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Bruce Brown's 100 Voices... Black Elk's Story of the Battle, #3
BLACK ELK TELLS ABOUT THE DEAD SOLDIERS WHILE ON TOP of the hill with my mother I could see the battle going on across the Little [Big] Horn. We could not see much because of the dust and the buzzing of the bullets and shots. At the same time the women were singing and sending tremolos out. At about this time about six boys asked me to go with them and we started down on ponies. Up a little further there was a ravine and we crossed through this. As we went down the hill we could see the gray horses coming toward the water on their stampede. Then we crossed the Little Big Horn and were nearly up and we could hear them hollering more and we could see the soldiers coming down the hill. They were making their arms go as though they were running, but they were only walking. We could see some Indians right on top of them whirling around all over the place. It seems as though the Indians could have just trampled them down even if we had not had weapons. Before we got there, the whites were all wiped out. When we got there some of them were still alive, kicking. Then many more boys came. And we got our arrows out and put arrows into the men and pushed some of the arrows that were sticking out in further. There was one man there who was alive. I was going to take his coat and then another man came and pushed me away and took the coat. I saw something bright hanging on this soldier's belt and I took out something yellow on either side on a chain-it was beautiful. I did not know what it was-it looked like an ornament. It was engraved. When I brought it home, I used it for a necklace for I did not realize it was a watch. Every time I took this watch to look at it I felt like taking it away from something [sic]. The women were here at this time. We went up on top and saw gray horses lying around where Custer was on top of the hill. You could see only a few Indians here by that time because most of the Indians' bodies had been taken away before this. I shot quite a few with my arrows and we got to one who was still alive. [This all happened up on the bill.] I had only one blunt arrow. The man was raising his arms and hands and groaning. I took this blunt arrow out and hit him right in the forehead and it seemed as though I stunned him, for his arms and legs began to quiver. From here I saw some men holding up a man and when we went over there I found it was Chase in the Morning's brother called Black Wasichu. A few feet from here there were several soldiers wounded. Black Wasichu was still living and they were giving him some medicine. He was shot through the right shoulder, downward, and the ball lodged in the left hip, because he was leaning on the side of his horse when he was shot. My father and Black Wasichu's father got so mad about the latter's son getting wounded that they went and butchered a white man and cut him open. They said the meat looked so good that they felt like eating it. That man was surely fat! We rode around all over the battlefield. There was an eleven-year-old boy there with me who asked me to scalp a man. I did and gave it to the boy to take home. About this time the Indians began to gather the dead. There were two Sioux who got killed and their relatives came and got them and wrapped them in a blanket to take back. Then I got tired of looking around here. I could smell nothing but blood and gunpowder, so I got sick of it pretty soon. I was a very happy boy. I wasn't a bit sorry. I knew beforehand that this was going to happen. When Reno charged I thought about the people as my nation and that they were relative-like to Thunder and that the soldiers were very foolish to do this, so I knew they were going to get wiped out. On top the hill we gathered just the way we were and from here we went after our tipis. That night nobody slept-everyone was up. While we were going among the corpses, the Indians were surrounding Reno. We stayed here still and the next day the war party went out after the Reno men, and I went along with them. Even the women went. They were dug-in lying [that is, Reno's men had dug in and thrown up breast works]. Right below Reno's hill near the water on the west side of the creek there were some bullberry bushes. Around here there was a man, Round Fool's Impersonation, who was the largest boy there.39 We boys asked him what they were chasing around that bush for and he said: "There is a white man there in the bush," and this man was there all night but he shouldn't have stayed there. That is just like chasing rabbits. We took our blunt arrows and shot at him and the man would crawl from one side to the other with those Indian boys chasing him. One of the Indians hit him and stung him evidently and you could hear him say: "Ow!" We set the bush on fire because we couldn't get him. Round Fool's Impersonation came and coaxed the boys to come over on the other side to fight and so they went. He took us to the safety place and we advanced up on the hill. We did not realize quite how far it was until we had gotten there. We got about three hundred yards from Reno's camp. We could see the heads of the men and they began to shoot at us so we ran down the hill. We got back to a safe place. This man tried to coax us up there again but we refused to go this time. As we got back to a safe place it looked as though the Indians were again charging on Reno. They were quite a distance from us from now on and we were afraid to get close to them. We could see the soldiers trying to go after water and the Indians would shoot at them and they would go back into their dug-ins. They were signaling from the camp with looking glasses when the sun was getting low in the afternoon, to the warriors. My mother was riding a mare with a colt and she tied it so that it would run right beside its mother and they would shoot at us while crossing this stream, but they did not hit us. Mother and I started back on the gallop to the camp. When we got back it was nearly sundown and at the same time there was another war party that came in from somewhere. They reported that there were soldiers coming upstream so we began to break camp. 39. In Black Elk Speak, p. 132, Neihardt shortened the name to Round Fool. The name refers to a personification of heyoka in the Thunder-beings dreamer ceremony. The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt, edited by Raymond J. DeMalle, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE, 1985 p 193 - 195
Black Elk was Crazy Horse's cousin. Although Black Elk was only 13, he took two scalps in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Black Elk surrendered with Crazy Horse's band at Ft. Robinson in May 1877. Here is another account of the battle by Black Elk, and another. |
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