Post by fred on Dec 29, 2013 9:44:27 GMT -6
...but I believe we do injustice to the eyewitnesses to scoff at what so many claimed they saw.
Scott,
I appreciate your comments... a lot more than you know.
If you have followed my thinking on this issue you know that my stance has become a lot more ambivalent. I have revised downward some of my estimates, but only in total number of people in the Lakota nation, per se, not necessarily the numbers at the LBH.
At this point, I have pretty much accepted "fuchs'" rationale because I believe his research, combined with that of Bray and John Gray-- tempered somewhat by Ephriam Dickson's-- is based on fairly solid foundations.
I think the main stumbling block now-- between "fuchs" and me-- is in the percentage of that Lakota nation present at the site. I see no reason, given all the estimates and all the reports from various agencies and various "intelligence" sources of the times, to doubt a very much higher percentage present than some others. Four thousand warriors may be stretching it s bit-- again, so much depending on the definition of a warrior (hell, today, a 14-year old with an explosive vest strapped on his body is a "warrior" in my opinion!)-- but I am still quite comfortable with 3,000 and the attendant number of lodges and wickiups.
You find very few female-led/male-absent lodges on the various census over time, and I don't see why that can't be carried over to the LBH.
Now... my own work tells me there were just under 2,100 Indians active at the fight, but that does not account for those accompanying the families, those who never got into it. We also have a couple of Indian accounts claiming there were so many warriors in the Custer fight that not all could fit on the battlefield. Hyperbole?
Like you, I am extremely quick to accept participant and contemporary analysis, estimates, and accounts.
Best wishes and Happy New Year,
Fred.