Woman Walks Ahead, A Film Review

"This does not look like Standing Rock," he said. "...Standing Rock is supposed to look like New Mexico...," she replied.

Woman Walks Ahead, A Film Review

Can One Scene Redeem A Movie?

By Dakota Wind

Woman Walks Ahead. Directed by Susanna White. Produced by Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz, Erika Olde, Rick Solomon, and Andrea Calderwood. Written by Steven Knight. Music by George Fenton. Starring Jessica Chastain, Michael Greyeyes, Chaske Spencer, Sam Rockwell, and others. U.S.A. & U.K.: Black Bicycle Entertainment, Bedford Falls Productions, and Potboiler Productions. June 29, 2018. Film. 101 Minutes.

Some films are beautifully crafted narratives based on real-life people or circumstances. Others struggle in their telling to make a story bigger than it was. Still more only have one redeeming quality to them. Woman Walks Ahead has one powerful message in a beautifully constructed scene that contains a minimal presence of the film’s female protagonist.

Before the film began, I was milling around in the atrium of the Grand Theater, a locally owned theater in Bismarck, ND, with an old friend talking about life and church. We got there about half an hour early to get good seats. About fifteen minutes into our wait, a young native man comes up to me and shakes my hand. I introduce myself in Lakȟóta and ask him his name. Lo, he offers a confident reply and we exchange pleasantries. A quiet opened around us as we engaged in our language. I told him that I’m not a fluent speaker and that he spoke very well. He nodded his head before rejoining his mother. They went on to see “Deadpool 2.”

Sam Rockwell, pictured above, as Col. Groves on a mission to justify killing Indians and redeem himself, but can't escape white male paternalism, plays a perfect guilty asshole who hasn't slept since the Killdeer fight of 1863. His Lakhota is alright too. 

I knew I wasn’t going to see a historically accurate film. There are plenty of articles drifting in the internet atmosphere challenging the artistry of Susanna White and a rambling self-serving narrative by Steven Knight that pretty much cover my concerns, but I have one overwhelming question.

Why film the movie in New Mexico? There are a few shots where the landscape might pass for Standing Rock, but anyone who has made the pilgrimage to Sitting Bull’s camp knows the rolling hills and sinuous banks of the Grand River are shaded overwhelmingly by cottonwood. The story is as removed from historical fact as it is in location.

New Mexico and its mountains are beautiful, but a beautiful mountain sunset in the southwest is not the same on the vast open prairie steppe. The prairie features unique flat-topped plateaus, an open sky with bright sunlight unhindered only by passing clouds, and a constant wind that has been here since creation. Thítȟuŋwaŋ, or Teton, means “They Who Dwell On The Plains.” White removed the people from the land that made them.

Susanna White (above) goes for emotional truth, not historical truth. The emotional truth that existed between Sitting Bull and Weldon simply did not exist.

Agent McLaughlin (pronounced mick-LOFF-lin by the community and by the Major’s descendants) would have been better served by perpetual cowboy Sam Elliot, at least he’s got the mustache for it. Knight didn’t know whether to write the Major as an apologist or paternalist, and it shows. McLaughlin learned Dakhota from his wife; Hinds’s Major is as confused about hearing Lakhota as Knight’s apparent research about the time and setting of the actual story, and neither should be.

Sam Rockwell’s Colonel Silas Groves is the perfect asshole whose arc represents something of a mix between white guilt and white redemption. Groves tells Chastain’s Weldon of the Indian depredation as justification for the country’s punitive campaign against the red man, and just barely touches on the exchange of escalating violence on the frontier (the 1863 Killdeer Mountain conflict is mentioned in which Sitting Bull mentions seeing Groves there, who was on campaign against the Lakhota who had nothing to do with the events in Minnesota, but for Groves, an Indian is an Indian).

Where's the snow that Knight's script mentioned in Sitting Bull's recollecton? It was not snowing, as it was the middle of summer. 

The 1863 Killdeer Mountain conflict took place in late July, the Moon of Ripe Chokecherries, making it nigh improbable that there was snowfall, and though it could snow in July, there is none mentioned at all in the oral tradition. Maybe in England it snows in July, but not on the Great Plains, but snowfall, even in retrospect in a rambling narrative makes for good telling.

There is a lot to deconstruct and inquire about this film, but it has one powerful redeeming scene. Agent McLaughlin sat with his wife/translator and General George Crook to hear testimony about whether the tribe should sign the Dawes Treaty, which in fact was not a treaty but a congressional act, to break up the Great Sioux Nation into small reservations. These smaller reservations were originally part of official US Indian policy called “concentration,” and were prison camps, the legacy of which enrolled members of federally recognized tribes are assigned enrollment numbers (prison numbers in the concentration policy days).

Sitting Bull, played by Michael Greyeyes (Plains Cree), delivers a powerful oratory about Makȟóčhe (Grandmother Earth) and how the Lakȟóta cannot sell it, “not even this much,” he said as he reached down for a handful of earth and held it before the agent. Some films redeem themselves with the perfect music, others with cinematography. This moment is this film's redemption. 

Stone Man's pictographic testimony of the conflict at Sitting Bull's camp the morning he was killed on the Grand River. Soldiers' guns and cannon fired onto Spotted Elk's (Big Foot's) band of Mnikowozu as they fled. 

The film concludes with the arrest and death of Sitting Bull. Artistic licensing aside, there was just too much missing for me to appreciate this scene as the director intended (a dramatic close up of Welden in the snow in distress over the loss of Sitting Bull). There was a conflict there between the police and the people camped there at Sitting Bull’s home. Soldiers stood atop the bluff of the south bank of the Grand River and fired gun and shell at the camp. Sitting Bull’s death was not by a sniper, but by BIA police officer Bull Head after he was shot; Bull Head shot Sitting Bull twice, once in the side, then in the head.

Sitting Bull was shot and killed by the BIA Indian Police up close, not by sniper. 

Welden’s painting is on display at the ND State Heritage Center and Museum, torn by one of the BIA police officers, but it is not the same as the painting as depicted in Woman Walks Ahead. Sitting Bull was painted “old” because he was old.

Weldon's painting of Sitting Bull on display at the ND Heritage Center and State Museum. The tear in the painting came from one of the BIA police officers. 

There was no romantic love between Sitting Bull and Weldon, but she did things for him that were expected of wives while she lived there: cooked and fed him, chopped wood, and tended his fire. I remember hearing that Sitting Bull asked her just to be his wife since she was doing the things wives do, but there was no romantic attachment. The on-screen chemistry between Weldon and Sitting Bull is chaste and distant, but the introduction of that chemistry is introduced by White and Knight.

See the movie, then visit the North Dakota Heritage Center and Museum to see the real Weldon painting. Adjacent to Weldon’s painting is Stone Man’s pictographic testimony of the conflict that ensued as Sitting Bull was arrested. Both images are worth taking in. 

Lakota Geography

A view of the Great Plains with Dakota-Lakota place names. South is the orienting direction on this map. Makȟóčhe Wašté means “The Beautiful Country.” This is the name the Lakota have for the Great Plains, and by extension, North America.

Lakȟóta Geography
A World View Perspective
By Dakota Wind
Bismarck, N.D. (TFS) – Everyone knows the four cardinal directions. In English these are north, south, east, and west. The Lakȟóta name these four winds, or directions: Itókaǧata (South; “Facing The Downstream Direction”), Wiyóȟpeyata (West; Direction Where The Sun Sets), Wazíyata (North; Direction Of The Pine Tree), and Wiyóhiŋyaŋpata (East; Direction From Which The Sun Comes).

These four directions are represented in the medicine wheel by colors. Black may represent the west. White may represent the north. Red the east, and south by yellow. The color designation isn’t “set in stone.” In fact, some Lakȟóta employ blue or green as well. Many medicine wheels are employed oriented to the north. 

Rivers and streams are often known by more than one name. For example, the Dakota and Lakota call the Cannonball River "Íŋyaŋwakaǧapi Wakpá (Stone Makes For Itself River)," and they also call it "Íŋyaŋiya Wakpá (Talking Stone River)." 

The Lakȟóta memorized the landscape from a ground view perspective. The landscape was named according to the stream within. For example: Čhaŋšótka Wakpá Makȟóčhe, which means “Towering Tree River Country,” this presently refers to the country through which the Little Missouri River runs; Mníšoše Makȟóčhe means “Water A-stir Country,” which refers to country through which the Missouri River runs.

The Lakȟóta call the Great Plains, and by extension North America, “Makȟóčhe Wašté,” which means “The Beautiful Country.” The Lakota Language Consortium’s “New Lakota Dictionary, 2nd Edition,” has an entry for North America as “Khéya Wíta,” which means “Turtle Island.” Perhaps there are Lakȟóta people who call it so. 

A Hunkpapa map of the Little Bighorn Fight is oriented towards the south. Attention is paid more to the layout of the camps than to how the conflict unfolded.

At times the Lakȟóta employed maps, drawing or painting from whatever available resources were at hand (i.e. paper and pencil, cloth and ink, hide and paint, on the ground with a stick). When such maps were constructed, south seems to be the orienting direction.

This map relates the testimony of Takes His Shield, a survivor of the 1863 Whitestone Hill Massacre in Dakota Territory. It was rendered by the hand of Cottonwood and is oriented to the south. 

A testimonial map of the 1863 Whitestone Hill Massacre by Takes The Shield (Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna) and rendered by Cottonwood (Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna) was executed with the south at top of the map. Three Húŋkpapȟa maps of the 1876 Little Bighorn Fight were executed with south as the orienting direction.

Dakota Wind is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He is currently a university student working on a degree in History with a focus on American Indian and Western History. He maintains the history website The First Scout.

A Review: Sitting Bull, Lakota Warrior And Defender Of His People

A Review: Sitting Bull, Warrior & Defender

Beautiful Book About Great Leader
By Dakota Wind
Fort Yates, ND (TFS) – In 2015, SD Nelson published his Sitting Bull: Lakota Warrior and Defender of His People, a first-person historical narrative through the eyes of Sitting Bull. His people's struggle to survive manifest destiny in the late nineteenth century is told through historical photos and Great Plains pictography.

Nominally a children’s book, but much more, Nelson beautifully illustrates a carefully researched and composed historical narrative. Each page is a work of art rendered in the historic Plains Indian style on a ledger book background. Every piece of art is lovingly constructed with a contemporary feel without sacrificing style or story.

Nelson acknowledges the oral traditions for Sitting Bull’s childhood name, Jumping Badger, from the direct lineal descendant, the great-grandson of Sitting Bull, Mr. Ernie LaPointe.

Sitting Bull touches on the last greatest conflict in the American West, Little Bighorn. Nelson takes readers on the journey to Fort Walsh in Canada, where Sitting Bull and his people remained in exile for a few years until the overwhelming call to return home pulled the Lakota back to Missouri River country. Nelson thoughtfully reconstructs the “surrender” of Sitting Bull at Fort Buford, which was actually an exchange of one lifestyle, a hunter-gatherer one, for another, an agricultural one. Imprisonment at Fort Randall is mentioned too.

Sitting Bull’s time as part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show is also touched upon, then Sitting Bull’s return to his first and last home on the Grand River, SD. Agent McLaughlin is rendered in a confrontation with Sitting Bull about the Ghost Dance, and Sitting Bull is simply but beautifully rendered as Ikčé (common) in wrapped braids and a robe.

Nelson brings Sitting Bull to a conclusion with the death of the great spiritual leader at the hands of his own people. Nelson illustrates Sitting Bull falling, but not quite on the ground. Two police officers are depicted firing at Sitting Bull in the side and head. The images are suggestive, not graphic in their depiction, truly rendered in the historic Plains Indian style of art.

Nelson’s book is a beautiful tribute to one of the great leaders of the Lakota people. His vibrant use of color enhances a traditional art. This isn’t a typical childhood read, and it shouldn’t be. This is based on a living, breathing first nation man and his struggle in the post-reservation era. If your bookcase has any work by Paul Goble, this one earns its place front and center on that shelf. Get it for yourself and your family if you love art and history.

S.D. Nelson is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. His traditional name is Maȟpíya Kiŋyáŋ (Flying Cloud) He is an award-winning author and illustrator of numerous children’s books. His books have received many accolades, including the American Indian Library Association’s Youth Literature Award, a place on the Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List, and the Western Writers of America Spur Award. Nelson lives in Flagstaff, AZ. Follow him online at sdnelson.net.

Nelson, S. D. Sitting Bull: Lakota Warrior and Defender of His People. First ed. New York, NY: Abrams Books For Young Readers, 2015. 64 pp. $19.95. Hardcover. Photos, illustrations, timeline, notes, bibliography, index.

Dakota Wind is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He is currently a university student working on a degree in History with a focus on American Indian and Western History. He maintains the history website The First Scout.

North Dakota Content Standards
Grades 4 and 8
Resources: 4.1.4; 8.1.2
Timeline: 4.1.5
State Symbols: 4.2.1 (Western Meadowlark, Red Tomahawk)
Concepts of time: 4.2.2, 4.2.3, 4.2.4
People and events: 4.2.5
Colonization: 4.2.9
Expansion: 4.2.10
Physical geography: 4.5.3; 8.5.1
Human geography: 4.5.5, 4.5.6; 8.5.2, 8.5.3
Culture: 4.6.1, 4.6.2; 8.6.2
US History & Imperialism: 8.2.4, 8.2.9, 8.2.10, 8.2.11

A Changing Landscape, How To Pronounce Oahe

Oahe Reservoir Area, Missouri River, North & South Dakota, NPS.

A Changing Landscape
Displacement And Site Names
By Dakota Wind
Cannonball, N.D. (TFS) – The only time the Mníšoše (Water-Astir; Missouri River) should not flow, is after Wazíya (The Power Of The North) has blown his cold wind across the land and has frozen the waterways. That is the natural cycle of the earth.

In 1872, Thomas Riggs, an Indian missionary, arrived in Dakota Territory and established Hope Mission. Two years later, Riggs moved the mission to Peoria Bottoms and referred to this new mission as the Oahe Indian Mission. The mission school served students from Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, and Rosebud until it closed in 1914. (Note: see glossary to learn how to pronounce "Oahe".)

Riggs’ name for the Oahe Indian Mission, was inspired by his father, Stephen Riggs, also a missionary and author of A Dakota-English Dictionary. A possible explanation for Riggs’ naming of his mission was that the meaning of Oahe is similar to the naming of Simon to Peter, who is renamed in Matthew 16:18: “…and on this Rock will I build my church.” The Dakota word for Foundation is Oáhe, meaning, “Something To Stand On.”

Oahe Indian Mission at Peoria Bottom, Dakota Territory. NPS

A likelier possibility for Riggs’ mission name may come from the fact that his mission was established at a well-used steamboat landing on the floodplain of the Missouri River at Peoria Bottom, S.D. The steamboat landings were called: Wátapȟeta Oáhe (lit. “Boat-Fire Something-To-Stand/Land On”).

The Mníšoše was a whirling river, dangerous to those who didn’t know it or respect its waters. It swirled where tributaries converged with it, and river crossings were made upstream of the whirlpools. The river ran brown because of all the sediment picked up by the stirrings. Steamboat traffic referred to the river as the “Big Muddy.” Water drawn from the river had to settle a day before using it. 

Herd of bison on the Missouri River by Karl Bodmer. 

The first nations who lived along the river were well aware of the annual spring floods. The sedentary tribes built their villages above the flood plain and farmed the rich bottomlands. The spring floods were difficult to anticipate too. The tragic flood of 1825, at the point opposite of the mouth of Íŋyaŋ Iyá Wakpá (“Talking Stone River”), also called Íŋyaŋwakaǧapi Wakpá (“Stone-Makes-For-Itself River”), or the Cannonball River, is a testament to the unpredictability of the river. 1825 is remembered by the Húŋkpapȟa as Mní wičhát’tÁ, or “Many Died By Drowning.”

The location of the flood was known after as Étu Pȟá Šuŋg t’Á, or “Dead Horse Head Point,” in memory of all the horses that drowned in a line there. Their deceased loved ones and their dead horses were interred where the camp was located, which was on a rise in the Mníšoše valley, opposite of the Cannonball River. That rise would later become an island which is sometimes submerged under the waters of Lake Oahe. 

Ronald Campbell at Pierre, S.D., where the Missouri River once ran free, July 1958. 

In 1948, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) began construction of the Oahe Dam and finished in 1959. The Oahe Indian Mission was moved to an area above the projected floodplain overlooking the dam, and the dam took its name from the mission. During those eleven years, salvage archaeology surveys were conducted where the lake was projected to submerge them.

The dams were constructed with an eye towards flooding reservation bottomlands. The only tribal consultation the USACE did with first nations was to inform tribes dams were going to be built to control the annual flooding and to offer tribes a one-time payment for the federal land grab. There was no negotiation. In fact, the first nations didn't even have some of the most basic rights as Americans. Pipelines and power lines were put in place without tribal consultation. The first nations had no political voice in the process.

In a discussion with Lekší Kevin Locke, Lake Oahe, has a darker connotation. When the flood came, it rose and receded, then rose more with each passing year. During the rising flood, buildings that were left behind on the bottomlands gradually fell apart leaving only the foundations, or Oáhe. 

A stone similar to this Standing Rock was placed on a pedestal in Fort Yates, N.D.

Back at the mouth of Íŋyaŋ Iyá Wakpá, there lived a Húŋkpapȟa man called Čhaŋtópȟeta (“Fireheart”). Agent McLaughlin selected Čhaŋtópȟeta to bring Íŋyaŋ Wosláta, the actual Standing Rock, into Fort Yates, the agency headquarters, so that it would serve as some kind of memorial. Instead, Čhaŋtópȟeta brought in a regular stone to fool the wašíču.

During the reservation era, the creek that converges with Iŋyáŋ Iyá Wakpá near the Mníšoše confluence was named Čhaŋtópȟeta Wakpála, or “Fireheart Creek,” after the man.

The first nations have stood in defiance of extinction and continuous dispossession of land, water, and sky. The settler has taken hold of Makȟóčhe Wašté (The Beautiful Country) and renamed the landscape and waters. This process is called oblivion, an intentional generational process of forgetting the landscape as the indigenous knew it, and replacing it until it is utterly forgotten. Some places still keep their names as the indigenous called them, mispronounced and bastardized, these contemporary place names are spoken. 

The ancestal homeland of the Yanktonai lay east of the Missouri River. Taken in Cannonball, N.D.

Regarding the rampant mispronunciation of traditional landscape names, Lekší Louie Garcia says this, “These news guys go out of their way to get the correct pronunciation of all these world leaders and places, but when it comes to our Native [sic] names- anything goes. I hope you and other Lakota speakers will start a campaign to correctly pronounce Oáhe.”

The late Rev. Innocent Good House (Húŋkpapȟa), an Episcopal minister for several years on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation recalled the Mníšoše of his youth, “An Indian believes the waters of a river should flow.” The river and lake are blue today. In summer they sparkle in the summer sun and in winter gleam like a knife's edge. There are recreation opportunities on the lake, but the living memory of the whirling river is nearly gone. 

Any development on the Mníšoše are land grabs and come at the expense of the first nations. The USACE were bold aggressors in the 1950’s, and are insincere on their promises at the present time. 

Dakota Wind is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He is currently a university student working on a degree in History with a focus on American Indian and Western History. He maintains the history website The First Scout.
____________________

GLOSSARY of Lakȟóta terms and names:
(* indicates a glottal accent)Čhaŋtópȟeta (chahn-TOH-ph*ay-tah): “Fireheart.” Never “CAN-toh-pet-ah.”

Čhaŋtópȟeta Wakpála (chahn-TOH-ph*ay-tah wahk-PAH-lah): “Fireheart Creek.”

Étu Pȟá Šuŋg t’Á (ay-TOO PH*AH shoong t’AH): “Dead Horse Head Point.”

Húŋkpapȟa (HOONK-pahp-h*ah). “Head Of The Camp Circle.” Hunkpapa. Never “HUNK-pah-pah.”

Íŋyaŋ Iyá Wakpá (EEN-yahn ee-YAH wahk-PAH): “Talking Stone River.” Cannonball River.

Íŋyaŋwakaǧapi Wakpá (EEN-yahn-wah-kah-g*ah-pee wahk-PAH): “Stone Makes For Itself [as in “production”] River.” Cannonball River.

Íŋyaŋ Wosláta (EEN-yahn wohs-LAH-tah): “Rock Standing-Upright.” Standing Rock.

Lekší (lek-SHEE): “Uncle.”

Makȟóčhe Wašté (mah-KH*O-chay wash-TAY): “The Beautiful Country.” This is the Lakȟóta way of saying “North America,” or “The Great Plains.” Contemporary Lakȟóta are rather inclined to use Khéya Wíta, “Turtle Island,” for North America.

Mníšoše (mih-NEE-sho-shay): “The Water-Astir.” The Missouri River.

Mní wičhát’tÁ (mih-NEE wee-CHAHT TAH): “Water They-Died.” They drowned.

Oáhe (oh AH-hay): “Something To Stand On.” Foundation. Never “O-wah-hee.”

Wašíču (wah-SHEE-chu): “A non-native person or people.” Anglo.

Wátapȟeta Oáhe (WAH-tah-p*ay-tah oh-AH-hay): “Fire Boat Foundation.” Steamboat Landing.

Wazíya (wah-ZEE-yah): “Power Of The North.” The North Wind.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cerny, Jan. Lakota Sioux Missions, South Dakota. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia, 2005.

Riggs, Stephen, ed. A Dakota-English Dictionary. 1890 Reprint ed. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1992.

Garcia, Louie. Oahe., February 8, 2017.

High Dog. The High Dog Winter Count. n.p., 1911. Muslin cotton. State Historical Society of North Dakota.

National Park Service. “Oahe Reservoir: Archeology, Geology, History.” September 2008. Accessed February 9, 2017. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/lecl/oahe-reservoir/sec2.htm.

Locke, Kevin. Something To Stand On. August 2013.

Balmer, Randall. “Torpedo The Dams - And Free The Rivers.” December 15, 2012. Accessed February 9, 2017. http://www.vnews.com/Archives/2015/12/column-balmer-dam-vn-120515.

A 2017 Lakota Moon Calendar

The Lakȟóta call her, the moon, Haŋwíŋ. The Húŋkpapȟa say that when the full moon wanes, a large mouse with a long nose is nibbling away at her lodge. When her lodge is completely gone, Haŋwíŋ then reconstructs her lodge until full again. 

A 2017 Lakota Calendar
Thirteen Months In Year
By Dakota Wind
Fort Yates, ND (TFS) – Before the reservation era, each Thítȟuŋwaŋ (Teton; Western Sioux, or Lakȟóta) band had a winter count keeper. The keeper kept track of the years with a pictographic record (the winter count), and kept track of the months with a stick, or sticks.

Raymond Winters (Standing Rock; Matȟó Wičhá KhízA, or “Boar [as in 'a Male Bear'] Fight”), known in the art world by his signature of "Fighting Bear," served as an advisor for the beautifully illustrated children’s book “Moonstick: The Seasons of The Sioux.” According to Winters, one stick was used, and with each wit’é (the new moon), a notch was cut into the stick at one end. 

Gratify yourself and get a copy today. Not just for children, this book is informational for grown adults as well.

When the new year begins differs from band to band. Some say the new year begins and ends with the first snowfall of winter. Some say that the new year begins with the summer solstice. Others say the new year begins in the spring when the geese have returned, when the bison cows have their calves, when the leaves begin to unfold, when the ice breaks, or when the meadowlark sings aloud, “O’iyókiphiyA! Ómakȟa Théča Yeló! [Take pleasure! The earth is made anew!].”

No matter what each band may consider when the new year begins or ends, one thing is certain. The year is regarded by all as waníyetu (a winter), for winter is the longest season on Makȟóčhe Wašté (The Beautiful Country).

This writer has constructed a 2017 calendar based on the traditional thirteen lunar month system of the Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟóta and Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna Daȟóta people. Each month begins with wit’é. This calendar is for educational purposes only, and not for sale. It is for use by the general public. 

A morning sundog appears above the Missouri River (Lake Oahe) in front of the Standing Rock Administrative Building in Fort Yates, ND. 

A winter evening at the north end of the Burnt Hills range on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. 

Near this natural feature along the Missouri River, the White Buffalo Calf Woman came to the Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟóta in the hour of their need and gave them bison calling songs. 

Canadian Geese make their return to the Great Plains in this wallpaper image. 

Hokšíčhekpa (A Child's Navel), or Pasque Flower blooms in springtime on the Great Plains. An ice age flower, she blooms sometimes when snow is still on the ground. She is also known as Wanáȟča Unčí (Grandmother Flower). 

Buttes reach the heavens between Wakpala S.D. and McLaughlin S.D. on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. 

Killdeer Mountain rises from the prairie like a step to heaven. A sacred place for generations and the site of the July 1864 General Sully assault on Lakȟóta who had nothing to do with the 1862 Minnesota Dakota Conflict. 

My grandmother's tree located between Kenel S.D. and Wakpala S.D. on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. 

According to the Lakota Language Consortium's New Lakota Dictionary, an eclipse is called Aháŋzi (Shadow) or AóhanziyA (To Cast A Shadow Upon). The Húŋkpapȟa call this event Maȟphíya Yapȟéta (Cloud On Fire; Fire Cloud). There will be a solar eclipse on August 21, 2017. 

The North Dakota Badlands is featured here. It was a hot, hazy day. 

A spotted black horse grasses on what little grass is available along Long Soldier Creek on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation.

The annual Leonid Meteor Shower will be on Nov. 17 & 18, 2017. Don't miss it. 

They say that when a ring is around the moon, Haŋwíŋ has vigorously stirred her pot and light has spilled out and around her lodge. 

Download a zip file of this calendar. 

Bullhead And The Last Days Of Sitting Bull

Lt. Henry Bullhead, a Yanktonai Dakota. Photo by D.F. Barry. 

Who Really Killed Sitting Bull?
Lakota Leader Killed In Confrontation
Edited By Dakota Wind
FORT YATES, N.D. – Note: the following article appeared in the Sioux County Pioneer which had previously ran a story attributing the murder of Sitting Bull at the hands of Red Tomahawk. This article refutes and minimizes Red Tomahawk’s role in Sitting Bull’s camp.

Francis B. Bullhead, son of the famed Bullhead who led the policemen in the arrest and killing of Sitting Bull, has taken exceptions to an article appearing in the Pioneer some weeks ago giving Red Tomahawk credit for the killing of Sitting Bull and has requested us to publish the sworn statement of Wakhutemani (Shoots-Walking), one of the policemen who took part in the affair. His statement is verified by police men Cross Bear and Looking Elk, who were also present. The story of the killing of Sitting Bull follows which is very interesting reading:

“We had orders to meet at the home of Chief of Police Bullhead on the Grand River about three or four miles from the camp of Sitting Bull on the night of the fourteenth of December, 1890. We left Bullhead’s place on the morning of December 15th, mounted, and rode directly to the camp of Sitting Bull. When within one-half mile of his camp, we charged rapidly directly [sic] to his house.

In accordance with instructions we surrounding his house and Captain Bullhead, Sergeant Shavehead, Little Eagle, High Eagle, and Warrior Fear Him, entered the house. The remainder of the force were to stand outside but I was curious to know what was going on and went into the house with the officers. Sitting Bull was in bed with one of his wives and was pulled out of bed by High Eagle and Little Eagle. His rifle, which was lying by his bed was taken by Captain Bullhead and another rifle which was hanging on the wall was taken by Sergeant Shavehead. After Sitting Bull was dressed, I was ordered outside and the officers followed almost immediately with Sitting Bull. 

According to Mr. Ernie LaPointe, the direct lineal descendant, great-grandson of Sitting Bull, the police knocked on the door and asked Sitting Bull to come outdoors, then waited for him. When Sitting Bull walked to the door, Crow Foot rose with his rifle and said to his father, "I will stand with you." Sitting Bull turned to his family and sang: "I am a man and where ever I lie is my own." Just after Sitting Bull and Crow Foot stepped through the door was Sitting Bull shot and killed. Crow Foot joined his father seconds later. 

Sitting Bull had been brought out about forty yards from the house and was surrounded by a cordon of policemen with the officers in the middle of the enclosed space. There were thirty-four or thirty-five policemen.

By this time it had become somewhat light and we could begin to recognize each other at some distance in the early dawn. The hostiles were running from all directions toward us yelling to kill the policemen either by shooting them or clubbing them to death.

After Sitting Bull saw that his followers were surrounding the police he yelled in a loud voice in [the] Sioux language, “I will not go! Attack! Attack!” At this time, Catch The Bear, a hostile, broke through the cordon of police and weeping and lamenting demanded that the police turn Sitting Bull loose. Closely following Catch The Bear, three other hostiles broke through the cordon of police, wearing blankets with their rifles concealed under them. As they entered the ring they threw their blankets away and made for the group of officers surrounding Sitting Bull. 

Sitting Bull, photo by D.F. Barry.

Little Eagle was standing at the right of Sitting Bull and High Eagle was at Sitting Bull’s left. These two men had been chosen to handle the person of Sitting Bull as they were powerful men physically. They had hold of him and prevented him from getting away. Captain Bullhead stood immediately in front of Sitting Bull facing him and Sergeant Shavehead stood immediately behind Bullhead.

As the hostiles threw away their blankets Catch The Bear reached the group of officers first and fired point blank at Captain Bullhead, the bullet striking the officer at about waist line and passing through his body.

At the same instant Strikes The Kettle shot Sergeant Shavehead. When Captain Bullhead was shot he immediately raised his rifle and shot Sitting Bull. The bullet struck Sitting Bull just above the sternum and passed upward and back through his body, breaking the spinal column where his neck and body join. Where the bullet left the body it tore a hole about two inches in diameter. Sitting Bull dropped dead. Neither Bullhead nor Shavehead fell when shot but Sitting Bull collapsed at once.

I actually saw these things. The battle then became general and most of the police fell back towards Sitting Bull’s barn. Two of us remained where the officers had fallen. I was not hit, but a bullet went through my hat and was fired at such close range that my neck was burnt by the powder. During the fight it was impossible to observe what was going on but I know the man remaining with me, Broken Arm or Armstrong, was killed. Three other police remained beside the house, Bad Horse, Looking Elk, and Cross Bear. None of them were wounded.

Three of the four hostiles who started the fight were killed. They were Catch The Bear, Spotted Horn, and Black Bird. Strike The Kettle was wounded but he got away and lived for many years after the fight.

While the battle was still in progress the military detachment from Fort Yates arrived at the top of the hill and apparently began firing at us. They also discharged a cannon at us twice, the shells falling within a hundred yards of us and exploding. We sent a policeman with a white flag toward the military and formed in line and marched in twos to let the military know who we were. They then changed their range and fired their cannon in the direction in which the hostiles were retiring. The cannon scattered the hostiles in every direction and the battle was over. 

LaPointe's narrative says that during the military cannon fire, Sitting Bull's oldest daughter, Many Horses, his wives, Seen By Her Nation and Four Robes, their five children and perhaps 200 more fled south across the Grand River, but were intercepted by the military and then brought to Fort Yates. 

We then found that Bullhead and Shavehead were still alive. As the police came back to the point where the fight started and saw their officers lying mortally wounded and their comrades dead, many of them shot into the body of Sitting Bull. His body was badly mutilated. Swift Cloud, a half-brother of Little Eagle, was not a policeman but as he came to the battle ground and saw his brother lying dead, he seized a club and beat the head of Sitting Bull into a shapeless mass. Holy Medicine, who was not a policeman but was a brother of Broken Arm, also came to the battle ground and seeing his brother dead, seized a club and beat the remains of Sitting Bull. 

Crow Foot, by D.F. Barry.

Crow Foot was the son of Sitting Bull. He was a young man of seventeen or eighteen at the time and when his father was taken from the house followed at three different times in an effort to get him back to the house. The first two times he was sent back to the house but the third time the battle began.

After the battle we carried the dead and wounded into Sitting Bull’s house. When we made the third trip for the body of Little Eagle we heard two shots, following a commotion in the house and a voice pleading for mercy. As we came near the house a body was hurled through the door. It was Crow Foot. He had hidden under a pile of bedding in the corner of the hut and when found by the officers had been sent by Lone Man and One Feather. 

Mr. LaPointe begs to argue this discrepancy. "It seeks to humiliate the memory of his son," says LaPointe. Crow Foot died outside the cabin. Crow Foot's younger half-brother, William, was about twelve years old. William was the crying child present. 

The hostiles killed in the fight were Catch The Bear, Spotted Horn, Black Bird, Jumping Bull, his son Brave Thunder, and Crow Foot, the son of Sitting Bull. They were buried by Riggs, a Congregational minister.

There is no question as to who killed Sitting Bull. I saw the captain of police kill him, saw him fall and saw the terrible wound made by the heavy police rifle afterward. It literally tore the upper part of his chest to pieces.

After cooking our breakfast with the military our dead were loaded into a wagon and the wounded into a military ambulance and we started for Fort Yates. The wounded reached the agency that night but we camped on Oak Creek near where the town of McLaughlin now stands. The next morning the military proceeded to Fort Yates and we received orders to return to the Grand River and order the hostiles to report to the agency. This we did with those who still remained in that vicinity but most of them had stampeded to Pine Ridge.

Many years have gone by since that fateful morning but the events as I have related them are burned indelibly upon my mind. The ride in the early morning hours, the frenzy and the screams of the ghost dancers as they rallied to their leader, the wily medicine man who made every excuse to delay his departure, his change of front when he thought his followers could save him, the bravery of the officers who knew they faced certain death, the death of Crow Foot and the tardy arrival of the military make a picture on my mind that will never be effaced.”

Suggested reading:

Sitting Bull: His Life And Legacy, by Ernie LaPointe, Great-Grandson of Sitting Bull. 

A Tale Of Jealously And Death

Ghost Hill on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation, south and east of Fort Yates, ND.

Legend Of Ghost Hill
Jealously Drives Mob To Murder
As Told By Šiyáka (Pied-Billed Grebe)
Song by Two Shields
Recorded by Frances Densmore
Standing Rock, SD & ND – Musical ethnologist Frances Densmore recorded this story and song on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation between 1911 and 1914. About eight miles south-east of present-day Fort Yates, ND is a high butte known as Ghost Hill.

When Sitting Bull and his band were brought from Canada they camped one winter on the lowland beside the Missouri River, a few miles below Fort Yates. It was a large camp, including many hostile Indians, who were afterward located at Pine Ridge and at Cherry Creek in the Cheyenne River Reservation.

Among these Indians was a particularly handsome young man, who was very fascinating to the young women.

One day he disappeared. As no trace of him could be found, his parents consulted a man who had some sacred stones, giving him a horse and asking that he would tell them of their son. This man said that during the next night the voice of the missing man would be heard passing through the camp, and that all must follow the voice. On the night designated all the camp was on alert; just before dawn they heard the voice of the young man approaching. His parents and friends, recognizing the voice, began to lament, and the dogs barked at the approach of a person.

The voice passed through the camp, singing a love song, then turned and came back, retracing its way toward this hill. The people followed, but could not go as fast as the voice, which gradually became more distant until it was lost in darkness.

This incident seemed to make the grief of the young man’s parents more acute, and they went again to the owner of the stones, to whom they gave another horse, asking him to tell who had killed their son. The man said he had been murdered by ten men, who were jealous of him, and that one of these men would die in ten days, another in ten days after the first, and so on until all were dead.

This came to pass as he predicted. The parents of the missing man then went again to the owner of the stones and begged to know where they could find the body of their son. The man said that their son had been chased a long distance by his enemies and finally had been killed far from home, and that his body had been devoured by wolves. He told the parents to follow the voice (which was still heard at intervals singing the same song) and to keep following it until they reached the place where the voice disappeared, where they would see their son.

The next time they heard the voice they hastened toward the place whence it came and saw at some distance before them a figure wrapped in a gray army blanket. They followed it but could never quite overtake it. Sometimes they would feel its presence behind them, and on looking back, would see it, but it never quite overtook them. It always followed the path toward Ghost Hill, and the parents thought it disappeared in the side of the hill.

Accordingly they dug into the side of the hill and made a diligent search, but the body of the young man was never found. A man named Walking Elk lived at the foot of Ghost Hill. He had a large family, the members of which died one after another. He laid their deaths to the ghost and shot at it with his rifle. The last appearance of the ghost was about the year 1889. It is said that a similar figure wrapped in a gray army blanket was later seen at Pine Ridge and on the Rosebud Reservation.

Two Shields assented to record the song attributed to the young man’s ghost:

Hénake (Finally)
Wačéye (I Weep)
ČhéyA (Weeping)
Omáwani (I-wander-about)
Kȟoškálaka (Young-man)
Wióyuspapi čhaŋ (Courting-women Then)
Iyótaŋ Wačháŋmni Kȟó (Best I-tried As-well)
ČhéyA (Weeping)
Omáwani (I-wander-about)

S.D. Nelson, Artist & Author Returns To Standing Rock

Nelson painted this wonderful representation of warriors astride horses following the Little Bighorn conflict. 
Maȟpíya Kiŋy’Aŋ Glí Aké
Flying Cloud Returns Again

By Dakota Wind

FORT YATES, N.D. – Songbirds wake the world with a thousand songs echoing up and down the Missouri River valley. The night quietly passed leaving only the brightest stars to flicker and flash in the frosty air. The sun reclaimed the heavens and stepped into the sky on the rim of the world. The last stars flashed and surrendered heaven to the sun, and at that moment, the birds’ songs seemed to grow louder, not just in singing in the new day, but singing in warmth and joy.

I put my playlist on random on the drive to Fort Yates, and it seems like this morning everything comes together. U2’s “Where The Streets Have No Name” fills my car with The Edge’s soaring guitar and my heart with ease. It isn’t possible, but I like to imagine that Bono wrote the lyrics after visiting Standing Rock.

Dirt and gravel roads flow over rolling hills and disappear straight into the sky. Lake Oahe, a man-made lake, dominates and defines the eastern border of reservation. The water is bright and blue in contrast to the days before the dams when the river was brown, swift, and dangerous.

I pull my little silver pony up to the high school and wait for the last song to fade before I go in. Teachers are herding their classes into the main entrance with last minute reminders to be respectful and actively listen to S.D. Nelson. They respond with muted acquiescence, some nudge others and make the universal sign for quiet by drawing extended index fingers up to pursed lips. They’re quiet for about a minute until they file into the auditorium, where in their excitement the somber silence is ended with the growing hum of anticipation.

Nelson signs autographs for some of the students. 

Nelson is there, greeting students with smiles. He hands out bookmarks, custom made for the occasion in admission, “I had them made for you,” for his visit to Standing Rock. Copies of his books have been liberally placed along the edge of the stage for all to see, but when he begins his program, he focuses on just a few illustrations from about three of the books.

An educator renders an introduction of Nelson, but many here already know him by his work, but also because they’ve heard he’s from Standing Rock and spent childhood summers there at his grandmother’s home. Nelson is more than just an artist who happens to be from Standing Rock. He really is a member of the tribe, his traditional name is Maȟpíya Kiŋy’Aŋ, which means “Flying Cloud,” after a grandfather who was a storyteller and a horse stealer.

For the next hour, Nelson shares stories of windswept summers at his Grandmother Josephine’s home on the reservation, traveling across the country and world (his father was an enlisted man), his lifelong interest in art, his gratitude to Standing Rock for supporting him in his academics at Minnesota State University (Moorhead, MN), his career as a high school art teacher, and fatherhood.

Nelson likens his paintings to "looking at the world with 'Indian eyes'." It was standing room only in the auditorium.

The hour’s most powerful moment, however, came when Nelson shared his paintings for a children’s book about Ira Hayes, a Navajo who served during World War II and was part of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima. Nelson spoke highly of Hayes patriotism, then added that Haye’s greatest struggle was one he ultimately lost. Alcoholism.

Nelson is a recovering alcoholic, “I’m a sober alcoholic. I’ve been sober now for twenty-eight years,” and added, “alcohol is not the kind of water you want to put on the tree of life.”

His program took a motivational turn as he shared photos of his daughter’s track and field career. Nelson urged everyone to participate in sports, to live clean, and “to live for the future.” He encouraged all the youth to think about a career, that a career “is what you do…make a commitment…to yourself, your family, and your tribe.”

I walked out of that auditorium and into the light of high noon, Journey’s “City Of Hope” on my playlist as I drove through Fort Yates. 

Elder Says "Live For The Living"

"The simple boy drives sorrow away from the mourner" from the story "The Simpleton's Wisdom" which appears in McLaughlin's "Myths And Legends Of The Sioux."

Live For The Living
Simple Wisdom

By Marie L. McLaughlin

GREAT PLAINS - "The Simpleton's Wisdom" comes from Marie L. McLaughlin’s “Myths And Legends Of The Sioux.” It is retold here with minor edits.

There was a man and his wife who had one daughter. Mother and daughter were deeply attached to one another, and when the daughter died, the mother was disconsolate. She cut off her hair, cut gashes in her cheeks, and sat before the corpse with her robe drawn over her head, mourning for her dead child. Nor would she let anyone touch the body to take it to a funeral scaffold.

She had a knife in her hand, and if anyone came near the body the mother would wail, “I am weary of life. I do not care to live. I will stab myself with this knife and join my daughter in the land of the spirits.”

Her husband and relatives tried to get the knife from her, but could not. They feared to use force lest she kill herself. They came together to see what they could do.

“We must get the knife away from her,” they agreed.

At last they called a boy, a simple fellow who possessed a good deal of shrewdness. He was an orphan and was very poor. His moccasins were badly worn through and he was dressed in wizí (course smoked hide).[1]

“Go to the thípi[2] of the mourning mother,” they told him, “and in some way contrive to make her laugh and forget her grief. Then try to get the knife away from her.”

The boy went to the tent[3] and sat down at the door as if waiting to be given something. The deceased girl lay in the place of honor where she had slept in life. The body was wrapped in a rich robe and wrapped about with ropes. Friends had covered it with rich offerings out of respect to the dead.

Mourners often took to wearing robes or blankets over their heads, smothering themselves in shadow. Anyone who saw such a person dressed in such a state knew that person was expressing profound sadness. 

As the mother sat on the ground with her head covered she did not at first see the boy, who sat silent. But when his reserve had away a little he began at first lightly, then more heavily, to drum his hands upon the ground. After a while he began to sing a humorous song. Louder and louder he sang until carried away with his own singing he sprang up and began to dance, at the same time gesturing and making all manner of contortions with his body, all while singing his song. As he approached the corpse he waved his hands over it in blessing.

The mother put her head out of the blanket and when she saw the simple fellow with his strange grimaces trying to do honor to her deceased daughter with his solemn waving, and with his song, she burst out laughing. Then she reached over and handed her knife to the simple fellow.

The simple fellow left the thípi and brought the knife to the astonished husband and relatives.

“How did you get it? Did you force it away from her, or did you steal it?” they asked.

“She gave it to me. How could I force it from her or steal it when she held it blade uppermost, in her hand? I sang and danced for her and she burst out laughing. Then she gave it to me,” he answered.

When the old men of the village heard the orphan’s story they became very silent. It was a strange thing for a boy to dance in a thípi where there was mourning, yet stranger still that a mother should laugh before her dead daughter. The old men gathered at last in a council. They sat a long time without saying anything, for they did not want to make a hasty decision.

The pipe was filled and passed many times, until at last an elder man spoke, “We have a hard decision. A mother has laughed before the body of her dead daughter, and many think that she was foolish to do so, but I think the woman did wisely. The boy was simple and of no training, and we cannot expect him to know how to do as well as one with a good home and parents to teach him otherwise. Besides, he did the best that he knew. He danced to make the mother forget her grief, and he tried to honor the dead daughter by waving his hands over her corpse.”

“The mother did right to laugh,” he continued, “for when one does try to do good for us, even if what one does causes us discomfort, we should remember the motive rather than the deed. And besides, the simple fellow’s dancing saved the woman’s life, for she gave up her knife. In this, too, she did well, for it is always better to live for the living than to die for the dead.”

---

[1] “Wizí” refers to the topmost part of the thípi, that which is weathered and smoked. This part of the old thípi may be recycled into moccasin soles or other use.

[2] “Tepee” in the original text. “Thípi” is the present spelling according to the Lakota Language Consortium’s standard orthography. “Thiíkčeya” or “thipȟéstola” is the proper word in reference to the conical tent of the Great Plains.

[3] Wakhéya is a general word for tents, thípi, lodge, or shelter.