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Native Pride Wisdom
History and Stories from Native Americans
Book i
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Profiles From
American Indian History
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Big Foot (??-1890)
As the leader of the Miniconjou band massacred at Wounded Knee Creek on December 29, 1890, Big Foot haunts the history of the American West, an image of brutal death "drawn," as N. Scott Momaday has written, "in ancient light."
Big Foot and his people lived on the Cheyenne River Reservation in present-day South Dakota and were among the most enthusiastic believers in the Ghost Dance ceremony when it arrived among the Lakota in the spring of 1890. The hunger and misery that had followed the final break-up of their great reservation in 1889 made the Lakota keenly receptive to the Ghost Dance message of messianic renewal, and the movement swept rapidly through their encampments, causing local Indian Agents to react with alarm. Some effectively suppressed the dancers, others called for troops to restore order.
At the Standing Rock reservation, where Sitting Bull was suspected of encouraging the Ghost Dance in order to provoke an uprising, the crisis led to bloodshed when Indian police sent to arrest the aging holy man killed him in a confrontation with his followers. Fearful of reprisals, many from Sitting Bull's band fled south, where they found a haven with Big Foot.
Big Foot decided to lead his people away from the possibility of further violence at neighboring Standing Rock and headed farther south toward the reservation at Pine Ridge, hoping to find safety there. Increasingly ill with pneumonia, he had no intention of fighting and was flying a white flag when soldiers patrolling for roving bands caught up with him on December 28, 1890. That night Big Foot and his people camped near Wounded Knee Creek, surrounded on all sides by soldiers.
The next morning, the soldiers set up several large Hotchkiss guns on a hill overlooking the camp and began confiscating the Indians' weapons. When a gun accidentally went off, they opened fire, and within a few minutes, some 370 Lakota lay dead, many of them cut down by the deadly Hotchkiss guns as they sought shelter against a creek bank. The soldiers even pursued fleeing women and children, shooting some as far as two miles from the site of the original confrontation. One Indian witness remembered:
A mother was shot down with her infant; the child not knowing that its mother was dead was still nursing... The women as they were fleeing with their babies were killed together... and after most of them had been killed a cry was made that all those who were not killed or wounded should come forth and they would be safe. Little boys... came out of their places of refuge, and as soon as they came in sight a number of soldiers surrounded them and butchered them there.
Big Foot himself was among the first killed. His frozen corpse, half raised as though trying to warn his people of their imminent disaster, lay untouched for three days until it was unceremoniously dumped into a mass grave.
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Looking Glass Allalimya Takanin
(c.1832-1877)
Looking Glass was the war chief who, along with Chief Joseph, directed the 1877 Nez Percé retreat from eastern Oregon into Montana and on toward the Canadian border. The son of a prominent Nez Percé chief, Looking Glass was born around 1832 in what is now western Montana. Although he bitterly resented white encroachments on his ancestral lands, he opposed going to war with the United States over its plans to force his people onto the small reservation assigned to them at Lapwai, Idaho.
When the Nez Percé and the U.S. Army first clashed at Whitebird Canyon on June 17, 1877, Looking Glass was already living on the Lapwai reservation, as he had agreed to do. Nevertheless, General Oliver Howard believed that Looking Glass would soon join the fighting, and he sent a detachment of troops to arrest him. Howard's plans backfired, however, for Looking Glass eluded arrest and fled the reservation to join Joseph and his fugitive band just as Howard had feared.
For both better and worse, the Nez Percé flight bore the mark of Looking Glass's leadership. A respected battlefield commander, he convinced the band to flee to Montana, despite Joseph's opposition, and then persuaded them to stop at Big Hole, where he incorrectly believed they would be free from attack. After soldiers under the command of Colonel John Gibbon surprised the Nez Percé there on August 9, inflicting heavy casualties, Looking Glass lost much of his prestige as a military leader.
Nearly two months later, when the Nez Percé were finally surrounded by Colonel Nelson A. Miles's troops in Northern Montana's Bearpaw mountains, Looking Glass remained stubbornly opposed to surrender. By this time, however, Chief Joseph had concluded that surrender was the only viable option, and on October 5, he rode out to hand over his rifle. That same day, Looking Glass set out to join Sitting Bull's band in Canada, but before he could make it to the border, he was killed by a Cheyenne scout.
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The Buffalo Dance The most exciting event of the year's festival was the Buffalo Dance. Eight men participated, wearing buffalo skins on their backs and painting themselves black, red, and white. Dancers endeavoured to imitate the buffalo on the prairie. Each dancer held a rattle in his right hand, and in his left a six-foot rod. On his head, he wore a bunch of green willow boughs. The season for the return of the buffalo coincided with the willow trees in full leaf. Another dance required only four tribesmen, representing the four main directions of the compass from which the buffalo might come. With a canoe in the centre, two dancers, dressed as grizzly bears who might attack the hunters, took their places on each side. They growled and threatened to spring upon anyone who might interfere with the ceremony. Onlookers tried to appease the grizzlies by tossing food to them. The two dancers would pounce upon the food, carrying it away to the prairie as possible lures for the coming of the buffaloes. During the ceremony, the old men of the tribe beat upon drums and chanted prayers for successful buffalo hunting. By the end of the fourth day of the Buffalo Dance, a man entered the camp disguised as the evil spirit of famine. Immediately he was driven away by shouts and stone-throwing from the younger Mandans, who waited excitedly to participate in the ceremony. When the demon of famine was successfully driven away, the entire tribe joined in the bountiful thanksgiving feast, symbolic of the early return of buffalo to the Mandan hunting-grounds.
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~Native Pride Wisdom~
© 2001
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Background Image:
"Gift of the Eagle Feather" by Howard Terpning, Jr.
Adapted to web background by Ani Bealaura
Copyright: 2001, All Rights Reserved
Divider Bars designed by Ani Bealaura
Copyright: 2001, All Rights Reserved
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