Oglala riders retrace history (127th Anniversary of the Custer's Last Stand)

Billings Gazette ^ | June 25, 2003 | JAMES HAGENGRUBER

[Land_of_Lincoln_John]

CROW AGENCY - The descendants of Crazy Horse trotted across 360 miles of prairie for a chance to charge up Last Stand Hill early this morning.

The 20 riders of the Great Sioux Nation Victory Ride set out June 9 from the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. They wanted to take a slow, contemplative path to the battlefield where their ancestors found victory 127 years ago.

It was a chance to remind the tribe's young people of the one unmistakable outcome of the battle, rider Doug War Eagle said.

"We're still here," he said.

Tuesday night the riders pitched tents in a cottonwood grove along the Little Bighorn River, about 400 yards from where Crazy Horse and his family camped. Not far away camps were filled with horsemen and women from other tribes.

They will all be galloping across the battlefield today to mark the Indian Memorial dedication. Horses were vital in Plains Indian culture, and it's only fitting they play a starring role in the dedication, said Kitty Belle Deernose, curator of the battlefield museum.

"Indian people are still very much a horse culture," she said.

The Crow are sending 200 riders, including one riderless horse to honor Pfc. Lori Piestewa, a Hopi soldier who was mortally wounded in a March 23 ambush in Iraq. She was the first American Indian servicewoman killed in action.

The Oglala Sioux have sent 39 riders. The Northern Cheyenne will decorate 20 horses before riding up to the monument to honor their fallen warriors. The Cheyenne-Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma have also sent a horse, Deernose said.

Mel Lonehill, of Batesland, S.D., is part of the Oglala delegation, "Lokal Oyate Kawilau," which translates to "Gathering of the Traditional People." The group began riding on battle anniversaries 10 years ago.

"We honor our ancestors by riding," Lonehill said.

Horses came to the Plains Indians with the Spanish conquistadors. The Sioux called them the "holy dog," Lonehill said. "The horse came to our people and said he would travel with us if we would respect him."

Re-enacting a horse charge up Last Stand Hill is an amazing feeling, Lonehill said. If the rider is focused and spiritually prepared, he can visualize oncoming enemy warriors, even with tourists as spectators.

The Cheyenne River Sioux riders used their horseback journey to the battlefield as a chance to educate young people on traditional values. During the two weeks of the Great Sioux Nation Victory Ride, the descendants of Crazy Horse camped in sites once covered by their ancestors' teepees. They told stories each night and paid respects to their traditional allies, the Northern Cheyenne.

A support crew drove ahead each day to set up camps. The riders raised their own money but received food and places to stay along the way. The horses spent every third day at rest in a trailer, said rider Scott Dupree. The riders weren't always so lucky.

"I was sore by the time we got here," he said.

The days were long and hard, but spirits surged at the sight of the Deer Medicine Rocks outside of Lame Deer, said rider Floyd Clown. The group was given permission to camp next to the sacred rock formations, which bear prophetic drawings of the battle and the eventual murder of Sitting Bull.

The ride was mostly to infuse traditional values in the young people, Clown said. Marking the Indian memorial dedication is just a side event.

"Our monument is already there," Clown said. "That big, white monument up on Last Stand Hill shows our victory. It shows that our grandfathers were here."

[Land_of_Lincoln_John]

I visited the Little Big Horn battlefield three years ago. My favorite battlefield, partly because the crowds are modest, mostly because you can see so much without driving or walking too far. (There are only trees in the river and creek valleys.) It's right off I-90, not more than a mile or two off the interstate, roughly half way between Sheridan, WY and Billings.

[DoughtyOne]

Wasn't there a scandle not too long ago about renaming the park there, or something like that? As I recall the name Custer offended the Indian groups or something like that. If true it just seems strange that the connection of Custer to the site seemed to offend, but the celebration of the battle there and the resulting deaths isn't supposed to offend anyone.

[Land_of_Lincoln_John]

Well there was a controversy about it. American Indian activists and their Liberal friends lobbied Bush 41 to change the name of the Custer National Battlefield to Little Big Horn Battlefield. GHWB signed that into law. Not one of his better moments, but considering who replaced him, the name change was bound to happen anyway.

[JohnGalt]

I visited Little Big Horn in the summer of 1997. It really is impressive and, at least, back then, the battle was presented as a clash of cultures that could not live in harmony.

[vetvetdoug]

I wonder if there will be as much bruhaha for a reenactment of the US Cavalry's victory at Wounded Knee? I need to get a few blanks for my Krag anyway.

[WorkingClassFilth]

The article failed to mention that descendants of the 7th Cavalry soldiers will also reinact their ancestor's roles.

This time, they decided to bring the Gattling guns...

[Freedom4US]

A *great* book on the subject is "Son of the Morning Star" by Evan S. Connell. If you have any interest at all in the subject, you'll want to read that. The Custer visitors center has an excellent museum in the basement, but not well known and I think they keep it closed to regular riff-raff like us.

[Tacis]

At reinactments, do the savage Indians still torture and murder all the enemy survivors of the fight? Name another battle in history where the winners butchered the losers, every last one. Rather than be proud of the Custer battle, Indians should be forever labeled as the dumb savages that they are.

[kms61]

Try Washita, Sand Creek, and the aforementioned Wounded Knee. The United States did not cover itself with glory in dealing with the aboriginal population of North America. No other way to spin it.

[kms61]

Custer disobeyed orders and his ambition got most of his command killed. What happened at Little Bighorn was in part payback for Washita and Sand Creek. Some of the Cheyenne there were survivors of those massacres.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Thank you.

[DoughtyOne]

What I'm trying to address is the fact that you won't find US citizens celebrating the death of indians. Here it seems the reverse is taking place. If this wasn't the case then this celebration (to instill character in their youth) could take place on 364 other days during the year.

I don't make the case that the US has been fair with Indians. I am not quite as convinced as other people that we were in all instances wrong, or that a holocaust level series of events took place. And that does seem to be the prevailing idea the media desires to get across.

They are not alone.

[Scoutmaster]

During the Indian Wars of this time, I think you'll find absolute slaughter (at least of all males) was practiced by the U.S. Cavalary against the Indians, just as it was practiced by the Indians against whites.

Although I have some Cherokee blood in me, one of my ancestors also served as one of Custer's scouts during the infamous attack on Black Kettle's band of women, children, and elderly camped on the Washita River.

As mentioned above, read "Son of the Morning Star," which was the nickname many Indians had for Custer during the nine or so years between the time he massacred literally hundreds of women and children under the light of Venus (the Morning Star) and Little Big Horn.

Colonel John M. Chivington, also responsible for the Black Kettle Massacre if I remember my history, told his men to kill all Indians, saying "...kill and scalp all, little and big... nits make lice."

I think both sides practiced "kill 'em all" for the most part.

[vetvetdoug]

Sherman and Sheridan taught the South to cry
Then the two went out West and showed the Indian how to die

Part of a song written by Mississippi songwriter about 1995..

[bicycle thug]

"I wonder if there will be as much bruhaha for a reenactment of the US Cavalry's victory at Wounded Knee? I need to get a few blanks for my Krag anyway."

Nah. That and actions such as "The Sand Creek Massacre" with so many genocidal deaths are poor choices to celibrate.

The racism, cultural intolerance, and phylosophy of "Manifest Destiny" that contributed to these black parts of American History is nothing to be proud of.

Myself, I spent time in the 1/17 Airborne (Air) Calvary when I was a young paratrooper in the 82nd so I am neither anti Cav or military. But in looking at the two above mentioned military actions, I am no more proud of them then I am of the shameful relocation of Cherokees and other Indians by Andrew Jackson in the 1830s known as "The Trail of Tears."

[SevenDaysInMay]

Alamo.

That was when war was war.

Ahhhhhh. The inexperienced awe of martial pride. The drum beat of clashing weapons...the harmony of barritone moans of the mortal casualties and the tenor maimed with highlights from the sublime altos, sopranos, and boys in nearly or fatal gang rape... the perfume of burning all that cannot be carried away...war's booty...the soul reviving silence of the dead's putrification...such motivation.

Yes, we should miss those days when war was war. Now, we really can kill them all.

[HairOfTheDog]

The Crow are sending 200 riders, including one riderless horse to honor Pfc. Lori Piestewa, a Hopi soldier who was mortally wounded in a March 23 ambush in Iraq.

For a 200 mile ride, I would love to be that horse!... (because it would be such an honorable role as well as easy)

The image of the tribute riderless horse *always* tears me up.

There is another re-enactment trail ride that hundreds of riders (non-indian too) go on every year, the Trail of Tears ride.... You guys ever gone on any sections of that? - My horse was on it once, but I have not.

[kms61]

We celebrate plenty of military victories, and battles, almost by definition, are where people get killed.

I look at this as their celebrating a victory, not the deaths of Custer and his men in particular.

Incidentally, among the books I've read on the subject was one (don't remember the name right now) that examined the forensic evidence of the battle. Their seems to be some indication that there were at least a few survivors who managed to escape and evade, but eventually died of wounds or exposure....there were some skeletons found a considerable distance from the actual site of the battle.

[vetvetdoug]

No such thing as a sarcasm tag but I meant that statement as sarcasm.

[HairOfTheDog]

I look at this as their celebrating a victory, not the deaths of Custer and his men in particular.

That's the right answer I was trying to come up with....