Sitting Bull Story
The Plains tribes didn’t keep track of time in the same way that we keep track of time.
The months weren’t called "January, February, March, etc." Months were marked by the phases of the moon and were described by things that happened in nature during that time. For example, one month was known as "The Moon of the Popping Trees" because that was the coldest month of winter. "The Moon of the Sore Eyes" was the month when the bright sun on the snow could cause snow blindness. In this same manner, the tribes or clans kept track the years by "Winter Counts." The tribal historian painted pictures on a buffalo hide, and these pictures described the an important or memorable event which took place every winter, so that time could be marked.
The people the white men called The Sioux were made up of several bands. When the bands got together, each band made their camp in a certain place within the larger tribe. One band camped by the entrance, and that is how their name described them. Hunkpapa means "those who camp by the entrance."
One Hunkpapa leader, Sitting Bull, wasn’t always called Sitting Bull. But this is his story.
It was the winter when Yellow-Eyes Played in the Snow (March 1831), at Many-Caches on the south bank of the Ree River (now called the Grand River) a few miles below present-day Bullhead, South Dakota. It was that winter, in the Moon of the Sore Eyes, that the Hunkpapa baby was born.
He was called Hunkesni "Slow" until he was fourteen winters old. When he was fourteen winters, he counted his first coup, which meant that he struck his enemy with a coup stick, rather than killing the enemy. This was considered a great show of courage.
The father of this boy was proud of his son’s great courage. He gave the boy his own name, the name Tatanka Iyotake, which means Sitting Bull.
How did the father get this name which he so generously gave to his son? This man, who was then known as "Returns Again" was sitting at a fire with other hunters, roasting the ribs from a buffalo which they had just killed. The meat smelled so good, and the fire felt so warm and comforting. The men were recalling details of their hunt, when they heard a sound. "What is that?" one hunter asked. "Who is speaking?" another asked. The men looked past the fire and saw a great buffalo bull approaching, his huge shaggy beard sweeping the ground as he spoke.
Returns Again had an affinity with his animal brothers, and he was in the right frame of mind and spirit to understand what the buffalo bull was saying.
Tatanka Iyotake, Tatanka Psica, Tatanka Winyuha Najin, Tatanka Wanjila
Sitting Bull, Jumping Bull, Bull-Standing-With-Cow, Lone Bull
The four names stood for the four stages of man-- Infancy, Youth, Maturity, and Old Age. The buffalo bull had given these names to the warrior Returns Again. Since this was a sacred and wonderful experience, Returns Again put aside his old name and took the name of Sitting Bull. And now, in his generosity, he gave this name to his only son and took the next name in the sequence, the name Jumping Bull.
The young Sitting Bull continued to make his father proud. He had killed his first buffalo when he was ten years old, and his hunting abilities finally earned him a place in the Strong Hearts, a group which did the tribal hunting. Soon he became a member of the Midnight Strong Hearts, the cream of the Strong Hearts. When he was leader of the Midnight Strong Hearts, he was in charge of the rations for his camp, 3600 tons of meat, which meant that his men had to kill about 30,000 buffalo each year. Part of his job was to defend hunting grounds wide enough to maintain his people, and so he was not only a great hunter, but a great warrior as well.
As pioneers began settling the west, things began to change for Sitting Bull’s people. Buffalo became harder to find. The railroad separated the herds and changed the hunting patterns of the Plains tribes.
By 1875, the central buffalo herds were almost gone, and the Indians on unceded land were ordered to come in to the agencies.
On June 14, 1876, Sitting Bull gave 100 pieces of flesh from his arms in a Sun Dance offering. He had a vision of soldiers falling into the Indian camp and heard a voice say, "I give you these because they have no ears."
Sitting Bull’s people beat "Three Stars" Crook at the Battle of Rosebud, but this was not the vision which Sitting Bull had seen. The people returned to Greasy Grass to find buffalo. Other tribes joined them, so that there were 2000 lodges in the camp, and approximately 2500 warriors among them.
June 25, 1876 was Custer’s last stand. Sitting Bull and the other warriors defeated Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn.
Sitting Bull continued to hunt, because his people were hungry and it was a big job to feed them. His people followed the northern herds of buffalo to Canada and lived there, until July of 1881, when Sitting Bull came back from Canada and laid down his gun at Fort Buford, accepting reservation status. At this time, only 200 buffalo were found in all of the West.
When he surrendered at Fort Buford, Sitting Bull was arrested for killing Custer and was held at Fort Randall as a Prisoner of War, but after two years, in 1883, he was allowed to return to ancestral home in Grand River (Standing Rock Agency). That same year, he led the last Teton Sioux Buffalo Hunt.
In 1885, Sitting Bull joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and was exhibited as Custer’s killer. He earned $ 50 per week, plus what he earned selling autographed pictures. Most of the money he earned was spent feeding orphan boys.
He once made this comment to Annie Oakley regarding the way orphans were treated. "The white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it."
1889-1890 were years of terrible drought. Several of Sitting Bull’s people starved to death. In 1889, during an eclipse of the sun, Wovoka (Pauite) received a vision of a dance which would bring back the buffalo. In his vision, long dead Indians came back to life and the white man disappeared. The dance became known as the Ghost Dance. The Ghost Dance came to Standing Rock in October 1890. The Pine Ridge Indian Agent, Royer, became very nervous about the dance and called for troops. October 19, 1890, army troops came into Pine Ridge and the Oglala fled to the Badlands.
In December, Short Bull requested Sitting Bull’s presence at Pine Ridge. Sitting Bull requested a pass to leave Standing Rock Reservation. His request was denied. The Ghost Dance was a pretext to arrest Sitting Bull, but the motives were more personal and intertribal.
On December 15, 1890, Sitting Bull’s arrest was ordered. He was pulled from his bed, and hurriedly dressed by his captors. His gray horse, which he had received from Buffalo Bill, was saddled. Sitting Bull’s people gathered around him. They did not like the way he was being treated by the Indian police. During their protest, Sitting Bull was killed. Legend says that when his gray horse heard the shots, he went into his Wild West Show routine, sitting on his haunches and pawing the air over Sitting Bull’s body. Many thought that the spirit of Sitting Bull entered his favorite gray horse.
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