Black Elk Speaks (49 page)

25
. The combined command of Gen. Terry and Gen. Gibbon

26
. The Lakota word for gun is mázawakh
“sacred iron”

1
. Following Custer’s defeat, the Fifth Cavalry under Col. Wesley Merritt was sent to reinforce Gen. Crook’s command. The Fifth Infantry, under Col. Nelson A. Miles, and the Twenty-Second Infantry, under Lt. Col. Elwell S. Otis, reinforced the combined command of Gen. Terry and Gen. Gibbon. Crook left his base camp on Goose Creek on August 5; his column now numbered 2,000 men. Terry left his new supply depot at the mouth of the Rosebud River on August 8; his column now numbered 1,700 men. They met upstream on the Rosebud on August 10 and combined forces. See Utley
, Frontier Regulars,
268–69
.

2
. The Lakota agencies were Red Cloud, for the Oglalas (established in its then-current location in 1871); Standing Rock for the Hunkpapas, Black feet Sioux, and Yanktonais (1875); Cheyenne River, for the Minneconjous, Sans Arcs, and Two Kettles (1871); Spotted Tail, for the Brules (1875); and Lower Brule (1875). See Hill
, The Office of Indian Affairs.

3
. The first two paragraphs are Neihardt’s
.

4
. This is a sacred place known to the Cheyennes as Deer Rocks or Painted Rocks. The site is located in Rosebud County, Montana, above the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. See Marquis
, A Warrior Who Fought Custer,
191–92, and Beverly Bad-horse, “Petroglyphs: Possible Religious Significance of Some.”

5
. This sentence is not found in the interview; transcript. See
Sixth Grandfather,
198
.

6
. Watá phéta ‘
fire boat
.’

7
. On August 2,1876, a party of Lakotas attacked the steamboat
Far West 
at Terry’s old supply depot on the Yellowstone below; the mouth of Powder River. See Hanson
, The Conquest of the Missouri:Being the Story of the Life and Exploits of Captain Grant Marsh,
325–27
.

8
. Neihardt added the details about burning the grass and the rain; Black Elk does not mention them in the interview notes
.

9
. The Lakotas called Canada
-hoche
‘grandmother’s country,’ after Queen Victoria
.

10
.
wi
‘black calf moon’ is an alternate name for September
.

11
. The American Horse whose village was attacked by Crook’s forces was a Minneconjou chief who was also known as Iron Plume; he was not related to the Oglala chief American Horse. Black Elk did not mention the Slim Buttes battle or the subsequent retreat in the rain to the Black Hills, an event that was called the Horsemeat March, since the soldiers were forced to rely on their horses for food. See
Utley, Frontier Regulars,
270–71; Greene
, Slim Buttes,
1876
.

12
. Pápa.

13
. This paragraph and the next, referring to the 1868 treaty, were added by Neihardt. In the interview transcript, Black Elk notes only that the Minneconjous—the survivors of the Slim Buttes battle—-joined with Crazy Horseto spend the winterof 1876–77
(Sixth Grandfather,
199
).

14
. It was customary for men going to war to tie up their horses’ tails. See
Sixth Grandfather,
203
.

15
. Again, Neihardt added this paragraph about the 1876 Black Hills Agreement Black Elk did not mention it. Following Custer’s defeat, the President appointed a commission, headed by former Commissioner of lndian Affairs George W. Manypenny, to secure the cession of the Black Hills. Councils were held at each of the Sioux agencies and the chiefs and headmen were intimidated into signing the agreement that not only ceded the Black Hills but also all claims to lands outside the Great Sioux Reservation. In doing this, the commissioners ignored the stipulation in the 1868 treaty that future land cessions would require the signatures of three-fourths of the adult Lakota males. See Olson
, Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem,
224–30. For the text of the agreement, see Deloria and DeMallie
, Documents of American Indian Diplomacy,
vol. i, 261–71
.

16
. The Lakota designation for whiskey is
mm’wakha.

17
. Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie with some 1,100 cavalry and Indian allies surprised the Cheyennes, drove them from their village, captured their pony herd, and burned all the lodges. See Powell
, People of the Sacred Mountain,
2:1056–71
.

18
. The transcript does not mention the Lakotas eating horses. See
Sixth Grand father,
201
.

19
. The final sentence of this paragraph was added by Neihardt. The Cheyennes led by Dull Knife surrendered at Fort Robinson on April 21,1877. See Powell
, People of the Sacred Mountain,
2:1141–45
.

20
. This sentence is apparently Neihardt’s
.

21
. On August 28,1876, Col. Miles established a cantonment on the Tongue River at its juncture with the Yellowstone, near modern Miles City, Montana; it was named Fort Keogh on November 8,1877 (Prucha, Military
Posts of the United States,
82)
.

22
.
wi ‘
frost in the tepee moon
.’

23
. Known as the Battle of the Wolf Mountains, January 8,1877. Col. Miles (he urns not promoted to brigadier general until 1880) headed an infantry column of 435 officers and men, accompanied by eight civilian and Indianscouts. They left the Tongue River cantonment toward the end of December 1876.  In early January 1877 the soldiers skirmished with small parties of Indians, and on January 7 they captured a small group of Cheyenne women and children. The next day, Crazy Horse and Dull Knife led some 500 Lakota and Cheyenne warriors in an attack on Miles’s forces, attempting unsuccessfully to rescue the captives. See Utley
, Frontier Regulars,
276–77; Greene
, Yellowstone Command,
154–76. Neihardt supplied much of the detail in this and the following paragraph; see
Sixth Grandfather,
201–2
.

24
. Miles brought along two artillery pieces, a twelve-pounder Napoleongun and a three-inch Rodman rifle gun. The Napoleon gun fired spherical exploding shells. See Greene
, Yellowstone Command,
76–77
.

25
.
ithi ‘
sun making itself fires’ is the Lakota designation for “sun dogs,” a halo around the sun that indicates a coming change of weather. See
Sixth Grand father,
292
.

26
. Again, the transcript does not mention eating ponies
.

27
. Spotted Tail, heading a party of two hundred fifty men from his agency, set out for Crazy Horse’s camp in February and returned in early April. See Hyde
, Red Cloud’s Folk,
289
, Spotted Tail’s Folk,
243–44. The material in this paragraph was added by Neihardt; in the transcript, Black Elk does not talk about this incident, nor does he give an evaluation of Spotted Tail
.

28
. In the transcript, Black Elk does not express doubt about the significance of his vision (
Sixth Grandfather,
204)
.

29
. In the interview transcript Black Elk says that his family returned to Fort Robinson “in about May,” a few days in advance of Crazy Horse (
Sixth Grandfather,
203). The army recorded the arrival of Black Elk’s family at Fort Robinson with the rest of Crazy Horse’s band, numbering 899 people, on May 6, 1877. See Buecker and Paul
, The Crazy Horse Surrender Ledger,
159
.

30
. Most of this paragraph was added by Neihardt. In the transcript, Black Elk does not mention being present when Crazy Horse surrendered. Although Neihardt imagined the scene poetically in
The Song of the Indian Wars
(p. 223), it seems unlikely that Crazy Horse wore a war bonnet on this occasion. Lt. W. P. Clark, the military officer who received Crazy Horse’s surrender, wrote that one of the headmen put a war shirt and war bonnet on Clark, and presented him with a pipe (Clark
, The Indian Sign Language,
296). Moreover, William Garnett, a mixed blood, reported that he heard Crazy Horse tell that in a vision he had been instructed never to wear a war bonnet (Jensen
, The Indian Interviews of Eli S. Ricker,
117
).

31
. The last paragraph is Neihardt’s
.

1
. In the transcript, Black Elk says little about the death of Crazy Horse (see
Sixth Grand father,
203–4). Most ”of the material in this chapter was provided by Neihardt. Crazy Horse was killed at Fort Robinson on September 5,1877, while resisting arrest. See Olson
, Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem,
237–49; Sandoz
, Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas,
360–413; Bray
, Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life,
374–90. Among the many sources on Crazy Horse’s death, see Brininstool
, Crazy Horse: The Invincible Ogalala Sioux Chief;
Friswald
, The Killing of Crazy Horse;
Kadlecek and Kadlecek
, To Kill an Eagle: Indian Views on the Last Days of Crazy Horse;
and Hardorff
, The Surrender and Death of Crazy Horse.