Crazy Horse Genealogy

[clw]

In the Combing interview of 1920 why was the question of whether Waglula and Woman's Breast even asked? It would seem that the questioner would have had to have been suspicious (even back then) that they were the same person otherwise why even bring it up.....unless they were just joking around. Also was the interview before or after the Wolf murder?

Great observation. The interview was AFTER the Wolf murder.

[ladonna]

kingsleybray said:

Thanks, Leyton. I do understand something of the alienating feeling you might get if you learnt that someone from the other side of the world is researching your family history. And I understand an ingrained suspicion from reservation communities mired for generations in poverty that anyone from that outside world must be making megabucks out of - let's call it their grandma's memories. In most cases where I've been able to make personal contact - regrettably, not with the Clown family - I've been able to convince people of my good faith.

To close on what I at any rate see as a positive note, when I parted with a Hunkpapa-Sihasapa friend a couple of months ago, she told me that, apart from her status as a tribal historian and story-teller, what she was REALLY (twinkle in eye) interested in was ENGLISH HISTORY! So I think we'll have completed the circle when I get a Native American researcher asking me about my family's account of conditions in 20th Century industrial Yorkshire, or my grandfather's WWI service in the English cavalry . . . I'd be happy to help!

Kingsley Bray

Kingsley ;)I am finally able to post on this site. I just wanted to support you and your research. I hope that in the future we can work together on the history of my people. I want so much to learn more of your people and who you really are.

For the record, Kingsley did his best to contact people on the reservations and talked to people on all sides of the issue.
Jack, whom is a dear friend kept calling everyone he could think of on this issue. In some cases people on Cheyenne River refuse to speak to him so an opportunity was missed.

I listened to Kingsley speak in Chadron NE. and it is the first time I can really say that that a non native spoke from our peoples point of view.
The people in Cheyenne River have a story that need to be heard too. As historians it is the research that is important. I am waiting to see the Video.
The only way to get the word out about our people is thought peaceful debates.
LaDonna Brave Bull

[apsalooka]

Here a picture of Womans Dress...I think he played a major role in the arrest of Crazy Horse.



Henri

[d o harris]

Hey, people, I make this post for one reason. In light of what Brock has been posting, and before we be over taken by "new evidence" perhaps we ought to consider the evidence of Mr. Bray and the comments of Mr. Dickson. It is to bring into view previous discussions of this issue that I make this comment .

[ephriam]

I have finally gotten a copy of the new DVD and have had a chance to review its content. For those of you who have not seen the presentation, it is well done, rich with detail. I enjoyed learning more about the family histories.

However, as to the core question of whether Worm and Woman's Breast are in fact the same individual, I remain unconvinced. I think I have posted this before, but we have both of these individuals in the census records, and they overlap in 1881. We can show in the reservation records Worm surrendering at the Spotted Tail Agency in April 1877, transferred to the Red Cloud Agency in May 1877 and returning to Spotted Tail following the death of his son in Sept. 1877. He appears in the Rosebud Agency census taken in the fall of 1881. There is a gap in the census records between 1881 and 1886; then in the 1886 census records, "Crazy Horse's mother" (Worm's wife) as a widow.

As to Woman's Breast (who census records show was a decade younger than Worm), he appears to have surrendered at Fort Keogh during the 1880-81 period, was transferred to the Standing Rock Agency in the summer of 1881 and was counted in the Sitting Bull Surrender Census in the fall of 1881. So, at the same time Worm is being counted down at Rosebud, Woman's Breast is being counted at Standing Rock. Woman's Breast was then transferred to Cheyenne River in the spring of 1882 and he appears in the regular annual census at Cheyenne River from 1886 through his death in 1900.

In addition, we have the comments of Worm recorded in September 1877 by Lieut. Lemly, in which he states that he had three children, Crazy Horse being the last surviving one. If Crazy Horse Sr. (Worm) had other children through Red Legs as claimed by the Clown family, then why did he not mention his other children?

I think the evidence is clear that these are two seperate families. However, I agree with Kingsley that these two families are related, by marriage.

ephriam

[brock]

Ephraim,
I talked to the family spokesman last night and read him your analysis. He told me that he is listed in the ration records first as 'Kills At Night' and then as 'Breast'. His probate lists him as 'Woman's Breast' and other relative probates list him as 'Breast of a Female'. If you wish to have an interview with the family spokesman directly leave me a message above and I'll get you his number. I know in the DVD it talks about 'Kills at Night' and 'Woman's Breast' but the DVD did not get into the detail of the ration records or the variations of the name. They also told me he's not the same one as listed on the census of Standing Rock.
You can also ask them about the Lemly statement. My personal take on that is with Sept 1877 being when Crazy Horse was killed, the paranoid mood of the time, and suddenly being asked about any additional children by a soldier, he probably was just being a good father.

[brock]

Ephraim, A couple of additional notes:

The Clown family knew the actual physical description of the Grattan Fight terrain before we got there. As luck would have it Steve Fulmer's grandfather had owned and helped till the land where the battlefield was. Their description was quite surprising to the bookstore manager Pat Fullmer, Steve's mom, and she had to go get her dad (who I believe was in his 80's). We learned that the hills that the Clown family described had been mostly flattened to make more usable farmland. Only a small portion of the hill where Crazy Horse was is still there. That's where I got that shot of the field. The slough was filled in, once again, for more farmland. This happened when Steve's grandfather was young. It is not very well known or written about, especially in the detail they described it. Yet they had never physically been or seen any pictures. I have Steve on video tape talking about this, but we decided we didn't want to make this a defensive piece. So it doesn't appear in the final product. That's at Fort Laramie NPS. That's somebody that can be called.

Also at Deer Medicine Rock there is a rock with a carving of Crazy Horse's death vision that their grandfather told them about. They went to the owner of the land who's family has owned it since about 1880 named Bailey. They went by features of the land, found it and interpreted it all before Bailey's eyes. Bailey had known about this carving since he was a boy (Bailey's at least in his 70's). But he had never witnessed the good medicine they used to find it. He is a firm believer in the family because of what he saw. I'm sure he would talk to you. If you leave a message I could probably find you his number.

There's a couple of the back notes on the making of the DVD.

[ephriam]

Brock:

I would love to visit with the family to learn additional details. You can email me at [e-mail] with details of how I might contact them.

Do you known which ration records Woman's Breast is listed as Kills at Night? I assume Cheyenne River?

I do not agree with the comment regarding the 1881 Standing Rock Agency census. As you can see below, it is the same family. Woman's Breast is shown married to Red Legs and has two children with him, a son Maca (Lakota for Wolf; = Peter Wolf) and a daughter Iron Cedar, the name for Julia Clown. This precisely matches the family oral history and probate records:

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

I agree that it is possible the Worm was unwilling to share additional information about family members to an army officer in 1877. But then how can one explain the comment by He Dog, a close friend of Crazy Horse, speaking in 1930 who said that Worm had three children, with Crazy Horse as the middle child? This matches what Worm said that night in 1877.

I am certainly not questioning or disrespecting the family's oral traditions, however, as historians, I think we have to compare all sources against other sources regardless of their origin. Just want to get it right!

ephriam

[brock]

Ephraim:
I just got off the horn with Doug...the person you'll be talking to. I misunderstood and your 1881 Standing Rock is correct except they called it the 'Northern Camps' and I understood that as Cheyenne River. I apologize for that one. He said you'll find Kills At Night at Fort Bennent, Owl River, and Forest City...and probably at Upper Platte. Also at Pine Ridge. It was a shell game to keep the agencies confused so they would not find Waglula. There also would be other Lakota named Kills At Night and they would set up the ration card. So whatever name he chose there were multiple Kills At Nights of different ages. Then maybe the one that set up the ration card at say Owl River would go to say Pine Ridge to get their rations at the same time Waglula would go in with several elders in a group to mix in at the Owl River location. They would go on the first day because the agencies would rush them through and they didn't have time to wire the other agency in time to catch multiple rations. He would state he was a visiting relative and show the ration card to say Fort Bennent one month, Owl River the next and so on so it would appear he WAS a visitor. They almost caught him as they questioned him on the Kills At Night name (someone at the agency remembered the real Kills At Night) so he changed it to Breast. Other Lakota would have the same name to create confusion and the whole process started all over again.

Oh, and on the He Dog statement, Doug said he was talking about the children that survived Waglula. But for some reason it was interpreted as just three children. As far as the Crazy Horse middle child statement Doug believes He Dog was confused after all he was quite old...or it could have been misinterpreted. Doug said He Dog was one of the people that protected Waglula up until Waglula's death.

I'll e-mail you his number.

[clw]

We have to understand the surprising depth of the protection, thru disinformation, that went on behind the scenes and view the census records in that context. Even before the LBH, Waglula didn't list himself as a headman, knowing that it would lead the government to Crazy Horse. I admire the years of work by historians like Ephraim and Kingsley that have been invested in researching the census records. They provide the gridwork that allows the families fill in the background and show us how this probably played out in reality, which I find just facinating!

[brock]

Not that it's a big deal but some interesting and fun info on the names Ephriam came up with on the family that the family shared with me yesterday evening that can be passed along. The family spells Iron Cedar Hante-sa Maza wi. She got that name because she was born near a creek where there was lots of petrified wood...hence Iron Cedar. Red Leggins or Red Legs they spelled Hunska-sa. She got her name because when she was small she ran through some buck brush and scratched her legs up and then they were wrapped in some kind of cloth, that cloth turned red from the scratches underneath leaking through...hence Red Leggins. And Maca killed a wolf at a young age, hence Wolf or Maca. And of course Breast, or 'Tits' as the agency crudely has it, was a shared name with others primarily for the benefit of rations.

[brock]

This is actually for crzhrs and shatonska from a different thread, but I had trouble posting to that thread as it kicked back two of my posts as prohibited. Must be a software flaw. Anyway, the documentation on the Frenchman is in the burial report...but he is listed as a 'white captive' and was buried in a tree on a scaffold Indian style. He had on buckskin and his red hair was in a pony-tail. His first name was Jean but it was too hard for me to work out the phonetics over the phone to the last name as it is very French.

[brock]

Ephriam:
The family wishes to thank you for your interest and said if you wish to post any news from your talks with them, they have no objections.

[brock]

Diane,
I'd be happy to respond to you on the Hump thread...but I still get a message that I'm "not allowed to respond on 'that' thread". I'm not quite sure why...but I think it's at your end.
But thank you for the kind words anyway.

[ephriam]

Brock:

Thank you. I enjoyed the conversation with Doug as well. I will call him back with some additional questions to clarify a couple of issues before I post any thoughts. Thank you for hooking us up!

ephriam