Crazy Horse's shirt

[Don Blake]

Hi, Ephriam.

You said elswhere on this board that you doubted the shirt Little Big Man gave Bourke was Crazy Horse's. Could you explain some more please? When I was last in New York, I thought the shirt looked rather small in comparison to the other shirts on display. Too small for a man of 5' 8", if we take Bourke's estimation into account, unless it wasn't meant to be the same type of fit as the others.

I was in Denver a couple of years back and noted that the museum held a Lakota shirt similar in design. Of course, I ought to have bothered myself to do some research on it (such as asking about the provenance) by now, but I didn't get around to it. I do wonder if it's connected in any way to the pictographs that a Denver journalist allegedly got from Crazy Horse and which the museum also holds...


I am, of course, aware, that the other shirt which for a long time was thought to be Crazy Horse's, was found to have been, at least in part, machine stitched.
Anyhow, thanks for any answer you can give.

[Ephriam Dickson]

Don:

There are a number of items, including at least three shirt that I am aware of, have been claimed to have belonged to Crazy Horse. This particular shirt was collected by Lieutenant John G. Bourke from Little Big Man at the Pine Ridge Agency in the summer of 1881. Little Big Man told Bourke that the shirt had once belonged "to the great chief of the Sioux, Crazy Horse, or had at least been worn by him." Bourke published a drawing of this shirt in his article "The Medicine Men of the Apaches," Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1892.

Of course it is possible this shirt was actually worn by Crazy Horse, however, I have become very sceptical of claims without more evidence, for reasons such as the second shirt you mentioned in the Nebraska State Historical Society which was found to have sewing machine stitching precluding it from that time period. For the Bourke shirt, photographs of Little Big Man in Washington D.C. in 1877 appear to show him wearing this shirt, or one very similar. So I just have my doubts.

If you would like to know more about this shirt and its design work, I would recommend Colin Taylor's excellent article, "Wakanyan: Symbols of Power and Ritual of the Teton Sioux," The Canadian Journal of Native Studies VII, 2 (1987): 237-257 which describes this shirt in great detail.

Ephriam

[Don Blake]

Thanks for that.

Where's the third shirt? I seem to remember corresponding with Raymond DeMallie years ago and he mentioned another shirt (in the Ohio or Iowa historical society or university collections?), but I have lost the letter.

I'd read Bourke about the shirt, but was surprised at the size when I saw it, unless, like I said, it was a smaller type of shirt. I was also surprised how similar the shirt in the Denver museum is to the one under consideration. The shirt worn by Little Big Man in the delegation photos is beaded, isn't it? At least it is in the photos I'm familiar with.

I didn't know about the Taylor article, so I'll have to hunt it down, although he did write about the shirt in his 'The Plains Indian'.

I'd be interested in your opinion of the ledger book drawings in the Denver museum (two of which are printed in Janet Berlo's 'Plains Indian Drawings'); do you have any idea whether the story behind their acquisition is true? Was George P. Walihan really the only newspaper correspondent to witness the surrender? That's not the impression I get from reading Hardorff's book, 'The Death of Crazy Horse'.

You get the feeling there's a lot of wishful thinking when it comes to surviving objects that allegedly belonge to Crazy Horse - the shield, being another example!

Thanks again.

[Don Blake]

Thanks again, Ephriam. Just found the article online!

[Ephriam Dickson]

Don:

George P. Wallihan (1851-1922) claimed to have witnessed the surrender of Crazy Horse and to have been "the only newspaper man present." However, his claim is not accurate. There were several other reporters present at the time of Crazy Horse's surrender and, perhaps most importantly, he was not there until several days later!

Wallihan was working at the time for the Cheyenne Daily Leader. He made a trip to the Black Hills in the spring of 1877 and then came south to the Red Cloud Agency, arriving on May 15, eight days after Crazy Horse's surrender. While at Red Cloud, Wallihan did send back to his home paper at least eight letters and telegrams. He witnessed the large council on May 25 when Crazy Horse and General Crook met for the first time (I suspect that this is what Wallihan was remembering years later when he said he saw the surrender). He did meet Crazy Horse, Red Cloud and interviewed General Crook. He also made a visit to the Spotted Tail Agency. He left the agencies about May 28 or 29, arriving back in Cheyenne by June 1. In his newspaper articles, he made no mention of the ledger book.

The Denver Art Museum has 8 pages (some with drawings on both sides). I only have xerox copies, but none of them have the individuals identified, including the one that Berlo pulished as a drawing of Crazy Horse. I am not certain what her justification was for identifying that individual as Crazy Horse. Unless the ID is written on the back, I have some doubts about her identification.

Wallihan wrote a brief description of how he obtained the drawings in 1915, but they betray either a lack of knowledge or a very bad memory. For example: "This book was presented to me by Crazy Horse, the Cheyenne Indian chief who was the real leader of the fighting forces of Indians in the great Sitting Bull rebellion in 1875-6. He was from Oklahoma and was the leader of the always warlike and blood-thirsty Cheyenne tribe. In one of his northern forays he met old Chief Sitting Bull, of the Sioux tribe, who placed him at the head of all his fighting forces..." His comments continue with the same inaccuracy! But his 1877 newspaper reports are of great interest.

Ephriam

[Don Blake]

Interesting - and odd!

Does Berlo identify one of the characters in the drawings as Crazy Horse in Plains Indian Drawings or are you referring to another article? If so, which of the drawings? I'm only familiar with the two published in the above-mentioned book.

Thanks again.

[Ephriam Dickson]

Don:

Sorry, my mistake! I did not look closely at the copies in my Wallihan file. Pages from the Wallihan ledger book have been published twice. It is in the second book, Evan M. Maurer, Visions of the People: A Pictorial History of Plains Indian Life (1992) that the author identifies the main character of the drawing as Crazy Horse (pg. 214). This same drawing appears as figure 112 in Berlo's book. For some strange reason, I did not xerox the text portion of Berlo's book describing that particular figure. Need to go back to the library! Sorry for the confusion.

Ephriam

[Don Blake]

No problem; tanks again for all your help.