|
Post by grahamew on Sept 20, 2007 13:28:03 GMT -6
CH senior later married a Brule woman yet continued to live with the Oglala.
|
|
|
Post by clw on Sept 20, 2007 16:06:05 GMT -6
Hunk, I'm going to defer to Brock on the matter of Crazy Horse being Mnicoujou or not .......
|
|
|
Post by grahamew on Sept 21, 2007 1:51:33 GMT -6
What I meant was that despite it being a matriarchal society, the husband didn't necessarily live with his wive's band...
|
|
|
Post by "Hunk" Papa on Sept 21, 2007 13:33:08 GMT -6
Guys, I don't know what Brock's take on what band His Crazy Horse belonged to but having studied Bray's book and watched the Clown family's DVD again, the following seems to sum up the situation.
1. Bray's sources place the Crazy Horse male line firmly from and living with the Hunkpatila band of the Oglala tribe. 2. The Clown family seem to skirt around that point but confirm that Rattling Blanket Woman was from a prominent Mniconjou family with whom the the grandfather and father of His Crazy Horse had a very close relationship. 3. I have not yet pinned it down for certain, but the Clown family's claim to being descendant's of Crazy Horse appear to derive through the matriarchial line.
I'll keep digging as I am sure there is more to come but maybe some of our members who are much more knowledgeable on this matter than I am, will put us out of our misery.
Hunk
|
|
|
Post by brock on Sept 22, 2007 1:15:16 GMT -6
Okay, I got a really full plate but I'll tell you what I know. Crazy Horse's Mom was Minikoujou and I don't think you'll find much argument from very many people there. Even in tribal court where this very issue is close to final resolution, all the contenders (Clown, Big Crow [now deceased as of I think it was Jan or Feb 2007], Bissonette, and Whitewoman) conceded that point (this I witnessed personally in 2005). The Clown family tree has been accepted by the tribal court as the legitimate tree after six years of rangling earlier this year. Currently the Clown family has filed a motion on top of the tree acceptance ruling that says anyone else that claims to be on their tree must show proof. It's an attempt to close the tree out from add ons. The prospects of anyone of the players being able to do this is doubtful...and that's being kind.
The reason this was in court in the first place was due to the lawsuit against Hormal Brewing over the Crazy Horse Malt Liquor and the use of the name Crazy Horse on the malt liquor by a group named the Crazy Horse Defense Group. Crazy Horse Malt Liquor was distributed by Coors and Coors secretly paid $150,000 to the Crazy Horse Estate to settle. This brought all the contenders out of the woodwork and from this they whittled it down to the aforementioned names. The Federal Court was confused as to who were the true legal heirs of the Estate and referred it to Rosebud tribal court to decide the proper heirs since Big Crow had been the name on the original Estate papers filed against Coors and he was from Rosebud, also the Federal Court figured it was a tribal issue.
Big Crow had originally founded the Crazy Horse Defense Group with True Clown. True Clown died not long after the formation and Big Crow carried it on. True Clown and the Clown family that I know didn't get along and their heirs still don't. You see when Crazy Horse's sister Julia Clown (Iron Cedar) children married, one of them married his first cousin. Big no no in the Lakota culture. It's like marrying your sister. Julia's husband, Amos, would not even talk to his son after that and would retreat to his garden whenever that son came over to visit. That son lost his place in the family. That's how that part of the family became alienated. That union between that son and his first cousin produced True.
So to make a long story short the lawyer for Big Crow, Bob Goff, asked the judge if he could get $50,000 of his lawyer fees paid from the $150,000 paid by Coors because the judge had frozen the funds. The judge granted his request and Goff didn't just take the $50,000 but he took every last penny and closed out the account...this was discovered in July. So there's been a bit a turmoil, but once it settles back down the final ruling is coming on the Clown's motion to close out any back door entries to the tree.
Now to the question of the father's affiliation. The Clown family maintains him to be Minicoujou. I won't argue with the family. It's not my place.
My personal feeling is that I don't think the family spent alot of time contemplating what band they belonged to. A better way to view this is as large family units.
As far as Waglula's additional wives being Brule, that's not what the family says. They say they were also Minicoujou. The claim they were the daughters of Corn. There is a painting done by George Catlin in the 1830s of Corn entitled 'Corn, Minicoujou Warrior".
One last point, the term 'Brule' is a French term meaning 'burnt'...not burnt thighs as in Sicangu. I know many want to automatically atribute Brule as Sicangu but I maintain it to be a slang term for any Lakota during the early days of its use. Lewis and Clark called Black Buffalo's band Brule, yet their interpreter was hard pressed to understand the Lakota language and it almost got them all killed on the Bad River. Black Buffalo it turns out was the maternal grandfather of Crazy Horse and the father of Lone Horn, Hump, and One Horn...all Minicoujou. I believe that some whites and interpreters referred to all Lakota as Brule due to the color of their skin. Thus in our need to put order to everything as is customary to OUR culture, we just get a little carried away.
I hope that helps. I have a DVD finish, so don't look for me for awhile. Thanx!
|
|
|
Post by grahamew on Sept 22, 2007 3:14:32 GMT -6
Yes, of course, so CH senior's relationship with the Brules (that is, Spotted tail's people rather than some generic term) wasn't directly from his marriage, but rather indirectly, through the marriage? I really need to get the DVD!
|
|
|
Post by brock on Sept 22, 2007 3:50:23 GMT -6
Grahamew: Crazy Horse's wife, Black Shawl, was one of Spotted Tail's relatives. So when Spotted Tail says he is Crazy Horse's uncle he means uncle-in-law. So he was an in-law to Waglula. This once again according to the family. The DVDs are available online at www.PrairieEdge.com and www.reelcontact.com. They are also sold at the Little Bighorn Battlefield Park gift shop if you visit the battlefield.
|
|
|
Post by "Hunk" Papa on Sept 23, 2007 12:29:27 GMT -6
Thanks for taking the time to pass on your information Brock. As you say its almost 'you pay your penny and you take your choice', but I wonder what His Crazy Horse considered himself to be? Given his profound spiritual beliefs, would it have been important to him as representing an integral part of who he was?
Hunk
|
|
|
Post by clw on Sept 23, 2007 16:42:56 GMT -6
Hunk, I don't think so. I tend to agree with Brock....... My personal feeling is that I don't think the family spent alot of time contemplating what band they belonged to. A better way to view this is as large family units........... Thus in our need to put order to everything as is customary to OUR culture, we just get a little carried away. His loved ones and his family were clear enough to him. I think we're the ones more concerned with sorting it all out.
|
|
|
Post by "Hunk" Papa on Sept 23, 2007 17:00:55 GMT -6
clw, you and Brock are probably right, but CH was not your average Lakota, often alluded to by his people a 'Our strange man' so I have the feeling that such matters may have been more important to him than to others. In any event, we shall never know unless some ouija board somewhere comes up with a CH hit.
Hunk
|
|
|
Post by "Hunk" Papa on Sept 24, 2007 4:25:01 GMT -6
A further thought on my previous posting. The Cheyenne attacked at Powder River fled to join the village of His Crazy Horse, always described as an Oglala village, containing notable Oglalas such as Little Big Man and He Dog, who returned with the Cheyenne. The combined Cheyenne/Oglala then joined up with Sitting Bull's village and they all ended up at the LBH. In that camp, His Crazy Horse with his immediate family, camped with the Oglalas although there was a Mniconjou camp there as well. It would seem therefore, that CH had a greater affinity with his father's people than his mother's.
Hunk
|
|
|
Post by clw on Sept 24, 2007 7:32:21 GMT -6
In that camp, His Crazy Horse with his immediate family, camped with the Oglalas although there was a Mniconjou camp there as well. Between what I've read and the oral history I've heard, there is conflicting information as to where Crazy Horse was camped at the LBH. It has even been said there was a main warrior camp around the lodge of Elk Head, the Pipe Keeper at that time -- that warriors of various bands were camped there apart from their families -- and that he was with them. All food for thought, but my overall feeling is that the lines between band affiliations were more blurred in reality than we tend to view them.
|
|
|
Post by brock on Sept 24, 2007 12:55:05 GMT -6
I'm taking a short break, so let me add a little something. It was quite common for Lakotas to marry into other bands, so let me ask a very basic question: How did this happen? The Lakota did not believe in arranged marriages. Tha man had to woo the woman in a courting blanket and compete for her love. That meant he had to spend time with her band. This was not an overnight process. And this was happening with several couples at the same time all the time. Hump married four Cheyenne women and Talks About Him (Crazy Horse's first cousin as per the family tree) married Dull Knife's daughter (another Cheyenne) and the Cheyennes and Lakota speak different languages so that courting had to be a bit complicated and time consuming. I think a great deal of the obsession as to the bands has to do with the fact that were talking about a period of war and using the terms Oglala, Minicoujou, Hunkpapa, etc. to take the place of using 1st Battalion, 2nd Battalion or Company A, Company B, etc. It's an easy handle that most in our culture can relate to as we've seen and read it time and again This kind of labeling helps us to moniter specific Lakota movements. That's not to say the bands didn't exist, they certainly did, but the Lakota were more likely to move in family units and in some cases a family unit including in-laws might run as many as 1,000. And the family unit on a day to day basis took precedence over the band. Today the Crazy Horse family tree as I have observed through the kind grace of the Clown family, including both sides of the Waglula and Rattling Blanket Woman's tree, numbers 3,000, documented, by the family just to give you an idea. If a family had strong leadership most of their relatives would follow and of course those relatives have relatives. How else does Touch the Cloud, an undisputed Minicoujou, and He Dog accompany Crazy Horse on the same raids when their band affiliation should be keeping them separate as a case in point? Later.
|
|
ladonna
Full Member
In spirit
Posts: 182
|
Post by ladonna on Sept 24, 2007 15:07:12 GMT -6
I'm taking a short break, so let me add a little something. It was quite common for Lakotas to marry into other bands, so let me ask a very basic question: How did this happen? The Lakota did not believe in arranged marriages. Tha man had to woo the woman in a courting blanket and compete for her love. That meant he had to spend time with her band. This was not an overnight process. And this was happening with several couples at the same time all the time. Hump married four Cheyenne women and Talks About Him (Crazy Horse's first cousin as per the family tree) married Dull Knife's daughter (another Cheyenne) and the Cheyennes and Lakota speak different languages so that courting had to be a bit complicated and time consuming. I think a great deal of the obsession as to the bands has to do with the fact that were talking about a period of war and using the terms Oglala, Minicoujou, Hunkpapa, etc. to take the place of using 1st Battalion, 2nd Battalion or Company A, Company B, etc. It's an easy handle that most in our culture can relate to as we've seen and read it time and again This kind of labeling helps us to moniter specific Lakota movements. That's not to say the bands didn't exist, they certainly did, but the Lakota were more likely to move in family units and in some cases a family unit including in-laws might run as many as 1,000. And the family unit on a day to day basis took precedence over the band. Today the Crazy Horse family tree as I have observed through the kind grace of the Clown family, including both sides of the Waglula and Rattling Blanket Woman's tree, numbers 3,000, documented, by the family just to give you an idea. If a family had strong leadership most of their relatives would follow and of course those relatives have relatives. How else does Touch the Cloud, an undisputed Minicoujou, and He Dog accompany Crazy Horse on the same raids when their band affiliation should be keeping them separate as a case in point? Later. Hi Brock, good points. I have been asked many time about which bands do people belong to and it really did not matter as long as you were not closly relatived. I kow that in my part of the nation we had arranged marriages so maybe the Blackfeet/Hunkpapa were different??
|
|
|
Post by brock on Sept 24, 2007 21:08:19 GMT -6
Howdy back, Ladonna ;-) In thinking about it, I think it depends on how 'arranged marriage' is defined. In the narrower sense where a man had to pay so many horses for a woman or a woman and her sisters then you are probably right. But then that would define a great many of the oral histories I've been recording as full of myths (yes, I am working with an Hunkpapa family also and it's not Ernie's). One of the things I've observed is the vehement arguments that can occur when someone asks two Lakota families a simple question like whether the Lakota are a maternal or patriarchal society at the same time. I have seen Lakota families get quite angry with the other Lakota family for not having the same answer and these are families whose first tongue is Lakota. So angry they refuse to speak to each other. So I learned not to go there and decided to base my opinions on the stories they told and the subsequent patterns that these stories molded. In the area of marriages I have heard families exude pride in the fact that their great grandmother had so many suitors that she could pick and choose. I have heard stories about how a couple's love was so strong that they eloped. I have heard stories of how a family's great grandfather was able to win a woman's heart away from other suitors by saying just the right things under the courting blanket. I have heard stories about a young man trying to figure out how many horses it would take to win a certain wife and then trying to meet that goal. And they would tell these stories over and over and over again and each time as though they were telling it to me for the first time. And everytime it was nearly word for word as the last time and each time they found the stories just as emotional as the previous telling. I never had the heart to to tell that's the 38th time I heard that story. But now I know how oral history was passed down. I even have some of these stories memorized myself and I never went in with that goal in mind...osmosis I guess. I'm sure you can relate. But I digress. The one thing underlining all these marriage stories is the element of choice. And that meant spending some time in other camps. Yes, once the choice is made then the woman was quite often negotiated for (sometimes with her sisters and if you were a younger sister you definitely had no choice unless you eloped with another), but for a couple or family to get to that point was the trick. That's what I think and how I came to think it. So I'll meet you halfway on the 'arranged marriages'.
|
|