American Horse/Iron Plume/Slim Buttes

[charlie]

Jinlian & Wolfgang: thank you a lot for the interesting infos. Now, AH (Northern Cheyenne) is not more an unknown chief....

[crawdaddo]

Wow! Excellent stuff brock and you too clw, I think alot of people on this site would appreciate your photos.

[clw]

ignimbrite said:

It does look like a perfect spot for a winter camp, sheltered from the winds, but open enough that the snow won't pile up. I wonder how often the wind blows from the east.

You made me stop and think about the wind. The winter storms seem to always come out of the west. It really is the prefect spot for a winter camp.

[brock]

Slim Buttes was also a great area to hunt buffalo. This is where One Horn, Lorn Horn and Rattling Blanket Woman's (also Crazy Horse's mother) older brother, was gored to death by a buffalo. These pictures are of the southern end of Slim Buttes. This is One Horn's grave. Since this grave is on private property and completely hidden away from any roads or homes I can share it. But I won't answer any questions as to where exactly it is. The Clown family knew exactly where it was and took me there.

The first picture is of One Horn's grave with Doug War Eagle standing behind it.



The second picture is a closer look at the grave.



The third picture is a picture of where the scaffold had been. The rocks used to hold up the four poles are still there. According to the Clown family they put their dead up on a scaffold for four days and then buried them. I'm not so sure all Lakota families followed that practice. Not all families had the same interpretations. There are stories of Lakota medicine men racing ahead of Custer's 1874 Black Hill's invasion to bury or cremate the dead before the soldiers reached the scaffolds and looted them for souvenirs. It seems to me some of those would have been there for more than four days but I don't know for sure. There were many Lakota burials in the Black Hills. It was the preferred place. In the case of One Horn, the scaffold was directly behind the grave, so if you go back to picture one this picture is of the immediate area behind the grave. Doug shows about how high the scaffold would have been.



Picture four is from the grave site looking south. In the center of the picture on the horizon are two tiny peaks or Bear Butte...a good 70-80 miles away.

[clw]

Brock, fantastic pictures! Since there has been so much discussion of cairns at the LBH, would you have a picture of what a cairn would look like? Similar to what we're seeing here?

[crzhrs]

And have any of your witnesses said anything about the cairns and what they represent?

[brock]

clw,
Okay, here's some pix.
crzhrs,
First of all I hesitate to call any of the families I work with 'witnesses'. I think that's a bit misleading. I think the present trustees of their family's oral history would be more accurate. I kind of want to stay away from words getting in the way of the sights. Secondly, I'm not sure if you're writing about what's already posted or what I'm about to post. If it's the preceding post then they would call that a gravesite. If it's this post then a cairn is a marker placed by the family of where a Lakota or Cheyenne family member FELL...or was considered mortally wounded at the time. I was fortunate enough to be allowed onto the battlefield to document this at the request of the Clown family and their Native friends who helped the NPS locate many of the cairns. So I got to learn some things. I pulled these pictures directly from my upcoming documentary...so once again these are video pictures and not really made to be seen as stills.

The first picture is of the crest of Greasy Grass Ridge. Tufts of grass growing out of the very finely grained soil. When it rains it turns to what the locals call gumbo. Gumbo is very slippery to navigate...hence greasy grass. Large, smooth rocks are not natural to this portion of the battlefield.



The second picture is of one of the cairns found on the field that has yet to be marked. These rocks are similar to the rocks down at the river as they have a smoothness about them.



The third picture is of a cairn found before this excursion. It is currently marked as Long Road's cairn. This is an NPS photo.



The final picture I just threw in for grins and giggles. It is from just behind Greasy Grass ridge. The orange flags represent cairns. I was standing while I took the video. If I ducked down I would have been out of view of the monument in the background. From the monument I don't think this is quite as apparent that this hole in the line of sight exists...but it does.

[conz]

I love this last photo...I see it as the very spot where the destruction of Custer's command actually began. Very near this photographer is where I believe Crazy Horse was dismounted with his rifle, waiting for an opening to close on the enemy. At this time, the hill in the distance would be barren, and Keogh's three companies are off the right of the picture.

The ravine where E Co was found is straight ahead, down in the gully out of sight. The distance from the photographer to the monument on the hill is about 1,000 yards....about the same distance as in our "DeRudio sighting" discussions.

Clair