause of the whole tribe being killed.”
Many of our men were angered by the order. My heart sympathized with
them, so I never became offended at the strong words they sometimes
used. Finally, though, all of them sent away their extra wives.
Afterward, from time to time, somebody would tell me about some man
living a part of the time at one place with one wife and a part of
the time at another place with another wife. I just listened, said
nothing, and did nothing. These were old men, and I considered it
enough of change for them that they be prevented from having two
wives at the same place. At this present time I know of only one old
Cheyenne man who has two wives. They are extremely old, are sisters,
and they have been his two wives for sixty or more years. He stays
a part of the time with one of them and a part of the time with the
other. The sister-wives visit each other, but they have different
homes, several miles apart.
Throughout ten years I kept the position of judge. I rode my horse or
went in my wagon to the agency once or twice each month. It became
tiresome to me. Eddy went away, and we had another agent. I decided
to resign, and I did so. After I had been out of the office a few
years there was another change in agents. The man we now have, the
one we have named Sioux Agent, was put in charge of our reservation.
One day, Sioux Agent sent a message calling me to his office.
“I want you to be judge again,” he said. “You will be paid
twenty-five dollars each month.”
That was better than the ten dollars each month I had been paid
during the ten years of my first service. I took his offer. So now,
in my old age, I am helping my people to learn the ways of the white
man government. For the old people, it is a great change, so I try
to apply my thoughts at teaching the young Cheyennes whatever I am
expected to teach.
I was chosen two times as a little chief of the Elk warriors, in the
old times. But in each instance I got somebody else to take my place.
Also, at two different times of election of tribal chiefs, since
we have been on the reservation, a band of warriors came to me and
said: “We want you to be a big chief of the tribe.” But I did not
want to have that position, so in each instance I told my friends to
choose some other man, some one who would like to have it. Some white
people, at different times, have called me, “Chief Wooden Leg.” But I
never was a chief, neither of my warrior society nor of the tribe.
My younger brother’s name was Twin. When he grew up to manhood he
went from here to the Minneconjoux Sioux. There he was appointed a
policeman. He continued in that duty until his death, a few years
ago. My mother died here at my home, on the Tongue river reservation.
My younger sister and myself are the only members of my father’s
family yet living. This sister is the wife of Little Eagle. Their
farm place is only a few miles down the valley from mine.
Both of my daughters went to school at the Tongue river mission. They
lived there during the school months. Each Sunday we were allowed to
take them to our home. At other times we might go to the mission and
see them for a few minutes. Later, I built a house only a quarter of
a mile from the Mission, and on a sloping hillside above it. We could
look from our front door and see the children at any time when they
might be outside of the school buildings. My wife and I were pleased
at their situation in life. “They will have more of comfort and
happiness than we have had,” we said to each other.
But the younger daughter fell into an illness when she was about
fourteen years old. We expected she soon would be herself again, but
she grew worse instead of better. She became so weak she could not
stay any longer at the school. She continued to go on downward after
we brought her to our home. Finally, her spirit went back to the
Great Medicine.
All of our love now was fixed upon the other daughter. She advanced
to full young womanhood. She could read the white man books, and
she could write letters to our friends far away. But she too became
ill, the same as her younger sister. During all of one winter she
gradually wasted away. Every afternoon her body burned with fever.
Every night her bed was soaked with the sweating. Every morning she
coughed almost to strangling. Neither the medicines of the agency
physician nor the prayers of our own medicine men could help her.
Just when the spring grass was coming up, she was buried in our
mission cemetery.
My heart fell down to the ground. I decided then that the white man
school is not good for Indian children. I think they do not get
enough of meat at the boarding schools. I think too that they are
kept in school too much during each year. They ought to be out and
free to go as they please during all of the good weather of the
autumn and the spring. It may be that white children can stand it to
be in school most of the year. I do not believe, though, that Indian
children can stand it. It is not good sense to have the whites and
the Indians living by the same rules.
My sister’s daughter and her husband had pity for me and my wife.
They gave to us their oldest son. He makes his home with us. On the
agency roll his name is Joseph White Wolf. But according to the
Indian way he is our boy, our grandson. He is a good boy, comforting
and helpful to us. I pray often that he may become a good man, may
get a good wife, may have many children and may live far into old age.
My farming land is back from the valley, on a creek flowing into
Tongue river. Each year I have some alfalfa hay and some oats or
wheat, or both. I have a garden of vegetables, including an acre or
more of corn for our own food. All together, twenty-one acres was the
most land I had in cultivation in one season. That was a few years
ago. I do not have that much now. I become tired more quickly than I
did in past times. It appears my legs are not now made of wood, as
they used to be.
I get pension money each month because of my service as a scout at
Fort Keogh. For a while it was twenty dollars monthly. Then it was
increased to thirty dollars. Now it is forty dollars. As I grow older
it will be further increased. My pay as judge added to this pension
money makes enough for me to buy food and clothing for my wife and
boy, without need for farming. But I like to have more than I need,
so I can help my friends. I can not do this many more years.
A few other old Cheyennes get the pension money. We few are the rich
men of our tribe of very poor people. Many of our old men and women
have a hard time getting enough food. Some white people say to them:
“You have good land, so you ought to be prosperous.” They appear not
to understand that Indians are not born farmers. Besides, many among
us are older than I am. Even if these did know how to farm, they have
not the strength to do it.
Another thing the white people appear not to understand: The old
Indian teaching was that it is wrong to tear loose from its place
on the earth anything that may be growing there. It may be cut off,
but it should not be uprooted. The trees and the grass have spirits.
Whatever one of such growths may be destroyed by some good Indian,
his act is done in sadness and with a prayer for forgiveness because
of his necessities, the same as we were taught to do in killing
animals for food or skins. We revere especially the places where our
old camp circles used to be set up and where we had our old places
of worship. There are many of such spots on our reservation. White
people look at them and say: “These Indians are foolish. There is
good land not plowed.” But we like to see these places as they were
in the old times. They help to keep in our hearts a remembrance of
the virtues of the good Cheyennes dead and gone from us.
FOOTNOTES:
[58] A few old Cheyennes still talked this way in 1926. Fear kept
them from attending the fiftieth anniversary of the battle.--T. B. M.
[59] The Cheyenne interpreter for them on that occasion informed me
this man was Doctor Dixon.--T. B. M.
[60] During 1926 and 1927 I came into possession of six carbines,
three ammunition belts, one full pair of saddle-bags and one
half-pair of same, that these Fort Keogh Cheyennes had kept hidden
ever since their having been taken from the Custer soldiers in
1876.--T. B. M.
XVI
_Clearing the Docket._
Cheyennes still disagree among themselves about the number of sleeps
the combined tribes stayed at different camps along the way from
east of Powder river to the Little Bighorn and back again to the
Powder river country. For a long time there was disagreement as to
the length of time we had been at the battle camp before the Custer
soldiers came. Some said we had been there only one sleep, others
said two sleeps. This dispute was settled, though, several years
ago, when a band of Ogallalas visited us on this reservation. In
a great gathering with them at our Lame Deer agency there was a
general rehearsing of the battle at the Little Bighorn. Little Hawk,
a Cheyenne, spoke of us having slept there two nights before the
soldiers came. Somebody corrected him:
“We had slept there only one night.”
“I bet you we had been there two sleeps,” Little Hawk replied. He
spread out a blanket and laid upon it some money.
His money was matched. Other bets were made, by other Indians
differing in their beliefs on the subject. Old men then were
called upon, one after another, to tell what was in their memories
concerning the question. White Elk, young Chief Little Wolf, Wooden
Leg, various other old Cheyennes and several of the old Sioux, all
were asked for expressions of their beliefs. Each one of them said:
“One sleep.”
Little Hawk and his supporters finally had to admit themselves
mistaken. In the general exchange of talk, many corroborating
incidents were mentioned. There came then a full agreement that we
had been in this camp only one night, that the soldiers attacked us
the next morning, that after the fighting had ended we moved our
camps a short distance northwestward and stayed there all of this
night, and that in the late afternoon of the day after the great
battle we left the place and traveled all night and all the next day
up the Little Bighorn valley. Of the two nights at the battle place,
one had been at the first camping spot where the soldiers attacked us
and the other had been at the second camping spot, a short distance
away, where we moved on account of our death losses.
For fifty years we old Cheyennes talked of Bear Coat, or General
Miles, as having been big chief of the soldiers who came up the
Little Bighorn valley the next day after the Custer battle.[61]
We have been corrected by our present white man doctor friend. He
informs us that General Miles did not come into this country until
more than a month after that time. He says that a General Terry and a
General Gibbon were the chiefs of these soldiers. I never before had
heard of either of these two men.
I never had heard of any of General Custer’s relatives having been
killed with him, until our present white man doctor friend told us
about the two brothers and the brother-in-law and the nephew. He
tells us also that General Custer’s body was not cut up. I do not
know why he was spared, if such was the case. I never heard of any
favorings of any dead man there. I do not know of any reason for
intentional difference in treatment of them.
It was not then known to us who was the chief of these white men
soldiers. It was not known to us where they had come from. We
supposed them to be the same men we had fought on the Rosebud, eight
days before. We had not known who was the chief of those soldiers on
the Rosebud. I never heard any Indians at that time guessing as to
who he may have been. It made no difference to us.
I have been told that certain different ones of Indians have claimed
special honor for having killed Custer himself. All such men are only
boasting to get attention. There was no talk of this kind during the
hours and days right after the battle. If there had been, all of us
would have known of it. I tell you again: None of us knew anything
about Custer being there. The few Southern Cheyennes and the few
Sioux warriors who had seen him in earlier times did not learn until
many weeks later that he had been killed in this battle. It was weeks
or months later when the most of us first learned that there ever was
such a man. The white people, not the Indians, told us.
Even if some white man soldier in the battle had been well known to
all of the Indians it would have been hard to recognize him there.
During the first hour or two of the fighting we were too far away to
single out and recognize any particular one. As we got close, the air
became more and more full of smoke and dust. The Indians were greatly
excited. All of the white men went crazy. It must have been that not
any one of them looked like his natural self. I believe that not any
warrior then was thinking of trying to find out which one was the
chief of the soldiers nor which soldier might be a past acquaintance.
Every fighter, on both sides, was sweating and dust-covered. The
dead soldiers were dirty and bloody. Very soon, they were much worse
than that. Their best friends would not have known them.
Of the thirty Indians killed in both fights, I believe about half
fell from the bullets of the Custer men. Of these fifteen or so
killed by the Custer men, there were more of them fell during the
first close fighting, when Lame White Man led us and himself was
killed, down toward the river, than fell at any other one section
of the field. The soldiers in the entire battle with the Custer men
could have killed a great many more of us, or we should have gone
away and left them after some further fighting, if their whisky had
not made them go crazy and shoot themselves. I do not know just how
many of them we killed, but I believe the number was not more than
twenty or thirty, all together. Some of these were during the slow
distant shooting time and some were after we had gone among them
and found badly wounded men to kill at once. There was no capturing
alive. I did not hear any Indian talk of wanting to make such capture.
All of our dead Cheyennes were found, were taken away and were
buried. I am not sure about all of the Sioux dead, but it seems
they all must have been found, as there was the remainder of that
afternoon and much of the next day to make search. The three dead
Corn Indians I saw were left where they had been killed.
None of the Custer soldiers came any closer to the river than they
were at the time they died. When the first Indians went out and met
them, and exchanged shots with them, these soldiers were riding along
the ridge far out northeastward.[62] They kept moving westward along
its crest until they spread out on the ridge lower down, the ridge
where the most of the battle took place. After about an hour and
a half of the slow fighting at long distances, the group of forty
soldiers who rode down from the ridge along a broad coulee and toward
the river were charged upon by Lame White Man, followed at once by
many Cheyennes and Sioux. This place of the first Indian charge and
the first sudden great victory is inside of the present fence around
the battlefield and at its lower side.
The most important warrior among the Cheyennes was Lame White Man.
I believe all of our old men consider him so. Next in importance
and usefulness were Old Man Coyote, leading chief of the Crazy Dog
warriors, Last Bull, leading chief of the Fox warriors, and Crazy
Head, one of our tribal chiefs who had been a warrior society chief
when he was a younger man. The first Indians to go across the river
and fire upon the Custer soldiers far out on the ridge were two Sioux
and three Cheyennes. These three Cheyennes were Roan Bear, Buffalo
Calf and Bobtail Horse. This last named man is still living, his home
being on the Rosebud side of our reservation.
Two Moons used to tell white people of his own great importance in
the battle. I believe he was brave, like many others there, but he
was not thought of as being very important. He was one of the nine
little chiefs of the Fox warriors. The only special way I heard
him talked about was concerning his having a repeating rifle, the
only one of such guns among the Cheyennes in this battle. When the
smaller part of our Cheyenne tribe surrendered to General Miles, at
Fort Keogh, Two Moons was chosen by him as their one big chief. For
several years those Indians were governed by General Miles. From time
to time, in the years following, others of our people were added to
these. The coming of Little Wolf made a difference, but he lost his
place when he killed the Cheyenne. When all of the tribe finally
were assembled on the present reservation, the Fort Keogh officers
and the government agents still kept Two Moons as the one big chief
over all of us. I do not know of there being among us any great
dissatisfaction because of this, but I do know that it was General
Miles, not the Cheyennes, who selected him as our leader.
There are yet living (1930) among the Cheyennes more than twenty men
and about the same number of women who were full-grown people with us
in the camp beside the Little Bighorn. I suppose that each tribe of
the Sioux have, in proportion, the same numbers. We have many more
who were children in the camp and who remember much of what was done
at that time. Last Bull, leading chief of the Fox warriors, took his
family and joined the Crows after the days of peace came. His two
daughters married Crow men. The scared and screaming girl I took upon
my horse when the soldiers burned our forty lodges on Powder river
has become an old woman, a Cheyenne-Crow woman. She is known to the
white people as Mrs. Passes.
Every time I have been where white people have been asking questions
about the Custer battle, somebody has wanted to know:
“Where was Sitting Bull during the fight?”
For a long time I did not understand why this question was pressed so
strongly. Then I learned that white people had been saying: “Sitting
Bull was a coward. He was not with the warriors in the fighting.”