Chief Flying Hawk's Tales: The True Story of Custer's Last Fight as Told 
by Chief Flying Hawk to M. I. McCreight (Tchanta Tanka)

Published: New York, Alliance Press, 1936

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                            CHIEF FLYING HAWK'S
                                   TALES


                   The True Story of Custer's Last Fight 

                        As told by CHIEF FLYING HAWK

                                    to

                      M. I. McCREIGHT (Tchanta Tanka)


                               Alliance Press
                            Publishers, New York
                     Copyright 1936, By M. I. McCreight
                             All Rights Reserved




CONTENTS:

FORWARD
CHAPTER 1. CHIEF FLYING HAWK'S TALES.
CHAPTER 2. THE STORY OF CHIEF FLYING HAWK'S LIFE.
CHAPTER 3. NEW AMSTERDAM.
CHAPTER 4. THE CUSTER FIGHT.
CHAPTER 5. THE CHIEF TELLS OF RED CLOUD AND RED CLOUD'S SPEECH.
CHAPTER 6. WOUNDED KNEE.
CHAPTER 7. SITTING BULL.
CHAPTER 8. THE LAST SUN DANCE.



[image caption: Chief Flying Hawk at 62]

FOREWORD

As Troop Commander, Headquarters Troop, 7th Cavalry, U. S. Army, stationed 
at Fort Bliss, Texas, I am interested in the completion of history 
outlining the misfortunes this Regiment encountered while under the 
command of General Custer at the battle of Little Big Horn. I have read 
the manuscript of the old Indian Chief telling his experiences, in company 
with his cousin, Crazy Horse, in that historic affair. It is something 
new, and I think it is important because it helps clear up the fog of 
mystery, which for sixty years, has clouded the happenings and sustained 
the controversy regarding that unfortunate military disaster.

It is well known that Crazy Horse had a leading part in the fight; he led 
the Sioux in nearly every contest with U. S. Troops during the strenuous 
days following the Bozeman Trail troubles, and he was never conquered; his 
fame increases with the passing of time; for him the only monument erected 
by the Government, was placed recently, to mark the spot where he met a 
sad and untimely death, at Fort Robinson. Cousin and constant chum of the 
war chief, the author of this account of the fight gives us a story that 
merits the serious consideration of every fair-minded reader.

Personal acquaintance with the author of the book; his early day 
experiences on the frontier; his intimate acquaintance and long 
intercourse with Indians, justifies me in believing that a grateful public 
will read Flying Hawk's Tales with more than ordinary delight and 
satisfaction.

JOHN P. SCOTT, Captain, 7th Cavalry.
Fort Bliss, Texas, April, 1936. 



[image caption: Sioux Chiefs - 1908 - L.to R. - Lone Bear, American 
Horse(Ben), Iron Tail, Iron Cloud, Whirlwind]

CHAPTER 1. CHIEF FLYING HAWK'S TALES.

In the spectacular parades of the Great Wild West Shows of old days 
Buffalo Bill mounted a beautiful white horse lead the procession. 
Alongside of him, mounted on his pinto pony, rode Flying Hawk in full 
regal style, carrying his feathered guidon erect and fluttering in the 
breeze, while his eagle-quill bonnet not only made a fitting crown but 
dangled below the stirrups of his saddle. Scalp locks decorated his 
buckskin war-shirt, and beaded moccasins adorned his feet, for this was 
the becoming dress for, and carried out the dignity of his high office of 
Chief on gala day affairs.

After the death of the great Scout the old chief travelled with Colonel 
Miller's 101 Ranch Shows, and for a time with the Sells-Floto Shows, for 
it was a relief from the hum-drum life in a two-room log cabin in the 
desolate Bad Lands country. It was during one of his last trips with the 
big circus that the writer telegraphed to the manager, while stationed at 
a city in an adjoining state, asking him to put the old chief on the train 
which would bring him for a few days' visit at the Wigwam, where for many 
years he had so much enjoyed similar visits. Shortly a reply came. The 
message read: "Coming. Flying Hawk." The writer's car was there to meet 
him. Thunderbull, the interpreter, had come with him, for the Chief was 
ill and they feared to trust him to travel alone. He was driven to a 
doctor's office for an examination and the physician ordered him to be 
taken to the hospital, saying he was threatened with pneumonia and must 
have careful attention. He had been travelling in New England and Canada, 
and the weather had been cold and wet, which, with the war-dancing, 
buffalo-chasing and rough-riding, was telling on the health of the old 
man, now '76. When informed of the doctor's decision, the chief 
remonstrated; he told of Iron Tail, his old friend, who had been placed in 
a hospital under exactly similar conditions a dozen years ago, and was 
sent home in a casket. No, he said, he would not go to the hospital, but 
wished to go to the Wigwam, where he could be with his friends and those 
who knew and understood him. At the Wigwam he was at home; he liked the 
cooking and the sunshine and the open fields and woods, good water, a 
little sherry wine now and then, and the fresh pure air that was sifted 
through a mile of green forests seemingly for his benefit. The old man 
declined all the luxury provided for him in the way of soft mattress, 
guest-room, bath, rockers and springs, and asked to have the shaggy 
buffalo robes and blankets put at his disposal on the open veranda. There 
he made his couch and slept in the starlight, to be wakened by the 
songbirds and the rising sun peeping from the mountain-tops fifteen miles 
away. A couple of days of this change to new environment overcame the 
threatened breakdown, and the Chief showed signs of returning health and 
vigor. He said he would soon be in the long sleep with Red Cloud and 
Sitting Bull, and he would now talk about Crazy Horse, and tell all about 
the Custer fight if the white chief would want it for a paper talk; 
Thunderbull would help him put it in the white man's words, if the white 
Chief would write it as he said. For years the old Chief had been 
importuned by newspaper reporters and by magazine and feature writers to 
give his own account of what actually took place at the Custer fight, for 
it was known that he was with Crazy Horse throughout the whole affair and 
knew more than anyone else about it, but he always declined to be 
interviewed. Now he was ready to talk, for he had turned over the old 
ceremonial peace pipe to his friend after fifty years' possession--since 
Sitting Bull's reign--and he now wished him to have also the history of 
his life, and the true story of the Custer fight before he went to the 
last long sleep. And so, on the broad veranda, where the old man could 
look out into the mountains where the deer and the bears still lived, and 
where nearby he could see the railroad and highway traffic as overhead 
roared the airplanes between New York and San Francisco, comfortable 
chairs and tables, with writing materials, were provided to take down the 
old Chief's statements exactly as he uttered them in the Lakota dialect 
and sign language, fully translated by Thunderbull, verified by the chief 
himself and signed with his thumb-print and by him pronounced "Washta." 

[image caption: RED CLOUD. Taken about 1905 by Felix, son of the Chief 
Flying Hawk, showing Pipe and Pouch sent to the author. Rare picture of 
the famous old chief taken shortly before his death.]

[image caption: Iron Tail - The celebrated Chief whose head is on the 
United States nickle, at age of 64. The man of whom Buffalo Bill said to 
the author: "He is the finest man I know, bar none."]



CHAPTER 2. THE STORY OF CHIEF FLYING HAWK'S LIFE.

"I was born four miles below where Rapid City now is, in 1852, about full 
moon in March. "My father was Black Fox and my mother's name was Iron 
Cedarwoman. "My father was a chief. In a fight with the Crows he was shot 
below the right eye with an arrow; it was so deep that it could not be 
pulled out, but had to be pushed through to the ear. "My tribe was the 
Ogalalla clan. Our family roamed on hunts for game and enemies all about 
through the country and to Canada. My father died when he was eighty years 
old. He had two wives and they were sisters. My mother was the youngest 
and had five children. The other wife had eight children, making thirteen 
in all. Kicking Bear was my full brother, and Chief Black Fox was my half 
brother and was named for our father. "When ten years old I was in my 
first battle on the Tongue River--Montana now. It was an Overland Train of 
covered wagons who had soldiers with them. The way it was started, the 
soldiers fired on the Indians, our tribe, only a few of us. We went to our 
friends and told them we had been fired on by the soldiers, and they 
surrounded the train and we had a fight with them. I do not know how many 
we killed of the soldiers, but they killed four of us. "After that we had 
a good many battles, but I did not take any scalps for a good while. I 
cannot tell how many I killed when a young man. "When I was twenty years 
old we went to the Crows and stole a lot of horses. The Crows discovered 
us and followed us all night. When daylight came we saw them behind us. I 
was the leader. We turned back to fight the Crows. I killed one and took 
his scalp and a field glass and a Crow necklace from him. We chased the 
others back a long way and then caught up with our own men again and went 
on. It was a very cold winter. There were twenty of us and each had four 
hourses. We got them home all right and it was a good trip that time. We 
had a scalp dance when we got back. "We soon moved camp. One night the 
Piegans came and killed one of our people. We trailed them in the snow all 
night. At dawn we came up to them. One Piegan stopped. The others went on. 
We surrounded the one. He was a brave man. I started for him. He raised 
his gun to shoot when I was twenty feet away. I dropped to the ground and 
his bullet went over me; then I jumped on him and cut him through below 
the ribs and scalped him. We tied the scalp to a long pole. The women 
blacked their faces and we had a big dance over it. "The next day I 
started out again with some men and we ran into a Crow camp. We got into 
that camp by moonlight, but we got caught. They started to fire on us. We 
all ran into a deep gulch. We got out, but when it was day we saw them 
coming with a herd 'of horses, going back to the Crow camp. We got in 
front of them and hid in a hollow. When I looked out I saw they had Sioux 
horses which they had stolen from our camp. "A big Crow was ahead and the 
others were riding behind. I took a good aim at the big Crow and shot him 
in the chest. The rest of them left the horses and ran away. The big Crow 
was still living. I took another shot at him, then I took his scalp. We 
took all the horses they had stolen. There were sixty-nine head that time. 
"Some time after we went to hunt buffalo. All the men went on this hunt. 
While we were butchering the kill some Piegans were coming. We went to 
meet them and had a fight. Some missed their 'horses and were running on 
foot. I was on a good fast horse. I ran over one and knocked him down and 
fell on him and scalped him alive (ugh). Another one of my people was 
close by and he shot the one I scalped. This fight was below where Fort 
Peck is. "More Piegans came. More of them than us. We were attacked by the 
Piegans. I kneeled down beside a sage bush. A Piegan shot at me but 
missed. I shot at him and hit his horse. It went down. Then I turned back 
and ran into a Piegan. Four of them were butchering buffaloes. I shot at 
them but missed. The Piegans ran and left their horses, and I took them 
all. We killed three of the Piegans. They shot one of our horses through 
the head. The fight was over and the Piegans went to a hill. "On the way 
back we ran into a lot of Crows and we had a fight on horseback. We chased 
them but no one was killed. We had a scalp dance on the Piegans. 

"The next fight I remember was when seven of us went on a hunt of the 
enemy. We met Crows. The Crows killed one of our men, and we chased them a 
long way but got none of them. We got back.

"Twenty-two of us went out to the head of the Yellowstone on foot on hunt 
of the enemy. The Crows saw us first. They came onto us all at once, 
yelling and shooting as fast as they could. They killed one Lakota; they 
had firearms then. Kicking Bear started after them and I went with him. I 
took good aim and shot one of their horses. The Crows made a charge on us. 
We took hiding in the rocks. One boy of our band thirteen years old was 
shot in the elbow, and one was shot in the back and killed. Another one of 
our band was shot in the breast but got well. They kept crowding us fast 
but we kept in the rocks. We made a big yell and started for the Crows. 
They left their blankets, but we failed to get any of the Crows this time. 
They had horses but we were on foot, but we got all their blankets and 
supplies. The Crows quit and we buried the boy on the hill among the 
rocks. We took the wounded man along. "Next morning we went into a hill to 
see if any of the enemy was around. We had field glasses then. We saw a 
band of the Crows killing buffaloes. All had packed up but one. The one 
not ready yet I took a shot at but missed him. He ran to his horse and 
jumped on him. The horse was tied to a stake and when he tried to run away 
the horse fell back from the tied rope and he fell off. We followed him on 
foot. He was crying. I shot him and he fell. We ran to him. He had a gun 
ready and before we could scalp him he shot at one of our men and hit him 
above the knee. I wounded him but he got up and ran. My brother Kicking 
Bear shot at him and he fell in a hole. He kept shooting at us. Just then 
a band of Piegans came after us while we were shooting and we had a battle 
there. Then a big storm came. It got dark and we got away. We got home all 
right.

"Soon after that I took a band of seven on foot and we went to look for a 
fight with the Crows. We ran into a big bunch of Crows just below where we 
fought Custer. We lay until dark. Then we got into the Big Horn among the 
timber. We marched single file and stopped along among the trees. I was 
ahead. I whistled like a whippoorwill. This way we got into the camp of 
the Crows without raising them. They always kept their horses close to the 
lodge. We got a bunch of horses and got them away from the camp. I held 
five of our men to bring the horses. I got a white horse. It had a sheet 
used for rain. I spread it over myself and the horse. The horse was white 
too, and so I went back into the Crow camp. I hooted like an owl so the 
Crows did not know I got back into camp again. I got some more ponies but 
could get only two of them across the river. I had to swim them over. The 
other five who 'had the first lot of horses got them home. We did not see 
them until we got back and met them at home. That time we got thirty- nine 
horses.

"On another trip I took twenty-three of my men on foot and went north of 
Custer field to Bear Buttes--a long way. We camped twenty times. Every 
morning we went to the highest hill to look out for enemies. On top of a 
mountain we saw a camp of Piegans. Then we felt something bad would 
happen. We stuck needles into our arms and cut a slit in them to learn if 
we would have good luck in a battle. This we did that morning. After that 
we waited until dark, then we went down to the camp. They were not 
expecting an enemy and they had their horses all loose. We got among them 
and whistled like a whippoorwill to keep them quiet. This time we got a 
lot. There was one Sioux boy that Kicking Bear got a horse for. We 
travelled all night with the horses. Next morning when it was light we 
stopped and counted them. We had a hundred and thirty-nine for this trip. 
We had to travel at night to keep safe. 

[image caption: WILLIAM SPOTTED TAIL - Chief and also President of the 
Rosebud Indian Association which sponsored the Sun Dance, 1928. Successor 
and son of the famous Chief Spotted Tail.]

"In the winter soon after that we started out again. We camped nine times. 
We travelled early in the morning till late and some days we made thirty 
miles. Then we got another way and slept without fire. A blizzard came. We 
could not see and we ran into a camp of Blackfeet Indians. We got three 
horses, each one, and started right back in the storm. Our tracks were 
filled with the snow. We got in a creek bed and ran into another camp 
before we saw them. A woman came out and saw us. She told the camp and 
they fired on us. The horse I was on was hit. He bucked but I stuck to him 
and we got home. When we were near home I met my brother Kicking Bear who 
was going out on the war-path. I turned around and went along again with 
him and the third one took the horses on home.

"The party of Kicking Bear was thirty-eight, and three turned back. They 
were going far northwest on the Cannonball River. We camped seven times 
and came to a band of Blackfeet Indians in camp. The Blackfeet are brave 
and have good nerves. They sneak into Sioux camps and steal our children 
and take them home and make chiefs of them. "We waited till it got dark 
and got close to their camp. One of the Blackfeet coming out alone ran 
into the Sioux and became scared. He made a fright-noise,--like a wolf 
scared. We moved back into a hollow place where we could fight. When it 
was near day we tried to get a bunch of ponies but we could not get away 
with them. A Blackfoot came out on horse-back onto a hill. We took a shot 
at him but missed him and hit the horse. I saw the horse fall and ran to 
him. There was a high bank there and the Blackfoot rolled down it. It was 
about thirty feet. I stopped at the edge and shot at him but missed him. 
He shot at me and missed. He got away and I went back into the ravine 
where the other men were, and the Blackfeet surrounded us. We had a battle 
there. One of our men got shot in the hip but not killed. We finally ran 
them off.

"When the great Sioux war came we had lots of battles with the soldiers. 
We were fighting all the time with Miles and Crook and white soldiers 
every place we went. "Some of the Indian agents were honest,--sometimes. 
Jim McLaughlin's wife was a cousin of my wife. I was not in the fight at 
Wounded Knee, but was there right after the soldiers shot into our women 
and children with machine guns and killed so many. The soldiers were 
wrong. They treated us bad. The army of the white people were afraid of 
us. They did not like Red Cloud because he talked and told the truth about 
dishonest agents. They put him in the guard- house at Fort Robinson and 
put a stick in his mouth (indicated three inches) and tied his hands so he 
could not talk when the army officers came to inspect. Sitting Bull was 
all right but they got afraid of him and killed him. They were afraid of 
my cousin, Crazy Horse, so they killed him. These were the acts of 
cowards. It was murder. We were starving. We only wanted food. "Crazy 
Horse was my cousin and best friend. A soldier ran a bayonet through his 
back. He was unarmed, and two other men held him by the arms when the 
white soldier came behind and put his bayonet through his kidney. I got 
there a few minutes after he was stabbed. When he was dead his father and 
brothers took him away and buried him. They never told where he is buried 
and now we do not know.
 
"Crazy Horse was never with other Indians unless it was in a fight. He was 
always the first in a fight, and the soldiers could not beat him in a 
fight. He won every fight with the whites. "The young brother of Crazy 
Horse was on a trip where now is Utah, and there he was killed by some 
white settlers. They were having some trouble with the Indians there. When 
Crazy Horse learned that his brother was killed he took his wife with him 
and went away but told no one where he was going. He was gone for a long 
time. He went to the place where his brother was killed and camped in the 
woods where he could see the settlement. He stayed there nine days. Every 
day he would look around and when he saw some one he would shoot him. He 
killed enough to satisfy and then he came home. Crazy Horse was married 
but had no children. He was much alone. He never told stories and never 
took a scalp from his enemies when he killed them. He was the bravest 
chief we ever had. He was the leader and the first at the front in the 
Custer fight. He never talked but always acted first. He was my friend and 
we went in the Custer fight together. 

"I was thirty-two years old when I was made chief. A chief has to do many 
things before he is chief--so many brave deeds, so many scalps and so many 
horses.

"Many times I went out to a hill and stayed three days and three nights 
and did not eat or drink--only just think about the best way to do things 
for my people. "When about twenty-six-old I was married. I got two wives. 
They were sisters. White Day was the name of one, and Goes-Out-Looking was 
the name of the other one. They belonged to the same tribe but now they 
are both dead. Only one child. His mother was Goes-Out-Looking and his 
name Felix. White Day had no child. My years now 76, and soon I will be 
along with Iron Tail and Red Cloud. "When my father was dead a long time 
we went to see how he was on the scaffold where we put him. His bones were 
all that was left. The arrow-point was sticking in the back of his skull. 
It was rusted. We took it home with us. "When my brother, Kicking Bear, 
died he was put in a grave on a hill. All his things were put in the grave 
with him. I will see his son, Kicking Bear, if he will let us dig open the 
grave and take out the arrow head and send it to this wigwam to put along 
with my things."

It was late when the old chief completed the telling of the story as above 
recorded. He signified a desire for a smoke and the Red Cloud peace-pipe 
with its long ornamented stem was brought from the cabinet, and some red-
willow bark mixed with tobacco for the old-time kinnikinnick, which the 
chief enjoyed, as between puffs he recalled notable Councils of Treaty 
with government agents. He said they always talked with "forked tongues" 
and did not do as they agreed on in the paper. After the smoke was over, 
Thunderbull interpreted his last command. It was the chief's desire to 
have a glass of wine and the lights turned out so 'that he could sleep. He 
would tell of the Custer fight tomorrow. Rain having come on, the robes 
and blankets were transferred to the sun-porch where he was protected from 
inclement weather, for, as previously noted, he could not be induced to 
sleep on a white man mattress and springs. At sun-up the chief was 
missing. Breakfast was delayed. Presently he was seen coming from the 
forest which nearly surrounds the Wigwam. In his hand he carried a green 
switch six feet in length. From his travelling bag he took a bundle which 
he carefully unfolded and laid out--a beautiful eagle-feather streamer 
which he attached to the pole at either end. After testing it in the 
breeze, he handed it to his friend with gentle admonishment to keep it in 
a place where it could always be seen. It was the Chief's "wand," and he 
said it must always be kept where it could be seen, else the people would 
not know who was chief. Having disposed of this, to him, important duty, 
the chief was ready for breakfast. Rested and refreshed the old sage of 
the Lakotas was disposed to talk about his people and their unfair 
treatment through the centuries since Columbus came. It was a fine chance 
to get the viewpoint of the red man on some episodes in American history 
that have been told by the white men but about which the Indian has not 
yet been heard.

Asked about how the red men looked upon the story of John Smith and 
Pocahontas, the chief proceeded to tell their way of thinking about that 
romantic tale. He said: "That Virginia venture was a gold-hunting 
expedition like when Cortez went to steal from Montezuma the Indian's gold 
and silver and land. They were a lot of fellows out of a job who wanted to 
live without work by cheating and robbing the native people who did not 
have guns.

"Powhatan was kind to them when they came. He gave them food and helped 
them to make houses to live in. They stayed a long time and did not work 
and raise food but got it from the Indians. Then when the corn was not 
plenty for all, Smith told Powhatan that they had been wrecked and soon 
ships would come from England and take them back home. Ships came and put 
more English people on the land but did not bring food for them. They were 
hungry and asked for more corn from the Indians, but there was not enough 
for all, and so Powhatan told them he had food only for his own people. 
The white men had guns and swords and told Powhatan he must give them the 
corn or they would kill his people. Then there was trouble. They took the 
food from the Indians and the Indians killed some of them and then they 
became enemies. It was when they had stolen a lot of food from the Indians 
and were in camp to eat it that Smith said Pocahontas came to them through 
the path in the woods and told them the Indians were coming to kill them, 
and she put her arms around Smith's neck and cried. It was a good white 
man's story, but Indians do not believe it as it is not their way of 
killing white men. Smith did not tell this story until long after he went 
back to England to put it in his book. He told a different story before he 
wrote his book. Pocahontas was a girl only twelve or thirteen years old 
and Smith was a hard man more than forty or fifty winters. Rolf took her 
to England but she did not live very long there so far away from her 
people.

"It was the same with John Smith as it was when Columbus got among the 
Indians. They liked them and were friendly as long as the natives gave 
them food, and then they tried to take everything they had from them and 
make slaves of them to do their work. The Indians did not have the same 
kind of God and so they did not treat them like men but like animals. 
Columbus made the Indians dig in the mines for gold, and if they did not 
find it he killed them, until all of them on the Island were killed or 
made slaves for his men." 



CHAPTER 3. NEW AMSTERDAM.

Referring to the purchase of Manhattan for a lot of fishhooks and trinkets 
valued at $24, the chief's countenance indicated that it was the best kind 
of argument to prove how the white men cheated the innocent red folks on 
every occasion. The Indians had befriended the helpless adventurers when 
they came among them, and for their kindness the settlers attacked them 
one night and killed more than a hundred and twenty men, women and 
children while they were asleep in their wigwams. This was about the first 
massacre. But it was a white man massacre of Indians. They ran their 
bayonets through the stomachs of little babies and flung them out into the 
river. They cut off the hands of the men and cut open the women with their 
swords. They went among them with a torch of fire and burned their homes 
until no Indians were left; and these all were friendly Indians who sold 
the white people their island for needles, awls and fish-hooks, and 
brought the furs to them. (This was in 1642 under Kieft's regime.) The 
white man's account of this affair tells us that on February 25th at 
midnight Kieft sent Sergeant Rodolf with a party of soldiers to Pavonia 
and another party under Adriensen to Corlear's Hook where they rushed in 
upon the sleeping families and killed them all in the most hideous 
butchery that can be found in American annals. An eye witness records it 
in these words: "I remained at the Director's (Kieft) and 'took a seat in 
the Kitchen near the fire. At midnight I heard loud shrieks and went out 
on the parapet of the fort to look--at the flash of guns. I heard no more 
of the cries of the Indians; they were butchered in their sleep. Sucklings 
were torn from their mother's breasts, butchered before their mother's 
eyes and their mangled limbs thrown quivering into the river or the 
flames. Babes were hacked to pieces while fastened to little boards; 
others were thrown alive into the river, and when the parents rushed in to 
save them the soldiers prevented them from landing." DeVries said of it: 
"some came running to us from the country, having their hands cut off; 
some lost both arms and legs; some were supporting their entrails with 
their hands, and mangled in other horrid ways, too horrible to be 
conceived." The white man's own history refers to this massacre in the 
following language: "This crime has hardly a parallel in the annals of 
savage atrocities, directed as it was, upon a friendly village of 
harmless, unsuspecting Indians." But this was merely the beginning of a 
series of white-man massacres that continued for nearly three centuries. 

[image caption: Sitting Bull - From rare old plate found in Captain 
Clark's House, Valentine, Nebraska.]



CHAPTER 4. THE CUSTER FIGHT.

Dinner over, the old man wished to sit on the open veranda in the clear 
pure air and see the sunset shadows grow slowly over the hills and valleys 
all about. Another pipe-smoke to get his mind centered properly on the old 
times, and after a short time of quiet he began to relate the incidents of 
the Custer fight: "The Indians were camped along the west side of the Big 
Horn in a flat valley. We saw a dust but did not know what caused it. Some 
Indians said it was the soldiers coming. The chief saw a flag on a pole on 
the hill. "The soldiers made a long line and fired into our tepees among 
our women and children. That was the first we knew of any trouble. The 
women got their children by the hand and caught up their babies and ran in 
every direction. "The Indian men got .their horses and guns as quick as 
they could and went after the soldiers. Kicking Bear and Crazy Horse were 
in the lead. There was thick timber and when they got out of the timber 
there was where the first of the fight was. "The dust was thick and we 
could hardly see. We got right among the soldiers and killed a lot with 
our bows and arrows and tomahawks. Crazy Horse was ahead of all, and he 
killed a lot of them with his war-club; he pulled them off their horses 
when they tried to get across the river where the bank was steep. Kicking 
Bear was right beside him and he killed many too in the water. "This fight 
was in the upper part of the valley where most of the Indians were camped. 
It was some of the Reno soldiers that came after us there. It was in 'the 
day just before dinner when the soldiers attacked us. When we went after 
them they tried to run into the timber and get over the water where they 
had left their wagons. The bank was about this high (12 ft. indicated) and 
steep, and they got off their horses and tried to climb out of the water 
on their hands and knees, but we killed nearly all of them when they were 
running through the woods and in the water. The ones that got across the 
river and up the hill dug holes and stayed in them. "The soldiers that 
were on the hill with the pack-horses began to fire on us. About this time 
all the Indians had got their horses and guns and bows and arrows and war-
clubs, and they charged the soldiers in the east and north on top of the 
hill. Custer was farther north than these soldiers were then. He was going 
to attack the lower end of the village. We drove nearly all that got away 
from us down the hill along the ridge where another lot of soldiers were 
trying to make a stand. "Crazy Horse and I left the crowd and rode down 
along the river. We came to a ravine; then we followed up the gulch to a 
place in the rear of the soldiers that were making the stand on the hill. 
Crazy Horse gave his horse to me to hold along with my 'horse. He crawled 
up the ravine to where he could see the soldiers. He shot them as fast as 
he could load his gun. They fell off their horses as fast as he could 
shoot. (Here the chief swayed rapidly back and forth to show how fast they 
fell). When they found they were being killed so fast, the ones that were 
left broke and ran as fast as their horses could go to some other soldiers 
that were further along the ridge toward Custer. Here they tried to make 
another stand and fired some shots, but we rushed them on along the ridge 
to where Custer was. Then they made another stand (the third) and rallied 
a few minutes. Then they went on along the ridge and got with Custer's 
men. "Other Indians came to us after we got most of the men at the ravine. 
We all kept after them until they got to where Custer was. There was only 
a few of them left then. "By that time all the Indians in the village had 
got their horses and guns and watched Custer. When Custer got nearly to 
the lower end of the camp, he started to go down a gulch, but the Indians 
were surrounding him, and he tried to fight. They got off their horses and 
made a stand but it was no use. Their horses ran down the ravine right 
into the village. The squaws caught them as fast as they came. One of them 
was a sorrel with white stocking. Long time after some of our relatives 
told us they had seen Custer on that kind of a horse when he was on .the 
way to the Big Horn. "When we got them surrounded the fight was over in 
one hour. There was so much dust we could not see much, but the Indians 
rode around and yelled the war-whoop and shot into the soldiers as fast as 
they could until they were all dead. One soldier was running away to the 
east but Crazy Horse saw him and jumped on his pony and went after him. He 
got him about half a mile from the place where the others were lying dead. 
The smoke was lifted so we could see a little. We got off our horses and 
went and took the rings and money and watches from the soldiers. We took 
some clothes off too, and all the guns and pistols. We got seven hundred 
guns and pistols. Then we went back to the women and children and got them 
together that were not killed or hurt. 

[image caption: HOLLOW HORN BEAR with his two wives and children, about 
1882. Rare photo by Captain Clark, Scout with Crook's Army, 1876.]

"It was hard to hear the women singing the death-song for the men killed 
and for the wailing because their children were shot while they played in 
the camp. It was a big fight; the soldiers got just what they deserved 
this time. No good soldiers would shoot into the Indian's tepee where 
there were women and children. These soldiers did, and we fought for our 
women and children. White men would do the same if they were men. "We did 
not mutilate the bodies, but just took the valuable things we wanted and 
then left. We got a lot of money, but it was of no use. "We got our things 
packed up and took care of the wounded the best we could, and left there 
the next day. We could have killed all the men that got into the holes on 
the hill, but they were glad to let us alone, and so we let them alone 
too. Rain-in-the-Face was with me in the fight. There were twelve hundred 
of us. Might be no more than one thousand was in the fight. Many of our 
Indians were out on a hunt.

"There was more than one chief in the fight, but Crazy Horse was leader 
and did most to win the fight along with Kicking Bear. Sitting Bull was 
right with us. His part in the fight was all good. My mother and Sitting 
Bull's wife were sisters; she is still living. "The names of the chiefs in 
the fight were: Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Lame Deer, Spotted Eagle and 
Two Moon. Two Moon led the Cheyennes. Gall and some other chiefs were 
there but the ones I told you were the leaders. The story that white men 
told about Custer's heart being cut out is not true." 

Indicating that he was through, the manuscript was carefully read over to 
him very slowly in order that he would not be confused as to the exact 
meaning of what it contained. When finished he gave his emphatic approval 
by hearty "How How, Washta," and in his expert use of the sign language 
directed a pad be brought so that he could place his thumbprint to show 
that it was his own sealed document and final testimony on a subject about 
which white men have written countless and varied accounts, all of them 
being guess-work based upon circumstantial evidence, for no white man 
knows. There were none left to tell just what did occur and how. The chief 
was there and he saw and knows. He was last of the survivors of that 
historic episode, and it is fortunate that coming generations could have a 
truthful and reliable account from him before he too had passed to the 
happy Hunting Ground. 



CHAPTER 5. THE CHIEF TELLS OF RED CLOUD.

Rested and refreshed, the old Chief desired to talk about the cause of the 
Custer troubles; he said that Red Cloud was one of their wisest men and 
knew what was best for his people; he had been their chief for a long 
time; he tried to keep peace with the whites but it was no use; they would 
not stay out of the Indian's country, but came and took their gold and 
killed off all their game. This started the trouble, and the long bloody 
war with the soldiers came. After the Custer fight, and when the Indians 
were starving, Red Cloud made a speech about it, he said, and asked to 
have it read to him now. His host brought from the library a volume 
containing the talk to which the Chief referred, and it was carefully 
translated to him by Thunderbull by way of refreshing his memory. On 
completing this interpretation of Red Cloud's famous address, the Chief 
directed that it be included in his story of the Custer fight so that 
people would know why they killed Custer and his troopers. Also, it would 
tell why there was ghost dancing, and of the massacre at Wounded Knee.


RED CLOUD'S SPEECH

I will tell you the reason for the trouble. When we first made treaties 
with the Government, our old life and our old customs were about to end; 
the game on which we lived was disappearing; the whites were closing 
around us, and nothing remained for us but to adopt their ways,--the 
Government promised us all the means necessary to make our living out of 
the land, and to instruct us how to do it, and with abundant food to 
support us until we could take care of ourselves. We looked forward with 
hope to the time we could be as independent as the whites, and have a 
voice in the Government.

"The army officers could have helped better than anyone else but we were 
not left to them. An Indian Department was made with a large number of 
agents and other officials drawing large salaries---then came the 
beginning of trouble; these men took care of themselves but not of us. It 
was very hard to deal with the government through them--they could make 
more for themselves by keeping us back than by helping us forward.

"We did not get the means for working our lands; the few things they gave 
us did little good.

"Our rations began to be reduced; they said we were lazy. That is false. 
How does any man of sense suppose that so great a number of people could 
get work at once unless they were at once supplied with the means to work 
and instructors enough to teach them?

"Our ponies were taken away from us under the promise that they would be 
replaced by oxen and large horses; it was long before we saw any, and then 
we got very few. We tried with the means we had, but on one pretext or 
another, we were shifted from one place to another, or were told that such 
a transfer was coming. Great efforts were made to break up our customs, 
but nothing was done to introduce us to customs of the whites. Everything 
was done to break the power of the real chiefs.

"Those old men really wished their people to improve, but little men, so-
called chiefs, were made to act as disturbers and agitators. Spotted Tail 
wanted the ways of the whites, but an assassin was found to remove him. 
This was charged to the Indians because an Indian did it, but who set on 
the Indian? I was abused and slandered, to weaken my influence for good. 
This was done by men paid by the Government to teach us the ways of the 
whites. I have visited many other tribes and found that the same things 
were done amongst them; all was done to discourage us and nothing to 
encourage us. I saw men paid by the government to help us, all very busy 
making money for themselves, but doing nothing for us.

"Now do you not suppose we saw all this? Of course we did, but what could 
we do? We were prisoners, not in the hands of the army but in the hands of 
robbers. Where was the army? Set to watch us but having no voice to set 
things right. They could not speak for us. Those who held us pretended to 
be very anxious about our welfare and said our condition was a great 
mystery. We tried to speak and clear up that mystery but were laughed at 
as children.

"Other treaties were made but it was all the same. Rations were again 
reduced and we were starving--sufficient food not given us, and no means 
to get it from the land. Rations were still further reduced; a family got 
for two weeks what was not enough for one week. What did we eat when that 
was gone? The people were desperate from starvation,--they had no hope. 
They did not think of fighting; what good would it do; they might die like 
men but what would the women and children do?

"Some say they saw the Son of God. I did not see Him. If he had come He 
would do great things, as He had done before. We doubted it for we saw 
neither Him nor His works. Then General Crook came. His words sounded well 
but how could we know that a new treaty would be kept better than the old 
one? For that reason we did not care to sign. He promised that his promise 
would be kept--he at least had never lied to us.

"His words gave the people hope; they signed. They hoped. He died. Their 
hope died with him. Despair came again. Our rations were again reduced. 
The white men seized our lands; we sold them through General Crook but our 
pay was as distant as ever.

"The men who counted (census) told all around that we were feasting and 
wasting food. Where did he see it? How could we waste what we did not 
have? We felt we were mocked in our misery; we had no newspaper and no one 
to speak for us. Our rations were again reduced.

"You who eat three times a day and see your children well and happy around 
you cannot understand what a starving Indian feels! We were faint with 
hunger and maddened by despair. We held our dying children and felt their 
little bodies tremble as their soul went out and left only a dead weight 
in our hands. They were not very heavy but we were faint and the dead 
weighed us down. There was no hope on earth. God seemed to have forgotten.

"Some one had been talking of the Son of God and said He had come. The 
people did not know; they did not care; they snatched at hope; they 
screamed like crazy people to Him for mercy; they caught at the promise 
they heard He had made.

"The white men were frightened and called for soldiers. We begged for life 
and the white men thought we wanted theirs; we heard the soldiers were 
coming. We did not fear. We hoped we could tell them our suffering and 
could get help. The white men told us the soldiers meant to kill us; we 
did not believe it but some were frightened and ran away to the Bad Lands. 
The soldiers came. They said: 'don't be afraid--we come to make peace, not 
war.' It was true; they brought us food. But the hunger-crazed who had 
taken fright at the soldiers' coming and went to the Bad Lands could not 
be induced to return to the horrors of reservation life. They were called 
Hostiles and the Government sent the army to force them back to their 
reservation prison." 

[image caption: Top - From left to right: LONE BEAR< AMERICAN HORSE (BEN), 
IRON TAIL, IRON CLOUD, WHIRLWIND. All Sioux Chiefs, taken by the author in 
1908. Below - in center, CHIEF BLACK THUNDER.]



CHAPTER 6. WOUNDED KNEE.

THE old man being assured that Red Cloud's talk would be incorporated in 
his story of the Custer fight, then said he wished to tell about the 
massacre of Indians by the white soldiers at Wounded Knee, where, he 
indicated as his belief, they carried out this slaughter in retaliation 
for the Custer affair, and proceeded: "This was the last big trouble with 
the Indians and soldiers and was in the winter in 1890. When the Indians 
would not come in from the Bad Lands, they got a big army together with 
plenty of clothing and supplies and camp-and-wagon equipment for a big 
campaign; they had enough soldiers to make a round-up of all the Indians 
they called hostiles. "The Government army, after many fights and loss of 
lives, succeeded in driving these starving Indians, with their families of 
women and gaunt-faced children, into a trap, where they could be forced to 
surrender their arms. This was on Wounded Knee creek, northeast of Pine 
Ridge, and here the Indians were surrounded by the soldiers, who had 
Hotchkiss machine guns along with them. There were about four thousand 
Indians in this big camp, and the soldiers had the machine guns pointed at 
them from all around the village as the soldiers formed a ring about the 
tepees so that Indians could not escape. "The Indians were hungry and weak 
and they suffered from lack of clothing and furs because the whites had 
driven away all the game. When the soldiers had them all surrounded and 
they had their tepees set up, the officers sent troopers to each of them 
to search for guns and take them from the owners. If the Indians in the 
tepees did not at once hand over a gun, the soldier tore open their 
parfleech trunks and bundles and bags of robes or clothes,--looking for 
pistols and knives and ammunition. It was an ugly business, and brutal; 
they treated the Indians like they would torment a wolf with one foot in a 
strong trap; they could do this because the Indians were now in the white 
man's trap,--and they were helpless. "Then a shot was heard from among the 
Indian tepees. An Indian was blamed; the excitement began; soldiers ran to 
their stations; officers gave orders to open fire with the machine guns 
into the crowds of innocent men, women and children, and in a few minutes 
more than two hundred and twenty of them lay in the snow dead and dying. A 
terrible blizzard raged for two days covering the bodies with Nature's 
great white blanket; some lay in piles of four or five; others in twos or 
threes or singly, where they fell until the storm subsided. When a trench 
had been dug of sufficient length and depth to contain the frozen corpses, 
they were collected and piled, like cord-wood, in one vast icy tomb. While 
separating several stiffened forms which had fallen in a heap, two of them 
proved to be women, and hugged closely to their breasts were infant babes 
still alive after lying in the storm for two days in 20' below zero 
weather." "I was there and saw the trouble,--but after the shooting was 
over; it was all bad."--the old chief said. The host produced an old photo 
showing the bodies of the victims as they lay scattered and in bunches 
over the bleak frozen grounds; the Chief looked at it and immediately 
recognized the body of Big Foot which lay on top of a pile of the dead, 
face upward. Another photo showing the trench being filled with the dead 
also showed a number of army officers standing nearby. The Chief readily 
recognized Frank Gruard, Buffalo Bill, General Miles and Kicking Bear,--
his own brother. He shook his head and said, "Wahnitcha"-- bad. 



CHAPTER 7. SITTING BULL.

As the famed Sitting Bull was his uncle, the chief wished to talk about 
him, and told of the suffering that followed the removal of the Minnesota 
bands to Crow Creek in 1863. There the young man learned of the terrible 
injustices and frightful sufferings that his people were subjected to at 
the hands of the national government through its grafting agents and 
hordes of unconcionable [sic] politicians. The outrageous treatment of 
these innocent and confiding natives, whose rich land along the 
Mississippi was confiscated by the land-speculators--and then "purchased" 
by treaty, but never paid for, as usual, and the owners thrust far out 
into the barren sandhills and allowed to starve and die of helplessness 
and foul disease--left an indelible hate in the heart of Sitting Bull 
against the white race. Sitting Bull was a natural leader, but it was 
after the ruthless breaking by the whites of the treaty of 1868, that he 
gained wide prominence; he visited Washington with Red Cloud and Spotted 
Tail, where they were entertained by President Grant. At a council on 
Powder River he made a speech to his associates which indicates the range 
of his oratory and intellect. He said: "Behold, my brothers, the Spring 
has come; the earth has received the embraces of the sun and we shall soon 
see the results of that love! "Every seed is awakened; and so has all 
animal life. It is through this mysterious power that we too have our 
being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal 
neighbors, the same right as ourselves, to inhabit this land. "Yet hear 
me, people, we have now to deal with another race--small and feeble when 
our fathers first met them, but now great and overbearing. Strangely 
enough, they have a mind to till the soil, and the love of possession is a 
disease with them. These people have made many rules that the rich may 
break, but the poor may not; they have a religion in which the poor 
worship, but the rich will not. They take tithes from the poor and weak to 
support the rich and those who rule. They claim this mother of ours, the 
earth, for their own and fence their neighbors away; they deface her with 
their buildings and their refuse. That nation is like a spring freshet 
that over-runs its banks and destroys all who are in its path. "We cannot 
dwell side by side. Only seven years ago we made a treaty by which we were 
assured that the buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they 
threaten to take that from us. My brothers, shall we submit, or shall we 
say to them: 'First kill me before you take possession of my fatherland.'" 
Observing a photograph of Sitting Bull which hung on the wall, the old 
chief remarked that he was the brains of the fighting forces, but the 
fighting was led by Crazy Horse, his young war-chief. This was after Red 
Cloud had agreed to peace and retired from active leadership. He said that 
Sitting Bull was always a fair fighter and never killed any women or 
children. Noticing the old ceremonial peace-pipe in the cabinet, which he 
had presented to the writer after holding it as head chief for half a 
century, the chief told how it had been turned over to him by Sitting Bull 
when he left to lead his so-called hostiles to Canada, after the Custer 
battle. He said most of the great treaties had been made over its smoke, 
and that it was more than a hundred years old, and probably much older. 

[image caption: Two Strikes - Famous old chief of the hostile Sioux. Rare 
old plate from Captain Clark's house in Valentine, Nebraska, supposed to 
have been made about 1885.]

Mention of Sitting Bull's life in Canada brought from the old chief the 
story of a visit he made to Sitting Bull's camp in Wood Mountain long 
years after the great chief's death; he said: 

"When Sitting Bull left for Canada with the hostiles, seven families, who 
were not of his band, were missed from the reservation; no one knew where 
they were and they were given up as killed by the whites." Then about 
forty years passed and Flying Hawk heard that a band of Indians were 
living at Sitting Bull's old camping ground in Canada. He went to visit 
them. He found that they numbered five hundred, and they lived in tepees 
just as the Indians lived in the old days, and that they had all descended 
from the original seven lost families. He said they were fine healthy and 
happy, and their hair reached below the knee.

While talking about Sitting Bull, the old chief referred to his speech 
about treaties made with the whites. On examination, the library had a 
volume containing the speech which was read to the old man by the 
interpreter. He asked to have it placed with his Custer account so that 
people would know the truth about the way Indians were abused and cheated. 
The speech follows: "What treaty that the white man kept has the red man 
broken? Not one. 

"What treaty that the white man ever made with us have they kept? Not one. 
"When I was a boy the Sioux owned the land; the sun rose and set on their 
country; they sent ten thousand horsemen to battle! Where are the warriors 
today? Who slew them? Where are our lands?--Who owns them?

"What white man can say I ever stole his lands or a penny of his gold? Yet 
they say I am a thief! What white woman, however lonely, was ever a 
captive or insulted by me? Not one, yet they say I am a bad Indian. What 
white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and went 
unfed? Who has ever seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law 
have I ever broken? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me 
because my skin is red--because I am a Sioux--because I was born where my 
fathers lived--because I would die for my people and my country?"

The old chief had "talked enough" he said, and was now ready to go on the 
long trip to the Black Hills where he would soon lie down for the long 
sleep. Just now he was feeling better. The doctor's certificate, and a 
letter to be handed the manager of the show, with a last good bye, and the 
motor car sped him on his way west. Chief Flying Hawk died December 24, 
1931, at Pine Ridge, South Dakota. 



CHAPTER 8. THE LAST SUN DANCE.

To get a close-up of present conditions after a long absence from the 
Sioux country, an invitation to join in the last Sun Dance which was 
planned to take place in the fall of 1928, was accepted. There was to be a 
"fifty-years'" celebration at the old Rosebud Agency where the ceremony of 
the sun dance, stopped by the Government forty-five years ago, was to be 
performed. All the old-time Indians were to be there. It required a long 
night-drive from the railroad station to reach the old post, and there was 
no hotel, no lighting system. The accommodations consisted of an abandoned 
officer's house and a cot set up by an amiable boarding house proprietress 
by the light of a candle. There was neither water, light nor furniture, 
but plenty of accumulated dust, and it was cold. But breakfast was 
promised at the boarding house in the morning. When daylight came it 
proved to be likewise an abandoned structure that one time was a sort of 
soldiers' barracks. It was sadly in need of repair, for one had to be 
cautious in walking over the veranda floors to avoid falling through. An 
orange, bacon and eggs, cakes and fried potatoes were served by a Cheyenne 
boy and a Sioux girl in the former sitting room, where the two breakfast 
tables were spread with their red damask covers and ornamented with the 
circle castors, pea-green service dishes and blue-bordered plates.

The landlady was kind-hearted and a good cook, which made up for the many 
other failures in a first rate hostelry. Anyway we came to see Indians. 
Nothing else mattered.

Stepping out on the wabbly [sic] porch for a look around the old agency 
compound, a wrinkled old man in slouch hat and white man's discarded coat 
stood leaning on a long staff. He had part of a loaf of stale bread 
enclosed in his left arm, held closely as if it was precious, and from it 
he tore off chunks with his right hand and stuffed them into his mouth and 
ravenously gulped them down.

It was pathetic to see. Turning to the landlady for an explanation, she 
said the man was Chief Black Thunder, and she had given him the bread 
because she could not bear to see him suffering from hunger and cold; he 
was eighty-four and nearly blind from trachoma. In the brick building 
across the parade ground, a short distance from the eating place, stood 
the agency office, and nearby was the commissary and storehouses of the 
government, representing the nearly two billions of money and property 
belonging to the Indians, administered by the more than five thousand 
agents, employees, superintendents and welfare experts of the Indian 
Bureau, on salaries high and low, much of which was taken from the 
Indians' funds. 

[image caption: Campsites at the Sun Dance]

An Indian farmer with his two daughters drove up in a dilapidated Ford. He 
had some business with the agent, and while absent on that duty the young 
ladies were interrogated about the big show where it was located and how 
to get there. For seventy-five cents they would take us to the grounds 
three miles away. The bargain was closed; down the steep bank, around the 
curves and up the cliffs on the opposite side of the "river" the rickety 
car was sent through deep dust, for a first glimpse of the big camp.

From a promontory was witnessed a scene the like of which was never seen 
before and in all likelihood will not be seen again. Far to the west, 
beyond the Bad Lands, were the Black Hills, and to the east the lower 
hills hid the vast plains that roll away to the Missouri. An equal 
distance north and south once formed a buffalo range where countless herds 
fed and furnished food, clothing and shelter for the red race, since the 
coming of the Spanish with horses, at the south.

In a great saucer-like area between the hills were assembled the largest 
Indian Congress of modern times. They told us that when all had arrived 
there would be twenty thousand Indians in camp. A thousand or more tepees 
and tents were scattered about in villages of dozens, fifties and 
hundreds, over this undulating, parched and dusty three-by-five-mile 
camping area. All around within the range of vision were the horses and 
ponies in bands large and small pasturing on the sun-dried grass; they 
were herded by the youths mounted in cow-boy style on their duns and 
pintos, who kept them constantly rounded up to prevent their too widely 
straying. Droves of the ponies were being constantly driven to and from 
the watering place two miles away, where the little river wound its way 
among the scrubby plum and cottonwood trees below the post-trader's log 
store.

Everywhere in the open spaces were Indians, old and young; women with 
papooses on their backs, and dogs, dogs of all sizes and all breeds and 
colors--they were a part of every family. it was like a white man's 
country fair; they were having their annual visit before the ceremonies 
began; coming, going, singly and in crowds or sitting in circles squat on 
the ground, chatting in their peculiar dialect and sign-language, of 
neighborhood affairs and idle gossip. Women, girls and children were 
dressed in gorgeous colors; some in white buckskin robes with fancy 
beadwork; others in brilliant shade of synthetic silk or sateen, and still 
others in green or red-striped shawls artfully draped about the shoulders. 
Mostly they were bespangled with gay and sparkling jewelry and strings of 
beads about the neck and arms. Old-time warriors, bedecked with eagle 
feathers, fancy moccasins and war-dance regalia, strode about in all their 
former glory, while here and there an old chief, in scalp-shirt, with the 
lordly war-bonnet of black-tipped eagle quills reaching to his heels, 
could be seen in all his stately bearing. It was a thrilling spectacle and 
brought back memories of frontier times of half a century ago. Artist 
could not paint, nor is it possible to write, a true description of it or 
of the tremendous magnitude and meaning of it all.

The open-air stage with its human and animal players stretched away as far 
as the eye could see. Here were gathered many tribes and clans, the relic 
of a great race, once possessors of a vast continent--remnant of a race 
robbed of its God-given heritage--assembled here for the last time to pay 
homage to their Great Spirit, a ceremony denied to them for forty-five 
years by their merciless conquerors. Now, with the omission of the self-
inflicted tortures, they were to have the right to pay reverence to their 
God, the sun--symbol of their Supreme Power, source of light, of heat and 
of all else that lives and has its being on the earth.

Only the old men and women knew and understood the intricacies of the 
ritual--the others were the product, or shall we say victims, of the white 
man's civilization. 

[image caption: Chiefs Flying Hawk, at left, and Iron Tail with the author 
and his son in 1911-12. This son, age five, was a favorite of Iron Tail 
who claimed him as his "son" and gave the name Tchanta Tanka, meaning 
Great Heart, the same as bestowed on the author when adopted by the Sioux. 
The chiefs' ages at this time were about 58 and 60.]

[image caption: A Sioux squaw in full dance dress.]

As the sun went down in dark clouds fringed with orange and gold, and the 
twilight cast long shadows from the rugged western hills, the strange 
scene gradually faded and darkness spread over it all. Flash lights and 
torches appeared and camp-fires were showing all around, like myriad fire-
flies flitting about in the gloom. A faint roar like the hum of a distant 
cataract could be heard, broken by the shouts of the herder-boys as they 
made their nightly round-up. Here and there could be heard the tom-tom and 
uncanny war-songs of the weird dances and feasts being held in various 
sections of the great encampment.

Alone on the hill, in the darkness, came the thought that gradually grew 
into conviction--here was about to open the curtain on the last act of a 
great world drama.

This great conclave had gathered here from all the country round; they 
came from Kansas, Oklahoma, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, 
Nebraska and North and South Dakota;--they came in wagons, worn-out Fords, 
and some by train from distant points. They had their camp equipment, 
food, clothing and regalia, with forage for their horses and ponies, with 
barrels of water for use in camping on the dry and dusty trip over the 
arid plains and desert country. It was for them an event of a lifetime, 
and they came and conducted themselves accordingly.

There were few whites present. It was a hard journey for them with their 
esthetic tastes and habits. It was Indian country, and the government 
furnishes accommodation only for its employees.

In the center of the big camp grounds had been erected a sun dance pole 
about forty feet high, to which, about half way up, was attached a bundle 
of brush with green leaves on the tips, which formed a sort of rude cross. 
Surrounding this pole, and a hundred feet distant from it, was a double 
stockade of tree-trunks set on end and connected at the top with smaller 
but similar materials, and over all were spread green boughs, making a 
kind of canopy, in the shade of which the older people and guests could 
sit to watch the performance carried on within the circle.

From one-thirty to four-thirty, or sundown, each day for four days, the 
ceremonies were performed. Twelve men and five women took part as 
principals in the sacred sun dance; they dressed in most grotesque 
costumes, but remained naked from the crown to the waist-line, which they 
painted in hideous and fantastic colors.

Music for the dancing was furnished by seven old men aged seventy-eight 
and over, led by Lonefeather, who carried a "discharge" from government 
scout-service in the late seventies. To the accompaniment of the weird 
yelps and chanting of these old men they tapped a big bass drum with 
muffled sticks, around which they squatted in a circle while the drum lay 
flat on the ground between them.

Each day, on opening the ceremonies, some noted chief would make an 
oration. One, by Pretty Bird, was strikingly like a Roman Senator as 
pictured in classic paintings. He stood more than six feet in height and, 
with his blanket draped about his shoulders as only an Indian can carry 
one with grace, his attitudes and gestures, as well as his language and 
delivery, were superbly impressive. The President of the Indian 
association sponsoring the big event was William Spotted Tail. He was son 
of the celebrated chief of old days who was assassinated by Crow Dog, 
whose daughter Walking Crow Woman, was present to join in the celebration. 
She was about seventy and, when encountered in the Pine-Ridge-section 
village, she was engaged in preparing a puppy dog feast. On hearing the 
click of the kodak she became indignant and threatened the intruder with 
dire consequences. But when she discovered that he was a member of her own 
tribe, she relented and invited him to the banquet which would be ready at 
dusk. She told the story of her noted father and brought out from her 
tepee the knife he had used in lifting the scalp of the famed chief at 
Rosebud. It had thirteen notches on the handle--record of his bravery in 
the troublous war-times. She exhibited her grandmother's valued wampum 
belt of beads, some of which were the crude iridescent ones turned out by 
the Mandans described by Lewis and Clark who stayed with them over the 
winter in 1804; others were specimens from the Jesuits' visits in the 
early exploration days. 

[image caption: General view of the Sun Dance]

Not far away was the camp of Bear Dog, a brother of the famous Hollow Horn 
Bear--last of that family of chiefs. He possessed the original Peace medal 
presented to his grandfather by President George Washington; it bore the 
date 1789 and was worn by the three succeeding generations of chiefs, and 
lastly by his brother, who gave it to him at his death, many years ago.

Near by was met Good Face, a survivor of the Custer fight, who had been 
with Buffalo Bill in his tour of Europe, and of whom the Farm 
superintendent said, "He is the finest man on the Reservation." Frank 
Goings, the scout, Jim Grass, Kills-Close-to-the-Lodge, White-Rabbit and 
Nancy Sitting Bull, were encountered while on a walk through the Sioux 
district villages.

In the midst of the solemnities of the dance rituals, a political 
candidate intruded with his retinue of office-holders and moving picture 
men. The performers were jostled by the rude camera-carriers and news-reel 
fiends, who, in the mad struggle to obtain records of this notable event, 
climbed upon the roof of their frail "wickiup" and crushed the timbers. 
They pawed over those who sat in its shade regardless of manners or 
results.

The candidate was required to have his picture taken, with the chief in 
regalia, in the act of grasping his hand in welcome, for propaganda in the 
elections then coming on. The chief had to be urged, but finally yielded, 
and the photo was made. It appeared in the Sunday supplements throughout 
the eastern cities, where it is presumed it had its expected favorable 
effect in the ballot-box, but it had a decidedly adverse result when the 
Indian ballots were counted in the west.

With the unwelcome interruption, the performers quit abruptly and refused 
to complete the afternoon ceremonies, whereupon the Winnebagoes took 
control of the arena and started a war-dance in which other tribes joined. 
As twilight came on all the various tribes joined in the excitement, until 
the multitudes covered the vacant ground all around. The larger the crowd 
became the faster they danced and the louder the yelping war cries 
resounded over the bordering hills. Looking on from a higher altitude this 
moving mass of humanity offered a unique spectacle--one never seen before, 
and most likely never to be seen again. It was the biggest war- dance ever 
held. A ranchman who was looking on remarked that he was accustomed to big 
things in the big western country, but the scene before him was, in its 
dimension and import, astounding.

It was with a feeling of sadness and humiliation that we entered and took 
part in the ceremony with the old chiefs for the last sun dance of the 
Sioux, knowing as all did that it would be the farewell between friends--
almost half a century of friendly intercourse and mutual understanding now 
to end forever. A last ceremonial smoke with the old warriors in the 
Council tepee, hearty handshake to each, and we were off for a drive 
across the Indian's home lands, west to the border. We wanted to see how 
they now lived as compared with the long ago.

From the hill-top three miles out a backward glance revealed the breaking 
up of the grand conclave we had participated in; it was the clearing of 
the stage after the fall of the curtain on a notable national tragedy; it 
was as if there had been performed the last sad rites at the grave of 
stricken brothers. It was the end of the old-time Indian days. 

[image caption: Top - Showing dress of the Sun Dance performers in certain 
features of the last Sun Dance of the Sioux, 1928. All brilliant colors, 
both body and regalia.]

[image caption: Center - Vice President Curtis being posed for photo 
during the Sun Dance proceedings for use of the movies and Sunday 
illustrated editions.]

[image caption: Bottom - During the recess of the ceremony of the Sun 
Dance.]

We were staging in the Rosebud Country, last home-land of the red folks 
and of the Sioux. Their lonely and forbidding huts were in evidence along 
the way; ground-floor, flimsy log cabins, with one door, a window and mud 
roof; their farms bare, parched and treeless, utterly devoid of growing or 
growable things. Here they eke out a miserable existence with their little 
families, hopeless and hungry, a forlorn fruitless life. Occasionally is 
seen a small white-painted church, always surrounded by a large burying 
ground filled with graves and marked with little wood crosses, glaring 
proof of the neglect suffered by them under the restricted reservation 
system.

Past an Indian trading store, kept by a white man. Always where there is 
profit it goes to the whites from the pockets of the reds. Up and down the 
highway runs over land, the natural haunt of the rattler and the coyote, 
shunned by birds, beasts and white men.

Once the regulation log shanty was seen on the crest of a barren ridge, 
alongside of which was a canvass tepee, all surrounded by broken-down 
wagons, parts of mower and rake, showing that the owner had tried to live 
as regulations required. It was plain that farming could not succeed on 
such land, yet he was not permitted to leave his allotted location; and so 
he had set up a flimsy canvass-lodge where he could at least have fresh 
air and sunshine which the white man's kind of log hut did not supply.

Then over barren ridges, past He Dog's village, where there was another 
trading store, passing and meeting but three motor cars in a half-day's 
journey. Farther west the lands improve slightly. Some of it is devoted to 
flax, and sometimes wheat crops mature, but the crops this year had failed 
on account of excessive frosts, hail, and the withering hot winds. Here 
and there were evidences that ranchers tried to get a start, and had 
failed, on lands leased from the Indian-- further proof that the red man 
is forced to live where the white man cannot.

A stop for lunch at a white man's town, census 100, where they raised 
cattle and had a court house, stores and a post-office, all forty miles 
from a railroad. While this year's crop was a failure, they were hopeful 
that boom days would come again.

Another long leg of the journey over this lifeless and uninviting 
country,--waterless, dusty and dreary, and the historic Wounded Knee 
massacre site and the trading store--became a stop for gasoline and oil. A 
glance over the monument and massacre grounds only added to the 
cheerlessness and the depressed feeling resulting from the last few days' 
experiences in the Indian country. John Cross Dog, with his wife and a few 
merchandise packages, and their little boy, were taken on board the car 
for a ride towards their home beyond Pine Ridge.

Between Wounded Knee creek and Pine Ridge agency the country improved; 
there was wheat harvested from it and other evidences of human habitation 
and practical farming.

A short stop was made at the agency office to ask about the chief. He had 
started to the sun dance, but the dilapidated old Ford broke down 
somewhere in the Bad Lands section and he never arrived. He now had gone 
to visit friends at the Standing Rock district in North Dakota; he wanted 
to visit Sitting Bull's grave there. Thunderbull came to shake, with his 
cheerful "How Kola," and then a snapshot was made of Red Cloud's monument 
and grave; the start was then made on the last lap. 

[image caption: Sun Dance participants]

The way was rough to the river valley, where the John Cross Dog family was 
let out with their bundles to be carried, with the child, to their lonely 
log shack back among the chalk-cliffs--somewhere. A little white church 
with its well-filled "cemetery" was passed as the road led into the 
foothills of the Bad Lands country. It was "desolation" for a long way, 
but there was water, and as animal and human life cannot exist long 
without water they tolerate the worthless barrens in order to be within 
reach of it. Oglala was reached--a trading store and hitching rack for 
cowboys' horses, and a filling pump for the motor cars. During the stop 
for gas our old friend John Sitting Bull came out. It was an unexpected 
meeting, and the driver kindly delayed long enough to permit a short visit 
and a close-up of the adopted son of the famous chief.

Dressed in cheap overalls and slouch hat, he seemed in good health, and by 
sign language referred to a visit to the home of the white brother some 
twenty years ago. John can neither speak nor hear, but in facial 
expression is a good counterpart of the old Medicine man.

As the road swings out of the valley and gradually ascends the long slopes 
of the treeless mountains forming the divide between the White and 
Cheyenne rivers, void of human habitations and, so far as could be 
observed, likewise of bird or animal life, there appeared near the river a 
band of wild horses which stampeded at sight of the automobile. It was the 
only sign of living creatures for a long distance.

The sun was descending behind the higher peaks of the Black Hills in the 
far distance as the western line of the Pine Ridge Reservation on the 
"divide" was passed. Harney Peak could be identified at the north, and 
soon the grade was turning downward toward the Cheyenne River valley. On 
the western slope the land was better. Here and there were farms, and 
apples grew; fences appeared and domestic livestock was in evidence along 
the way. A railroad! The blast of a locomotive's whistle came to remind us 
we had reached the land of the white man.

Two hundred miles through Indian country; two hundred miles of desolation. 
Indian Country because white men would not, could not, do not live in it,--
except those who profit from the misfortunes and sufferings of the 
conquered and dying race of First Americans.