A Whole Bunch of Dead Indians! Wow!

[Melani]

Aug 9, 2009 16:51:21 GMT -6 Dark Cloud said:

From what I've read on the Sioux Sun Dance, warriors in the day had wood stakes shoved under their pectoral or back muscles, were hauled off their feet and danced blowing whistles till the muscles gave way. Rain in the Face had large indentations in his lower back where muscle was missing. Lower back muscles, we all know, are rather key to everything, and if true, he could only have been a far lesser warrior than previously. It was voluntary, no shame to not participating, but if you accepted the dance and somehow failed in the eyes of the adoring crowd, it was forever, and you could be treated like a woman, resigned to woman's work in life. A virtual slave.

Sitting Bull wasn't a warrior in 1876, and he had nothing to prove. Also, that story appeared after the fact (no surprise, hardly time before) and like the Cheyenne medicine men predicting Custer's fall with the ashes on the boot, ought to be taken with a keg of salt. SB could sling it with the best.

Nor do I buy the great upside down march of the soon to be dead seen by La Custer (and nobody else) in the mist and clouds. These are just too Too, ya know? These are all European literary templates.

That's extremely interesting. Can you please post your sources so we can read them?

[Dark Cloud]

For Medicine Lodge-Sundance, try the WEB. Here's the first to appear.

www.spirittalknews.com/SunDance.htm

...or just check SOTMS, where Connell references Grinnell's and Bent's descriptions, having witnessed it themselves. Also, Rain's indentations in his back are covered on page 396 in graphic detail. I know all about a bad lower back, and missing musculature would make it worse. You can probably ask anyone over forty for confirmation.

Utley's bio of Sitting Bull is pretty clear that SB was too old for warriorhood at LBH unless pressed. SB's various whines and changes of stories would be in there as well. Not looking it up, since you're just being a pain.

My opinion about the stories involving spiritual prescience by La Custer and Sitting Bull based primarily on the appearence dates of these stories I don't remotely believe are clearly marked as being in Sector Four, Division 3, Historyville Township, Aorta Lane of my brain. Don't try to find them, we went from Dewey to an inhouse Alpha-Numeric in 1995. Ask for Doris at the desk, she's the only one who knows where anything is. She drinks, be nice.

[Melani]

"...The Sun Dance has borrowed elements from many different tribes. This has resulted in some similarity in the ceremony among culturally diverse groups. Some of the different ceremonial elements may include:

* Piercing: placing skewers of wood, bone, or antler in the chest or other parts of the body
* Flesh offerings: small pieces of flesh are cut from the arms and offered as sacrifices.
* Sand painting
* Face and body painting: in some instances there are different designs for each day of the ceremony
* Lodge-pole painting
* Adoption ceremonies
* Wife exchange among members of the warrior societies
* Sun Dance Doll: for some groups the Sun Dance Doll is the center source of spiritual power for the ceremony

All of the elements listed above are found in some tribes. Not all of the tribes, for example, will have piercing. Among some tribes, both the dancers and the spectators may do flesh offerings. While some may create a sand painting as a part of the ceremony, others do not. Among the Cheyenne and Arapaho body painting is an important part of the ceremony, while this is absent among many of the other tribes."

...Among the Lakota during the nineteenth century, the Sun Dance was essentially a warrior ceremony. In the ceremony the participants would pray for the power to achieve success in battle and to capture horses or they would fulfill the vows which they made in thanksgiving for such success. With regard to the origin of the Lakota Sun Dance, the ceremony was adapted from the medicine-lodge ceremony of the Cheyenne. Most of the activities and artifacts connected with the ceremony were borrowed from the Cheyenne and then subjected to the individualism of the Lakotas. Today, the Sun Dance is one of the defining symbols of Sioux culture."

"...The traditional Assiniboine Sun Dance—Medicine Lodge Dance—lasted two nights and one and a half days. The dancers fasted—no food and no water—during the entire ceremony. In the traditional ceremony, the men would pierce their breasts. If the fasting and piercing were done correctly, then the dancer would receive a favorable vision while in a trance."

Thanks, dc, very informative. As I guessed. there is a lot of variation in the performance of the Sun Dance. I especially like this last part:

"In the traditional dance, the Assiniboine would make prayers and offerings to Thunder Bird, the one who controls the rain. At the end of the Medicine Lodge Dance a dark cloud would usually came up in the west late that evening. This would be followed by rain accompanied by much thunder and lightening. This signifies that the Thunder Bird and his helpers are coming for the offerings."

[newn]

In Taylor's account {pp.62-63} claimed to see only 2 dead Native americans {in front of Benteens position} one near the ford and one who taylor claimed to have learned later was a "Sioux" called High Elk. Confirmed?

[Dark Cloud]

What they do today isn't as relevant as what they did to willing warriors back in the day. According to those who actually witnessed it, for example, Rain subjected himself twice. When the flesh tore after only a short time, SB said Rain was still a wuss and Rain then was hung by the lower back for two days. When he wouldn't fall, they added weights till the muscles ripped apart.

Is that the same as pudgy contemporary men and women having a small piece of flesh cut out no bigger than if their hand slipped on a cheese grater? Only sensitive types who've, eh, watched can appreciate the spiritual depths achieved, but none of them would dare tell Rain they knew what he'd been through, or could convince an adult audience of it.

[wolfgang911]

Aug 10, 2009 22:28:18 GMT -6 Melani said:

* Wife exchange among members of the warrior societies

I told you those lakota were rock and roll and had an unmatched lifestyle

you keep on focused on your buddy Rain
to have your back or front muscles ripped off with was not common practice
allthough Sb calling Rain a wuss and get back there is pretty R&R again

[Dark Cloud]

If you have eye witness accounts from the period in question, provide them to counter mine. Among warriors in the 1870's, the Sun Dance was pretty brutal. There was no point, otherwise.

Try to imagine a warrior witnessing a peer having pectoral skin, muscle torn away and announcing he was going to follow and just have a chunk of skin taking off his arm. Or 100. Wuss. The Custers met a guy who'd failed the Sun Dance. Might want to read up on it. It was competitive to show who could endure more pain.

[Yan Taylor]

Hi, I am a new Limey on the block but I have been fascinated by the Battle of the Little Big Horn since the late 1960s, one question over the amount of hostiles killed, there is a site out there on the net which gives an Indian account of the battle and one source says that the vast majority of Indian casualties came at the end of the Battle on Custer Hill, when the Indians rushed the Troopers for the final time in which the Troopers were over run, so it may seem that if this is true, that the Troopers used there pistols to full effect, a close range.
Regards Ian.

[fred]

Jun 10, 2011 8:18:18 GMT -6 Yan Taylor said:

... one question over the amount of hostiles killed, there is a site out there on the net which gives an Indian account of the battle and one source says that the vast majority of Indian casualties came at the end of the Battle on Custer Hill, when the Indians rushed the Troopers for the final time in which the Troopers were over run, so it may seem that if this is true, that the Troopers used there pistols to full effect, a close range.

Ian,

I always thought "Limey" was a pejorative term... please correct me if I am wrong. Or is it rather like "Yank" to us on this side?

Be careful of "Indian" sites out there. They tend to be a bit distorted and do not include much of the commentary you would want to read.

"Dutch" Hardorff claimed that only 34 Indians died during the battle. While Hardorff is one of four or five... or ten... of the world's leading experts on this whole affair, my own research indicates about twice that number died.

Various other Indian accounts also claim that the majority... or plurality, certainly... of Indian casualties occurred during the Calhoun Hill fighting. In my view of the battle, I would agree with the Calhoun Hill scenario.

For a number of reasons.... First of all, the archaeological work does not support heavy pistol-firing at either location. Critics will jump in here decrying the validity of such work because of the tourists, relic-hunters, and the like picking the battlefield clean, but the archaeologists have countered that argument by saying it is probable that each field has been picked equally clean, both in location and in artifact.

Secondly, based on body configuration as described in narratives recorded on June 27 and June 28, 1876, it appears the defense of Calhoun Hill was carried out much more vigorously than in other areas. That is not to say that there were any more "cowards" on Custer/Last Stand Hill than on Calhoun Hill, it is just that Keogh and Calhoun had more time to organize a proper defense.

Third, according to the way I view that battle, Custer was forced onto Last Stand Hill rather than having moved there voluntarily. One could call that "retrograde" movement and would account for the lack of any visible defensive areas. It might also indicate casualties sustained during the movement... and we have some Indian narratives to that effect. It might also indicate the lack of a "proper" "last stand," something the writer/historian/anthropologist Richard Fox speaks of and, of course, is highly disputed.

All of that would indicate closer-in fighting, which of course would support the greater use of pistols. The problem, however, is one of re-loading. If you are forced to use a pistol, the enemy is closer. Once the six cartridges are expended and a harried trooper is fumbling around for (a) ammo, (b) discharging empty casings, and (c) re-loading new cartridges... well, it may be time to use the carbine as a club.

Hope that helps.

Best wishes,
Fred.

[Yan Taylor]

Thanks Fred, I will be careful of them sites, the Indian on the site allso said it was a hard fight.
Regards Ian

[elkslayer]

Sorry if this was addressed earlier, but I didn't make it through all 29 pages. Didn't Gall lose something like three of his family members in the village? If that is true, doesn't odd that only 40 or so indians die during the entire battle, but three family members die from Reno's men firing some 500+ yds? Secondly, if indian deaths are so low, both at Rosebud and LBH, why did the village pack up and leave when they knew Terry was coming? Seems to me if they truely dominated these battles with little loss, they would've ambushed the Terry column and took them out, too. I apologise for resurrecting such an old thread.

Jim

[fred]

Apr 20, 2012 3:44:01 GMT -6 elkslayer said:

Didn't Gall lose something like three of his family members in the village?

Yep... two wives, three children. Or was it the other way around?

... doesn't odd that only 40 or so indians die during the entire battle, but three family members die from Reno's men firing some 500+ yds?

Richard Hardorff claims only 38 deaths, but with all the reading and work I have done-- including Hardorff's stuff-- I have identified 63 by name, plus the five from Gall's family, though no one I know has ever been able to identify them.

... if indian deaths are so low, both at Rosebud and LBH, why did the village pack up and leave when they knew Terry was coming?

I find two credible reasons. (1) A paucity of ammunition; and (2) they were scared stiff of "walking soldiers," the infantry. They could deal with cavalry, feeling they were cavalry's superior, but I assume the longer range of the infantry rifles and infantry tactics scared them. Would there be another reason?

Best wishes,
Fred.

[wild]

but I assume the longer range of the infantry rifles and infantry tactics scared them. Would there be another reason?
I don't know but I guess the vast majority of warriors never clashed with infantry.Would this theory not find an echo in Indians do not like to fight at night?
If however it is true then the fact that Infantry never, well not to my knowledge, sent out troop size units which when confronted had to use 1/4 of their number to hold the horses.And infantry somehow always seemed to have a piece or two of artillery for company
Regards

[Reddirt]

The village was immense in size and the duration of how long a village (any village) could remain in one spot was contingent upon two critical components;water and game.

While the water remained, the game had already been depleted by the voracious needs of thousands of Indians and intensely hunted game were already starting to disappear from the area. In fact, some of the Indians were in the very act of hunting up some sustenance when the battle began.

It is also the Lakota custom to move their lodges to a new location when a family member is killed.

last but certainly not least, they had nothing else to prove,

[clw]

Apr 22, 2012 16:41:16 GMT -6 Reddirt said:

The village was immense in size and the duration of how long a village (any village) could remain in one spot was contingent upon two critical components;water and game.

Ah, no. Long before water an game ran out the ponies would be starving.