The Tragic Love Of Flying Shadow Woman And Track Maker

"The Falls Of Saint Anthony" by Henry Lewis.

Love And Death Between Enemies
Flying Shadow Woman And Track Maker
Edited by Dakota Wind
The story of the love between the Dakȟóta warrior Track Maker and the young Anishinaabe woman Flying Shadow has appeared in print twice, once in Charles Skinner’s Myths And Legends Of Our Own Lands, 1896, and again in Terri Hardin’s Legends And Lore Of The American Indians, 1993. Both books are out of print. This story is retold here with edits. It has not been verified by living oral tradition, but it bears similarities (i.e tragic deaths of lovers, conflict) to living stories such as Painted Woods and Spirit Wood.

BDÓTE, M.N. - The Anishinaabe and Dakȟóta had come together at Bdóte (“Where Two Waters Converge*”) to cement friendships and celebrate. A young Anishinaabe, Flying Shadow Woman, was sad when the time came for the tribes to part, for a Dakȟóta man, Track Maker, had won her heart.

In those days, inter-tribal marriages were not unknown. If she married him and went to live with his people, it might well be possible that every Dakȟóta would be against her should the tribes wage war. War between the Anishinaabe and the Dakȟóta was closer than neither Flying Shadow Woman nor Track Maker anticipated.

The Anishinaabe left with feelings of good will. Flying Shadow Woman had received a token of love from Track Maker and kept it close.

"The Falls Of Saint Anthony" by George Catlin.

Two Anishinaabe warriors lingered behind their band, and for reasons of their own, killed a Dakȟóta man after this congenial gathering. News of the murder reached the Dakȟóta village which provoked an immediate retaliation, and a war party of 300 was swiftly formed. Track Maker counted himself first among the war party as it was his brother who was shot and killed, and though he loved Flying Shadow Woman, he could not remain behind. The war party descended upon the unsuspecting Anishinaabe who had made camp between Owámni (“Whirlpool,” aka St. Anthony Falls) and Wakpá Wakáŋ (“Spirit River,” aka Rum River).

The Anishinaabe camp was unaware of the murder of the Dakȟóta man. 

"Ojibwe Encampment" by Paul Kane.

The Dakȟóta fell upon them and exacted furious revenge. In the midst of the violence Track Maker beheld Flying Shadow Woman who rushed into his arms with a cry of relief, but serenity was denied her. Track Maker embraced her but for a moment until he bowed his head and fortified his will to annihilate her people for the murder of his brother. Track Maker abandoned Flying Shadow Woman to claim retribution. He never looked back. He did not kill her, but he refused to save her.

The Dakȟótas' thirst for vengeance was slaked only when the last Anishinaabe lay dead.

The war party took a hundred scalps that day, and upon their return celebrated their victory.

Track Maker returned with more scalps than any other warrior, and the Dakȟóta welcomed him home as a hero, but he kept a solemn distance from all, and refused to share in the celebration. The memory of Flying Shadow Woman’s face haunted him thereafter. He saw her in the river, in the leaves, in the clouds, and even in the faces of deer when he went hunting.

At last, one day, a war party was mustered. Track Maker was the first to join, and on the field of battle he was the first to engage the enemy by running directly into them. He laid his axe about the enemy until he fell, pierced by a several arrows.

He smiled as he died.

Though this is a very short story retold with edits, two people graciously offered guidance:

Lise Erdrich, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, lives and works in Wahpeton, ND, and has worked in American Indian health and education for over twenty years. She is the author of the children’s picture books Sacagawea, Bear Makes Rock Soup, and many other acclaimed works.

Dawí, Huhá Máza, is a lineal descendant of the Kap'óža Bdewákhaŋthuŋwaŋ Oyáte. A traditional bow and arrow maker, and Dakȟóta language student, Dawí lives in occupied Bde Óta Othúŋwe (aka Minneapolis).
____________________

* Where the Wakpá Mní Šóta (Smoking Water River, aka “Minnesota River”) converges with the Ȟaȟá Wakpá (Falling Water River, aka “Mississippi River”).

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. 

The Lost Daughter of The Mandan

A mural of the Yellow Earth Village, a Mandan Indian village, known today as Double Ditch State Historic Site, north of Bismarck, ND. The mural is painted by Robert Evans, and can be viewed in the Early Peoples Gallery of the North Dakota Heritage Center.

The Lost Daughter Of The Mandan
Long Ago Battle Separates Child
By Dakota Wind
DOUBLE DITCH, N.D. - A reader came across my blog and took me up on my offer to look tackle a story or subject. Thank you for reading!

Sue writes:

I have visited your blog, and wanted to submit an article that was written in 1864 about my great-great-great-great-great ??Grandmother, Charlotte Boucher. (I do not know her Indian name) Her story is very interesting, although its hard to tell how much is true.

I was told growing up, that she was the daughter of the Mandan Chief, and this article also states that. I have not been able to verify that, as her date of birth is hard to verify. One article I found online showed her birth year of 1781, while the attached article said she lived to the ripe old age of 125, which would have made her birth year 1739 (one of the harder things to swallow). However, she was taken from her tribe, by the Sioux, before the smallpox outbreak of 1781 at the age of 4.

Her husbands name was Joseph Boucher Jr., who was a French Canadian Fur Trader. Joseph Boucher Jr. was born February 9, 1760 in Riviere-des-Praries (Island of Montreal).

If by chance, you should be able to verify her year of birth, or who the Chief was in 1781, or any other pertinent information, I would love to hear from you. If not, enjoy the article.

What follows next is the article, stated in character, unaltered from the language of the original article about Mrs. Charlotte Busche which Sue sent me. My commentary within the article is bold and my commentary following the article is italicized.

The Green Bay Advocate, January, 28, 1864

sketch [sic] of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Busche'- We mentioned two weeks ago, the death of Mrs. Charlotte Busche' in the town of Bellevue, near this city, at the age of 125 years and called upon the old residents to furnish us with a sketch of her eventful life. This was found to be a very difficult task. The old lady had bee in her socond  [sic] childhood for more than six years previous to her death, and during that time it was only occaionally [sic] that her mind would brighten up sufficiently to enable her to talk coherently of her early history, therefore all that can be written of her is from the memory of her friends and relatives, gleaned from her before her imbecility. the Chicago Journal calls upon us to extablish [sic] by proof this extraordinary case of longevity. This we cannot do-having always lived among the Indians until her marriage with Busche she had no idea of dates, nor of her own age, and those who might have told her age with tolerale certainty in connection with the events she remembered, had passed away long years before to "that country from whose bourne no travelers returns" In stating her age at 125 years, we did not pretend to exactness, but gave the generally received impression. She wa [sic] "old Charlotte Busche" 45 years ago, which is abouta s [sic] far back as any of our old residents can remember. (If Charlotte were 125 years of age, then she would have been born around the time of Pierre La Verendrye’s first contact with the Mandans, ~1738.)

Mr. John Dousman of Bellevue who was well acquainted with her, gave the following incidents of her life. Gathered from conversations with her descendants.

The late Mrs Charlotte Busche' was born in the far West, near the headwaters of the Missouri River (This would place her birth at what is today known as Three Forks, MT. Perhaps either the author or Charlotte herself meant where the Heart River and Missouri River converge which is where the Mandan Indians lived until smallpox forced them to abandon their villages and move north to Knife River – which is where Lewis and Clark encountered them in 1804). She was of full Indian Blood, of the tribe of Mandans, her father being the Chief of that nation. When a young woman, a great battle occurred between the Sioux and the Mandans, in which she was taken prisoner by the Sioux (The John K. Bear Winter Count recalls a major battle between the Ihanktowana Dakota, also called the Yanktonai, and the Nu’Eta, who are also called Mandan, in 1781 at Yellow Earth Village, presently known as Double Ditch Mandan Indian Village, located north of Bismarck, ND on HWY 1804). Her Mother being dead. she was at that time in the care of her Grandmother, who hid her during the fight in a clump of bushes. This was before the use of fire-arms was known to the Indians, and being discovered by a Sioux warrior, she was dragged forth and dealt her a heavy blow on the head with his bow, leaving her senseless and would have killed her but for the interference of another of the tribe, who claimed her as his prisoner. She carried the scar of this wound through her life. After the battle, she was put on a horse and carried to the Sioux country, near the Mississippi River (this could be any one of the Santee Dakota villages at that time along Minnesota River, near the Mississippi River), and the next day after her arrival at the Sioux village was compelled to run the gauntlet. Two lines were formed of women and children armed with sticks and sharp arrows and stripped naked she was compelled to run through between them, enduring their stripes and arrow thrusts. She came out fearfully lacerated and covered with blood (this torturous process seemed to be the practice of the Huron and Iroquois; in Thomas E. Mails Mystic Warriors of The Plains, he relates the brutal treatment of captives, but also, not all captives were tortured) .

She was then submitted to other tortures too horrible to narrate, and afterward adopted into the Sioux nation, becoming the slave of her captor. About a year afterward, her father came to ransom her by purchase with a drove of horses, but owing to a superstition of the Sioux that once adopted into the tribe would die if taken away, they would not give her up and her Father left her. She lived with captor until his death, when she was sold to the Winnebago Indians, on the Wisconsin River. Here she lived for many years, enduring much cruelty, and had a child in that nation. The Winnebagoes, however, finally sold her to a French trader , who took her to Mackinac, and gave her as a present to the wife of an Ottawa Chief by the name of Na-o-kau-ta (or four legs), who proved to be fiend incarnate and where her worst suffering commenced (Four Legs had fought beside Tecumseh against the United States in the War of 1812 at Moraviantown, Ontario – he was against US land treaties and purchases). she was held as his slave, and by every cruelty that this devil could invent. But all this she survived, and met with an unexpected deliverance. One day her mistress had a son dying, and she came out to the field where the unhappy slave was at work, and told her to hurry and finish hoeing that corn, as she intended to have her accompany her son, as soon as he should lie to make fires for him on his way to the land of spirits.

The hint was enough, it was her sentence of death: so as soon as her mistress was gone she ran away. (The Ottowas were not living on the island of Mackinac, but at Little Traverse Bay, on the main land.) She had not gone far when she was missed, and search was made for her. She crept into a hollow log, and had no sooner got in than her master came to the spot, with his rifle in his hand, and actually stood upon the log in which she was hidden, but did not discover her. She remained there all night, and in the morning came out and went to an Indian Lodge, where she threw herself on her knees and besought the Indians to protect her from those who sought her life, but,instead of befriending her, they took her back to her mistress. On her arrival, her mistress remarked that she must be hungry and she would give her something to eat. She seized a knife and cut off both her ears, scorched them a little in the fire, and commanded her to eat them, on pain of instant death if she refused. She tried to eat the disgusting morsel, and made several attempts to swallow them, but could not. She was then condemned to die the next day, bound hand and foot, and placed in a camp.

Sometime in the night, a friend, she never knew who, came and unbound her, and she made her escape she walked through the woods, following the lake shore for three days, and on the fourth day saw and saw an Indian canoe on its way to Mackinac. She hailed its occupants, and they had pity on her, took her on board and carried her to Mackinac Island. There she told her story and the people of the Island offered her protection, telling her that the marks she bore were sufficient proofs of her suffering. (Was she walking on the shoreline of Mackinac Island on Lake Huron or did she swim to the shoreline – just over two miles – and then walked through the woods and followed the lake shore? Following the lake shore of Mackinac Island for three to four days would have taken her around the entire island which is about 3.8 sq. miles.)

To get her out of the way of this savage tribe of Indians, a trader offered to take her on his Mackinac boar to Green Bay. She accepted his offer, and embarked with him, but had not gone far when they met a canoe of Ottawa warriors bound for Mackinac. The trader hid the old woman beneath the baggage. The warriors hailed the trader, and told him they had heard that their escaped slave was at Mackinac (Mackinaw?), and asked him if he had her on board. He denied all knowledge of her, and preceded on his way to Green Bay, and the canoe to Mackinac. (The previous paragraph mentions that Charlotte saw an Indian canoe on its way to Mackinac. If she swam, she would have risked hypothermia but could have made it to the shoreline – the nearest mainline point from Mackinaw is St. Ignace which is over two miles away. If Charlotte escaped by canoe, why would she need to flag down a trader and get a ride from him to Green Bay? Maybe she took a canoe, then abandoned it.)

Arrived safely at Green Bay, she was taken up to Portage, (now Portage City) and given to a Winnebago [sic]

a [sic] Winnebego woman, Mrs Lequya. Here she lived many years, during which time the Winnebagoes made several attempts to kill her, but were foiled. Mrs. L. compelled her to marry a Winnebego vy the name of Dashba, but she still lived with Mrs. L. She had 2 children with Dashna (Frank Dashna; 1803-1805).

Finally the same French trader who had taken her awa from the Winnebagoes several years before, came and took her away from Dashna and started, with her for the Ottawas, near Mackinac, to restore her to Four Legs. He got as far as Green Bay, where he sold her to Mr Joseph Busche' (1807), with whom she lived until he died (in 1838), and by whom she had 9 children, and since his death, which occurred more than thirty years ago, she had lives with her children, until death came to close hr eventful life two or three weeks ago. (After the death of Joseph Boucher/Busche, Charlotte made an attempt to return to her natural tribe, the Nu’Eta, or Mandan Indians, but she was mis-informed that her tribe had passed into history after smallpox hit them in 1837.)

By 1838, Charlotte was either about fifty-six years old if she were born in 1781, or ninety-nine if she were born in 1739. The average life expectancy of women in 1840 was about forty-five years of age (Daniel Perry, Executive Director of the Alliance for Aging Research). Charlotte applied for and was given permission for her to be enrolled as a member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. As such, she was permitted access to Indian Health Services and received a small subsidy from the Department of War (of which the Bureau of Indian Affairs was then a part) for illegal seizures of Menominee land from the 10 million acres it was to the 235,000 acres reservation it became. A curious circumstance is, that after the death of old Mr Busche', over thirty years ago, as we have stated, which occurred on the old Rouse farm, known as Private Claim No.10, now Judge Cotton's farm, the old lady never lived upon the farm until about two weeks before her death, when her son with whom she resided moved up on it, and the old lady consequently died upon the same farm where her husband did (Joseph Boucher/Busche’s role somehow moved from purchaser to husband).

In the above sketch (no sketch available), Mr Dousman had omitted mention of many of the barbarities to which this sufferer was subjected, which are too revolting for print.

Thus has passed away another of the connecting links between a past age and the present-the children of the subject of this sketch are now becoming old men and women and will soon have passed away, and if, mayhap, in after years, a stray copy of this tale of woe should chance to be found and read, the reader will think it altogether to preposterous of credence. Even now, the very name of the tribe of which she was born are memories nearly forgotten, and te powerfl tribes of Indians who peopled this country in the days of her youth, have dwindled down to mere handfuls. the unbroken forests through which she made her journeys are now studded thickly with cities, villages and farms, and the iron horse courses on the ancient war paths. The birch canoe and the "Mackinac Boat" have given place on the waters of Lake Michigan to floating monsters propelled by steam, the idea of which was not conceived until she had laid aside all the [sic]...

are among the curiosities we see in museums, and yet she has but just gone to her rest. With her has perished much valuable information with regard to the face of this country, which will be sought for with laborious research by the antiquarian, and perhaps never found. The old lady had a distinct remembrance of the fox River, upon the banks of which we now live, when it was a mere creek, so narrow at the point at Mr Lewis (now Peter L.) Grignon's farm, and the southern line of the city of Green Bay, that a canoe could readily be pushed across it. The river is now about 80 rods wide there (About 1300 feet; 400 meters). This would seem almost beyond belief, were it not confirmed by the testimony of other old citizens who have now gone to their rest. (In the 1850s, the Fox and Wisconsin Improvement Company built a series of locks and dams on the Fox River, then a canal connecting it to the Wisconsin River at Portage, WI.)

One of the most pleasant thoughts that now occur to us is that the Ottawa tribe of Indians, then one of most barbarous, and with whom the old lady suffered the greatest indignities became one of the most Christianized, nearly all having embraced the Catholic, or some Protestant faith, and education among them has reached a high standard. (As a result of reaching such a high standard in education and faith, Michigan citizenry called for dismantling the Ottawa reservations and began to settle on Ottawa homelands. Many Ottawa feared removal to them as President Andrew Jackson did to the Cherokee and other tribes. Some Ottawa who had sold their lands in Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio were removed to Kansas. The Ottawa there were removed to Oklahoma in 1867. The Ottawa who remained in Michigan retained some recognition by the state, and in 1994 the Little River Band of Ottawa’s federal recognition was restored. Today five Ottawa bands have state recognition and many struggle to regain their federal status.)

Charlotte Busche’s story in regards to her long struggle to return to her Nu’Eta (Mandan) Indian people went unrealized. She never again saw the sun set on her people’s earthlodge villages, never again saw the sun rise over the Missouri River. However, the (Nu’Eta) Mandan people are still alive today and many reside on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. 

There is the tradition of lineage among the (Nu’Eta) Mandan Indian people which was not at all mentioned in the story above. The Nu’Eta (Mandan) are matrilineal. Charlotte’s daughters, granddaughters, great-daughters, and so on would be regarded by the Nu’Eta (Mandan) as Nu’Eta (Mandan). Discovering who her father was is a start, but knowing who her mother was at Yellow Earth Village and her clan affirms any relations that Charlotte’s descendants may have among the Nu’Eta (Mandan) today.

Enrollment is another issue entirely.