Cheyenne headman Tangle Hair

[jinlian]

I've read before (Sandoz, Monnett) that Tangle Hair, a headman of the Dog Soldiers, was half-Lakota and now I'm most intrigued by Kingsley Bray's statement (in the American Horse thread) that TH was in fact a son of the True Oglala chief Sitting Bear. I'd like to ask Kingsley and everyone else if and where I can find any other reference to this parentage.

Thanks everybody!

[Dietmar]

I looked in George Bent and Peter Powell but found no mention of Sitting Bear being his father.

[jinlian]

Thank you so much, Dietmar, I greatly appreciate it. I suppose I'll have to bother Kingsley in private, as I think he got the information from an oral source.

[kingsleybray]

Hi jinlian

I do not have the source to hand but it is from coverage of the Dodge City trial of Tangle Hair and fellow N. Cheyennes in 1879. The information was quoted in an English Westerners' Brand Book article by Barry C. Johnson, ca. 1964. Again I don't have the exact reference to hand, though I think Father Powell cites the paper in 'People of the Sacred Mountain'. I'll check details. Barry was quoting from a contemporary account, either official testimony or (probably) a newspaper. Tangle Hair is quoted as saying he was the "baby" of the Sioux Sitting Bear.

Good hunting!

Kingsley

[jinlian]

Thank you Kingsley, precious information as always. I was most intrigued by this parentage also remembering G.Hyde's statement (in "A Sioux Chronicle) about American Horse being sent by Red Cloud on the scene of the Cheyenne fights to help the army and not, as stated I think by Mrs. McGillycuddy, to offer help to the Cheyenne. But, considering the possibility of American Horse being Tangle Hair's half-brother, there's also a chance that Mrs. McGillycuddy could be right for once...


Thanks again and, btw, there's great excitement among the Italian community of American West lovers for the Italian edition of your book (next June in bookstores, I think)

[grahamew]

Barry Johnson, "Cheyennes in Court: an Aftermath of the Dull Knife Outbreak of 1878", EWS Brand Book 4, 1962.

I'm sure if you contacted the society arrangements could be made to supply you with a photocopy of the article.

[jinlian]

Thank you Graham, I'll try, hoping to have more luck than I had with the Annals of Wyoming ...

[grahamew]

I've always thought it would be great is some of their Indian/Indian wars stuff were collected and published - like the Nebraska Indian Wars Reader or the similar one on the Great Sioux War from Montana.

[jinlian]

I've already posted this on the American Indian Tribes forum (to anyone who may have read this: sorry for cross posting), but I thought that I should add the update to the original thread too, in case anyone is still following it.

I managed to get the article mentioned by Kingsley and found the quote- from a local newspaper, the Fort Leavenworth Times - which says:

"One of the party, after passing the pipe to another, endeavoured to say that he was no Cheyenne; that he was the baby of Three Bears, a noted Sioux".

That's Tangle Hair (also known as Big Head and Frizzle Hair) for sure, since he was the only half -Lakota among the prisoners

Now, the problem is that, from the sources I have, there's no mention of Sitting Bear being also called Three Bears. The only reference - and if this individual can be identified with the True Oglala headman - to a similar name is in the diaries of Private William Earl's Smith, where it is said that Sitting Bear, the spy sent by General Crook to the hostile Sioux and Cheyenne's camps was also called "Two Bors" (Two Bears). Personally, I'm rather skeptical about the two characters being the same person, first because William Garnett and John Bourke said that this Sitting Bear/Two Bears was in fact a Cheyenne, even if he had a Sioux family at the Red Cloud Agency, and also because it seems unlikely that an elderly and respected chief, as the True Oglala Sitting Bear was used as spy, considering also the risks involved with the mission. What's more, I've no information about the True Oglala Sitting Bear being also called "Two/Three Bears" (the only other name he may have had being the one shared by his son American Horse, as stated in a passage of Red Cloud's autobiography).

Are we sure that this Three Bears may be identified with the True Oglala leader Sitting Bear?

Also, are there any exact information about Tangle Hair's year of birth? From the trial pictures, I'd say he was in his middle-late thirties...