Rain in the face

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Rain in the Face, photograph from 1893
Rain in the Face sitting on a horse, circa 1880–1890

Rain in the Face ( English , German = rain in the face, in the Sioux language Ite-o-Magazu ; * around 1835 on the Cheyenne River in North Dakota ; † September 12, 1905 in Bullhead Station on the Standing Rock Indian reservation , North Dakota) was a war chief of the Hunkpapa and Lakota .

Life

Rain in the Face was born in 1835 to the medicine man Wambli-Luta (Red Eagle) and a Dakota on the Cheyenne River.

He got his name in a knife fight as a 10-year-old: A Cheyenne boy cut his face, the blood smudging his war paint. Hence he got the name Rain in the Face. At the age of twenty he was elected a war chief of the Hunkpapa warriors. He took part in numerous skirmishes against the United States Army . This was also the case on December 21, 1866, when he, Red Cloud and Crazy Horse , lured a division of the US Army, about 80 men under the leadership of William Fettermann , into a trap near Fort Phil Kearny (Wyoming) Man annihilated.

When the whites penetrated deeper and deeper into the Black Hills area in search of gold , he opposed them together with the Hunkpapa chief Gall . In 1874 he was captured at the Standing Rock Agency by Captain Thomas Custer and imprisoned at Fort Abraham Lincoln . He was said to have boasted of killing two civilians in Custer's department. Custer treated his prisoner badly, he is said to have even mistreated him with a riding whip. Rain in the Face swore vengeance, and some time later, with the help of Sitting Bull , he escaped from his dungeon. On June 25, 1876, he fought with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in the Battle of Little Bighorn . Here he could now take his bloody revenge by killing Captain Tom Custer in this battle. For a long time he was also considered the warrior who is said to have killed Thomas Custer's brother, General George Armstrong Custer . In 1877 he left for Canada with Sitting Bull , but returned to the USA in September 1880, where he surrendered to General Nelson A. Miles at Fort Keogh (Montana) .

Rain in the Face died on September 12, 1905 after a long illness.

Legends

Allegedly, Rain in the Face had a grudge against the two Custers since his imprisonment, killed them in the Battle of Little Bighorn, cut the heart out of Tom Custer's chest and ate a piece of it to absorb the powers of his victim. In fact, Tom Custer's corpse was not treated in this way. Rain in the Face himself later took turns claiming in interviews that he killed the two and that he was innocent.

literature

  • Dan L. Thrapp: Art. Rain in the Face . In: Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography , Volume 3: PZ . University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln / London 1988, p. 1188.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e Dan L. Thrapp: Art. Rain in the Face , Lincoln / London 1988, p. 1188.
personal data
SURNAME Rain in the face
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ite-o-Magazu
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Warchief of the Hunkpapa Indians
DATE OF BIRTH around 1835
PLACE OF BIRTH on the Cheyenne River , North Dakota
DATE OF DEATH September 12, 1905
Place of death Bullhead Station , Standing Rock Indian Reservation , North Dakota