Hey Dog

He Dog in 1877

He Dog (male), Lakota : Šúŋka Bloká , (* 1838 on the Cheyenne River near the Black Hills in what would later become South Dakota ; † 1936 in the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota) was a chief of the Oglala - Lakota - Sioux and a veteran of the last great freedom struggle of the northern prairie Indians against the Americans in the 1860s and 1870s. At the side of Crazy Horse , with whom he grew up and was lifelong friends, he took part in many arguments. In the subsequent reservation period, He Dog was a member of various delegations negotiating with US government agencies as a representative of his people and was a judge of the Court of Indian Offenses on the Pine Ridge Reservation . In old age, He Dog reported much of his life and that of his people, which was recorded by various (white) persons and is a valuable source for writers and historians.

Family relationships

He Dog came from a family of chiefs. His father's name was Black Rock (Black Rock; Inyan Sápa), also called He Dog I, his mother, Blue Day Woman, was a sister of Red Cloud (Red Cloud; Maxpiya Luta). He Dog grew up with many siblings. Black Rock had four sons (He Dog, Lone Man, Bad Heart Bull, [Grant] Short Bull) with Blue Day Woman, plus about six more from another relationship. (The best known of the brothers next to He Dog is probably Bad Heart Bull (bison bull with the bad heart; Tatanka Chante Shicha), who as a historian later recorded the annual events in tribal life in drawings on a buffalo skin, what was called the winter count and a A son of his was the painter and historian Amos Bad Heart Bull .)

Hunters and warriors

Around 1860, He Dog became the leader of the Soreback Band, a division of the Oglala camp district, of which there were seven in all. Together with his friend Crazy Horse, he then took part in many disputes with Americans and warring Indian tribes until his death in 1877. In all of their fights, He Dog has always been the stand-in for Crazy Horse. The two chiefs also belonged to one of the men's associations (Akicita associations) that existed in each department and that were originally only intended to curb the bravado of the youth, but who soon ensured law and order in tribal life and had more power than the nominal ones Chiefs. (The union of He Dog and Crazy Horse was called Crow Owners; other names included Brave Hearts, Kit Foxes, and Lance Owners.) They were also shirt wearers who carried out the orders of a council of elders, the members of which were fat bellies ( Big Bellies) had to enforce. This sensible arrangement, which brought out the experience of the ancients, had been reintroduced by the Oglala in the summer of 1865. It had existed once at the beginning of the century, but had been overridden at some point. The shirt-wearers had high powers and, in extreme cases, had the right to kill rebels. (Other Oglala shirt wearers included Young Man Afraid of His Horses and American Horse .)

From 1866 to 1868, He Dog and Crazy Horse participated in many confrontations in Red Cloud's War . So they fought in the Battle of the Hundred Slain , called the Fetterman Skirmish by the Whites, where they were among the decoys that led Captain Fetterman and his men to ruin.

After Red Cloud's war ended with the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 , there was a truce between the US military and the Sioux on the plains for several years . During this period, He Dog and Crazy Horse occasionally carried out minor raids on enemy Indians. In the summer of 1871, however, they prepared a great hunting and war expedition against the Crow according to old custom, in which women, who had to organize camp life, were to take part. In the campaign, the holy lances of the Crow-Owners-Akicita were carried along and carried forward by He Dog and Crazy Horse. These lances, which were certainly a few hundred years old, had great magical power and nothing could happen to them as long as they were in the possession of the Oglala. During the march they came across a large crow camp between the Bighorn and Little Bighorn, which they attacked and captured horses. The Crow counterattacked, retrieved some horses, but eventually gave up the fight and fled to their agency on Little Bighorn, where they camped under the protection of soldiers. There they suffered sporadic attacks by the Oglala for a week, which then held a great victory dance on their return. When they chased the crow back to camp , Bad Heart Bull was the name of the winter count that he drew on a buffalo skin.

In the summer of 1872 there was another fight with the whites. The reason was the advance of the Northern Pacific Railroad westwards to the Missouri, where Bismarck was created at the terminus . The surveyors who recorded the site were protected by soldiers. The completion of the Northern Pacific along the Yellowstone had to seal the fate of the still free Sioux, because with the Union Pacific in the south they would be trapped and their buffaloes would be exterminated. If they did not want to starve to death, then inevitably they had to go to the agencies and surrender. This danger had been recognized by Sioux chiefs such as Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and so they had come to the area with warriors from all Lakota tribes to offer resistance. Then when General Sherman deployed a cavalry regiment at Yellowstone in August, it was attacked by the Sioux. The dispute had no results to speak of, but at least the Sioux had demonstrated here that they would fight for their freedom at any time; more fighting followed in the area the next year. - The increasing hunger for land ( Black Hills ) of the US-Americans then determined their politics in the next few years, which aggravated the situation of the free Sioux more and more. In December 1875, the Sioux and Cheyenne agents were ordered by the US authorities to request all Indians living outside the reservations to report to their agencies by January 31, 1876; those who did not comply would then be forced to do so by the military.

In early March 1876, He Dog decided to follow government orders and join the Red Cloud agency with the Soreback Band. He joined a Cheyenne division under Chief Old Bear, who also wanted to surrender. He justified his step in front of Crazy Horse with the fact that the women were all afraid and the small children would not be able to run away in the deep snow when the soldiers came. (Since he had married around this time, this fact too must have played a role in his decision; he fathered a daughter that year; later another son followed.) On the way, He Dog and Old Bear's camp was opened on the morning of Attacked March 16 by General Crook's vanguard ( Joseph J. Reynolds ) . He Dog and almost everyone else managed to get to safety and return to the free Indians who had joined Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse to take on the undoubtedly imminent war with the US Army.

In June 1876, the Sioux and their allies (Cheyenne et al.) Won the battles on Rosebud Creek and Little Bighorn . But the effects of these successes did not last long. After the US authorities first forced the unfree Indians on the reservations to cede the Black Hills with threats (suspension of the promised deliveries etc.), the still free Indians were vehemently persecuted by the US army from September onwards and most of them within forced to live with their agencies on the Great Sioux Reservation for a year .

The murder of Crazy Horse on September 5th at Fort Robinson: picture by Amos Bad Heart Bull after 1890

He Dog (standing left) as a member of an Oglala delegation that was in Washington in the fall of 1877

On May 6, 1877, Crazy Horse and his men surrendered at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. He Dog and Little Big Man rode by his side when they got to the fort, followed by a total of 859 Oglala. (Red Cloud, who had been living on the reservation for a long time and was at the service of the Americans in many ways, had persuaded Crazy Horse to give up and led them to the fort.) In the next few months the drama about Crazy Horse, its subject matter, unfolded everything contained: hatred, betrayal, jealousy, intrigue and death. He Dog and Crazy Horse last met on the anniversary of Crazy Horse's death in Fort Robinson. They said hello and He Dog said that Crazy Horse should take care of himself as this was a very dangerous place for him.

Soon after Crazy Horse's death, He Dog traveled to Washington as a member of a Sioux delegation. After his return he and his people decided to live freely again, and so the soreback band left the reservation before the year was up and moved to Canada, where they joined Sitting Bull.

Functionary and narrator

He Dog in 1891

In the course of 1880, He Dog returned to the United States with the Soreback Band and surrendered to Fort Keogh , Montana. In the next few years he and his people moved to the Standing Rock Agency. When the Great Sioux Reservation was divided into seven reservations in 1889, he moved to the Pine Ridge Reservation, where he lived and worked until the end of his life. Like his uncle Red Cloud, he seems to have rejected the spirit dance movement that emerged in 1890 ; in any case, there is no record of him having contributed to this phenomenon.

Over time, He Dog has been a member of Sioux delegations in Washington and represented the interests of his people there before US authorities. He was appointed judge of the Court of Indian Offenses established in 1892 on the Pine Ridge Reservation . In this capacity he was photographed together with two other colleagues in the summer of 1909 by the American painter and ethnologist Frederick Weygold in Pine Ridge. The three men are wearing hats and suits and appear quite distinguished in this shot.

He Dog has made a number of accounts of his life and the history of his people, which were written down by authors such as Walter Mason Camp , Mari Sandoz or Eleanor Hamlin Hinman and which were important sources of information for their work. He Dog had a great memory well into old age, as evidenced by Eleanor Hamlin Hinman among others. She visited him (with Mari Sandoz) in Pine Ridge in the summer of 1930 and later said of him: “Despite his ninety-two years, He Dog has a remarkable memory. It is the living depository for the tribal history and the ancient customs of the Oglala. Anyone who asks other elders any questions about these things is referred to him: 'He Dog will definitely remember it.'

literature

• Kingsley M. Bray: Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life , University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 2006
• R. Eli Paul: The Nebraska Indians Wars Reader 1865–1877 , University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln 1998
• Richard G. Hardorff (Ed.): Lakota Recollections of the Custer Fight: New Sources of Indian-Military History , University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln 1997
• Eleanor Hinman: The Eleanor H. Hinman Interviews on the Life and Death of Crazy Horse , Garry Owen Press, 1976
• Eleanor H. Hinman: The Eleanor H. Hinman interviews about the life and death of Crazy Horse , Persimplex Verlagsgruppe, Schwerin / Berlin / Frankfurt 2015, ISBN 3945295386
• Wolfgang Haberland, Frederick Weygold: Ich, Dakota: Pine Ridge Reservation 1909 , Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-496-01038-X
• Stephen E. Ambrose: The Chief and the General: Decision at Little Bighorn , Hoffmann and Campe Verlag, Hamburg 1977, ISBN 3-455-08940-2

Web links

• Literature by and about He Dog in the WorldCat bibliographic database

Remarks

1. ↑ Wolfgang Haberland, Frederick Weygold: Ich, Dakota: Pine Ridge 1909 (1986), pages 82/83, 84 (In the caption on page 84 He Dog is incorrectly referred to as a leader in the spirit dance movement of 1890/91, which he certainly does has never been.)
2. ↑ Stephen E. Ambrose: The Chief and the General: Decision at Little Bighorn (1977), 416