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Post by bc on May 13, 2013 17:11:59 GMT -6
That is good news Fred. Sorry to Chuck and Wild and hope things go well. Let's not forget that everyone on Reno Hill saw the whole village walk and ride by and below them in the valley dragging all their travois and worldly goods. A very good chance for observers to estimate the numbers of NAs. (except Reno ran out of fingers and toes after 20) I recently was looking at a book about Quanah Parker by Gwynne. He mentioned that that cholera started in India around 1800. By 1830 in was in Europe. By 1832 it hit the United States. In 1849, the 49er's (not the football team) brought it to the Plains Indians. The Commanches and Kiowas both last about half their numbers to cholera. It hit the other NA nations as well. bc
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Post by fred on May 13, 2013 18:02:33 GMT -6
Would there have possibly been items found at the various old campsites, or the arrangement of the campsites, that could have provided an indication as to exactly which Cheyenne or Sioux subgroup (i.e., Oglala, Brule, etc.) that they related to, and, by extension raised warning signs in regard to the congregation of bands that were not normally to be found in that area? Britt... thank you! Gatewood, I am not sure you could identify various tribes by any sort of "emblem" or marking. Their structures were very loose and if anything, it was more likely to be the mark of an individual or band, such as the Kit Fox or the former Cheyenne Dog Soldiers. Traditionally, some tribes camped closer to others, the Santee, for example, camped near the Hunkpapa, probably because there were so few Santee and the Hunkpapa were the largest of the Lakota tribes. They had other characteristics, as well, and in this campaign, the Cheyenne took the place of honor, moved in the lead, and camped at the farthest end. Decapitation, for example, was no longer practiced by the Sioux, except for the Santee. Sioux warriors also seldom carried lances any more, but had knife sticks, a particularly brutal weapon. Evan Connell claimed the Santee were the only tribe that habitually practiced decapitation instead of scalping. Wooden Leg, the Northern Cheyenne warrior, however, describes at least two incidents when he was younger, of Cheyenne warriors decapitating their Indian victims [Marquis, Wooden Leg, pp. 12 and 22]. Cutting a victim’s throat was usually a Sioux practice, left over from when they habitually chopped off their enemies’ heads. By the time of the Custer fight, only the Santee still practiced the ghoulish art. So while Trooper Tyree could identify the three yellow bands as those from a Southern Cheyenne Dog Soldier, the Dog Soldiers were no longer in existence in 1876, and the bands were more likely from an individual who liked the color yellow. I would almost guess that shape and material played a bigger role in identification than markings. Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by Dark Cloud on May 13, 2013 18:45:38 GMT -6
The Brule were larger according to the stats of fuchs. I, too, thought the Hunkpapa were the bigger sect by population, which is why they always camped where they did, as protection for the whole village. Something like.
When the village lumbered by, a significant group of warriors, including the CD's, were up north down river preparing to delay Terry.
Supposedly, the way the point was cut, the way the point or stone was wrapped, the chosen wood for the shaft, and the type of feathers denoted certain tribes.
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Post by bc on May 13, 2013 22:49:57 GMT -6
The Brule were larger according to the stats of fuchs. I, too, thought the Hunkpapa were the bigger sect by population, which is why they always camped where they did, as protection for the whole village. Something like. When the village lumbered by, a significant group of warriors, including the CD's, were up north down river preparing to delay Terry. Supposedly, the way the point was cut, the way the point or stone was wrapped, the chosen wood for the shaft, and the type of feathers denoted certain tribes. Yep. But when Terry chased the downriver bunch back up river, they all would have ridden by Reno Hill and made it an easy count and the warriors would have been in one bunch. I've read of accounts where various tribes had separate markings for about everything they made, even moccasins. Since it was very obvious that they were facing Sioux and Cheyenne, I haven't read that anyone did any further detective work other than a few souvenirs. bc
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Post by fred on May 14, 2013 5:59:00 GMT -6
The Brule were larger according to the stats of fuchs. I, too, thought the Hunkpapa were the bigger sect by population, which is why they always camped where they did, as protection for the whole village. Something like. DC, I think fuchs is wrong here, though I missed what he actually wrote. Everything I have ever read said the Hunkpapa were the largest, followed by the Oglala. The Brulé were the southernmost of the seven Lakota; the Hunkpapa, the northernmost (along with the Blackfeet and Sans Arc). By the way, here is what I wrote in my book about the Oglala: Oglala—southernmost of the tribes along with the Cu Brulé. “To scatter one’s own” [Dickson]; also seen as, “wanders in the mountains.” “John Gray suggested… that the total Oglala population in 1876 was probably about 4,180 people, an estimate consistent with Kingsley Bray’s analysis. Gray calculated that of this total, about 2,336 Oglala (53%) were residing at the Red Cloud Agency in northwestern Nebraska while an estimated 1,844 people (roughly 264 lodges) were ‘in the north.’ Of these, Gray suggested that perhaps 240 Oglala lodges were at the Little Bighorn” [Dickson, “Reconstructing the Little Bighorn Village: The Big Road Roster and the Oglala Tribal Circle,” p. 3]. There were three main bands within the Oglala grouping: the Oyuhpe, the True Oglala, and the Kiyaksa. Both the Oyuhpe and the True Oglala had so-called Northern Bands and Agency Bands, while the Kiyaksa had only the Agency Bands. The Northern Bands were all at the Little Big Horn, while the Agency Bands filtered warriors in and out during the summer of 1876. It was this Agency grouping that inflated the village size and has made it almost impossible to determine precisely who or how many Oglala warriors were at the battle. If we accept Gray’s figure of 240 Oglala lodges at the Little Big Horn, we can figure on approximately 1,680 people in the Oglala circles. To this number we must add “agency” Oglala who spent the summer with the “northern” bands.Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by Gatewood on May 14, 2013 6:14:41 GMT -6
In regard to the population of various "tribes" - There was apparently quite a bit of intermarriage between some of the tribes, so what "tribe" did the blissful couple and their offspring belong to? I want to say that I have seen that it was determined by the female's tribe, but I'm not sure. Was belonging to a tribe any sort of binding relationship? If I were an Oglala and decided that I wanted to be a Sans Arc, could I just change my affiliation? I'm sure that the Sans Arc would probably let me tag along with them and be a member of their tribe in an unofficial sense, but would I still officially be an Oglala? How were these type situations addressed in all of the official counts an censuses that we have been speaking of?
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jag
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Post by jag on May 14, 2013 7:55:11 GMT -6
Mike, I believe it. If you traipse along the trail from FAL, I am told you can still see many of the wagon tracks made by the train. And there are any number of traces of inhabitance or trails in many other places, as well. Best wishes, Fred. Fred, you might be referring to the Oregon Trail, don't know, but it's true. If you roughly follow the trail by modern roads, many just a track across pastureland made by local farmers and ranchers can still be observed. Some trail ruts right beside a hiway with a historical marker to give it fame, can still be found and observed in quite a number of places. So I'm not surprised to hear of its occurrence reported elsewhere as you've described. Might now be there a mass pilgrimage to these sites to see where mud and the thin wagon wheel met to dig ruts as evidence of their history. Now if only we could count the number of wagons that passed through these ruts, of which I've done. This to determine with a baseline certainty of 84 and 1/23rd percent, this to the nth degree of certainty, where n represents wagon population that passed through those ruts divided by those who rode in the wagons to be exactly in the range of 24,853 and 1/2 to 32,090 and 1/45 wagons that passed through that particular spot. And 76,098 and 3/4ths white people, 12,542 and 7/54ths Indians, 231 dogs, 45 mules, 403 chickens, 547 1/2 cattle, and 3 raccoons that traveled through or across those same ruts. best wishes jag
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jag
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Post by jag on May 14, 2013 8:27:41 GMT -6
I don't now from squat about lodge circles, but once on a tour southwest from Busby up to the Divide via Davis Creek a couple of years ago, our guide, brother of Richard Fox, and I were discussing his admonition that I do my best to keep in the existing track. His explanation was it made the land owners' furious when people drove about willy-nilly. The reason being that the passage of a tire across the sparse grass left a mark and diminished grass for up to a decade. Perhaps those uplands were far less lush than NDN camp sites but it made an impression on me of the fragile nature of things there. Mike, You're in good company about lodge circles and camp circles. No doubt drought places an added importance as to whether grass bent by tire tracks would, could or should render the grass 10 years hence a mere track of soil to be of historical significance matters much to the animals, wild or not, as to where they might find sustenance after those who did wheelies in the pasture did such damage. And matters a lot to the land owner whose disdain for such grass crop circles is not only understandable, because of said drought, and those who have no idea of what damage they inflicted on said animals nourishment and the ranchers livelihood, not just at the moment the UFO with 4 tires passed through, but 10 years after the fact. Its history, whether we attach the same significance to it or not, whether we believe it or not, isn't for us to determine, yet we do or try by precise measure to make it more than it was.
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Post by AZ Ranger on May 14, 2013 9:14:47 GMT -6
There is a big diference between bent foliage and vehicle compacted soil. Animals can make trails over time but in general don't impact all vegetation stepped on. A vehicle is capable of causing permanent damage. My guess is lbs/square inch is a factor. With animals it is repeated walking in numbers over the same trail.
Regards
AZ Ranger
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Post by fred on May 14, 2013 9:26:49 GMT -6
Fred, you might be referring to the Oregon Trail, don't know, but it's true. Jag, I am sure you are right. I have, however, read in the Willert book how a number of the wagon-rut trails were still visible. Plus-- and I may be totally wrong here-- but I seem to remember Tom Heski, a retired army command sergeant major, who rode Custer's trail with some friends (in period garb, no less!), telling an audience at one of the LBHA conferences (Billings, 2009) that one could still make out some of those trails and some of the campsites. Heski's work is prima stuff and I tend to believe almost anything he says. Interesting... I just missed a call from a friend who lives there... you all know him... and he left me a message saying how ridiculous the business about tepee rings still being visible a year later. My friends and I are getting together with him in June, and he promised to show me why. I believe him, too. My only issue then would be why Hugh Scott claimed he could still see-- and count-- as many as 1,800 rings a year later. Would it be because of drought? Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by fuchs on May 14, 2013 10:27:16 GMT -6
Exactly. We've discussed whether the scouts/soldiers should have been able to discern total numbers, etc. from viewing the various camps that they came across, but my question takes it a step further and asks whether they could possibly have been able to tell exactly which tribes/sub-tribes made those camps and determined anything from it, along the lines of "Ah ha, Brule, they are not normally this far North. What does that tell us?" Not from looking at the camp from a distance, or going over the leftovers after the camp was gone, unless you were very, very well acquainted with some specific Indian bands. The Cheyenne/Lakota distinction would have been a bit easier, but still the Cheyenne blurred into the Oglala quite a lot. Frank Grouard allegedly lived years with the "Hostiles", he might have had a shot at this. He tried, and failed. At the Powder River/Reynolds fight he "identified" the camp as Crazy Horse's. It was mostly Cheyenne, with a smaller Oglala family group (He Dog, one of CH's close buddies). He thought he recognized one of CH's horses. He might even have been correct in that, but then this horse would simply have been gifted earlier to one of the occupants of the village. On the other hand, for example Crow lodge design was clearly different from Cheyenne and Lakota lodge design, so you would be able to tell them apart from quite a distance. This: I am not sure you could identify various tribes by any sort of "emblem" or marking. Their structures were very loose and if anything, it was more likely to be the mark of an individual or band, such as the Kit Fox or the former Cheyenne Dog Soldiers. I've read of accounts where various tribes had separate markings for about everything they made, even moccasins. Since it was very obvious that they were facing Sioux and Cheyenne, I haven't read that anyone did any further detective work other than a few souvenirs Yes, the beadwork on the mocassins is characteristic for Sioux/Cheyenne, but then you have the intermarriage issue, and finally there is a reason that the economic system of the Plains Indian is called a gift economy. Stuff is circulation all over the place. In extreme cases it could end up in a complete swap: Two times in the campaign Cheyenne villages were completely destroyed, leaving the refugees with not much more than the clothes they had on. Both times they got outfitted again by their Lakota allies/friends. In regard to the population of various "tribes" - There was apparently quite a bit of intermarriage between some of the tribes, so what "tribe" did the blissful couple and their offspring belong to? I want to say that I have seen that it was determined by the female's tribe, but I'm not sure. Was belonging to a tribe any sort of binding relationship? If I were an Oglala and decided that I wanted to be a Sans Arc, could I just change my affiliation? I'm sure that the Sans Arc would probably let me tag along with them and be a member of their tribe in an unofficial sense, but would I still officially be an Oglala? How were these type situations addressed in all of the official counts an censuses that we have been speaking of? Brock: Back in the day the distinction between the different tribal divisions was not considered terribly important. By what I remember, Crazy Horse's father was Oglala, his first mother Minneconjou, second mother(s) Brule. His early mentor/uncle the Brule Spotted Tail, his later mentor/uncle the Minneconjou Hump. He hung out alot with the Cheyenne, some 10 Cheyenne lodges were pretty much permanently associated with his band later. The guy beside his father at his deathbed another Minneconjou, Touch the Cloud. His closed living relatives are Minneconjou. It usually written that the young couple stayed with the wives band, but also that there were no clear cut rules in that regard. For example if the parents of a young women tried to pressure her into an arranged marriage, noone would be surprised if she eloped with someone more to her liking. The couple would probably prefer the husbands band in that case. The clear cut distinctions between the different Lakota bands is mostly a result of the reservation system. Pine Ridge Agency became synonymous with Oglala, Rosebud with Brule, Standing Rock with Hunkpapa ... Of course this was a process, not an instant freeze of the status quo. When census data had became reliable and consistent, the issue was mostly settled.
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jag
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Post by jag on May 14, 2013 10:40:57 GMT -6
There is a big diference between bent foliage and vehicle compacted soil. Animals can make trails over time but in general don't impact all vegetation stepped on. A vehicle is capable of causing permanent damage. My guess is lbs/square inch is a factor. With animals it is repeated walking in numbers over the same trail. Regards AZ Ranger You're right. But of course of what kind of foliage, so bent would matter? It didn't elude me, probably that keogh so dense a kind it shouldn't have mattered. But I rather alluded to the tire pressure saying.... UFO with 4 tires passed through that made the crop circles... Well, at least I liked it. regards jag
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Post by Dark Cloud on May 14, 2013 10:46:20 GMT -6
Most Indian lodges were up for a few days or weeks before moving on. It's a nomad's lodge, and nomads tend to be nomadic. I doubt they cheerfully constructed new attachment gear at every campsite, and they carried them, including lodge poles, till they wore out. You might be able to tell a camp was there months later or not, depending on rain and animals, wind and whatever. This is not, as AZ politely points out with a reference to bent grass and tank tracks, to be compared to a half century or more of loaded Conestogas being pulled in the same rut in the same direction nine months every year. Originally, fuchs suggested that the circles could last a century, and so counting them a year later at the LBH was a reasonable past time gifting us with accurate info.
It seems to me that the term 'lodge' is the issue with fuchs. Indian lodges can be nomadic or the near permanent dwellings of Mandans or Iroquois, whose outlines can be seen centuries later.
I like Hugh Scott, and we don't have what Hugh Scott said. We have what Mason Camp says Hugh Scott said. How accurate are Camp's notes? He took detailed, sloppy notes, and may have been able himself to reconstruct the truth from them, but others certainly have been confused.
Isn't it far more likely that Scott, a newbie, was assigned the job of verifying the very general estimate of 1800 lodges worth of Indians that appeared in reports? Would he find an area of camp life with indications of lodges and obtain an internal reference of so much square footage contained so many lodges and apply that to the extent of the camp as still visible? Or are we seriously imagining an officer, any officer, divining the outlines a year later of each lodge and counting them? What good would a tally of 1756 lodges do that 1800 does not? They don't NEED anything that specific; they needed reasonable guesstimates with caveats.
Yet, here we are 137 years later applying computer computation to 'the best we have' in the way of fact to obtain a precision that serves no purpose other than to steer readers to the absurdity that we can figure out exact numbers, even if we feign modesty and glue on 'of course, we cannot really know....' deep into the postings. And this was a precision the Army knew couldn't be obtained then.
Let us not view the majority of jeepers as giving the remotest s___ about preserving the trail, land, or anything. Most older guys are responsible, but you can go to the websites on numerous jeep/off road clubs and see the videos and photos they put up of drunken kids doing wheelies in mud and attaching winch lines to insufficient trees off trail and tearing up both trails and killing the tree. They incriminate themselves but are rarely prosecuted. Big deal here in Colorado.
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Post by fuchs on May 14, 2013 13:25:28 GMT -6
So while Trooper Tyree could identify the three yellow bands as those from a Southern Cheyenne Dog Soldier, the Dog Soldiers were no longer in existence in 1876, and the bands were more likely from an individual who liked the color yellow. I would almost guess that shape and material played a bigger role in identification than markings. You list yourself four Cheyenne Dog Soldiers in your Participants ;D The Dog Soldiers as a distinct (renegade) Cheyenne band didn't exist anymore, or at least had lost most of it's influence and members by 1876. But apparently the Dog Soldiers as a distinct warrior society wasn't gone. I think fuchs is wrong here, though I missed what he actually wrote. Everything I have ever read said the Hunkpapa were the largest, followed by the Oglala. You at least have the courtesy to note if you reply to someone without really reading his text. Of the Lakota present at the LBH the Hunkpapa were the most numerous. Not the most numerous band of the Lakota[Directed more to the general audience here]: I have the impression I still underestimate how focused you guys are on the LBH, and nothing but the LBH. And see everything else through this lens, to the point of total distortion in some cases. DC thought the Hunkpapa were the most numerous Lakota division. Fred thought the Hunkpapa were the most numerous Lakota division. How about the others? Could you explain to me how you formed that opinion? A) "Most/all Lakota were at the LBH, therefore the Hunkpapa must have been the most numerous"? B) "All Lakota/Indians are basically behaving the same, so if the Hunkpapa were the most numerous at the LBH, they had to be the most numerous overall"? C variant one) "Looking at the wider context can not help the understanding of what occurred at the LBH. Rather to the contrary, if it yields information apparently contradicting what we know from the study of the battle itself, it must be false and has to be rejected" C variant two) "I'm not interested in anything but the narrowest context of the LBH" Something Else? My mental frame of reference might be so far detached from the peceived reality here on the ground, that I might argue mostly against a wall. Or worse, incite vicious opposition, solely designed to undermine my credibility as opposed to engage in constructive argument, because I had stepped over a red line in this Custer Cluster vs. Benteenista trench warfare I wasn't even aware of. So I might as well stop my efforts. [/b] [/quote] This snippet encouraged me to have a look again into the Bray paper. And I might have found the "missing" 500-800 Oglala from my last numbers post in the paper Oglala numbers: Oglala counted in 1876/77: 3656 Transferred from Standing Rock to Pine Ridge in 1882:600Sum: 4250 Pine Ridge Sioux counted in 1886/87: 4180 Pine Ridge Sioux counted in 1890: 4500 (Red Cloud Agency was renemaed to Pine Ridge in those years.) We run headlong into the problem mentioned earlier, of defining which bunch of people belongs to which tribal division. There are likely no missing Oglala in 1876, this is simply an artefact of gray shoddy maths, coupled with the disregard that that those same hundreds of "Oglala" that appeared between 1876 and 1890 out ouf thin air were counterbalanced by about the same amounts of "Minneconjou" and and "Sans Arc" that dis-appeared in the same time. The "missing" Oglala were very likely simply Indians, that got transfered to Pine Ridge between the counts in 1876/77 and 1886/77/90 Bray is switching his definitions of "Oglala" to "enrolled at Pine Ridge" midway in his argument. The longer and deeper I look into his paper, the less favorable gets my opinion of his work. (This won't change the numbers he is drawing from primary sources, of course) Under these circumstances, you cannot take the number of Indians enrolled at Pine Ridge in 1885-1890, subtract from those the number of Oglala at the Agency in 1876/77 and conclude that the difference had to have been at the LBH. Though I have to confess that I had just stumbled into the same trap ;D So, no "Oglala that slipped through the net" of the military counts. Scratch another 500 Lakota /100 warriors for the ceiling scenario at the LBH. The numbers add up. And it gets better, not worse the deeper one is looking into this. If using Lakota numbers from the reservation counts, you have to always look at the complete results, not numbers for single Divisions (There is further potential for confusion between Blackfoot and Hunkpapa (Standing Rock), und between Blackfoot, Sans Arc, Minneconjou and Two Kettle (Cheyenne River), and some small bands of other tribes at Spotted Tail's Brule Agency.
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Post by fred on May 14, 2013 13:53:03 GMT -6
You list yourself four Cheyenne Dog Soldiers in your ParticipantsFuchs, Here is what I wrote in Participants: • Hotamitanio or Hotamitaniu, or Dog Soldiers (Southern Cheyenne): Dog Soldiers were the most militant and elite of the Cheyenne warrior societies and they filled both social and military purposes, especially as camp police. Their power as a society was broken at the Battle of Summit Springs, July 11, 1869. • There were also warrior societies—maybe only three identifiable in the 1870s. • The Elkhorn Scrapers or Elk Soldiers [Himoweyuuhki]. • The Kit Fox Men [Wohksehetaniu], commonly called “Fox Soldiers,” and also known as “Coyote.” • The Crazy Dogs [Hotamimassau], also known as “Foolish Dogs.” • There was a “chief” of each society, and then generally nine headmen. • Every ten years the entire tribe would assemble and “elect” forty “big chiefs.” • These forty would then select four “old man chiefs.” • The general order of seniority or “command” was, (1) the “old man chiefs”; (2) the forty tribal “big chiefs”; (3) the three “warrior chiefs”; then, (4) the twenty-seven “little warrior chiefs.” • The “warrior chiefs” had authority only in their societies. • When a society was chosen for a particular event, i. e., policing a move or a hunt, that organization ruled [this is generally from Marquis, Wooden Leg, pp. 56 – 57] and woe betide those who moved in front or challenged the “ruling” society’s authority. I do admit it is somewhat confusing. Well... everything I have ever read tells me the Hunkpapa were the most numerous. Unfortunately, I have been so busy lately, I have not had the opportunity to read everything everyone posts. I did not see your comments about this, but only read someone else's. I apologize certainly if I have offended you. And I have been led to believe they were the most numerous of the Lakota tribes. Do you have any sources for what you say? Best wishes, Fred.
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