Two Kettle Sioux at LBH

[harpskiddie]

Yeah, I've been rewriting the lyrics to "One of These Days" for years, but can't get past: "One of these days, you're gonna do things different." Ah, well, one of these days!!

Gordie,
you're gonna miss my huggin' - you're gonna miss my kissin' - you're gonna miss me, honey, one of these days............

[harpskiddie]

little sister:

A quick note about maps. The best way to do one is to find absolutely the smallest scale map of the area you can, and then use the broadest, darkest, direction markers - gigantic arrows work best - you can imagine, the key being to use the markings to cover up as many map details as possible.

That way, nobody can argue with you. According to my map, the Custer fights took place somewhere between the Atlantic and the Pacific. There is a big black arrow pointing to [or at least toward] a big black X which itself covers most of North America.

Gordie,
wait until you try to map the actual body locations................................................

[clw]

Well I had the project well started until the computer crashed. Since I have to begin again (the next person who asks me why I hadn't backed up will be shot), your advice is greatly appreciated. Makes perfect sense to me. ;D

[brock]

In 2003,2005, 2006 I had the honor to accompany the Great Sioux Nation Victory Ride for video documantary purposes (I missed 2004 as my camera was in the shop). We left Cheyenne River Rez (Thunder Butte...the Clown family cemetery) and spent an average of 3-4 weeks on the trial that Crazy Horse followed going to the Little Bighorn Battlefield. Needless to say it changed my life. It made me understand the plains Native life first hand and has altered the types of questions that I now ask or answer pertaining to the Lakota.
Slim Buttes was a winter campsite. It has naturally tall and steep buttes that naturally shielded the camp from three sides from the bitterly cold winter winds. The buttes are also tall enough that a scout can see for miles and can send a signal to another scout say on Rabbit Butte about 30 miles away or vice versa...thus it also offered great security. There are several burial sites up there and myself and the Clown brothers have gone up there several times to find these sites and then GPS them for the government because there is a law that says you can not mine for minerals within ten square miles of a burial site. We do this to stop the uranium mining. They Are Afraid of Her and Bear With Horns were buried there. We have also found the burial site of One Horn. It is in the southern area of Slim Buttes and I was asked to record it but I have made a conscious decision not to reveal any of the family's burial sites in my DVDs. There are also several sacred caves up there.

In any event the Piney mountains are just north of Camp Crook and also are filled with burial sites and caves. The forest service (lead by Ranger Martinez...who was subsequently killed in a forest fire in Colorado in 2005) met with the Clown brothers and they mapped out a very large burial ground. It is also the next Crazy Horse camp site on the way to the Little Bighorn Battlefield. The next camp site was along a small creek in the southern Sheep Mountains...as remote and beautiful as I've ever seen. Still pristine and seemly still undiscovered. A few tipi rings is all that was there but they said that was Crazy Horse's next camp. I believe the name of the creek was Box Elder. However the Yellowstone was known in Lakota as Elk River and the Moreau River was known as the Owl River. The whites renamed everything. So I would say it wouldn't be a stretch at all to say that Box Elder is Sheep Creek...unless Sheep Creek dried up due to irrigation demands. But I don't think so as there are no paved roads, no stores, and the farm houses are more than a mile apart. Some areas were totally unfenced. We did this trip on horseback the way Crazy Horse would have done it with his people and I can unequivocally say it would have been difficult to reach the next logical creek, O'Fallon Creek on horseback, especially since they had their families with them. It also would have been a deviation from the direct route they took as at that time their destination was Deer Medicine Rock, not the Little Bighorn. After the southern Sheep Mountains we camped on the Powder (near what is today Broadus, MT). From there we camped on the Tongue (near today's Ashland, MT), then Deer Medicine Rock where we sweated and smudged Crazy Horse's pipe as is required by the solstice, then to near present day Busby, MT along the Rosebud and finally on to the Little Bighorn. We averaged 30-45 miles a day by horse. I rode very little as I had my camera equipment and rode more to stop the constant joking at my expense because I was one of the last to climb on the back of a horse. The kids decided to gallop and my horse followed, it seemed like my turn at riding lasted a lifetime as galloping is a tad scary when you haven't ridden for more than 30 years. I also had to scout ahead as after the first night we all discovered that no one had notified any of the landowners that we were coming and our presence was not appreciated when we showed up on some farmer's land unexpected. At that particular time nobody wanted to ask the white farmers, so myself being white I began door knocking and found us a spot on the second night. From that time on myself and Floyd Clown went ahead and scouted the terrain to find these areas and secure the right to camp on the land. I must say most of the farmers were excited to have us and quite often took us on tours of their land to show us tipi rings and other sites that they had on their lands....an education and one-half.
By the way the DVD did well enough to finance the fourth year ride in 2006 as the tribal governments backed away from financing the ride and the Clowns had committed to 4 years as 4 years is a sacred number...so I guess there was a reason. But that's my two cents on what I learned about the route to the Little Bighorn, at least Crazy Horse's.

[brock]

One additional note on Slim Buttes:
In an interview that myself and the Clown brothers had with one of the older land owners near there, George Lermeny, who was in his 80's at the time, he told us that as a boy the Lakota would make a trek to Slim Buttes in their wagons (about the 1930s) and have a Pow Wow. He knew this because he heard them singing and 'celebrating' from somewhere among the trees that cover much of the Slim Buttes area. Doug War Eagle took this information back to the rez and found out that it was not a Pow Wow that he was hearing as a boy but Slim Buttes was a sundance ground during the time the sundance was banned on the rez. It is a sacred area.
By the way Lermeny's land contained quite a few unused bullets from the Slim Buttes fight of 1877. He said one day he started a fire to clear some brush about where his barn is today and several unspent cartridges went off, causing him to live the Slim Buttes fight all over again (lol).

[harpskiddie]

brock:

Just noticed this posting. Thank you very much for this info.

Gordie,
the years slip slowly by, Lorena, snow is on the grass again.....................................