White Cloud

[greenpheon]

I have an individual who contacted me wanting to know about White Cloud. I seem to remember a thread on him at one time but can't find it now. Isn't he the very tall Indian Warrior about 7 foot?

Greenpheon

[Diane Merkel]

Run a search of the Northern Plains Indians board, and you will find that several threads have mentioned White Cloud. (The search tool is in the gold band across the top of the board above the subject heading.) In fact, you might run an all-board search from the black main menu bar that is at the top of every page to see if he is mentioned elsewhere. Be sure to change the number of days at the bottom of the search form. 700 days will pretty much cover the life of these boards. (Don't worry about unchecking boxes; the search takes seconds.)

All I have about him is that he was Oglala and that he surrendered at Red Cloud Agency in May 1877.

I believe the 7-foot tall Indian you are thinking of was Long Soldier

Diane

[crzhrs]

What about Touch-The-Clouds? Same person?

[greenpheon]

Thank you Diane, I shall give that a try. Thank you crzhrs, that is who I was thinking of.

Greenpheon

[Diane Merkel]

My (limited) knowledge of this goes back to the misidentification of Bloody Knife as the Indian on the Custer porch at Fort Lincoln, a mis-ID that was around for years. Then there was speculation that the Indian was Touch-the-Clouds, who apparently was tall and (if I remember correctly) was mentioned by Libbie in her book. Then it was decided that the Indian on the porch was actually Long Soldier.

If you want to see the photo I mean, go to the Bloody Knife thread on the first page of the Northern Plains Indians thread.

[greenpheon]

Son of a gun, I mis-Id'd him too. Okay, that's an addition to "Errata and Corrections" for my book...grumble, grumble.

Greenpheon

[Diane Merkel]

If it's any consolation, you certainly are not the only one!

[Scout]

'White Cloud' like 'Touch the Clouds' and 'Long Soldier' were of normal height....none were 7 foot tall...there are pictures of all standing with mere mortals. These were all spiritual names only. It would make a great picture though....all 3 mounted on small Indian ponies, their feet dragging in the dust....riding toward Custer Hill. Sorry.

[crzhrs]

I believe there was a description given of Touch the Clouds . . . can't remember where I read it right now . . . but the person said Touch the Clouds was more than 7 feet tall.

And if you look at a photo of him sitting bare-chested he does look like he would be very tall (Obviously hard to tell when he is sitting)

[rch]

I often wondered if the photo with the tall Indian was faked. The photo is one of three photos taken outside the Custer House at Ft. Lincoln. Katz lists them as K-141, 2, and 3. The Indian appears in K-143. These photos, with two taken indoors (K-144 and 5) were all taken by the same photographer and, judging by the women's dresses, were taken on the same day. The the photo credits for 141, 142, 144 were from the Custer Battlefield, while 143 and 145 are from the State Historical Society of North Dakota. I think that could mean that the 143 and 145 were rejected and did not make it to the Custer's photo album.

I have a vague recollection of seeing K-143 with the Indian identified as Black Kettle, which would make the photo an allegory.

The Indian's unusual height is certainly possible. After all he is standing on the floor of the porch, while everyone else appears to be at least one step down. However there is a peculiar black space between the post next to which the Indian is standing and the man sitting to the right of Mrs. Custer. It does not look like a shadow to me.

rch

[Scout]

crzhrs...was the old saying, ''a picture is worth a thousand words'' as much as you want to believe the ridiculous the fact remains there are several pictures of him...one standing at the far right of the Sioux delegation to Washington....he is the same height as all other Indians unless all thirty are also 7 feet tall. Or maybe he is the 'fake' TTC. yea, that's the ticket!! It's the fake TTC...crzhrs, spread the word! the pictures all show the fake TTC! Call Oliver Stone!! It's a conspiracy! maybe his legs have been sawed off?

I can't think of better historic documentaion than a photo...can you?

[Diane Merkel]

Scout,

I'm guessing you're talking about Touch the Clouds since you're poking fun at Crazy, but what about Long Soldier? If you have the April 2005 issue of the Newsletter handy (the one with Walt's great Harrington skull photo on the cover), look at Cesare Marino's article and/or look at the bottom two photos of this thread: tinyurl.com/jnb7h

I believe that guy was seven feet tall!

Diane

[crzhrs]

Maybe it was a computer-generated photo . . . one can do almost anything today and make anything look real.

Still it is not unusual for a person of a race that is generally considered a certain size to be an anomally.

[rch]

My own experience with higher mathematics consisted of two failed semesters of plane geometry (the third semester and "My Antonia" sent me to the Army recruiter), but couldn't we get a range for the height of the Indian in K-143 by using trigonometry. The posts in the porch rail must be at regular intervals. They may be 4,5,6,7, or 8 inches wide at their bases. If you draw a perpendicular line on the picture equal to the Indian's height and intersecting one of the posts at its base then go over 5 posts that should give you a base line of 20, 25, 30, 35, or 40 inches. You could then draw a line from that point to the top of the line equal to the Indian's height and measure the angle.

Shouldn't the angle and the various lengths of the bases yield the height in inches. You could use top of the porch rail as a base and add about 30 inches to the result or you could try using the porch floor.

rch

[crzhrs]

I knew there was a conspiracy!

It must have been done by the RCOI "conspirators"!!!

This is getting D-E-E-P!