Casualties: Disposition of Bodies

[ladonna]

I guess I am confused

why would we be talking about Cheyenne
when i only talked about lakota.

I do not know the Cheyenne way nor do i know the ceremonies for the dead for them.

who are the aborigines??

It is a common pactice to take a piece of the enemies to insure that they will not rest in the afterlife. This happens in battle.

I can only go by my people and NOT the other tribal beliefs. As i said if we could not take our dead we take a piece of the hair and bury it in ceremony to ensure there rest in the afterlife.

I am afriad I have buried people many of my own family since the fifties and worked with NAGPRA to rebury our dead that have been stolen since 1990.

We know our ceremonies.

[Dark Cloud]

Or what, clw? If you don't want to participate, don't, but you're out of line to try and censor what can and cannot be discussed.

ladonna, aborigine means indiginous people. There is nothing demeaning about it by intent or in fact.

We've all buried people since 1990 and even before. My point is that we all have stories about how our dead are treated and revered. I remain suspicious, given how badly our supposed Christian peoples dissed the Custer dead and treated them like roadkill because it was inconvenient and dangerous to spend more time on it. Understandable, and I grant that to other expediencies your people (now we're one people) in the past may have faced.

In Europe, after the first world war, the combatants made a big deal out of beautiful cemetaries, with rows of markers descending from often huge memorials, marking and naming the dead. But the reality generally was that the dead are piled like cordwood in mass graves under the memorial, because they couldn't hold private or individual services for millions. Often better by WWII, but not always. But they try to leave the impression of individual graves to the families.

That bothers me, because it's deceptive and because it leaves the childish impression that everything ends so cleanly.

I'm an atheist, so spiritual issues don't consume me. There are those, however, who want to pretend that Custer slew gabillions of Sioux that day at the LBH, and who latch on to any suggestion of hidden numbers of dead, and this to conform history to their self centered ideals. Nothing from the Indians suggests such large numbers were slain, it would conflict with the bad shooting in general throughout the Indian wars, and should be contested. Is all.

[clw]

Jul 25, 2008 9:20:48 GMT -6 Dark Cloud said:

Or what, clw? If you don't want to participate, don't, but you're out of line to try and censor what can and cannot be discussed.

Or nothing. I was a simple request hoping to appeal to your sense of decency. I should have known better.

[biggordie]

dc:

Please alter your "Nothing from the Indians suggests....." to read "Nothing from the Indians, that I have seen or been privy to, suggests....." You have not seen everything, and would likely quibble about it if you had, it being obviously a ploy by the NDNs to garner some additional notoriety, or sympathy, or whatever, by inflating the number of the killed. I think you already made that point on another thread.

Gordie

[Dark Cloud]

Gordy, that general caveat is assumed for any statement by anyone about anything. I've hardly seen anything, have never claimed or implied otherwise.

Nothing from actual Indian participants suggests there were huge losses at the time as currently contended by Custerphiles that I have ever read or seen suggested by a party of merit. In fact, the Indian losses seem to have been rather low consistent with the other battles. Alterations to that general account should be responsibly viewed with cancerous eye at this late date. The 7th's rather sad percentage of dead warriors at the Washita ought to bolster this. Even sadder when the women, children and old men are factored in.

Friendly fire in this sloppy fight must account for a high percentage on both sides, whatever the total.

There is nothing to suggest that Indians are more honest or less inclined to yarns and convenient stories at need than anyone else, especially about the past. Told to's as Told to's by So and So (especially if translated) don't move me, though, so you're correct about that. That applies to Indians as well as descendents of the Last Survivor whose tale was told a friend of the 7th soldier's grandson whose own grandson wrote it down and offers it for blessing.

[tatanka]

All Indian accounts of the battle suggest their dead was no more than thirty or forty.

[AZ Ranger]

The humidity must be up and irritating folks. Did the Rosebud battle count? Since it was part of the same military action I wonder how do you tell casualties from it as different from LBH?

How do you tell if someone was missing or dead? Did they have rosters for all that were there? I understand how a family could know that an immediate family member was dead but then you would have know which families were there. If there are lots of stories of survivors that weren't really there can't there be stories by relatives of people who died at LBH when they really died somewhere else.

I am sure there are plenty claiming to be relatives of those that died with Custer. Do we really think it only occurs on one side of the battle participants?

I found a William Andrews on the Custer Battlefield monument. He must be my relative. My grandson is William Andrews born on June 25th.

AZ Ranger

[ladonna]

Jul 25, 2008 9:20:48 GMT -6 Dark Cloud said:

Or what, clw? If you don't want to participate, don't, but you're out of line to try and censor what can and cannot be discussed.

ladonna, aborigine means indiginous people. There is nothing demeaning about it by intent or in fact.

We've all buried people since 1990 and even before. My point is that we all have stories about how our dead are treated and revered. I remain suspicious, given how badly our supposed Christian peoples dissed the Custer dead and treated them like roadkill because it was inconvenient and dangerous to spend more time on it. Understandable, and I grant that to other expediencies your people (now we're one people) in the past may have faced.

In Europe, after the first world war, the combatants made a big deal out of beautiful cemetaries, with rows of markers descending from often huge memorials, marking and naming the dead. But the reality generally was that the dead are piled like cordwood in mass graves under the memorial, because they couldn't hold private or individual services for millions. Often better by WWII, but not always. But they try to leave the impression of individual graves to the families.

That bothers me, because it's deceptive and because it leaves the childish impression that everything ends so cleanly.

I'm an atheist, so spiritual issues don't consume me. There are those, however, who want to pretend that Custer slew gabillions of Sioux that day at the LBH, and who latch on to any suggestion of hidden numbers of dead, and this to conform history to their self centered ideals. Nothing from the Indians suggests such large numbers were slain, it would conflict with the bad shooting in general throughout the Indian wars, and should be contested. Is all.

Sorry for the confusion I was talking about the Native American Graves Protection and Repatrition Act of 1990 when we reclaim of our relative from muesum for reburial. We have reburied over 2000 of our people now. Not personal burials.

I know where my great great great great grandfather lies and still honor the place where he rests.

After working in the Historic Preservation field for many years I have done my best to protect the burials of our people.

aborigine means usually people from Austrian and indiginous people are from Canada and Native people from america it is just a way for us tell the difference.

I am not a christian so the ideals of them are strange to me. Sorry your people don't care for their dead.

All i did was reply to some questions. We did NOT have many dead at Little Big Horn if that is your issues.

[AZ Ranger]

Hi ladonna

Do you know anything about the placing of cairns at LBH?

[crawdaddo]

Ladonna,can I tell you in the nicest possible way that the Australian native people are referred to as aborigines,thats Australia not Austria, I'm not trying to be picky or be impolite to you. Of course thats not what they call themselves there's as many different names and tribes here as there is in the U.S. and despite their physical difference they have very many cultural similarities as the American Indians........as to their funeral habits that I do not know..........cheers craw..

[Diane Merkel]

Craw, I'm laughing at myself because I once spelled Australia as Austraila, and Rabble gently corrected me. No offense was intended and (I hope) none taken.

[ladonna]

Jul 26, 2008 23:07:18 GMT -6 crawdaddo said:

Ladonna,can I tell you in the nicest possible way that the Australian native people are referred to as aborigines,thats Australia not Austria, I'm not trying to be picky or be impolite to you. Of course thats not what they call themselves there's as many different names and tribes here as there is in the U.S. and despite their physical difference they have very many cultural similarities as the American Indians........as to their funeral habits that I do not know..........cheers craw..

Thank you dear, I am always making mistakes with spelling feel free to correct me. I know of the dream journey were we know each other.

[ladonna]

Jul 26, 2008 7:46:59 GMT -6 AZ Ranger said:

Hi ladonna

Do you know anything about the placing of cairns at LBH?

Yes, I do

The rock cairns are the way we mark the graves of our people.
It is our belief the the rock is the oldest being in the world to honor our dead we place rock so that the oldest being can communicate with our relatives.