"It was hard to hear the women singing the death-song
for the men killed and for the wailing because their children were shot
while they played in the camp. It was a big fight; the soldiers got just what they deserved this time. No good soldiers would
shoot into the Indian's tepee where there were women and children.
These soldiers did, and we fought for our women and children. White men
would do the same if they were men. "We did not mutilate the bodies,
but just took the valuable things we wanted and then left. We got a lot
of money, but it was of no use. "We got our things packed up and took
care of the wounded the best we could, and left there the next day. We
could have killed all the men that got into the holes on the hill, but
they were glad to let us alone, and so we let them alone too.
Rain-in-the-Face was with me in the fight. There were twelve hundred of
us. Might be no more than one thousand was in the fight. Many of our
Indians were out on a hunt.
"There was more than one chief in the fight, but Crazy Horse was leader
and did most to win the fight along with Kicking Bear. Sitting Bull was
right with us. His part in the fight was all good. My mother and
Sitting Bull's wife were sisters; she is still living. "The names of
the chiefs in the fight were: Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Lame Deer,
Spotted Eagle and Two Moon. Two Moon led the Cheyennes. Gall and some
other chiefs were there but the ones I told you were the leaders. The
story that white men told about Custer's heart being cut out is not
true."
Indicating that he was through, the manuscript was carefully read over
to him very slowly in order that he would not be confused as to the
exact meaning of what it contained. When finished he gave his emphatic
approval by hearty "How How, Washta," and in his expert use of the sign
language directed a pad be brought so that he could place his
thumbprint to show that it was his own sealed document and final
testimony on a subject about which white men have written countless and
varied accounts, all of them being guess-work based upon circumstantial
evidence, for no white man knows. There were none left to tell just
what did occur and how. The chief was there and he saw and knows. He
was last of the survivors of that historic episode, and it is fortunate
that coming generations could have a truthful and reliable account from
him before he too had passed to the happy Hunting Ground.
|
