The Whip aka Iron Whip

[Dietmar]

The Whip (Wégasàpi) aka Iron Whip was the principal chief of the Ponca´s Grey Blanket Village (Wáin-xùde), located on the north-west bank of the Niobrara River. The Ponca in the 1840s and 50s were separated into two major villages, the other (Fish Smell Village, chief: The Drum) been located near the mouth of Ponca Creek.


Portrait (Front) of We-Ga-Ca-Pi or Wa-Ga-Sa-Pi or Wi-Ga-Sa-Pi (Iron Whip) or (Whip) in Partial Native Dress with Bear Claw Necklace 1858 (linked from SIRIS)


I found an interview with The Whip, taken in Washington on January 14th. 1858:

Wa-ga-suppe, or the Whip, the Ponca chief, gave us some particulars of his life, which were translated to us by the interpreter.

He said he was born on the Middle River, in the Territory of Nebraska, and was about fifty-six years of age. “The first creature he killed, when a mere child, was a ground squirrel, and he had killed, since that time, at least ten thousand buffaloes. He always aimed at the heart; frequently one arrow caused death, but he had often sent ten arrows into a buffalo without killing him. He had sometimes sent an arrow right through a buffalo´s neck. He once killed a perfectly white buffalo, and never saw but this one. He always hunted these animals on horseback. Once he and another man went after the same animal, because it was large and fat. He was ahead, but his companion shot and wounded the animal; he was angry, and in his desperation took out his knife, and while on the run seized the animal´s horn and cut its throat.
On another occasion he had a horse killed under him by an angry bull, the body of the horse having been ripped open by one horn, while the other went through his own leg.
At another time, when pursuing a buffalo toward a deep river, where the bank was twenty feet high and abrupt, the buffalo made a sudden turn, and at the very instant that he shot an arrow – which killed it – the horse which he rode, alarmed by the buffalo´s roar, leaped into the river and was drowned. He himself was not injured.”

But his exploits as a hunter were surpassed by his deeds as a horse-thief. The people whom he chiefly robbed of their horses were Pawnees and Comanches. “He had traveled a thousand miles upon one of his expeditions – been gone a hundred and twenty days, and captured or stolen six hundred horses. He never sold a horse, but always made it to the point to give them to the poor, the old, and the feeble of his tribe. It was his cunning in stealing horses, and his liberality in giving them away, that caused him to be elected chief. He and his party once traveled five hundred miles simply for the purpose of stealing a spotted horse of which he had heard, and he got the prize.

He had had five wives: one died, he abandoned three for their infidelity, and one he still cherished. He had been the father of eleven children. The prairie was his home. The summer lodges of his tribe are made of buffalo skins; those which they inhabit in the winter are made of turf. He had never been sick a day.

He had never been afraid to risk his life, but always disliked to kill human beings. He had never killed but one man, and the circumstances were these: he had been four days without food on a horse-stealing expedition when he came to a deserted Pawnee village. He was disgusted, and hunger filled him with hate and revenge. At that moment he discovered a solitary Pawnee approaching the village. He shot him down, and, after scalping him and breaking his neck, out of pure wickedness, he left him thus exposed, by the way of letting the Pawnees know, on their return, that he had been there.”

On questioning him about his ideas of a future state, he said that he expected to go, after death, to the white man´s heaven. “There was but one heaven for all men.”

from: “ Life and liberty in America: or, Sketches of a tour in the United States and Canada in 1857-8” by Charles Mackay; New York 1859, page 94 - 96

Another portrait of The Whip:

Lone Chief, Standing Buffalo Bull, Iron Whip, Walks With Effort I - Ponca - 1858


The Whip´s son, White Eagle, succeeded him as a chief of the Ponca Nation:

amertribes.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=ponca&action=display&thread=583

[shan]

Dietmar,

That was very interesting, thanks for that. I'm going to see if I can locate a copy of that book as soon as I've finished this post.

One thing that puzzles me though, from other photographs I've seen, the Ponca tend to wear their hair, and tend to dress like some of the other plains tribes, the Sioux in particular, and yet the two men at either end of the second photograph, seem to be wearing their hair in the manner of the Pawnee, likewise the turbans they wear around their foreheads, and, from what I can see, the earrings they are wear. have you any idea why this should Be/

thanks, Shan---Low Dog

[bactul]

[bactul]

Chief Iron Whip of the Ponca as he would have appeared to the photographer in the spring of 1858