Wazhazha named Elk Robe

[jhafnor]

I'd like to start a new thread for one James Stands For Them, a Wazhazha of the Corn Creek community on Black Pipe Creek, and therefore kind of a Oglala (until 1877) and then more affiliated with Brule. I have a possible birth date of 1856 but could be as late as the early 1860s, and a firm death date of 1939. Wife Cora, and father and mother Elk Robe and Mary Elk Robe. I don't know a lot more, but have been extremely impressed with this group's knowledge and resources ... and am throwing myself at your merciful generosity. Does anyone have any morsels on this headman?

[kingsleybray]

;)Hi jhafnor

Elk Robe was a Miniconjou. He first appears in the census record at both White River agencies in winter 1873-74. With a following of 7 lodges he is enumerated as a minor headman among the Miniconjous drawing rations at Red Cloud Agency. With a following of 4 lodges he is numbered among the "Minneconjou & Northern" Lakotas drawing rations at the Upper Brule agency (later Spotted Tail Agency).

Most of the northern people left the White River agencies in Feb-Mar. 1874 at the time the Army took over and established Camps Robinson and Sheridan. However Elk Robe remains listed at Red Cloud Agency in Agt Saville's March 1874 census.

He presumably returned to the northern Lakotas. I don't find him in the 1876-77 census record including the lists of surrendering people from the north.

His family does appear among the Miniconjou at Standing Rock Agency in Sept. 1881 - so the family had obviously been in Canada in the 1877/78-80/81 period. The family is no. 342 in the Standing Rock census, appearing on page 99 of Ephriam Dickson's SITTING BULL SURRENDER CENSUS (South Dakota Hist. Soc. 2010).

It shows Elk Robe, age 49 (born c. 1832) as the head of a family of ten people. The eldest son is listed as

Na-wi-ca-ki-ci-jin, Protector, age 24 - born c. 1857.

I think this must be James Stands for Them. No wife is listed - he seems to be a single man.

In spring 1882 the Miniconjous at Standing Rock were transferred to their home agency of Cheyenne River. Among the Miniconjous enrolled there are listed next to each other:
Protects them, family of 3 people
Robe of an Elk, family of 10 people

At some point James Stands For Them moved to Rosebud. We need to call on some of the post-1886 census experts at this stage!

On the 1885 map of Rosebud I find a family cabin labelled Stands for Him among the Wazhazha band of chief Red Leaf.

There was much intermarriage between the Wazhazha band and the Northern Lakotas, especially the Miniconjou. This reflected old historic ties.

Hope this helps

Kingsley

[jhafnor]

Wow, Kingsley. I'm amazed at your findings. You are "spot on" in supposing that Nawica Kicijin is the illusive James Stands For Them. (I know this from a John Anderson photo of 1899 showing a 40-something man in buckskin beating a drum and labeled as Stands For Them(Nawica Kicijin).

For my money your research confirms Elk Robe and eldest son Stands For Them as Miniconjou ... but with this small fly in the ointment: The National Archives in Kansas City was able to send me a .pdf of a Rosebud Agency Indian Census of 1888 showing Elk Robe as a 56-year-old (agrees with your birthdate of 1832) and a far righthand column lists him as Wazhazha but that's crossed out and "Black Pipe" is written in. This agrees nicely with the fact that Stands For Them was a minor headman in the Black Pipe area (Corn Creek) ... but maybe not so nicely with the strong Miniconjou hypothesis you've proposed.
Any post-1886 census experts want to wade in??

Here's why all this matters: I'm currently authoring a historical novel based loosely on Stands For Them. My intentions were to follow his movements and his inclinations from 1850s to 1880s based on his Wazhazha affiliation.

However, your Miniconjou affiliation and Canada connection is no less fascinating.

My best, John Hafnor

[kingsleybray]

Good luck with your project John.

Black Pipe District, named after the creek that runs down the west side of the Rosebud Reservation, was settled by the Wazhazha band soon after the Upper Brules relocated to Rosebud Agency in 1878.

There are three census sources from Sept. 1881 to June 1882 which locate Elk Robe's family among the Miniconjou. NB that he is not included among the Brules (perhaps mainly Wazhazhas) who had been in Canada and were interned at Standing Rock in July 1881-May 1882. Ephriam's SITTING BULL SURRENDER CENSUS is the go-to book on these people.

In each of the three census lists, the Elk Robe family clusters fairly early in the list, close to the immediate following of Hump, the 'chief' recognized by the military and res. authorities. This makes me feel it probable that the Elk Robes were associated with Hump's band of Miniconjou - the Eat No Dogs or Shunka-yuteshni. (Thanks by the way for your inquiry which has made me focus on this issue of Miniconjou bands in Canada and the Great Sioux War!)

I repeat that the Wazhazha Brules had very strong ties to the Miniconjou, dating back at least to the 1790s.

Kingsley

[miller7513]

Re Wazhazha named Elk Robe
jhafnor
Part of the Elk Robe family of Rosebud

Descendants of
Elk Robe (---) and Mary (---)

1. Elk Robe1 (---), born 1833 in Oglala Sioux Nation. He married Mary (---), born 1837 in Oglala Sioux Nation.

Notes for Elk Robe (---)
1891 Rosebud pg 426
1892 Rosebud pg 102

Notes for Mary (---)
1891 Rosebud pg 426 Elk Robe
1892 Rosebud pg 102 Elk Robe

Children of Elk Robe (---) and Mary (---) were as follows:
+ 2 i Joel2 Elk Robe, born 1870 in Oglala Sioux Nation. He married Cora (---).
3 ii Belle2 Elk Robe, born 1873 in Oglala Sioux Nation. Notes: 1891 Rosebud pg 426
4 iii Julia2 Elk Robe, born 1879 in Oglala Sioux Nation. Notes: 1891 Rosebud pg 426 1892 Rosebud pg 102

Generation 2

2. Joel2 Elk Robe (Elk Robe1), born 1870 in Oglala Sioux Nation. He married Cora (---), born 1869 in Oglala Sioux Nation.

Notes for Joel Elk Robe
1891 Rosebud pg 426
1892 Rosebud pg 102

Notes for Cora (---)
1895 Rosebud pg 295 Cora
26 Jun 1897 Rosebud pg 115
25 Jun 1898 Rosebud pg 246
26 Jun 1899 Rosebud pg 380
26 Jun 1902 Rosebud pg 261
30 Jun 1909 Rosebud pg 331

Children of Joel Elk Robe and Cora (---) were as follows:
5 i Edward3 Elk Robe, born 1894 in Rosebud Agency. Notes: 1895 Rosebud pg 295



And Joel’s wife Cora

Descendants of
Cora (---) and James Stands For Them and (---) Eagle Wolf and Joel Elk Robe

1. Cora1 (---), born 1869 in Oglala Sioux Nation. She married (1) James Stands For Them, born 1859 in Oglala Sioux Nation; (2) (---) Eagle Wolf, son of (---) Eagle Wolf and Plenty Shell (---); (3) Joel Elk Robe, born 1870 in Oglala Sioux Nation, son of Elk Robe (---) and Mary (---).

Notes for Cora (---)
1895 Rosebud pg 295 Cora
26 Jun 1897 Rosebud pg 115
25 Jun 1898 Rosebud pg 246
26 Jun 1899 Rosebud pg 380
26 Jun 1902 Rosebud pg 261
30 Jun 1909 Rosebud pg 331

Notes for James Stands For Them
27 Jun 1896 Rosebud pg 457 alone
26 Jun 1897 Rosebud pg 115
25 Jun 1898 Rosebud pg 246
26 Jun 1899 Rosebud pg 380
26 Jun 1902 Rosebud pg 261
30 Jun 1909 Rosebud pg 331

Notes for Joel Elk Robe
1891 Rosebud pg 426
1892 Rosebud pg 102

Children of Cora (---) and James Stands For Them were as follows:
2 i Susie2 Stands For Them, born 1897 in Rosebud Agency. Notes: 25 Jun 1898 Rosebud pg 246 26 Jun 1899 Rosebud pg 380
3 ii Isaac2 Stands For Them, born 1901 in Rosebud Agency. Notes: 26 Jun 1902 Rosebud pg 261
+ 4 iii Julia2 Stands For Them, born 1907 in Rosebud Agency. She married Charles Moccasin Face.
5 iv Johnson2 Stands For Them, born 1910 in Rosebud Agency. Notes: 30 Jun 1910 Rosebud

Children of Cora (---) and (---) Eagle Wolf were as follows:
6 i Bessie2 Eagle Wolf, born 1889 in Rosebud Agency. Notes: 1895 Rosebud pg 295 Leader 26 Jun 1897 Rosebud pg 115 26 Jun 1899 Rosebud pg 380 26 Jun 1902 Rosebud pg 261

Children of Cora (---) and Joel Elk Robe were as follows:
7 i Edward2 Elk Robe, born 1894 in Rosebud Agency. Notes: 1895 Rosebud pg 295

Generation 2

4. Julia2 Stands For Them (Cora1 (---)), born 1907 in Rosebud Agency. She married Charles Moccasin Face, born 1905 in Rosebud Agency, son of Luke Moccasin Face and Good Pipe (---).

Notes for Julia Stands For Them
30 Jun 1909 Rosebud pg 331

Children of Julia Stands For Them and Charles Moccasin Face were as follows:
8 i Charles3 Moccasin Face, born 1930 in Rosebud Agency.
LaDeane Miller

[kingsleybray]

Great to have LaDeane on board on this one!

The 1887 Rosebud census is online at Oyate Research Centre. In the cenus for the Wazhazha band both families are listed.

Elk Robe's family of eight people is
Elk Robe Husband age 54
Sitting Bird Wife 50
White Mountain Wife 48
White Bird Daughter 16
Iron Ground Daughter 2
High Cloud Son 20
Eagle Tent Son 5
Two Over Son 12

Family of Stands For Them, 4 people:
Stands for Them Husband 28
Tall Woman Wife 28
Yellow Hair Brother 18
Nation Son 4

The family of Elk Robe in the Sept. 1881 Standing Rock census, Miniconjou, is 10 people, some of whom are readily matched up with the Rosebud record of six years later:

Elk Robe age 49
Ka-mi wife 35
Protector son 24
Stealing Horses son 22
Eagle Lodge daughter 13
Thunder's Son 11
One Who Kills An Enemy son 10
High Clouds son 9
White Bird daughter 8
Iron Earth daughter 7

So both families moved to Rosebud between June 1882 - when they are listed among the recently arrived Miniconjous at Cheyenne River Agency (i.e. transferred from the 'hostile' internment camps at Standing Rock) and 1887. Stands For Them at least seems to have moved by 1885 - when, like I said yesterday, his name is near Red Leaf's in the Wazhazha band cluster on upper Black Pipe Creek (near modern community of Norris, SD).

Perhaps Stands For Them visited Rosebud, married a Wazhazha woman? Their son Nation was 4 in 1887, so born in 1883.

Regards

Kingsley

[jhafnor]

A big thank you to member "Miller" and Kingsley Bray for the additional info on band affiliation for Elk Robe and his eldest son Stands For Them. Your expertise and passion/curiousity is to be admired.

I have a hypothesis to trot past you on how Stands For Them (SFT) ended up on Black Pipe Creek: Still single in the early 1880s, he meets and marries a Wazhazha girl, and as was customary he moves from among his Miniconjou folk southward to live with her people on Black Pipe Creek. His father Elk Robe later follows, and thus shows up on a census as Washazha/Black Pipe.

Who knows ... but if the above is true, would Stands For Them thereafter have considered himself Wazhazha, or Miniconjou?

One more question: I know that later SFT married a Cora Eagle Wolf, and that her father Eagle Wolf lived at Scabby Creek (Soldier Creek) north of Rosebud agency. Which band would that place Eagle Wolf in??

Related point: There is a very obscure collection of oil paintings of LBH survivors that was on exhibit a few years ago. The paintings were done in the 1930s at Rosebud and Pine Ridge, and included one Peter Stands For Them. Now that's not my "James" Stands For Them. However....James would have been of prime age to have participated at LBH, and he and his father did apparently have reason to slip away to Canada with others of the Miniconjou. Makes one wonder, but on the other hand I have no particular urge to place James Stands For Them at the LBH. Does anyone have any info relating to those oil paintings?

[jhafnor]

Kingsley- I had not read your latest post when I sent my latest, so your hypothesis of Stands For Them marrying a Wazhazha women (presumably Tall Woman) predates my similar hunch.

[kingsleybray]

John, I had a similar idea to yours, but we have to recall that when Stands For Them is listed with his father's family at Standing Rock he is classed as a single man (Sept. 19, 1881) , BUT that by June 30, 1882, date of the Cheyenne River census, he is living in his own family tipi of three people next to that of Elk Robe. So-o-o-o, it looks like he got married soon after the Standing Rock census, i.e. while still at Standing Rock. (The official date the Hump village of Miniconjous was taken on to the Cheyenne R. rolls was May 3, 1882.) And if we assume one of the three people was a baby, then it had to be conceived very soon after Sept. 1881.

So(-o-o-o) I cast about looking for a Tall Woman in the SITTING BULL SURRENDER CENSUS. Of course I wanted to find one in the Brule camp (most of those Brules in Canada were Wazhazhas). But no luck. There are several women with the name, including an Oglala and a Miniconjou who are the right age-frame, but they are all already married to other men. Not impossible, but . . . .

I came up with my own novelistic scenario, whereby Stands For Them arrives Cheyenne R. spring 1882, goes on visit to Sun Dance at Rosebud (the last one before the government ban), is invited to relocate by his wife's people - and Bring the Family!

Might be rash to sacrifice the dramatic potential of your hero being at Little Bighorn. My guess would be that the family was right there.

Interesting about Peter Stands For Them. He lived at Pine Ridge, was part of the Miniconjou who settled there after Wounded Knee. He identified his family, close connection to the Lone Horns, as of the Shikshichela band of Miniconjou. Is he a relative of James?

[jhafnor]

Kingsley, LeDeane, Just so you know, I've gained more solid info for this historical novel in this string than in every other endeavor/trip combined. THANK you.

Kingsley, I'm warm to your idea of Stands For Them in spring 1882, going on visit to Sun Dance at Rosebud and being invited to relocate by his wife's people! Fits nicely with a interview I had with one Richard Standing Bear (born about 1929 and living in White River nursing home) who actually knew SFT a little as a small boy-- said he would ride around the Corn Creek and Running Bird district in wagon with younger man named Singing Goose and "pray over" the people. So perhaps he was a wakanlica of sorts. Also, baptised Episcipalian in 1890 so some of that mixed in too I'm sure.

One final inquiry for this week-- I'd welcome advise on the best way to track the movements of the Hump band of Miniconjou from the 1860s up thru LBH and in the few years until their return from Canada.

This will allow me to, with reasonable veracity, track the movements of Elk Robe and SFT too. Would like to create a rough time/geo line of that band's movements. Thoughts?

Please also see my question above about --- SFT would he have considered himself Wazhazha or Miniconjou after he relocated to Black Pipe Creek?

You guys and this forum rock! I WILL think of a way to pay you back.

John Hafnor, Principal Lone Pine Productions
Strange But True America, 2010 National Best Books Award Finalist,
2011 Indie Book Awards Double Silver Medalist— "Young Adult Non-Fiction" & "History"
Also Strange But True Colorado www.StrangeTrueUS.com Phone [phone]




Read more: amertribes.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=oglala1&action=display&thread=1320#ixzz1XPvT31vp

[kingsleybray]

The question about band affiliation is one we have looked at from the perspective of a number of individuals, especially Crazy Horse.

You were born the child of two parents, necessarily representing two distinct tiyoshpayes. So when we say most individuals considered themselves as belonging to their natal tiyoshpaye, that raises the question: their father's or their mother's?

Obviously an individual had both parents-tiyoshpayes to draw on throughout life, as well as those he married into or otherwise affiliated with. This was all part of the maximising of one's options in a precarious world, prey to war, localised famine, disease or other disaster.

So this is something people today are missing. A lot of Indian people are going through expensive court cases trying to prove their family's sole connection to some ancestor or other, while denying another family's similar connection. When I say that their ancestors in the buffalo days could not comprehend such an attitude, I am not exaggerating. You did everything to maximise the number of brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers upon whom you could call in a web of mutual obligation.

Having said that, one norm (but not the only norm!) would be for a father to identify his sons with his own tiyoshpaye; while the mother claimed her daughters for her tiyoshpaye.

People switched residence, either temporarily or permanently; that was another norm, it went on all the time. Stands For Them is one example. He may have married into Wazhazha, and gone to live there with his wife's realtives, as we were opining. That was to become a buried man, so called, - wicha woha. I suspect eldest sons, or ambitious sons, tended to gravitate back to their home tiyoshpaye to be in a position to assume leadership.

Other people, individuals, families (as in this case), or occasionally whole bands, shifted their residence affiliation. At one level I think residence is the key: you settled permanenly among the Wazhazha then at an important level you were a Wazhazha, to be counted on to help in group economic, social and ceremonial activities. But surely one retained one's natal affiliation too, you were an important link affirming the relationship network linking two bands - Wazhazha and Eat No Dogs. So I don't think it's a straight either-or, a binary question of affiliation.

Part of the genius of Lakota social life was its balance of strength and flexibility. I think one's instinctive loyalties were local, familial; but that was balanced by a profound sense of belonging to a very much larger social network, the Lakota. By definition all other Lakotas were related to you, and you to them. The detail of relationships was negotiable. Perhaps we, whether we're historians and other writers and artists fascinated by a vibrant culture, or we're modern Lakota trying to understand the genealogical details of our heritage, are engaged in something similar to what an incomer like Stands For Them had to do, when he shifted his family's residence from one band/tribal division to another; and so had to renew, affirm, and establish - to create - relationships with a new set of relatives real (blood and marriage), fictive (hunka adoptions etc.) , and potential.

Hope this pontificating helps

Kingsley

[jhafnor]

So, I understand much better. Relationships and sense of identifying were highly nuanced.

I'm sure you're capturing your writing here, as it seems like it could be part of a larger body of work.

And as long is this "cash register drawer" is open, my fingers can't resist going back:

To that end, ideas on tracking Hump's band? Shortly I hope to post a couple pictures of Stands For Them-- he a spitting image of the fellow from the buffalo nickel...and probably at least a minor headman like his dad, as his house was nicer govt. provided frame house.

With appreciation. John Hafnor

[kingsleybray]

John I've posted some first thoughts on a time and spaceline in a new thread on the Eat No Dogs band, under Miniconjou.

I would enjoy seeing the pictures. Also - what drew you to Stands For Them in the first place?

[jhafnor]

Hi Kingsley, Others--
Here are the promised photos of Stands For Them(hopefully attached). The first is of SFT in his early 40s, photo by Anderson in 1899. Second is of SFT at 1928 Rosebud Fair, photo by Bell, in this case SFT aged 71.

You asked "why SFT"? He represents for me the last of those who witnessed "the buffalo days". But it's also personal-- he was a good friend of my homesteading grandfather, and my mother. Incidentally, my mother was midwifed into this world by a traditional Lakota midwife in a March snowstorm in 1915. The doctor from Belvidere would not/could not risk the drifts, so the difficult delivery was successfully handled by a Corn Creek woman, possibly one Maggie Wooden Knife, or possibly Jennie Leading Cloud. That woman then proposed my mother's middle name of Winona. We have only a few tantilizing fragments of SFT's life story, as when by translator he told my grandfather that he was allowed to walk onto a battlefield as a boy, to recover such useful items as could be collected. I would suspect it's related to the Red Cloud War. Thanks, All. John Hafnor

[jhafnor]

Hmmm. Here is that second photo of Stands For Them, circa 1899. John Hafnor