Crazy Horse Genealogy

[Diane Merkel]

And CH also had a brother named Little Hawk? Confusing!

Thanks for the clarification.

Diane

[karl]

the halfbrother of crazy horse,little hawk was born in
1846(?) and killed on a raid in 1870.worm,his father
said by the shoshone.
but all other statements i had heard of said by some
white miners.
he was the son of one of spotted tails sisters.

[crzhrs]

CH's friend Hump (High Breast, killed by Shoshoni 1871) is a different Hump (High Back Bone) from the one who fought white trappers/traders with CH in 1874 and joined SB at the LBH and later refused to become a "progressive" Indian on the reservation and resisted all attempts to become "white"

[kingsleybray]

NOTES ON THE CRAZY HORSE GENEALOGY: PART 1

Prepared by

KINGSLEY M. BRAY





















I'm posting my notes on the genealogy of Crazy Horse to supplement Carl Dupree's important contribution and to further the discussion. This is a work in progress, and I continue to update the information.

Kingsley Bray, 8th February 2006.


Crazy Horse: the Miniconjou Connection


Crazy Horse’s Mother, Rattle Blanket Woman

Several of the more detailed accounts of Crazy Horse's family background, coming from informed individuals, relatives and contemporaries, state that Crazy Horse's mother was a Miniconjou, e.g.

Ÿ Horn Chips, interviewed by Judge Eli S. Ricker, February 14, 1907 (Ricker Papers, NSHS, Tablet 18): "Crazy Horse's mother was a Minneconjou, but Chips does not know her name."
Ÿ He Dog statement, through Joseph Eagle Hawk, in Robert A. Clark, ed., The Killing of Chief Crazy Horse, p. 68: "His mother was a Minikowoju Sioux."
Ÿ William Garnett to V. T. McGillycuddy, March 6, 1922 (in ibid, p. 109): "his mother was a Minni-ko-wo-jun"; reiterated in same to same, April 21, 1926 (ibid, p. 115): "his mother was a Mni-Ko-Wo-Ju", adding that: "I think he [Touch the Clouds, Miniconjou chief] was a relative of the mother of Crazy Horse, but I have been unable to find any one who knows for sure." [Robert A. Clark, ed. The Killing of Chief Crazy Horse, p. 115]

Mrs Eagle Horse, a granddaughter of this woman (the daughter of Crazy Horse's sister), gave her grandmother's name as Rattle Blanket Woman [Walter M. Camp MSS, University of Indiana Library, p. 271]. Unfortunately, Mrs Eagle Horse (or Camp) confused matters by stating that Rattle Blanket Woman was an Oglala.

Modern Lakota informants agree that Crazy Horse's mother was a Miniconjou, coming from a prominent family. They confirm Mrs Eagle Horse’s statement that the mother was named Rattle Blanket Woman, Ta-sina Hlahla Win. Miniconjou elders concur, stating (to Chris Ravenshead) that the woman committed suicide, and adding that previous generations had been unwilling to discuss the family tragedy. Victor Douville, Lakota Studies Dept, Sinte Gleska University, stated (conversation with author) that Rattle Blanket Woman was a Miniconjou, belonging to the Aske band. Elaine Quiver, descended from a sister of Rattle Blanket Woman, stated (conversation with the author) that Rattle Blanket Woman’s family was Miniconjou. Ellen In the Woods (statement made for Jack Meister) stated that Rattle Blanket Woman was a Miniconjou.

According to genealogical information obtained in 1986, Rattle Blanket Woman's parents were Runs After Enemy and White Water (Under Water) [Woman]. This same information reported two full sisters of Rattle Blanket Woman, Looks At Her and Good Looking Woman, also identifying these women's husbands and details on descendants. [Lakota Times, November 19, 1986.] Elaine Quiver has confirmed to me the details of this genealogy. More recently, statements made in connection with the Clown family legal claim have asserted that Rattle Blanket Woman and the above named sisters were daughters of Black Bull (Black Buffalo), 1760-1815, who was a chief met by Lewis & Clark and recognized by them as the principal chief of the Sicangu Lakota. Other children of Black Bull included One Horn (painted by Catlin in 1832; killed by a buffalo bull in 1835), and Lone Horn (the Miniconjou principal chief, died 1875/6), according to this account.

Rattle Blanket Woman certainly belonged to an extensive and well-connected family. We can adduce further evidence to identify more of her 'brothers' and 'sisters' - always with the rider that these kinship terms may reflect relationships that Euro-Americans recognize as cousins or even more distant blood and affinal relations. In some cases, such terms may refer to ceremonial 'fictive' relationships like the ritual adoptive status of hunka.

One Miniconjou relative of Crazy Horse's was certainly Touch the Clouds (ca. 1836-1905), son of the tribal head chief Lone Horn II (ca. 1814-76). According to Charles Eastman, Touch the Clouds and Crazy Horse were cousins [Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, p. 104]. This has led to speculation that Rattle Blanket Woman was a kinswoman of Lone Horn. The scenario propounded above, whereby Rattle Blanket Woman and Lone Horn were full-brother and sister, would dovetail with such speculation. On the other hand, Elaine Quiver (statements to KMB and Jack Meister, November 2001) stated that Rattle Blanket Woman and the mother (rather than father) of Touch the Clouds (i.e. the wife of Lone Horn) were related, perhaps as cousins. Given Lakota prescriptions against marrying kin, these two explanations seem mutually exclusive. Although it does not clear up the confusion entirely, we have a statement from the Touch the Clouds’ family that confirms a very close relationship to Crazy Horse. According to an affidavit statement (in South Dakota Historical Society) by Touch the Clouds' son, Amos Charging First, Touch the Clouds addressed Crazy Horse as his "brother", consistent in the kinship scheme with a relationship through either his father's brother or his mother's sister.

There seems to be no unequivocal contemporary document that explicitly identifies Crazy Horse’s mother as a Miniconjou. However, since even rudimentary census counts of Lakota bands did not begin until thirty years after Rattle Blanket Woman’s tragic death, this is not surprising. She died too early to be named on allotment records, introduced in the early 20th Century, which routinely identified the allotee’s parents.

However, I am confident that, while further research may clarify the confusing details of family links, Crazy Horse’s mother was a Miniconjou. She was Rattle Blanket Woman, born about 1814, and married to Crazy Horse’s father Worm about 1836. She bore a daughter, who seems to have been named Looks At Her (presumably after her aunt; in the Lakota kinship scheme another mother), in ca. 1837; and then bore her famous son Crazy Horse (known in childhood as Curly Hair) in the early fall of 1840. She and her husband, however, fell into marital difficulties. Deeply unhappy, Rattle Blanket Woman hanged herself at the end of 1844. This left profound emotional scars on her four-year old son.

Rattle Blanket Woman and the Miniconjou-Oyuhkpe Band Connection

One of the major Oglala bands of the 19th Century was the Oyuhkpe, which settled on Pine Ridge Reservation in the Wounded Knee District. In the 19th Century its great leaders included such chiefs as Tobacco, White Plume, Black Fox, the latter’s son Kicking Bear, and Big Road – in every case men with strong links to the Northern Lakota divisions. The band has always had very strong Miniconjou connections. It is my belief that the Oyuhkpe band actually was part of the Miniconjou oyate for much of the period 1760-1830. Subsequently they shifted back to the Oglala circle, but continued to maintain very strong Northern Lakota links – especially Miniconjou, but also to the Itazipco and Hunkpapa – until the reservation system terminated the old migratory way of life. Crazy Horse had very strong ties to this band – indeed an agency document from 1874 states that he was an Oyuhkpe. One Oyuhkpe sub-band was known as the Wakan or Sacred band (it may be the outfit to which Kicking Bear’s family belonged). My reconstruction of early Lakota history suggests that this was a very conservative band, with strong links to the Calf Pipe Keepers; sister tiyospaye existed among the Itazipco and Hunkpapa. Crazy Horse had an intimate connection to this tiyospaye. When he married in 1870, it was an Oyuhkpe woman (Black Shawl) from the Big Road tiyospaye that he took as wife.

Two statements explicitly identify links between Rattle Blanket Woman’s family and Oyuhkpe band members. One statement identifies a 'sister' of Rattle Blanket Woman. The mother of the Oglala war-leader Kicking Bear, prominent in the Ghost Dance of 1890, is said by descendants to have been the sister of Crazy Horse's mother (David Humphreys Miller, Ghost Dance, 288). This woman was called Iron Cedar Woman, a name we shall see recurring in the genealogy. Probably born about the early 1820's, Iron Cedar Woman became the younger or second wife of Black Fox (aka Cut Forehead), a headman in the Oglala Oyuhkpe band. Her five children included Kicking Bear (born about 1846), Flying Hawk (born 1852), and Black Fox II. All of these sons were close comrades of Crazy Horse in their adult life. As sons of a woman Crazy Horse would have addressed as 'mother', they would have been classified in the Lakota kinship scheme as his 'younger brothers', or sunka. Conversely, they would have addressed Crazy Horse as ciye, or 'elder brother'. (Iron Cedar Woman's husband fathered a further eight children by his first wife.)

Another close female relative of Rattle Blanket Woman can be adduced from the memories of Eagle Elk. Like Kicking Bear, Eagle Elk was born into the Oyuhkpe band. Crazy Horse, stated Eagle Elk, "chose to call me 'cousin' [tahansi] from the marriage of his mother." Defining the relationship more closely, Eagle Elk stated that: "My father married Crazy Horse's aunt." (Eagle Elk and Crazy Horse were also related through their fathers, who were themselves "cousins".) A distinction is here evident which suggests that Rattle Blanket Woman and Eagle Elk's mother, Good Plume, were cousins (sicepansi) rather than full sisters. Good Plume's family was "from near Sisseton", suggesting antecedents among the Upper Council Santees - a fact confirmed by the family's visits to "Sisseton" (probably the Upper Agency in Minnesota). [Eagle Elk-John G. Neihardt Interviews, 1944, Missouri Historical Society] In respect of Crazy Horse's veneration of his mother's memory, it is worth noting that Eagle Elk was born in 1851, seven years after the suicide of Rattle Blanket Woman. His 'choosing' to call Eagle Elk 'cousin' was, therefore, an honoring of his mother, suggesting something of the deep bond between mother and son.

Knowing the strength of the links between the Oyuhkpe band and the Miniconjou, I believe that these Oyuhkpe links for Rattle Blanket Woman strengthen the case for her Miniconjou background.


The Corn Family and Crazy Horse’s step-mothers: a second Miniconjou Connection

New information from the Clown family has uncovered a wealth of genealogical data, much of it confusing and contradictory, but rooted in the fundamental fact that Julia Iron Cedar Clown (born ca. 1860) knew Crazy Horse as her ‘brother’. Although much of this evidence is highly contentious, I do not think that she was a biological sister in the European sense. However, in a Lakota sense she clearly was very closely related. My reading of this evidence is as follows.

The Miniconjou chief Corn or Corn Man, painted by Catlin in 1832, was the father of a large family. In 1839 Corn Man was noted by Nicollet as one of five Miniconjou band chiefs. Corn fathered Red Legs or Red Leggings Woman, and at least three other named children: a son, Bull Head, and two daughters, Iron Between Horns and Kills Enemy, both of whom "were married to Crazy Horse". By her marriage to a man named Woman Breast, Red Legs had the following children: Julia Iron Cedar, Leo Combing, James Bear Pipe, Peter Wolf, and Coming Home Last.

Both of the other daughters, Iron Between Horns and Kills Enemy, “were married to Crazy Horse”. The latter is Worm, or Old Man Crazy Horse, the father of the famous war leader. This gains some support by the appearance of Bull Head I as a 'brother' to the co-wives, which has always been a keystone of my understanding of the Miniconjou dimension to the Crazy Horse genealogy.

Three men identified as Crazy Horse's "uncles" (leksi) were probably men whom Iron Between Horns and Kills Enemy called their younger brothers. By 1870 they were minor headmen among the Miniconjous, and it was in their camp that Crazy Horse recuperated after the shooting by No Water. In probable order of age, these uncles were Ashes (born before ca. 1830: killed at Wounded Knee, 1890?); Bull Head (born ca. 1831); and Spotted Crow (born ca. 1833). Bull Head is remembered by the Clown family as a brother to Crazy Horse’s step-mothers.

Men bearing the two latter names signed the Land Agreement at Cheyenne River in 1889 as Signatory numbers 561 and 575, respectively. Ashes visited Red Cloud Agency in May 1873, and for rationing purposes was credited with leading four lodges of Miniconjous at Red Cloud the following winter, 1873-74. In 1877, He Dog recalled, Crazy Horse's uncle Spotted Crow was one of the advisers who persuaded him against going to Washington with the Lakota delegation from Red Cloud Agency. [Eleanor S. Hinman, 'Oglala Sources on the Life of Crazy Horse’.]

I have seen copies of heirship files from Cheyenne River which further state that Bull Head had another brother, Has Horns, whose son was named Charles Corn (1853-1939) – surely because his grandfather was the chief Corn Man.

Re Julia Iron Cedar calling Crazy Horse her brother (presumably elder brother, tiblo): it is worth observing that the above scenario creates a plausible context. Julia would have addressed any sisters of her mother as 'mother', and any children of those sisters as her own brothers and sisters. Thus she would reckon Young Crazy Horse as her brother, consistent with statements from family tradition.

There was a Young Bull Head, born ca. 1852, and noted in the 1887 Rosebud Agency Census as enrolled in the Northern Band - Miniconjous and Sans Arcs who had surrendered at Spotted Tail Agency in 1877. This younger Bull Head was a close associate of Crazy Horse's, because Horn Chips told Judge Eli S. Ricker in 1907 that the feather Crazy Horse wore "to his honor" (probably an eagle down plume marking his status as one of the class of hunkayapi) was then owned by Bull Head, who had relocated to Cheyenne River.

Regarding a link between the families of Rattle Blanket Woman and Iron Between Horns and Kills Enemy, the step-mothers of Crazy Horse are frequently identified as ‘sisters’ of Rattle Blanket Woman. Full sisterhood seems to be ruled out. Again, we need to establish just what the family connection was, but I suggest that in a European sense these women may have been cousins.


The Sicangu Connection

Ÿ Crazy Horse's "mother was Spotted Tail's sister." Hyde, Red Cloud's Folk, p. 298 n.
Ÿ " 'Spotted Tail' said that 'Crazy Horse' was his nephew": Bourke, On the Border with Crook, p. 396.
Ÿ "Was Crazy Horse related to Spotted Tail?/Answer [by Red Feather] - I don't know."
Ÿ Gathers The Grapes and Corn (Woman) – two sisters of Spotted Tail, married Worm after the death of Rattle Blanket Woman (Donovin Sprague statement to KMB, January 13, 2004)

The above evidence seems to contradict the Miniconjou connection we have established for Crazy Horse’s mother and step-mothers. However, Victor Douville was emphatic that Spotted Tail’s family had extensive northern links (through the Aske band lineage, for which see below), and that Crazy Horse’s step-mothers were Miniconjou. The immediate family background of Spotted Tail (1823-81) is as follows: his father was a Sihasapa (which confirms some northern connection); while his mother belonged to the leading family of the Wazhazha band, which was usually associated with the Sicangu. While details surely remain to be fully clarified, I feel that Donovin’s statement, which again explicitly links the name Corn to Crazy Horse’s step-mothers, is fundamental in establishing a link. I suggest that – once more – these women were not biological or full-sisters to Spotted Tail. A connection would work like this:

A woman that Spotted Tail called ‘mother’, perhaps a sister of his biological mother Walks With the Pipe, married Miniconjou chief Corn. Their children would have been ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to Spotted Tail.

I therefore suggest that Gathers The Grapes and Corn are the same women as Iron Between Horns and Kills Enemy (although I am not sure which one corresponds to which!).

After Crazy Horse’s death his father and stepmother/s settled at Rosebud, hinting that there was a definite Sicangu connection. Worm died there, about 1882. One of his wives (Iron Between Horns?) died at the home of a kinsman, Felix Bald Eagle, about 1884. Like Worm, she was buried along Rosebud Creek. Although very far from clear, it may be that the other wife (Kills Enemy?) died a few days after Crazy Horse, in September 1877. According to the diary of Spotted Tail agent Jesse Lee, on September 17, “Crazy Horse’s wife died, and her body was placed on the platform beside his body”. Neither of young Crazy Horse’s wives (Black Shawl and Nellie Larabee) died at this time: the reference may be to the wife of Old Man Crazy Horse.



The Oglala Connection


Crazy Horse had very close relationships with the Miniconjou. At key transitions in his life – in 1851-52, in 1858, and in 1870 – he chose to make protracted stays with the people of his mother and step-mothers. He obviously felt comfortable there, in a reassuring environment. By contrast, he seems to have been distinctly uncomfortable during his known stays among the Sicangu people of Spotted Tail. However, most of his life was spent among the Oglala, where he and his father enjoyed a prominent place in the Hunkpatila band, led by the Man Afraid of His Horse dynasty of chiefs.

Worm may have had northern antecedents – some suggest a Miniconjou connection for his family too; Victor Douville suggested to me a possible link to the Itazipco – but his home was among the Oglala. The biographical statement by Joseph Eagle Hawk (‘son’ of He Dog) states plainly that “Crazy Horse’s father is an original Oglala Sioux, and his mother is from Cheyenne River . . .” (‘History of Crazy Horse’, typescript, p. 11, Museum of the Fur Trade, Chadron, Neb.) .

The Oglala identification is borne out by the family connection to Black Elk. According to Nicholas Black Elk: “Crazy Horse’s grandfather and Black Elk’s grandfather [Black Elk II] were two of five brothers”, and were sons of Black Elk I [born ca. 1760?]: see Sixth Grandfather p. 323. According to Horn Chips (1907 interview with Judge E. S. Ricker), and Harvey White Woman (descendant of Little Hawk, March 2004 statement to Jack Meister), the father of Worm was Makes the Song. Harvey and Johnson Holy Rock (statement March 10, 2004) stated that Makes the Song was a holy man. He must have been born ca. 1785-90, and he and his first wife (name unknown?) had at least three children: Worm (born ca. 1811), Big Woman (born ca. 1815), and a son, killed in battle 1844, who may be the Male Crow (Kangi Bloka) of the Winter Counts. Later Makes the Song married a younger wife, Good-Haired Otter Woman (Ptan-Hin-Waste-Win), born ca. 1810, who bore Little Hawk (Cetan Ciqala, aka Long Face, Ite Hanska), born ca. 1836. This man, although only four years older than the famous Crazy Horse, would have been one of his ate or ‘fathers’.

Kingsley Bray

[kingsleybray]

NOTES ON THE CRAZY HORSE GENEALOGY
by
KINGSLEY M. BRAY
PART 2:
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES ON THE CRAZY HORSE-MINICONJOU CONNECTION


This section is simply a collection of notes and observations on individuals that seem to bear out the Crazy Horse-Miniconjou connection.

Among the Heads of Lodges listing for Cheyenne River Agency, census of November 1871, is Miniconjou Lodge Head No. 53, "The Bull that is lying on the ground". This name seems equivalent to Bull Lays on Ground, rated as married to Looks At Her, Rattle Blanket Woman's sister.

No. 117 is "The bull Head" - possibly one of Crazy Horse's uncles.

Among the signatories to the 1889 Crook Land Agreement at Cheyenne River is listed, at no. 428, "Ta tank moka gliyuska, Bull Lays Down", age 44, i.e. born ca. 1845. The form is correctly Tatanka Maka Gliyuska, Bull Lays on Earth. This name seems equivalent to Bull Lays on Ground, rated as married to Looks At Her, Rattle Blanket Woman's sister.
Signatory no. 457 is "Wambli Iytanka, Setting Eagle No. 1", age 60, i.e. born ca. 1829.
Signatory 484 is "Heyaka cepa, Fat Clown", age 45, i.e. born ca. 1844 - possibly related to Amos Clown.
Signatory no. 519 is "Moto Mrnni opta kinyan, Bear Flying over Water", age 65, i.e. born ca. 1824. This man was a Scout in Crazy Horse's Scout Co. during spring/summer 1877 (Co. E: May-June; Co. C: July onward).
Signatory no. 530 is "Heyoka, Clown", age 24 (born ca. 1865), possibly the Amos Clown who married Crazy Horse's 'sister' Julia Iron Cedar. This man was Sans Arc.
Signatory no. 561 is "Tatanka Pa, Bull Head", age 58, i.e. born ca. 1831 - possibly one of Crazy Horse's 'uncles'.
Signatory no. 575 is "Kangi glixka, Spotted Crow", age 56, i.e. born 1833 - possibly another of Crazy Horse's 'uncles'.
Signatory no. 635 is "Ska Agli, Spotted Crow or Brings White", age 33, i.e. born ca. 1856 - possibly a son or relative of Spotted Crow (no. 575).


The Rosebud Agency Census of 1887 includes, among the Northern Band, "Crazy Horses Mother", age 90, i.e. born ca. 1797. (Possibly the mother of Worm, i.e. Old man Crazy Horse?)
Also in the Northern Band is listed Young Bull Head, age 35, i.e. born ca. 1852. This is possibly the half-brother of Julia Iron Cedar, a son of Woman Breast by a different wife than Julia's mother.

On October 20, 1994, Chris Ravenshead told me (phone conversation) that: "A woman who was for a while one of [Joseph] White Bull's wives was called Esther Smoking Woman. She had no other family at Cheyenne River, and some believe that she was a sister of Crazy Horse's. In her old age (she died before Chris came out [in the late 1970's]) she lived with the Eagle Chasing family." Vestal notes that "Smoky Woman" married White Bull in 1907, but that the marriage was short-lived (Vestal, Warpath, p. 241). The Eagle Chasing family belonged originally to the Aske band. In a more recent conversation, Chris told me that Esther Smoking Woman, the "sister" of Crazy Horse, died in the 1930's at Cherry Creek, where the Eagle Chasing family were settled.


Information on Corn Man (Oglala): I am satisfied that the 'Oglala' Corn Man (floruit 1871-1910) was definitely related to the Miniconjou chief Corn/Corn Man I (floruit 1832-39), probably father-son. Consider the following census information:

Ÿ June 1871, Corn Man listed at Fort Laramie council, next to Two Buffaloes (cf. Two Bulls below).
Ÿ December 1871, Corn Man living at Red Cloud Agency, classified as "Ogallalla", head of four lodges, 32 people, has received 1871 annuity goods.
Ÿ March, 1874: Red Cloud Agency Lodge tally (for ration issue) for winter 1873-74 lists Corn Man as head of five lodges, in Oyukhpe ("Oucapees") band.
Ÿ March, 1874: Red Cloud Agency Census lists Corn Man, family total 8 people.
Ÿ January 1, 1875: Spotted Tail Agency census lists Corn, family total 16 people.
Ÿ November 1876, Red Cloud Agency Census: Corn listed as one of four men in lodge no. 56 of Oglala Loafer band (other men: Kills the Enemy; Day; Wolf on Hill). Please note co-occurrence of Day, who is listed near High Bear in Dec. 1872 Cheyenne River Agency farming list.
Ÿ December 29, 1876: Cheyenne River Agency census for Miniconjous includes (p. 140) family led by High Bear: men include The Corn, and Select or Coffee (also Shows Dress, The Knife Scabbard, and Up the Creek). Of these only High Bear (2 Women, 3 Children) and Up the Creek (3 Women, 1 Child) has dependents listed. This is significant because of the co-occurrence of Coffee (cf. Spotted Tail Agency Census for May-June and December 1877).*
Ÿ May 15, 1877: "Corn Man's Wife and daughter" listed as at Red Cloud on 4-day pass from Spotted Tail Agency, pass issued May 10 (sic)
Ÿ May-June 1877: Spotted Tail Agency Census lists in Brule Band household consisting of three men: Corn Man, Coffee, and (as interlinear addition) Two Bull, plus these relatives: Corn Man has 4 Women, 7 Boys, 3 Girls, for a total of 16 (evidently including Two Bull); Coffee has 1 Woman, 1 Boy, for a total of 3.
Ÿ December 1877: Spotted Tail Agency census (p. 77) lists in Brule band household consisting of Corn Man (head of family), plus 5 women, 3 Boys, 4 Girls; and Two Bull, plus 2 Women, 1 Boy, for a total of 17. (Nb Coffee is listed separately in same band, plus 1 Woman, plus man Call Relation, for a total of 3.)
Ÿ October 26, 1878, Spotted Tail Agency Census (p. 126) lists Corn Man/Two Bull family as among Brules who have left the agency since the census of December 31, 1877; destination not recorded.
Ÿ 1890 Pine Ridge Census: lists family of Corn Man, age 68 (born 1822), wife Iron Leg (born 1833), son Trailer, Oyetawicape (born 1864), in Melt Band, White Clay District; lists family of Two Bulls, age 48 (born 1842), in Sahiyela Wakpa Community, White Clay District.
Ÿ 1891 Pine Ridge Census, Family 305, White Clay Dist.: lists family of Corn Man, Wahuwapa Wicasa, Male, Father of Family, Age 67, wife Iron Neck, Tahu maza, age 67, nephew Two Bulls, age 53.
Ÿ 1891 Rosebud Census: Corn listed as family head in Brule no. 2 Band (non- progressive), age 76 (born 1815).

* Please note re Cheyenne River Agency entry: High Bear (age 49: born 1827) was a headman or naca with a tiyospaye of eight lodges in the September 1876 Census (p.50-51). Among the lodge heads was Womans Dress (age 28: born 1848 – this is not the man implicated in the plot against Crazy Horse in 1877), Knife Scabbard (born 1846), Selected the Enemy (born 1850: presumably Select=Coffee). The latter's family was 2 Women, 1 Boy, 2 Girls. At some point in the fall of 1876 most of the tiyospaye left, because the contents pages of the Census amend the lodge total to 2 lodges. As of ca. Nov. 1876 High Bear had only his own lodge present, but he is still rated as a headman "Consolidated with Swan's band", i.e. the Glaglaheca band of Miniconjous. The December tally indicates that several men of the tiyospaye (without their families) have returned, and are living in High Bear's tipi.

Cheyenne River Census of December 1876 has amendment for Coffee: " 'Coffee' left Agency Sept. 8th 1878, destination New Red Cloud Agency, D.T." Nb that during September 1878 the Oglalas departed White River Forks to go to their new approved agency site at Pine Ridge. Note also this was the month for the Giveaway when Crazy Horse's soul was released (at Rosebud – just before departure for Pine Ridge?). Coffee would have been a 'younger brother' of Crazy Horse (as mother's sister's son).

Coffee is important because a man of this name (Coffee # 2) is said to have been the son of Looks At Her II (sister of Crazy Horse).

It is worth noting that the November 1871 Lodge Roll for Cheyenne River Agency lists together:
Ÿ Lodge 116 The high Bear
Ÿ Lodge 117 The bull Head
Ÿ Lodge 118 The Bear that goes out. . . .
Ÿ Lodge 129 The one that has horns
Ÿ
Please note that heirship papers establish that Bull Head (born 1831) had brothers: Bear Coming Out; and Has Horn, whose son was Charles Corn (born 1853). Has Horn was therefore probably born a little before 1830. All these names cluster on the 1871 Miniconjou roll, with High Bear again occurring with what we might call the Corn affinity. Note also that High Bear is "consolidated" with Swan's Glaglaheca band of Miniconjou in 1876, while in the January 1875 Cheyenne River Census his band (including Picked it out, i.e. = Select/Coffee) is grouped with tiyospaye linked to Makes Room (father of Joseph White Bull), i.e. the Inyanaoin band of Miniconjou.

Nb that the December 6, 1872 report of Cheyenne River Agent lists CRA people who have started farming. Note no. 112 High Bear, clustered near several names also clustered in the 1871 Lodge Roll, e.g. Holy Bear (cf. The Bear that is considered medicine); Little Bull; The one that makes him walk; Crow Woman (also 1875).





The Aske Band: Miniconjou and Sicangu Connections


From my conversations with Chris Ravenshead, I synthesize the following information:
The Aske band settled at Cheyenne River near Cherry Creek, but were distinct from both Hump's and Joseph White Bull's tiyospaye, which were also settled at Cherry Creek. The name means a tuft or lock of hair, and in early reservation times signified people who did not cut their hair, i.e. were traditional, 'non-progressive' Lakotas.

The Aske were an old band among the Miniconjous, and people belonging to it included Charley Blue Arm, Iron Cane, Eagle Chasing, White Feather, and Swift Dog. The woman called Esther Smoking Woman, said by some to have been a sister or cousin of Crazy Horse, lived in her old age with the Eagle Chasing family near Cherry Creek.

The genealogy of the Builds Fire family (see Chris Ravenshead conversation Feb. 25, 1995), stretches back to ca. 1800. One of Builds Fire's sons, Charging Hawk, of the generation born ca. 1825, and his son, Beautiful Bald Eagle (born 1860) were specifically identified as Aske. This suggests that Aske was a named entity as early as ca. 1820.

Many Aske were killed at Wounded Knee, including Charley Blue Arm's brother Pretty Hawk, and White Dog. The latter was a son of Black Moon, whose family had stayed in Canada in 1881, but occasionally visited Cheyenne River, until they finally returned permanently to the reservation in 1894. This suggests that the Black Moon family may have been Aske, since White Dog was only a youth at the time of his death. It is noteworthy that Paul High Back, born 1870, seems to have been another son of Black Moon, suggesting a family connection to High Backbone.

White Magpie and Pretty Bald Eagle, two families related to each other, and to the Runs After family, live today on opposite sides of the road at Cherry Creek. I had observed to Chris that men of that name may have belonged to Roman Nose's camp of Miniconjous in the 1870's (Roman Nose, also known as They Are Afraid of His Shield; prominent Miniconjou headman, great-grandfather of Stephen Charging Eagle of Red Scaffold). Pretty Bald Eagle, alive today, was born 1918/19, says he is full-blood Miniconjou, related to Brown Thunder and White Feather (Aske band, today that family lives at Dupree). There are families called Bald Eagle today at both Rosebud and Pine Ridge, and Victor Douville noted to me that all were related in some way. Today White Magpie owns an Oglala Winter Count.


The Iron Shell (Sicangu) connection

Susan Bettelyoun stated (MSS, Nebraska State Historical Society) that the Sicangu chief Iron Shell, born in 1815/16, The Year an Earth Lodge was Built By the Sans Arcs, belonged to the Aske, Tuft of Hair band. "They were good hearted people, but quick and active, and also quick tempered. If any of the people of the other bands lost control of their tongues they were accused of belonging to the Aske band." A modern newspaper story identified Iron Shell's band as the Aske Kluwipi.

From the Hassrick information, we know that Iron Shell was the son and grandson of headmen (naca) among the Miniconjous, the father being Shot in the Heel, the grandfather Crooked Hand. It seems likely that this tiyospaye was the Aske, and that part of the group joined the Brules in the period 1805-20, including the Iron Shell family.

Victor Douville told me that the name Aske was applied generally to the Northern Lakota divisions, rather like the term Saone, that it means 'to wrap the hair' (rather than braid it), and that, like Chris's first statement, it came to mean non-progressive, anti-American Lakotas in the war period 1854-80, and, subsequently, on the reservation. Northern Brule groups like the Wazhazhas and Wablenicas were said to be Aske. Spotted Tail, as the son of a Sihasapa man, was said to originally belong to the Aske, but that he lost favour with this group as he became more pro-American.

Crazy Horse and the Aske

Synthesizing this information, I suggest that Crazy Horse's Miniconjou mother and stepmothers may have been identified with the Aske band. (Victor Douville directly confirmed this identification: Conversation of May 7, 2002.) Moreover, the last surviving stepmother died on the Rosebud Reservation, where she lived with the family of Brule relatives called Bald Eagle. Both Victor and Chris stated that this family has collateral branches among the Oglalas, Miniconjous and Brules, and Chris specifically identified the Cheyenne River Bald Eagle family with the Aske band, an identification going back to ca. 1820.

Crazy Horse's mother was related as cousin to his two stepmothers, Iron Between Horns and Kills Enemy. If we assume that Runs After Enemy was Aske, I suggest that his sister was married to Corn, and that their daughters included Iron Between Horns and Kills Enemy. Corn must have belonged to another band (Unkceyuta?), but by common Lakota practice, the daughters of a family were often identified with the mother's tiyospaye. Thus all three women could have been Aske band members. The fact that Esther Smokey Woman, related to Crazy Horse through his stepmothers, lived with the Eagle Chasing family, also identified specifically with the Aske band, confirms a connection between Crazy Horse's family and this Miniconjou tiyospaye.

Esther Smokey Woman

Esther Smokey Woman was born about 1859/60 and died during the 1930's. The most precise statement of her relationship to Crazy Horse comes from Ellen Condon In the Woods, who states that "Smokey Woman was Crazy Horse first cousin. She always talk about him[.] She had an uncle Combing, - (Charles son) Francis was his daughter - she married Joe Black Bear, live in Cherry Creek".
Esther's "uncle" (probably her mother's brother) Combing may be Leo Combing (born ca. 1848, still alive 1918), the eldest son of Woman Breast and Red Legs. As the elder brother of Julia Iron Cedar, Combing would have been a sunka, i.e. a classificatory younger brother of Crazy Horse (a cross-cousin in Euro-American terminology). This should make Esther a niece of Crazy Horse's, but the generations may be askew. Perhaps this Combing is not Leo Combing?

Note that Ellen also states that Lone Horn was Esther Smokey Woman's "father or uncle too". This is a possible key to unlock the Lone Horn relationship to Crazy Horse, but we need to clarify some of the details. Discounting the possibility that Lone Horn was Smokey Woman's biological father, he is most likely an uncle, classified by the Lakotas as leksi (mother's brother), unless he was father's brother, in which case he would be classed as a father (ate).

I assume that Esther's mother was a sister to Crazy Horse's mother or stepmothers (hence "first cousin"/classificatory sister). If Lone Horn was married to another of these 'sisters', Esther would have called him 'father'. I am tending to the belief that one of Lone Horn's wives (possibly Stands on Ground, the mother of Touch the Clouds) was a sister/parallel cousin to Rattle Blanket Woman and/or Iron between Horns and Kills Enemy.


Notes from Testimony of Leo Combing in the heirship cases of Red Leg and Julia Rushes, August 13, 1920: transcripts supplied by the Clown family, through Jack Meister, July 2001

Q. Who were the father and mother of Red Leg?
A. I have heard that her father’s name was Corn but I don’t know her mother’s name and that is all I know about them.
.………………….
Q. Did she [Red Legs] have any brothers and sisters and if so, name them and tell what you can about them.
A. She had two sisters that I saw and I have heard of others but never saw them. One was called Iron Between Horns, and the other one was called Kills Enemy. These are all the names that I know. She had one brother that died before I was born, when the Indians had some sickness and he was called Bull Head, never married and never had issue. Both sisters died before allotments.
Q. Was Iron Between Horns married and if so, how many times?
A. She was married one time.
Q. Who was her husband? A. Crazy Horse.
Q. How and when were they married? A. Indian custom long ago.
Q. Is he living or dead? A. He is dead.
Q. When did he die? A. He died about 40 years ago.
Q. Did they have any children and if so, how many?
A. They had one, a boy.
Q. What was his name? A. High Horse.
Q. Is he living or dead? A. He died long ago, before allotments when a young man, killed in an Indian war, and left no issue. There is nothing left of her family at all.
Q. Was Kills Enemy married and if so, how many times?
A. She was married to the same as Iron Between Horns, Crazy Horse, by the old Indian custom, and she died first, then Crazy Horse died and last Iron Between Horns died and all of them died long before allotments.
Q. Did Kills Enemy have any children and if so, how many?
A. She had two is what I have heard but they both died before I was born and there is nothing left of her family.


Kingsley Bray

[Dietmar]

Kingsley,

unbelievable important and interesting information!!

Best wishes

Dietmar

[ephriam]

Kingsley:

Wow! Its going to take some time to go through everything that you listed here. I am looking forward to your upcoming biography on Crazy Horse!

I am not certain that I agree with the hypothesis that the Oyuhpe were at one time part of the Miniconjou. H. Scudder Mekeel's notes imply that the Oyuhpe might have been the original core group (or "head band") of the Oglala. The Kuinyan later became head band of the Oglala and were eventually displaced by the Itesica, so that by the 1870s this tiyospaye referred to itself as the "True Oglala". Everything that I have suggests that the Oyuhpe always considered themselves Oglala.

However, I do agree that there is plenty of evidence that the Oyuhpe and the Miniconjou were closely aligned together. They were neighbors, with overlapping hunting grounds and close intermarrying, particularly in the period after the other Oglala tiyospaye moved further west after the establishment of Fort Laramie. Just my opinion -- but always ready to revise with more evidence!

I also thought you might be interested in the record for Female Breast from the Sitting Bull Surrender Census, September 1881, listed in Hump's band:

A-ze Tits 63
Hu-sa-sa-la Red Legs wife 63
Ma-ca [not translated] son 22
Hante Maza win Iron Cedar 12

This family was transferred to the Cheyenne River Agency in 1882 where they appear in the 1886 census:

Breast of Female, 61
Red Legs, 61
Iron Cedar, 18

I will go through the census indexes for the other names and see what I can find.

Ephriam

[misty]

Did Crazy Horse and Black Buffalo Woman have a child together?

I have read that Black Buffalo Woman had 2 sons and 2 daughters. Does anyone know their names?

Thanks Misty

[grahamew]

You're probably aware of this, but In Cash and Hoover's To Be An Indian: An Oral History, an informant at Rosebud, George Kills In Sight tells Jospeh Cash (in 1967) that CH is 'sort of' related to his grandmother on his father's side. Nothing's made explicit, except that he notes his grandfather was Big Crow, then he seems to mix up CH's surrender with his death, but adds that his grandfather referred to CH as 'brother-in-law' and handed him a six-shooter. Interestingly, Kills In Sight also talks about his uncle, Coffee (presumably the son or grandson of the man mentioned by Kingsley), who knew where CH was buried.

[Dietmar]

Maybe there are some more indications for a connection between Crazy Horse and the Miniconjou:

- Crazy Horse´s mentor High Backbone was Miniconjou

- the Miniconjou Club Man married Crazy Horse´s sister (Looks at her?)

- Club Man and his brother Little Killer were close associates of CH

- another close associate, friend and relative?, Kicking Bear, married a Miniconjou woman (Woodpecker Woman, a niece of Miniconjou chief Big Foot)

Just my thoughts as I was reading Kingsley´s postings.

[Dietmar]

Kingsley,

Richard Hardorff listed three children of Makes the Song and his first wife:

Worm, an unknown son and Rattle Stone Woman (who married One Horse)

Is Rattle Stone Woman the same person as Big Woman in your post?

Dietmar

[crzhrs]

To all who are working on this thread:

Your info is outstanding and work is meticulous. Congratulations on the hard work and the results.

From my pseudnoym (spelling?) CRZHRS you can see where my loyalties are . . . but my knowledge of CH is far less than what yours is.

Where do you get your info? Are you using the Ricker or Hinman interviews? Spoken to descendants? Great stuff and I look forward to more.

[agnes]

Dear Kingsley!

Very great work! I all agree with You and there's only a pair of confusing points:

1. The Hinman Interviews and Richard Hardorff (and other sources I think) all mentions the younger brother of Crazy Horse.

2. For me it is too strange that a Brule chief Black Buffalo was the father of One Horn (and also of Rattling Stone Woman) who later became a Miniconjou chief.

I think the Fair Haired Otter Woman was perhaps a Kiowa, because her name is a slightly unfamiliar among the Lakotas. Her name remind me to a Kiowa man, named Fair Haired Boy/Old Man.

Sincerely:
Agnes

["Hunk" Papa]

Everything I have read indicates that His Crazy Horse was an Oglala of the Hunkpatila band, but on the Indian Memorial at the LBH he is described as "Minikon-konjou Lakota". Does anyone know whay this is, or indeed what Minikon-konjou means? I know that Minneconjou or Mniconjou means 'Those who plant by the river' but the Memorial appellation eludes me.

[grahamew]

If you read the whole thread, it becomes clear - his mother was a Miniconjou