Bull Dung band (Tatanka Chesli)

[kingsleybray]

The Bull Dung band of the Sans Arcs was one of the main non-treaty Lakota groups in the period 1860-81. According to an 1876 Army document I cited in a message on the general Sans Arc thread, its contemporary leaders included Spotted Eagle and Red Bear. Silas Afraid of Enemy told the anthropologist Scudder Mekeel in 1931 that Looks Up, one of the last four shirt wearers acclaimed by the Sans Arc tribal council, belonged to the Bull Dung band.

Spotted Eagle, who sought refuge in Canada in spring 1877, surrendered at Ft Keogh in summer 1880, as part of a large village also including Hunkpapas (Rain in the Face) and Miniconjous (Charging Eagle). All the Lakotas at Ft Keogh were steamboated to Standing Rock in summer 1881, and most were held there until spring 1882. Then each tribal contingent was permitted to relocate to its home agency. A group of some 136 Sans Arcs, however, led by Spotted Eagle, was permitted to relocate to Cheyenne River Agency in August 1881, prior to the census taken in September - the basis of Ephriam's SITTING BULL SURRENDER CENSUS volume.

In an Appendix to the CENSUS, Ephriam prints the list of Spotted Eagle's followers taken up at Cheyenne River. It comprised thirty-five families, and a total of 137 people (49 men, 50 women, 38 children). By my reckoning this would convert to about 20-25 lodges in the old buffalo days. This is the list of family heads:


Spotted Eagle
Ashes
Lone Woman
Brave Thunder
Kill the Bear
White Bear
Lone Eagle
Iron White Man
Kill the Bear [#2]
One Ghost
Red Bull
Black Dog
Red Dog
Spotted Eagle Jr.
Poor Bear
Uses His Knife
White Buffalo Bull
Long Mandan
Fights Thunder
Shooter
Poor Elk
Big Hawk
Two Eagles
Red Star
Thunder Hawk
Fool Horse
Black Horse
Shell Necklace
King Man
Camps as He Comes
Walking Bear
Red Bear
Fool Soldier
Hawk Bear
Two Band
Little Shield

Provisionally it would seem likely that this list contains the core families of the Bull Dung band. Both Spotted Eagle and Red Bear, identified as Bull Dung headmen in 1876, are in the group. Looks Up, the shirt wearer, remained at Standing Rock with the main camp of non-treaty Sans Arcs.

Other leading families in the band - in bold in the list - included those of Two Eagles (mentioned several times in Stanley Vestal's books), Iron White Man, and Spotted Eagle's brother Fights the Thunder. Aurelia, a direct descendant, had much to tell us about Fights the Thunder, who was the pipe-owner for the Bull Dung band - see the Spotted Eagle thread.

More later

Kingsley

[cankpeopi]

Did the Lone Woman under Spotted Eagle mary Ironhawk the brother to Little Bird (both of which are Oglala Wajaje) Does anyone know if she had any sisters?

[kingsleybray]

The important Sans Arc Crow Feather family was identified from c. 1785+ with the Bull Dung band. Crow Feather's paternal grandfather was Red Tail Eagle I, noted by Lewis & Clark as a leading chief of the northern Teton, or Saone divisions, in 1804-05. He was probably born about the 1740s. His children included Left-Handed Frenchman, one of the signatories to the treaty btween the USA and the Tetons near St Louis in July 1815. Left-Handed Frenchman died on the return trip up the Missouri and his son Crow Feather, aged only about 18, immediately came into prominence as a leader of the Sans Arcs.

The name Saone, applied to the Sans Arcs and the wider northern Teton divisions, in fact pertains directly to the Crow Feather extended family. The name of their sub-band of the Bull Dung band was Sanoni. Because of their prominence in tribal affairs, the sub-band name was applied to the wider tribal groupings across the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

A sub-band like Sanoni might count as few as say 50 people, or as many as 100+. A band like Bull Dung would comprise two or more such sub-bands.

Crow Feather I died in 1858. His son and namesake was recognized as a chief (a very young man) in 1865. He died in 1870, and his younger brother, One Feather, assumed leadership and the Crow Feather name. The family was by now identified with pro-treaty Lakota groupings and lived year round at Cheyenne River Agency. Other elements of the Bull Dung band identified with non-treaty bands which remained most of the year in the hunting grounds of southeastern Montana.

In the 1875 census at Cheyenne River Agency, Crow Feather's band heads the Sans Arc listings. Included in the list are several of the headmen of the Bull Dung band usually identified with the non-treaty elements, e.g. Spotted Eagle, His High Horse, and Red Bear. These leaders must have been visiting the agency in January 1875, reunited temporarily with Crow Feather. In the September 1876 military census taken at Cheyenne River, two small sub-bands, led by White Bull and Scared the Hawk, were noted as "Consolidated" with Crow Feather. These were probably extended family clusters of the Bull Dung band, and possibly of the Sanoni sub-band.

[carlo]

Fascinating information on the origin of the Saone name, Kingsley.

Do you know if the northern Teton divisions were (initially) collectively called Sanoni, and was the name Saone perhaps a French corruption of the name? Or did the Lakotas use the name Saone as well?

[cinye78]

Carlo:
Joseph Nicollet in 1839 says Sanoni means to rub white. Referring to their white buckskin clothing. San = cream color, I can't get rub out of oni except if it is a contraction.
J. Nicollet on the plains and prairies Minnesota Historical Society Press 1976. The authors are Mr. and Mrs. Bray
Louie Garcia