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Tribal elder Rhoda Star, 60, a descendent of Bloody Knife, Young Hawk and Bob-tailed Bull, said the Old Scouts will sing Custer's honor song and the songs of the three scouts. "The Ree (Arikara) scouts called him brother," she said of Custer. "We have no hard feeling against him like the Sioux and Cheyenne. He was a friend to our tribe. He came to our village, and he would eat with our people. "It's not written down in books, but in our oral history, that during a very bad winter he and his soldiers brought a wagon of food, clothing and blankets to our village," she said.

Long overdue that the Arikara story is told. They had the double misfortune of being double-crossed by both the white man and their Sioux cousins. Since the Sioux double-cross was more recent, it is natural that they allied with Custer.

Custer, to his credit and contrary to politically correct accounts, made an attempt to distinguish between allied, neutral and enemny tribes. His key difference with the poor presidency of U.S. Grant was the Grant policy to lump them all into one just as the present inept Bush Administration refuses to distinugish between legal and illegal immigration.

Custer was kind to the Arikra, Mandan, Crow and other tribes who had played a pivotal role in ensuring the success of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Our politically correct histories would have us all believe that Custer was all bad and his enemies were all good. The truth is far more complicated.