Revival Of The Flute Tradition

Kevin Locke shares the background of some of the oldest flutes in his collection.

Flute Tradition Returns With The Spring

Practice Nearly Faded Away

By Dakota Wind
Standing Rock, N.D. & S.D. - Dawn hit the Land of Sky and Wind, the Land of Standing Rock, and bathed the ancient prairie steppe with warm sweet light that turned last year’s grass gold despite the cold silence of winter. The frozen air seemed to shatter with each mile I drove. Aside from my car, I imagine that the morning of the first spring must have been much like this. The cold and quiet was so sharp I could imagine a knife scraping along the backs of my exposed hands.

I pulled up to Solen High School on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. My passenger Rich Dubé, a personal friend of my Lekši (uncle) and Wauŋšpekiyapi (teacher) Kevin Locke, and I swapped stories about the gift of Šiyotĥaŋka (the flute), where it came from, when it appeared on the steppe of the Northern Great Plains, and its growing revival.

Rich Dubé, came down from the great snows of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan to conduct a flute workshop in four of the schools on the reservation. I visited with Dubé the evening before. When I heard he was from Saskatoon, and was coming down to the Land of Sky and Wind, I prejudged who I thought I’d be meeting. Kevin raved about Dubé’s knowledge in the reconstruction of the traditional flute, how they were made, the original sound, and that Dubé even wrote his Masters thesis around the flute.

Naturally, I thought Dubé was going to be a member of the White Cap Dakota Nation who reside on a reserve just south of Saskatoon. Not that skin color matters but I was expecting to meet a native man. Who met me instead, and broke my prejudice, was an impeccable skinny white guy. He seemed used to native scrutiny however and graciously anticipated and answered my probing questions, which eased my mental lockjaw. I backed off when I was satisfied that he knew what he was about.

Dubé had never heard of the native flute until he attended a session for choir teachers...

Dubé is a music teacher. His story with the native flute begins about ten years ago in Saskatoon. He was teaching native youth in an inner city music program. Dubé had never heard of the native flute until he attended a session for choir teachers and he leafed through a book by Bryan Burton called Voices of the Wind which had native flute songs transcribed for the recorder. He was looking for something to capture the interest and inspire his senior kids and thought the native flute would be much more appealing to his students than just trying to play the songs on a recorder, a western European instrument.

The music teacher searched the internet looking for flute makers, and experimenting with various flute kits, discarding those that didn’t seem to have a true sound to his sharp ears. Eventually, Dubé crossed paths with Kevin Locke. Kevin sent Dubé the schematics of one of his great-grandfather’s flutes. Dubé seized the opportunity to reconstruct not just a traditional flute, but a traditional flute with the original sound.

One of Dubé's flutes.

Dubé created a cast using the original traditional flute from Kevin’s schematics. Dubé wanted to create a flute that was easily constructed and mass produced yet true to the original sound. In the end, his experiments found success in a custom size ABS plastic flute matching the exact sound of the original one-hundred twenty-year-old flute.

...small town pride in the class B team that represented the best hopes of the community...

I entered the high school and remembered my days when my team played the Solen Sioux. There was the typical small town pride in the class B team that represented the best hopes of the community, and like any small town, the team was fiercely held high in respect. Putting the games of yesteryear firmly in the back of my head I made my way down the hall towards the gym where Dubé was preparing his workshop.

Dubé’s luggage was opened up on the bleachers and inside it was as though he had brought an entire workshop. Someone had set up some tables and Dubé was quick to set drills, tools and all his accoutrements out for the workshop. In the span of twenty minutes he trained staff and volunteers in preparation for students to drill the holes of their flutes.

Kevin arrived about fifteen minutes after we got to the school. Students were quietly milling about in the halls in eager anticipation of the morning’s project. A few had poked their heads into the gym to watch Dubé set up and train the school staff. A teacher, possibly the principle, cheerfully made some announcements about lunch and stuff before she gently reminded students to be on their best behavior for Dubé’s flute workshop.

Locke offered a heart-felt greeting to the youth who assembled at the school.

About fifty-five high school students filed into the gym, arranged by year, and immediately staked out spots on the basketball court. The gym quickly filled with echoes of growing chatter which became a loud buzz with the arrival of fifth and sixth graders from the nearby community of Cannonball, who took the floor closest to where Dubé was set up.

The principle made a few announcements reiterating students to be on their best behavior and extended a welcome on behalf of the schools and introduced Kevin. Kevin introduced Dubé who shared some technical things about the flute and what to be expected in the workshop, and the students listened as best as students could while they itched to get to the construction.

Dubé divided the large group into three and subdivided each of those into three at each table. From the time of Dubé’s beginning instructions to the last student drilling the last hole in the last flute and the last student assembling the various pieces into a replica of the Lakota Grandfather flute, about forty minutes had passed. At one point in the assembly Kevin remarked, “Rich is really organized,” a sentiment which was repeated by high school staff.

Dubé (orange shirt) plays a quick tune between instructing students.

When the last flute was put together, Dubé called for the students to gather together once again on the basketball court where he offered some basic flute instruction. It was this instruction that Dubé’s experience as music teacher came out. When the students were quieted with their flutes and ready to play, Dubé played a few simple songs with the students who echoed his rendition of the old English tune “Hot Cross Buns.” The fifth and sixth grade students were quite familiar with playing the song on their recorders and followed Dubé’s instruction swiftly.

There, Kevin shared the story of the first flute.

After Dubé’s crash course in flute basics, Kevin stepped in and shared a few flute songs, one of which was the Flag song which the students recognized right away. The students had grown tired of the floor towards the end of the workshop and took to the bleachers on the other side of the gym after the song. There, Kevin shared the story of the first flute. He played the first flute song as part the story, and sang the song at the end.

One of the things that Kevin shared, a traditional belief, was that the Dakota and Lakota people are people of the wind. On the tips of ones fingers are what we call fingerprints. We all have fingerprints. For the Dakota and Lakota people however, fingerprints are more than something that identifies and/or incriminates a person, they say that the patterns tell one which direction the winds were blowing on the day of one’s birth.

In the days of warriors and legend, the flute was played by young men in traditional courtship, to win the heart of a particular young woman. A young man might sit outside the lodge of a young woman and serenade her. If he was successful, she might contrive an excuse to fetch water or gather additional firewood to spend a few moments with a suitor.

"Indian Courting" by Captain Seth Eastman, 1852.

The flute was a part of daily life.

The flute was a part of daily life. Early American Western artists like Seth Eastman and George Catlin painted scenes of young men playing the flute. When the post reservation era began, traditional courtship faded and was nearly forgotten.

In the 1970s, Kevin Locke took up the flute and learned about the tradition from men like Richard Fool Bull, William Horn Cloud, Joseph Rockboy, Asa Primeaux, Henry Crow Dog, Bill Black Lance, Charles Wise Spirit and Pete Looking Horse among many others. At a wacipi, Locke saw Richard Fool Bull’s display of flutes and remarked, “Someone should learn this tradition,” to which Fool Bull said, “Maybe you should.” And Kevin did.

Locke hopes to pass on the flute tradition to the today’s generation. Dubé’s flute workshop fits snugly into the world of the young native student. An individual can construct a flute with traditional specs and a faithful sound and be finished in five minutes using Dubé’s kit. In a world where studies come first, where extracurricular activities play a large role in a student’s life and where popular media influences style and dress, there’s still time and place for dancers and singers to hit the pow-wow circuit.

In the Land of Sky and Wind the wind is a constant presence. The people of Standing Rock are people of the stars. They are people of the wind. Maybe the flute tradition will work itself back into the daily lives of the people as it once did. 

Visit Kevin Locke online at Kevin Locke.

Visit Rich Dubé at Northern Spirit Flutes.

Interpreting A Pictograph Calendar

An excerpt of a pictograph by Sitting Rabbit. The scene is of the Hidatsa village along Knife River, the village that Sacagawea lived in when she encountered the Corps of Discovery.
Interpreting A Pictograph Calendar
An Examination Of A Mandan Lunar Chart
By Dakota Wind
BISMARCK, N.D. - Sometime back in the fall of 2003, enrolled member of the Cherokee in Oklahoma and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Russell Thornton and Dr. Candace Green published a short paper about the Little Owl calendar, a lunar chart, of the Mandan Indians.

The calendar, or lunar chart, is a fascinating example of Plains Indian pictography. It is similar and yet different to another Plains Indian pictographic tradition, the Winter Count.

The lunar chart is the personal property of the late Mr. Ronald “Sammy” Little Owl, of the Arikara Hidatsa and Mandan Nation on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, who found it amongst his late mother’s belongings. Mr. Little Owl brought the lunar chart to Dr. Thornton’s and Dr. Green’s attention in 1998. Little Owl also supposed that the lunar chart was associated with the Bad News Clan, to which his father and paternal grandfather belonged.

Dr. Green suggests that the Little Owl lunar chart may indicate “a possible record of planting by the agricultural Mandan…apparent cycles and obvious plant symbols, one might conclude that the calendar was used to keep a record of planting and harvesting.”[1]

Dr. Edwin Benson, the last man to speak Nu'Eta as a first language. Watch and listen to him.

In the fall of 2003 I contacted Dr. Edwin Benson, of the Arikara Hidatsa and Mandan Nation, who was teaching the Nu’Eta (Mandan) language at the Twin Buttes Day School on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation at the time for his knowledge of the Mandan calendar. Dr. Benson graciously responded with the following:

January            Kupa-hanas                              Seven Nights

February          Ma-istami-ba-da                      Sore Eyes

March              Wa-he-knew                           Spring

April                Ma-nabe-ki-bu-ke                   Game

May                 Muut-ogeheneh                        Planting/Sowing

June                 Ma-na-bu Shu-kena-de-ke      June Berries

July                  Ka-dek-na-de-ke                    Chokecherries

August             Wak-da-na-de-ke                   Wild Plums

September       Koxate-du-kie                         Ripe Corn

October           Ma-nah-pe-o-dee-geh             Frost-On-The-Ground

November       Ikatehne-o-nu Des-o                Freezing Rivers

December        Hump-ni-nahge-ge-gipdahg     Short Day/s

Dr. Benson also sent me a few alternate names, but these only in English:

January                                                            Seven Cold Days

April                                                                Breaking-Up-Of-The-Ice

October                                                           Falling-Of-The-Leaves

December                                                        Little Cold

Here follows a basic understanding of the Mandan and Hidatsa gardening practices throughout the summer. This may assist with interpreting the Little Owl Lunar Calendar (chart).

"Singing The Corn" by Jack Stewart.

“In the old garden, the work usually started when the first geese appeared on their way north, or when the Missouri River broke up, events which usually occurred almost together. At this time the old weeds and stalks and vines were collected and burned.”[2]

The women would arise when the light began to appear on the horizon or at daybreak, sometimes as early as three o’clock in the morning.[3] The women would work the fields from sunup to when the heat of the day could be felt, at which point they returned to their lodges and did other work. If any time was left over in the day, toward the close of the afternoon, they would go back to their fields.

Often times the women would sing while working or watching the crops for intruders, or to make fun of the men and boys.[4]

After the fields were cleared of debris, the planting hills were dug up, loosened, and broken back down again into loose soil. The hills measured about twelve to eighteen inches in diameter and were approximately twelve to eighteen inches apart from one another. Sunflowers were the first crop to be planted around the edge of the garden before clearing and digging were finished.[5] They were planted three to a hill of their own about eight or nine paces apart.[6]

Woman hoeing her garden with traditional bison shoulder blade hoe, Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden.

Corn followed soon after the sunflower was planted, sometime in the first half of May. Sixty to one hundred corn seeds were planted which was believed sufficient in the sheltered bottomlands to insure that only slight, if any, crossbreeding of the corn.[7] Corn was planted in every other hill, usually seven or eight kernels of corn to a hill, with beans being planted in those early hills skipped by the corn.[8] Planting usually lasted from early May “until the roses bloom in June,”[9] but in the big gardens the beans were planted immediately following the corn, and in the same amounts as the corn. Squash was planted after the beans, after the blooming of the roses.[10]

Toward the latter part of summer, the gardens were rarely unoccupied during the day. This was because of the flocks of crows and other birds that would try to come after the soft corn. To help the watchers, a brush shade was constructed, or a scaffold with a shade of some type would be employed while the women and girls worked on sewing, quillwork or other craft. Girls always went with their mothers to do this work and it was permissible for a man to go to work with his wife if they didn’t have children.

The first harvest of the Mandan, known as the green corn harvest, started as early as August as the young squashes were gathered, sliced and dried. This event is generally determined by the older women who examined the ears and silk of the corn, which, if it was brown or withered and the husk was dark brown, the corn was harvested until frost. The green corn harvest was a time of feasting and rejoicing, but also a time of drying food for storage. Preparing corn to eat might consist of either boiling or roasting.[11] The green corn harvest seldom lasted more than ten days. The second harvest, the ripe corn harvest, followed two to four weeks later and usually lasted about ten days or until early October. Sunflowers were the last to be harvested.

A corn threshing booth. Corn was dried on the stage above ground, then the kernels were threshed or beaten from the cob in the booth. Choice corn, or corn which was traded, was braided together, about a hundred ears of corn to a braid and was considered the equal of a tanned bison robe.

Depending on the variety of corn, Mandan corn generally matured in about ninety to 105 days. Squash was picked immediately after the first frost. Beans, which were planted after immediately after the squash, were picked in the fall after they had ripened and the pods were dead and dried.

Tobacco was planted at the same time as sunflowers, but only by the men; the first harvest of tobacco took place in about midsummer, or June. The men would go out amongst the tobacco and pluck some of the flowers, which were dried, crushed and later enjoyed in their pipes. The rest of the tobacco would be harvested sometime before the frost came.

Corn, squash and beans were stored in a bell-shaped cache pit. As deep as six feet and as wide as three to five feet. 

The new year begins, or at least a new growing season, after the ice has broken up, when the geese have returned, after the spring rains, when the bison calves are born, and when the leaves began to bud on the trees.

Figure 1 of the Little Owl Lunar Chart.

In figure 1, the crests, or lunar crescents mark only a very small part of the entire page. Only one of the crescents appears to bear additional markings of a tree on its convex and rain in the concave. If this series of lunar crescents indicate the new year or growing season, this lunar cycle might concur with the roman calendar of April. The crescent with tree and rain could read as “The rains fell; the trees returned to life.”

Figure 2 of the Little Owl Lunar Chart.

In figure 2, the series of pictographs appear to begin on the bottom left and seem to read up the page. The second row then appears to read top to bottom, and seems to be aligned with the lunar crescents, and there is no line separating the row of pictographs and the row of crescents, which also seem to be combined with glyphs in concordance with the row of pictographs.

It should be noted that when a death is mentioned, it may indicate that someone actually died or that someone, likely a woman or child, was abducted by an enemy. Women were eventually married into and accepted by a tribe; children were treated and raised as members of a tribe, this was particularly true of the Teton Lakota and Yanktonai Dakota whom the Mandan were sometimes at war.

Figure 2 interpretation:

1. Unknown.
2. Fish/Fishing.[12]
3. A gathering or council.
4. A man.
5. Five days.
6. Corn.
7. Corn medicine.
8. Man with a staff, perhaps a man called a war party.
9. A horse, perhaps a successful horse raid.
10. A bison jump or bison hunt.
11. A lasso, perhaps indicating a successful horse raid.
12. Unknown, indiscernible.
13. An event regarding the Assiniboine Sioux.[13]
14. Three lassos, perhaps indicating either three successful horse raids or that horses were stolen back and forth between an enemy tribe.
15. They heard a spirit.[14]
16. Someone killed, perhaps an enemy.
17. Bison Bull killed.[15]
18. Unknown. Squash? Beans?
19. A tornado struck.
20. Squash and beans.
21. This appears to be an extension of the squash and beans pictograph.
22. Singing to the crops?[16]
23. Lassos arranged in a column, perhaps representing a series of successful horse raids.
24. Unknown.
25. Unknown.
26. A talon?
27. Someone died.
28. Elk, perhaps someone made love medicine. Elk, or love medicine, has the antithesis meaning of death.
29. Staff, perhaps a society’s call to action, or a war party.
30. Someone had vision.[17]
31. Someone died, maybe an enemy.
32. A field, planting.
33. Unknown.
34. A knife. A standing knife.
35. A man with a staff. Perhaps a call to action, a call to gather a society or call a society to action, a call to war.

1. A time for planting?
2. Time for planting a particular crop?
3. Corn has reached a particular stage?
4. Someone died.
5. Trees have a full display of leaves?
6. Rain.
7. Squash, perhaps an indicator that it was time to plant squash, or that squash was finished being planted.
8. Man in a garden, perhaps indicating that it was now time to establish sentry duty in the gardens.
9. Indiscernible pictograph next to a pictograph of corn perhaps indicating that a certain rite relating to corn happened at that time.
10. Horse tracks under the lunar crescent, perhaps a successful horse raid.

36. The image appears to be a bird.
37. Garden,[18] perhaps a time for hoeing.
38. Beans?
39. Corn, the pictograph for corn appears to be sideways, perhaps a storm or wind knocked down their crops or perhaps it indicates a time for a rite related to the corn.
40. Thunderbird.
41. Horse
42. Lodge, perhaps a medicine lodge.
43. Travois, perhaps a hunting party or the trade party of another tribe.
44. A division of the garden?
45. Travois.
46. Lassos.
47. Unknown.
48. Travois.
49. Lassos.
50. Unknown.
51. A fallen travois.
52. Three fallen people, perhaps marking the passing of three people.

11. Rain
12. A spirit appeared.
13. Tree or bush. Perhaps this pictograph indicates that it was time to pick Juneberries. There are four marks beside this lunar crescent, perhaps the entire pictographic entry indicates that it was time for the Mandan Okipa.
14. Two people beside an unknown pictograph.
15. A person.
16. Rain. To the very right of this lunar crescent and descending down are twenty-two marks which appear to be connected to the lunar crescents on the immediate left. These were the days when the Mandan prayed for rain.[19]
17. Unknown.
18. A person.
19. A small garden, perhaps representing the tobacco garden which measured about twenty feet by twenty feet, maybe indicating a time when the flowers were plucked.
20. Tree.
21. Two people.
22. A fence or palisade, perhaps noting the repair of either. Two pictographs appear to be associated because of their proximity to the lunar crescent, unknown.
23. Unknown. A pictograph appears one end of this lunar crescent, perhaps indicating a death.
24. Rain. Twenty-three marks appear here much the same as the marks mentioned in “P” above.
25. Rain?
26. Dog? Coyote? Fox? There are two pictographs near this lunar crescent, a travois and another which seems to represent a garden.

AA. Butterfly.

BB. Tree, and what appears to be effigies which stand outside the medicine lodge as when the Okipa ceremony takes place.

CC. Unknown, and two “effigies.”

DD. Tree or bush.
EE. Tree or bush, perhaps the two pictographs of trees or bushes indicate that it was time to harvest buffalo berries.

Figure 2.2 (right half of image turned 90 degrees clockwise) of the Little Owl Lunar Chart.

The other half of figure 2 consists of what seems to be almost writing, similar to the Sioux alphabet which was developed by the Lakota man named Curly.[20] A Bison dancer sits astride a gracefully rendered horse. The dancer holds a lance with two tassels attached. The lance resembles the ceremonial lances that the bison dancers carried in their dance. This dancer brought the horse into the dance to ensure a good hunt and to secure the safety of the hunters.

The Lakota alphabet as developed by Curly, from the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Agency in 1982. Copied from the Lakota alphabet on display at the Crazy Horse Museum at the Crazy Horse Mountain near Custer, SD.

In figure 3 there appears to be no separation between the pictographs to the immediate left of the lunar crescents; they appear to be connected to the lunar crescents and relate directly to them.

Figure 3 of the Little Owl Lunar Chart.

Figure 3 interpretation:

1. Someone died?
2. Travois.
3. Corn.
4. Hoeing corn?
5. Two fallen people, perhaps noting their deaths.
6. Two fallen people and a travois, perhaps noting these deaths on a hunting party.
7. A person – an inverted pictograph – and a garden, perhaps someone died in a garden.
8. Five people, perhaps noting their passing.
9. Rain, a thunderbird and travois appear together.
10. A person and what appears to be a bush, perhaps harvesting chokecherries.
11. The pictograph appears to be a hoe, and corn.
12. Nine marks appear here. Possibly horse whips indicating a successful horse raid, possibly marks to indicate fallen corn stalks.
13. Garden. Two lunar crescents below, twenty-three marks follow, perhaps an indication for a period of prayer for rain and good weather for crops.
14. Thunderbird, a few other marks.
15. Heavy rain; travois.
16. Garden and a tree.
17. Garden.
18. Unknown.
19. Travois; another pictograph aside may indicate a skirmish.
20. Two people died?
21. A person with corn? Twenty-Two marks appear to the very right of this lunar crescent, perhaps in indication for prayer for rain.
22. Unknown.
23. A spirit.
24. Travois; spirit.
25. Garden.
26. Spirit.
27. Travois; rain.
28. Travois; unknown pictographs.
29. Corn, and what appears to be a burden basket, perhaps an indication for a harvest.
30. Thunderbird.
31. Travois.
32. Garden; three figures, perhaps three deaths.
33. Rain.
34. Corn, and what appears to be a burden basket.
35. An inverted pictograph for a person, perhaps a death.
36. Unknown.
37. Corn.
38. Travois.
39. Garden, and what appears to be a spirit.
40. Unknown.
41. Lassos.
42. Travois; thunderbird.
43. Fallen people and rain.
44. Corn; indiscernible pictograph. Seventeen marks appear to the immediate left of the lunar crescents. This may indicate a time for prayers or ceremony.
45. Unknown.
46. Travois.
47. Unknown.
48. Rain; indiscernible pictograph.
49. Rain and thunderbird.
50. Corn, and what appears to be a burden basket.
51. Rain.
52. Rain and thunderbird.
53. Pictograph seems to articulate that it is a person of some note appears alongside corn. What appears to be feathers or a hairstyle or a headdress is present.

The right half of figure 3 appears to be read bottom to top. The line of pictographs seem to demarcate the Mandan Okipa ceremony. An interpretation of the pictographs bottom to top follows:

Singing/Beginning

Pipe

Singing

Sweat Lodge

Singing

Medicine Lodge

Singing

Similar/Alike?

Singing Between?

Unknown

Singing

Singing Man

Night

Singing

Similar/Alike

Singing

Day

Singing

Night

Singing

Day

Singing

Night

Singing

Day

Singing

Night/End

Figure 4 of the Little Owl Lunar Chart.

Figure 4 interpretation:

1. No moon.
2. Someone in a garden, perhaps working.
3. Someone with a garden hoe.
4. Unknown.
5. Staff with something attached to the top, it looks like a tassel or an ear of corn. Perhaps a successful year.
6. A person.
7. A person with something held, possibly a child.[21]
8. Corn, and what looks like fallen corn under the standing corn.
9. A standing knife.
10. Someone holding a staff aloft.
11. Unknown.
12. Unknown.
13. Garden.
14. Person standing.
15. Five circles, possibly representing five days.
16. Corn in a medicine wheel, perhaps an offering or prayers or ceremony.
17. Corn in a garden, perhaps a selection of the best seed for next year’s garden.
18. Person with a staff.
19. They shot a bison; a lasso below.
20. They shot another bison; another lasso appears.
21. Lasso.
22. A wolf.[22]
23. An eagle.
24. Unknown.
25. A spirit.
26. A person, or man, with the text “Foolish Woman” beside it, perhaps to indicate the birth of the Mandan Foolish Woman who became a winter count keeper.
27. Bison. The lines below indicate a great hunt and/or feast followed.
28. Someone in a field, perhaps working the field, or collected the last of a harvest.
29. A burden basket.
30. A little hill which seems to have crops yet in it, perhaps left as an offering.
31. Unknown.

Mistakes and assumptions about the interpretation of the Little Owl lunar calendar are this author’s.

__________
END NOTES:

[1] Thornton, Ph.D., Russell, A Report of a New Mandan Calendric Chart, Ethnohistory, Vol. 50, No. 4, Fall 2003.

[2] Will, George F. (with George E. Hyde), Corn Among The Indians of The Upper Missouri, page 76, University of Nebraska Press, 1917.

[3] Will, George F. (with George E. Hyde), Corn Among The Indians of The Upper Missouri, page 92, University of Nebraska Press, 1917.

[4] Conversation with Lydia Sage Chase, July 2006.

[5] Will, George F. (with George E. Hyde), Corn Among The Indians of The Upper Missouri, page 79, University of Nebraska Press, 1917.

[6] Wilson, Gilbert L. (as told to), Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden, page 16, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1917.

[7] Will, George F. (with George E. Hyde), Corn Among The Indians of The Upper Missouri, page 291, University of Nebraska Press, 1917.

[8] Will, George F. (with George E. Hyde), Corn Among The Indians of The Upper Missouri, page 83, University of Nebraska Press, 1917.

[9] Will, George F. (with George E. Hyde), Corn Among The Indians of The Upper Missouri, page 88, University of Nebraska Press, 1917.

[10] Conversation with Amy Mossett, June 2001.

[11] The Mandan boiled their corn in kettles or by roasting it. When they roasted the corn, they gathered bunches of brush into as flat a pile as could make it, then covered the pile with corn, while the corn was still in the husk, then burned away the brush. Report of the Indian Agent at Fort Berthold, 1878.

[12] The Mandan fished using a few techniques, a switch with line, hook and sinker; a bell-shaped fish trap; a weir made from willow and baited with rancid meat.

[13] A very similar glyph was employed by Baptiste Good in his Brown Hat winter count to represent the Assiniboine.

[14] Below the pictograph for spirit is a pictograph for an ear. The Bad News Clan was said to be able to converse with the deceased and owls, the messengers of the deceased.

[15] The bison in this pictograph is on a line that might be used to indicate death, Bison Bull, or Buffalo Bull might be the name of the individual.

[16] The pictograph that could represent “singing” bears a strong resemblance to Baptiste Good’s pictograph which he employs to represent the Assiniboine.

[17] The lines protruding from the vision seeker’s head seem to indicate a “crazy.”

[18] The Sitting Rabbit Mandan Indian winter count utilized the square to represent the garden.

[19] Conversation with Kandi Mossett, Winter 2002.

[20] Conversation with Jan Ullrich, January 2013. Ullrich said that the Lakota alphabet was developed by Curly from the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation, then the Cheyenne River Sioux Agency, in the mid to late 1800s.

[21] Little girls would often walk around holding a squash as though it were a baby.

[22] It doesn’t appear to be a deer or an elk or other four legged prey, the raised ears seem to indicate a wolf. 

Sitting Bull And General Sibley At The Battle Of Big Mound

General Sibley's 1863 Punitive Expedition map. 

Sitting Bull And General Sibley
The Dakota Conflict Enters Dakota Territory

By Dakota Wind
Bismarck, ND - The summer of 1863 found many Santee Dakota displaced from their homeland in Minnesota, scattered across the plains of Dakota Territory, into Nebraska or across the Medicine Line, the 49° parallel, into Grandmother’s Land or Canada. The Sioux Uprising, the Dakota Conflict, of the previous year lay heavy in the hearts of Dakota and settlers as everyone braced for General Sully’s and General Sibley’s punitive campaign.

In Robert Utley's book The Lance And The Shield, 1863 is a year filled with angst, confusion and worry for the Indians and the whites. “Dakota refugees fleeing his [General Sibley’s crushing campaign against the Minnesota Dakota in 1862] offensive spilled onto the Dakota prairies, mixing with Sissetons who had taken no part in the uprising, with Yanktonais, and even with Lakota along the Missouri River. The influx of the Minnesota Indians not only added to the unrest of the resident Indians, who were still smarting over the summer’s emigration to the mines [in reference to miners ascending the Missouri River to Fort Benton and beyond in their quest for gold], but so frightened the settlers edging up the Missouri into Dakota Territory that one-fourth of them abandoned their homesteads.”

Chief War Eagle Park, Sioux City, Iowa. The Big Sioux River converges with the Missouri River just below the monument to War Eagle.

A terrible drought in the summer of 1863 drove the bison ganges north, west, south and east across the Mni Šhošhá (The Water A-Stir; Missouri River), the Thítĥuŋwaŋ (Teton Lakota) followed some of the ganges east into Ihaŋktówaŋa (Yanktonai) country. Many of the Teton and Yanktonai had fought alongside US Colonel Leavenworth’s command in the Arikara War of 1823 and many of the Santee under the leadership of War Eagle had protected US citizens in the Northwest Territory during the War of 1812 from tribes swayed by English trade. The Sioux who were “smarting” over the influx of miners also felt betrayed and parleys & treaties afterward were brittle efforts.

Some members of the Cherokee enlisted with the Confederates States of America.

In the first two years of the American Civil War, the Confederate States of America promised congressional representation to Indian nations who took up arms against the Union. The CSA’s promise was undoubtedly intended for tribes in south like the Cherokee, Creek and others. Bureau of Indian Affairs Commissioner William P. Dole got wind of the CSA’s offer and saw the implications of the CSA’s open offer to all Indian nations:

            The defiant and independent attitude they have assumed during the past season [in reference to the 1862 Minnesota Dakota Conflict] towards their agent, warns us that not a moment should be lost in making preparations to prevent, and, if need be, resist and punish any hostile demonstration they may make. They have totally repudiated their treaty obligations, and, in my judgment, there is an abundance of reason to apprehend that they will engage in hostilities next spring. Like the southern rebels, these savage secessionists tolerate no opposition in their unfriendly attitude toward the whites.

The Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Seven Council Fires; The Great Sioux Nation) had only heard that there was a great fight between the whites of the North and South. They had never heard of the CSA’s offer of congressional representation. 

Inkpaduta (Red End; Red Cap; Red Point), Itancan (Chief) of the Wahpekute (Shooters Among The Leaves) Tribe of the Santee Dakota. Run a Google search of this guy and find out a little more about him for yourself. It was believed that one of his sons stole General Custer's horse, Vic.

Some of the Santee, Inkpaduta’s Band of Dakota, had wintered on an island in Mdewakanton, Spirit Lake (Devil’s Lake) after being chased out of Minnesota the previous fall. Spring broke and Inkpaduta’s band decided to follow Čhaŋsása Wakpa (White Birch Creek; James River) to one of the great directional stone markers just north of present-day Jamestown, ND, then west to the Missouri River and then south towards Fort Pierre with the hope that the Government had relieved them of responsibility for the Dakota Conflict. Since many of the Santee hadn’t participated in the conflict, they believed that they would be forgiven.

Clell Gannon, an artist from the Depression Era, painted this scene of General Sibley's command marching across the Great Plains in pursuit of the Sioux. The painting is a fresco within the south vestibule of the Burleigh County Courthouse in Bismarck, ND.

Sitting Bull, the Huŋkpapĥa and other bands of the Teton encountered the Santee Dakota west of the James River with General Sibley hot on their heels. General Sibley employed Santee Dakota men to serve as his scouts in Dakota Territory. These scouts caught up Sitting Bull’s camp and Inkpaduta’s camp, now one large impromptu congregation who had no intention of squaring off against Sibley’s command of 4000 soldiers. Besides, the Dakota-Lakota camp took the word of the Scouts that Sibley came to take only the Santee who had fought in the Dakota Conflict the previous year.

A beautiful wood engraving of anonymous US Indian Scouts.

It so happened that as the Scouts were in council with the Dakota and Lakota, one of Sibley’s officers foolishly crept away from Sibley’s command to watch the council from a nearby hill and made an easy target. The temptation proved too sweet for one warrior who took aim, shot and killed the officer. Historian, Alexander Adams supposed that this anonymous warrior was one of Inkpaduta’s party.

The impulsive action of one warrior committed the entirety of Inkaduta’s and Sitting Bull’s camps to action. Sibley’s command retaliated immediately and the warriors immediately took up the rear of the retreating camps to defend the hasty and masterful escape of the women and children around pothole lakes and serpentine movement back and forth over the Apple Creek, all of which slowed Sibley’s command.

Sitting Bull counts coup on General Sibley's man and steals a mule, from Sitting Bull's Hieroglyphic Autobiography in Stanley Vestal's Sitting Bull: Champion of the Sioux. The line coming from the figure on horseback's mouth denotes a name, the upright bison bull represents his name, in this case, Sitting Bull. The hairstyle arranged on this figure's head indicates a spiritual man, or medicine man.

The running battle began at the Big Mound on July 24, 1863. Sitting Bull flanked by friendly fire from behind and enemy fire ahead, dashed headlong into General Sibley’s wagon train, delivered a quick rap with a coup stick to the wagon master and made off with one of his mules.

The running battle continued west to where Apple Creek converges with the Missouri River, below present-day University of Mary, Bismarck, ND and concluded with the Dakota-Lakota civilians safely across the Missouri River, and a stand-off with General Sibley’s command which ended on August 1, 1863. 

In a correspondence with Ernie LaPointe, great-grandson of Sitting Bull, Leksi Ernie has no additional oral tradition to add to this story.Visit his website: Sitting Bull Family Foundation.

Read more about the Conflict at Apple Creek.