Casualties: Disposition of Bodies

[Diane Merkel]

From a website visitor:

My husband is wondering if anyone knows what happened to the Indians that were killed in the battle. We know what happened to the soldiers' bodies but there doesn't appear to be a record of what the Indians did with their dead.

Do you know of any documentation or books?

[biggordie]

Diane:

There is a fairly exhaustive discussion of this question on the thread "A Whole Bunch Of Dead Indians, Wow!!" The best information as to numbers comes from First Nations sources, and is unpublished [so far as I know].

As to what the NDNs did with their dead, it generally depends upon the tribal traditions, and to understand those, one must do a whole lot of exploration into the subject. At the Little Horn, some bodies were arranged in lodges; some were placed on "platforms" in trees along the river; some were sepulchered in the surrounding hills and ravines. Some were undoubtedly interred along the line of movement toward the Big Horns and subsequently, and some may have been, and probably were, taken to a favored sacred spot some distance away.

There are no published sources that I know of which are devoted to the subject of the dispositions of the bodies, and published sources vary widely on both numbers and methods of "burial."

The two subjects tend to go together, hand in hand, as it were.

There is a similar thread, with much the same title, on the "other" LBHA boards. Both, incidentally, were started by our beloved Russian daughter, Sasha Valenya.

Gordie

[Diane Merkel]

Respectfully disagree, Gordie. As I recall, the thread you mentioned deals with numbers rather than "burial" methods. Let's forget the numbers and try again.

I know I've read recently about "burials" after LBH but can't remember where. I've amended the title of this thread but nomenclature is -- as with all things Indian -- difficult. If you don't bury someone, to call it a burial seems ridiculous but "disposition of bodies" is awful also.

The lodges/tepees seen along Reno Creek prior to the LBH battle are believed to be casualties of the Battle of the Rosebud, correct? They laid the bodies out in the lodges/tepees and left. That seems less likely for a place where whites are soon to swarm. So what did they do with their dead?

Examples with sources, please!

[Dark Cloud]

I run the risk of offense here, where none is meant.

The methods of disposal of the dead by the NA's of the plains - in trees, on lifts, dried out and eventually and surely ripped apart by animals or enemies - seems to have been the primary method, at least in the time period of concern. It strikes me that if they'd buried their dead in much number, they'd have needed tools they didn't have before the white man, unless chatting up a burial like the 7th initially got. If they buried their dead in caves, etc., surely more would have turned up to explorers or archaeologists.

In the 1920's or so, it may have occured to the Sioux and others that the actual past means of disposal appeared in the eyes of the whites and maybe, since they weren't traipsing around, themselves to be down scale. I suggest the possibility that the secret burials of chiefs, and Crazy Horse lying with his daughter's corpse (which moves me, if true), might have been a re-dreaming of the actualities, and late stories. There don't seem to have been pilgrimages to the burial lifts years after, and it was understood what would have happened and that was just as well. Unlike elephants, people don't really like picking up skeletal pieces of beloved family members, had the wolves left any.

They may all be true, of course. I wouldn't know. But I think it wise to be cautious. Because in many cases, they simply wouldn't have time to wrap and bury them, or have the stuff nearby to do so. And accomodations with the site were made.

[bc]

How about referring to this thread as Native American Funeral Practices.

Even the palefaces have more than one practice/method of dealing with the deceased. Some choose burial, some choose cremation, some leave their bodies to med schools for med students to carve them up, some have their bodies cryogenically frozen. Burial can be in the ground or at sea. Some states (Missouri for instance) don't require burial in a cemetery. I know someone in that state who buried his grandfather by an old oak tree with no other marker. Some are buried just body in ground (maybe wrapped in a blanket) so their ashes can become dust with the earth and some are buried for eternity in metal caskets inside of concrete vaults. Don't know if they still do, but the Jewish people waited until the body was reduced to bones before placing them in a box and putting them in a burial cave (a la Christ). Cremains can be stored in an urn, dumped on the ground, dropped in the air to the ground, or sent off into outer space.

The funerals themselves are even more varying depending upon the religion, etc.

Me? I don't know about yet. Maybe vacuum packed in a pop top can/casket.

[elisabeth]

A couple of sources:

Charles F. Roe, in Custer Engages the Hostiles, p. 10, on his arrival at the village site: "As I came around, being the rear guard, I saw the advance guard moving in the direction of three tepees or lodges shining white in the morning sun. Arriving there we found that they were funeral tepees, in one of which were five dead Indians and in the other three; around the outside were dead ponies, indicating that the slain warriors were chiefs. These tepees were hung with black blankets, the bodies raised a foot from the ground, with all their war bonnets, heavily beaded shirts, leggings and moccasins on them."

Dr. Paulding's diary, in Sidelights of the Sioux Wars, p. 63: Paulding makes it two lodges, not three, and says: "The two lodges contained about 16 Indian bodies & several more were laid out under trees or on scaffolds in the camp, besides a good many which they had started to carry off but had cut loose and thrown into the brush & ravines for many miles back."

Still searching for a good source for Captain Ball's scout. He followed the trail of the departing village for about 10 miles, and reported (as echoed by Paulding above) "a good many" bodies stowed in ravines and in the brush along the trail. Whether this was normal practice, or purely an emergency measure, is open to question. A nomadic people must
often have had to dispose of bodies somewhat unceremoniously when on the move; perhaps the idea was to come back later when the coast was clear and give a more formal burial to the bones?

[tatanka]

I remember reading somewhere that sometimes the body was buried either standing up or sitting down. The purpose of this was that less earth needed to be dug, plus there was less chance of the grave being discovered.

[clw]

lbha.proboards12.com/index.cgi?ac....ead=1695&page=3

There's some interesting information above, supplied by Brock. Almost any discussion we've had dealing with NDN casualties contains some information of how they were laid to rest.

As to the original question -- what happened to the Indians that were killed in the battle? -- I think - maybe - that in addition to those wounded, many of the dead were carried away when the village left. Many accounts mention the large amount of meat left in camp when the people departed. But that is the last thing they'd leave behind unless they were running for their lives, which they weren't. Perhaps they left it behind to make room for the dead and wounded. I think it's a distinct possibility.

[ladonna]

The burial of our people is very personal, we have a four day ceremony

We bury in trees or on wood platforms we return after a year and take the bones and put them in the ground.

If you were a warrior or a chief we set up teepee
and put the remains in the teepee and returned a year later buried them in the ground..

If we were in battle or on the run we would do our best to take our dead with us if that was not possible they would try and place them were the could be hidden, we would take
a lock of hair and then use that in a ceremony so that our relative can travel to their relatives.

All relatives are buried with song and prayer.

At the Little Big Horn we took our relatives with us and buried them in a safe place.

each of us can take you to our great great great great great grandfather's graves

we are also taught not to tell outsider because they like to steal the dead.

What the soldier seen was what happens in battle but i know that each relative took the hair of thier relative for burial.

[Diane Merkel]

Thank you very much, LaDonna. That is as much as we need to know, and I appreciate your sharing the traditions with us.

[conz]

Jul 20, 2008 10:35:50 GMT -6 clw said:

I think - maybe - that in addition to those wounded, many of the dead were carried away when the village left. Many accounts mention the large amount of meat left in camp when the people departed. But that is the last thing they'd leave behind unless they were running for their lives, which they weren't. Perhaps they left it behind to make room for the dead and wounded. I think it's a distinct possibility.

I think a probable explanation is that to make room for the many bodies they transported away from the LBH village after the battle, they had to jettison a good amount of their foodstuffs and property to make room on the travois. Those things could be replenished later...the bodies of their fallen were sacred.

Clair

[Dark Cloud]

If we believe the aborigines about their procedures, we need to also believe their lists of names, which is very low for those killed at the battle and in keeping with results from other large battles, few as there were.

I'm not sure only chiefs and warriors were put in lodges, and I'm really not sure what percentage of bodies left in lodges would be remotely in shape to bury in a year, what with the accessibility to coyotes, wolves, rats, whatever. The Washita burial of the chief and his wife don't conform to these stories, if indeed it was them discovered by the construction crew. We have cheerful tellings of how Indians desecrated each other's dead, and whites doing the same, and if they were concerned with their bodies being indicative of their shape in the afterlife, there is a dissonance between these stories and the supposed desired result.

Just like the whites, who routinely dug up and resused burial sites and dumped the supposedly revered bones is ossuaries.

[clw]

dc, can it. You're "not sure"? You don't even know what you're talking about. In addition to that, you're insulting Ladonna and you know it. And FYI, the burials at Washita were done by the Cheyenne.

[Dark Cloud]

Having buried as many 19th century people as you or LaDonna, I'm fine. Only men in lodges for burial? Hm. Have we read about women in burial lodges? No? Really? How would Gall's wives and children been presented?

Why is that for my information? What did I say that contradicts the Cheyenne buried Black Kettle, if indeed that was him? That the Cheyenne probably and likely buried their chief and his wife was my point, since the revered chief wasn't in a lodge.

My point is the nice stories and peacetime procedures and devotions for the honor of the dead take decided back seats to current realities, whether the Custer dead or the Sioux and Cheyenne. There's no slam intended, nor need to heroically present yourself as a defender against nothing.

Because it's important for Custerphiles to inflict their fantasy of mounds of dead Sioux as the result of Custer's suddenly adept men before betrayal overtook them - and this in conflict with all statistical norms of the Indian Wars - the facts that the Indians would leave some on Reno Creek (one or two lodges), others on the LBH (also various numbers given), and then leave tons of provisions so that they can haul other dead around "for later" is problematic as to point or liklihood.

[clw]

Please dc, just drop it.