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Post by jones on Mar 1, 2018 0:10:56 GMT -5
Maybe I shouldn't have claimed that Knife Chief was at Pike's council with the Pawnees. I tried to find what reference I have for that, and so far I have found only one vague suggestion to that effect -- something that George Sibley wrote when he visited the Pawnees in 1811; he mentioned a Skidi "head chief" and Pike, but he didn't tell his name. On the other hand, the father of Shartarish (also named Sharitarish "Wicked Chief") was there, and the son's portrait is the other Pawnee portrait by Charles Bird King on display in the Whitehouse library. There's already far too much misinformation floating around for me to be adding to it, so until I can find something that supports my notion that Knife Chief was among those at Pike's council, disregard it. As to the various Pawnees named Petalesharo -- I rummaged through my files and found a "Petalesharo The Younger" or "Petalesharo II", and the information I have about him indicates he was a member of the Chaui "Grand" Pawnee band, whereas, the earlier Petalesharo was with the Skidi "Wolf" band, which puts doubt as to a close (if any) family relationship between the two.
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Post by lechelesharo on May 30, 2022 17:13:03 GMT -5
I am a Knife Chief. My Pawnee Name is Lechelesharo and I would like to add some additional thoughts to this thread. In our family, the first Knife Chief that is mentioned in history is who we call "the original Knife Chief." His son, Petalesharo (Man Chief), was the Skidi brave who stopped the morning star ceremony in 1816 or 1817. Most Historians I've spoken with put the year as most likely being 1816 because of the position of Venus that year. Knife Chief was described as follows: "At another fire, surrounded by his particular band, sat the Knife Chief, La-che-le-cha-ru, principal chief of the Pawneemahas. He is a large portly man, with a very prepossessing countenance; the hair on the sides of his head is gray; he has a deep scar on the right side, from a wound which was inflicted by a female prisoner, of the Padouca nation, whom he had adopted and taken into his family. This squaw, becoming infuriated at the prospect of the state of slavery to which she supposed herself now reduced, stabbed her child to the heart, mortally wounded the brother of this chief, and, before she could be despatched [sic], had inflicted this wound, through which the bowels protruded." Edwin James Account of S.H. Long's Expedition, 1819-1820. Part 1. The family lineage (for me) from Petalesharo is: Comanche Chief (a man who lived with the Comanche people after taking a Comanche wife. He also brought the Comanche up to his people during a famine and introduced his wife's people to some of the crops that were cultivated by the Skidi.) Comanche Chief's son Knife Chief (in the family we call him 'Old Man Knife Chief'.) Knife Chief's son Charlie Knife Chief (a man who took survivors of massacre canyon and the removal from Nebraska, back to Nebraska and acted as a translator because he had a car and could speak fluent Pawnee and English.) Then two more generations to me. The picture at the beginning of the post from Neagle is actually Petalesharo. It is a painting done from a wood engraving made by a man named Peter Maverick. You can follow the link to see the original work: digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-6aff-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99. The famous painting done by King was (to my eye) pretty "westernized" stylistically whereas the engraving done by Mr. Maverick is probably a lot closer to what Petalesharo actually looked like. Actually, in both, the subject is wearing the same headdress and robe. Finally, when Petalesharo and his father visited Washington D.C. as part of the O'Fallon delegation, two pretty unique events occurred. First, the Pawnee did a war dance on the White House lawn that was attended by an estimated 6,000-10,000 Washingtonians and was the first and only time that a war dance has been held on the lawn of the White House to this day. Second, among the attendees of the dance was a young woman from Miss White's Seminary named Mary Rapine, daughter of Washington D.C.'s second Mayor Daniel Rapine. She was so taken by the story of Petalesharo and his deed that she (and other young students) gathered money to pay for a piece of silver they could engrave and present to the young chief. So, at Mr. Rapine's residence, Mary presented Petalesharo with the medal (now known as the "To the Bravest of the Brave" medal) which he humbly accepted and wore it until the very end of his life. There, the story would have ended had it not been for an 19th Century treasure hunter and grave looter named Olando Thompson. In 1883, Mr. Thompson (who has been erroneously described as a "young farm boy") went to the site of the Skidi burial mound located in, what is now called, the Palmer Site, and dug up Petalesharo. He took the medal and gave it to his young niece Mary who donated it to the Nebraska State Historical Society before selling it to a coin dealer for the American Numismatic Society named J. Sanford Saltus in 1922. There the medal sat until May 27, 2022 when, after a 15-year struggle, it was finally repatriated to the living lineal descendants where it will serve to provide a tangible connection to our family's unique history. It is a shame that we do not know what happened to our grandfather's remains but we hope and pray that he is at peace and that the he is happy his story will continue to inspire future generations to come.
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Post by Californian on May 30, 2022 21:47:24 GMT -5
Thank you Lechelesharo, thank you for sharing your interesting family story on this forum pertaining to the original Knife Chief and his descendants.
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Post by chicheman on Jun 14, 2022 12:41:33 GMT -5
Thank you Lechelasharo for sharing this with us. So sorry that your precious grandfather´s rest in death was interrupted by that man´s shameful act. Good thoughts from Germany.
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Post by gregor on Aug 21, 2023 6:57:26 GMT -5
Indian Baptist Convention, Pawnee, Oklahoma with Charley Knife Chief about 1910/11 ... and a closer view (click on the pic!)
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Post by kashiapomo on Sept 20, 2023 16:17:19 GMT -5
There has been more than one Knife Chief in Pawnee history. The first Knife Chief was a leader of a Skidi Pawnee village on the Loup River in today´s Nebraska in the 1820s. He was the father (or uncle) of the famous Petalesharo. John Neagle painted him in 1821: Knife Chief by John Neagle Historian George Hyde assumed that Knife Chief and his son probably died around 1830, possibly by smallpox. The last treaty they signed was at Fort Atkinson in 1825. A second Knife Chief was acting as a showman with Buffalo Bill in the 1880s. I only found some pictures of him without any further information: Knife Chief visiting Carlisle Indian School - - - - I would like to point out something here - - I have just discovered something here - The woman standing in this foto is Phoebe Howell -she was Knife Chief's sister - the evidence can be found in Carlisle's publication "The Indian Helper", June 18, 1886. In which it describes her being his sister. Photos of Phoebe can be found a Dickinson archives,which houses thousands of Carlisle's students records and fotos.The girl sitting may be and most likely is, he fellow student Rose Howell (Carlisle lists her as Sioux)..Both arrived at Carlisle at the same exact day...Oct 22, 1883 perhaps also Knife Chief?:
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