Red Horse

Red Horse around 1880

Red Horse (Red Horse), Indian name Tasunka Luta , (* 1822 somewhere in the plains between the Missouri and the Black Hills in what is now Nebraska ; † 1907 probably in the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota ) is a chief of the Minneconjou - Lakota - Been Sioux . He was a veteran of the famous Battle of Little Bighorn (June 25, 1876) in what is now Montana, and a few years later he reported on this event in words and pictures. - It is transmitted from his immediate circumstances that he was married to two women and had three children. Otherwise, Red Horse's life is completely in the dark.

The report

From 1877 onwards, Red Horse lived (forced like most Lakota) in the Great Sioux Reservation . There he described the events of the Battle of Little Bighorn from his perspective in front of US government officials in the Cheyenne River Agency in 1881. This report was written down during several meetings by Charles E. McChesney, a doctor (surgeon) in the US Army.

In the introduction to his report, Red Horse says that in the spring of 1876 (five springs ago) he and many Sioux Indians abandoned their tents on the Cheyenne River and moved to the Rosebud River , where they stayed for a few days. Then they went to the Little Bighorn River - called Greasy Grass by the Indians - and set up a large camp there with their tents, the arrangement of which he describes as follows: “The tents of the Hunkpapa were highest above the river, on a ledge. The Santee's tents were next. Then the tents of the Oglala followed . Then the tents of the Brulé followed . Then the tents of the Minneconjou followed. Then the tents of the Sans Arc followed . Then the Blackfeet's tents followed . Then the Cheyenne's tents followed . [In addition] there were a few Arikara and Two Kettles (without their own tents) among the Sioux. "

Depiction of a cavalry fight in the already well advanced stage of the battle: two US flags are still blowing, two more and some fallen soldiers are lying on the ground

On the day of the battle, a Sunday, Red Horse, as he further reports, was digging wild turnips in the prairie with four women when they suddenly saw a cloud of dust rising in the distance. They soon realized that mounted soldiers were approaching and the camp was in dire danger. It was Major Reno's battalion that suddenly appeared. Although the Sioux were always in the picture about Custer's movements , they had not noticed Reno's separation with his squadrons from the main power and so this attack came as a complete surprise. This is also evident in the Red Horse report, which describes this exciting situation as follows: “The women and I ran to [the camp]. When I got there, someone told me to get to the counseling tent quickly. However, the soldiers attacked so quickly that we could not talk. We left the tent ... The Sioux got their rifles and jumped on their horses to fight the soldiers. Women and children got on horses to escape. "

In the further course of the story, the fights against Reno and Custer are described in a very general way by Red Horse. The individual events correspond roughly to other well-known reports about it: First, Reno's soldiers, who had set the Hunkpapa tents on fire, were placed in the village and then thrown back over the Little Bighorn River, where they holed up on a hill. While some warriors kept Reno's position under guard, the many others turned north to intervene in the already flared battle ( Crazy Horse ) against Custer's battalion. After all soldiers had been killed there, most of the Sioux returned to the position of Reno in order to bring about a decision there as well, but this did not succeed.

Then more or less interesting events are described. Red Horse reported next to nothing of his own deeds during the fighting, which is understandable, because he finally gave his report to US government officials, ultimately still enemies of the Sioux, who wisely did not need to be told everything.

The pictures

Red Horse created an impressive illustration for his report: 41 drawings on large-format (which average 24 by 26 inches) manila paper, mostly colored with crayons and ink. In this work he was able to work freely and was not interpreted by a second person (as in the report). In their entirety, these images are certainly a great work of art and form a counterpart to a work on the same topic by Kicking Bear , who created what Red Horse depicted in 41 images in a single condensed representation. ( Amos Bad Heart Bull also created an impressive series of pictures from the Battle of Little Bighorn.)

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  The camp on the Little Bighorn River

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  Soldiers on horseback attack the camp

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  Horses killed by Reno's battalion

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  Dead soldiers. (Perished in the river?)

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  The dead Sioux

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  Return of the Indians after the battle

literature

• Mike O'Keefe: Custer, the Seventh Cavalry, and the Little Bighorn: A Bibliography , University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 2012
• Jessie Brewer McGaw, Red Horse (Chief), Charles E. McChesney: Chief Red Horse tells about Custer: The Battle of the Little Bighorn: An Eyewitness Account told in Indian Sign Language , Elsevier / Nelson Books, Amsterdam 1981
• Garrick Mallery: Picture-Writing of the American Indians: with 54 Plates & 1290 Text Illustrations , Dover Publications, New York 1972
• Dee Brown : Bury my heart at the bend of the river , Hoffmann and Campe Verlag, Hamburg 1972, ISBN 3-455-00720-1

Web links

Commons : Red Horse  - Collection of Images

• Literature by and about Red Horse in the WorldCat bibliographic database
• Archives of THE WEST The Red Horse report in an English version

Remarks

1. ↑ Dee Brown: Bury My Heart at the Bend of the River (1972), 285