SITTING BULL

Of all famous Indians, Sitting Bull was perhaps most famous of all modern-day Sioux. He was the Medicine Man and advisor for the allied tribes during the great Sioux War, after Red Cloud refused longer to lead against the formidable U.S. Armies.

His speeches are classics, for he was a great orator; his generalship was equal to if not superior to any of the generals fighting against him; he beat Crook, and outwitted Miles, after wiping out Custer's army at Little Big Horn. Rather than submit to the harsh treatment sure to follow the Custer affair, he led his people to Canada where he was sure of a kind reception and fair dealing.

Only recently the writer received a letter from one of the Canadian Mounted Police captains, now at Ft. Steele, B.C., who knew Sitting Bull, and was a frequent visitor at his camp while quartered at Wood Mountain. He said he never saw finer looking people and so well-behaved. They hunted buffalo with bows and arrows and spears as in olden days, the meat of which he, with his troopers, often enjoyed. It was only after Miles made him sacred promises, that he was induced to return to his old homelands in Dakota. There in the Standing Rock Reservation, he remained, more or less, a prisoner for the rest of his days.

With the coming of winter in 1890, their rations had been restricted to such an extent that some of his people left the reservation for the Bad Lands to hunt. With hunger and suffering, there was great dissatisfaction among his followers. This condition furnished willing listeners to a new religion suddenly brought to their attention which heralded the coming of a new Christ, - who would drive the whites from their country, bring back the buffalo, and let them live as they wished to.

Led by Kicking Bear, a hostile, this creed was adopted by Sitting Bull. Their method of worship of the new Saviour, was to dress in coarse cotton gowns, rudely painted, and proclaimed to be bullet-proof, - then to gather in circles and dance and pray and sing, until exhausted; it was like al their religious ceremonies - a mere modification of the war dance and the scalp- dance, - and the same as the Sun Dance, except the torture, - in which the writer once took part.

This outbreak of religious enthusiasm was frowned upon by the Agency and Military authorities. Stories went the rounds of the Agency clique, that the Indians were preparing for a general outbreak. The tales spread amongst the settlers; the army officials ached for something to do, as Indian wars had been over for a long time, - and they ordered he arrest of Sitting Bull.

"Jim" McLaughlin was agent, and he was a friend of Sitting Bull; he opposed the interference by the army, and sent Buffalo Bill to bring the Medicine Man to camp at his office. But before Col. Cody was well on his way, a telegram from the Commanding General to McLaughlin, ordered his recall and troops sent in his stead, to bring in the Ghost Dance leader.

It was some forty miles from the agency to Sitting Bull's camp on Grand River, where the dances were being held. With his order from the Department, McLaughlin sent a battalion of troops, together with a squad of Dog Soldiers or Indian Police to arrest and bring Sitting Bull in.

Sitting Bull was asleep in his log cabin; they aroused him and told him to dress and come with them; he consented at once and went to mount his pony, when his friends interposed objection to such indignity; words passed with the police, and without further delay, one of them drew his revolver and shot the great man. A general melee followed and several of both invaders and defenders were killed. An inexcusable assassination of a great character!

Long years after, when McLaughlin had been promoted to Indian Inspector, the writer visited him at his office in Washington, and among other subjects talked over - of old days at Ft. Totten where both had spent considerable time with the Northern Sioux, "Jim" went into details about the "murder" of his old friend Sitting Bull. His eyes filled with tears as he recalled the many fine traits of his friend, and the injustice of it all.

Some five years before the death of the chief and after the extermination of the buffalo had been completed, Sitting Bull sold his trained Buffalo-chase pony, and it came into possession of the firm at which the writer was employed, where it was set apart for his use when and wherever needed. He was promptly named Sitting Bull and furnished many a delightful canter over the wild prairie, both in hunting deer, ducks and antelope, as well as rounding up cattle.

One valued relic of this famous Indian, is the Tribal Pipe, said by the Indians to be more than 250 years old, handed down from chief to chief, and held by Sitting Bull for more than fifty years, - who shortly before his death in 1931 passed it on to the writer. Two of the Ghost Dance shirts used in this event are prize pieces. Two other notable relics are the peace- pipes of Red Cloud and of Flying Hawk, not heretofore mentioned.

It is proper to mention the Crazy Horse carbine with which he killed the last man in the Custer fight, - and the Chief also insisted that Crazy Horse killed Custer with it. More than twenty years were devoted to searching for this gun, and it was finally located by Flying Hawk in the possession of descendents of Kicking Bear, - who were collecting a dollar each from white folks just to see it and handle it. It shows one bullet mark on the butt and the stock was broken, - and mended by raw elkskin and neatly fastened with brass screws, so, that it is still capable of service. It is a Springfield of the model of 1873.