Hattie Lawrence / Cannonball Woman

[carlo]

Mrs. Hattie Lawrence, Hunkpapa, born ca. 1866.

Also known as Cannonball Woman, and as Road (Cankula Win). Cousin of White Butterfly (d. 1876) and Long Buffalo. She was a witness of the LBH Battle and gave her account to Walter Camp in 1912. Married to Kills Assiniboine. Lived at Standing Rock. Student at Carlisle boarding school. Acted as interpreter for Frances Densmore.

I believe that she was known as Road when she was younger, before her marriage. Consulting the SB Surrender Ledger, we see a girl named Road (Cankula) in Hawk's Voice's family, part of Rain In The Face's band. Her age is listed as 17, which aligns (if not perfectly) to her ca. 1866 birth year.

Is there more evidence that she was, or wasn't, in Canada? And is this girl Road the same as Hattie Lawrence, i.e. was she the daughter of Hawk's Voice?

Thanks,
Carlo

[gregor]

TETON SIOUX MUSIC BY FRANCES DENSMORE , p. 365:

The following song was sung by Mrs. Hattie Lawrence (pi. 54),
whose Sioux name is Caqku'lawiq (Road). Mrs. Lawrence has been a
student at Carlisle, but retains an unusually clear knowledge of old
war customs. She assisted the writer at McLaughlin, S. Dak., by
acting as interpreter for part of the material furnished by Jaw, Old
Buffalo, and Swift Dog. Mrs. Lawrence said that when she was 10
years of age her cousin, named Kimi'mila-ska (White Butterfly),
was killed by the Crows, and that she remembered hearing her aunt
sing this song when the war party returned with the news of his
death.

Toksha Gregor

[ephriam]

Carlo:

I think you are correct that the 17 year old daughter named Road in the Sitting Bull Surrender Census (Family 160; p. 60) is the woman later known as Hattie Lawrence (c1866-1917).

The head of the family, Hawk's Voice, is listed in the Standing Rock Agency census records as Noisy Hawk from 1885 to 1894. (Notice his wife Sitting Up Straight listed as Sitting Up in the 1885 census; daughter Making a Noise as She Walks is listed as Walk Crying in 1885; Her Swift Horse as His Fast Horse in 1885 confirming that this is the same family).

Road (Hattie) married Kills Assinaboine (Lawrence) about 1886, though so far the earliest I have been able to find this family in the census records is 1888. In several of the census records, these two families are clustered close together, suggesting that they are related.

I don't have any direct confirmation that she was with the Hunkpapa in Canada, however, the family is listed with the bands that were. As you noted, Noisy Hawk is listed in Rain in the Face's band in the Sitting Bull Surrender Census in 1881, suggesting that they may have come in to Fort Keogh in 1880 before being transferred to the Standing Rock Agency in 1881. Noisy Hawk was later in Cross Bear's band and then in Iron Star's band (Black Moon's old band). The family seems to be residing with tiyospaye that had all come in from Canada.

[kingsleybray]

As a starter toward identifying a possible band affiliation:

Hunska Chanto-juha, Legging Tobacco Pouch

Occupying a prominent position at the north horn of the tribal circle, the Legging Tobacco Pouch band is nevertheless one of the most obscure of the Hunkpapa tiyoshpaye. The only explicit identification is Iron Star, noted by Josephine Waggoner as belonging to the band. Iron Star was a relative of No Neck, whose camp of c. 15 lodges returned to Standing Rock from Canada in the summer of 1884. No Neck died by mid-1885, and Iron Star became the headman of the camp. An individual named Noisy Hawk, ‘Cetan Hoton’ (i.e. Loud-Voiced Hawk), is associated with Iron Star’s following. Tentatively, we might suggest that No Neck, prominent in the record from 1869, was chief of the Legging Tobacco Pouch band until his death in 1885; and that he in turn had succeeded the older Loud-Voiced Hawk (died 1868), one of the four Hunkpapa wichasha itanchan acclaimed in 1849.

Loud-Voiced Hawk was identified by One Bull with a band – otherwise unattested – he calls Slumber, or Ishtemela (Box 104, Folder 11, Walter S. Campbell Papers). Since One Bull omits the Legging Tobacco Pouch from his list of seven bands, perhaps the two are identical, or overlap - the Ishtemela being a prominent extended family associated with the Legging Tobacco Pouch band, their name sometimes being applied to the whole group.

The name Sleeper, or Slumbers, Ishtemela, is an old one. In 1812 Manuel Lisa’s party recorded meeting “a Sioux Chief called the Sleeper and 20 Soldiers” below the mouth of White River, where a large village of more than 400 lodges of Tetons (i.e. Brules), Saones, and Yanktons had gathered (Luttig Journal, 55).

At a still earlier timeframe, the account of Eagle Elk (Oglala, Oyuhpe band) to Donald Collier in 1939 mentions an early leader of the Oyuhpe called “Fains sleep”. Given the known ancestral connection of the Oyuhpe band to the emergent Hunkpapa in the mid-1700s (see LaDonna's posting on Rain in the Face), could this headman have some connection to the Ishtemela band of Hunkpapa?

The premature death of Loud-Voiced Hawk in 1868 may have contributed to the band’s later obscurity, with families scattering to join other bands. Certainly elements of Legging Tobacco Pouch and of Kiglashka – both bands which seem to dissolve during the 1880s – were among the c. 35 lodges of Hunkpapas (and other Tetons) who remained in Canada after Sitting Bull’s surrender in July 1881.

Noisy Hawk, Road Woman: As Ephriam’s and Carlo’s postings now demonstrate, we know that Noisy Hawk was enrolled in Rain in the Face’s band at Standing Rock in September 1881. His affinity with Cross Bear is also suggestive, since Cross Bear was a headman of one sub-band of the Sore Backs (Running Antelope’s band). Rain in the Face was himself closely connected to the leading family of the Droopy thingy band. Note how all these three bands – Legging Tobacco Pouch, Sore Backs, Droopy thingy – cluster at the ‘horns’ of the Hunkpapa tribal circle, as if they have a connection. Just an idea – since both Sore Backs and Droopy thingy were fixtures at Grand River, then Standing Rock agency from 1869 forward, does Legging Tobacco Pouch represent a splinter from these bands that adopted a non-treaty policy?

[carlo]

Loud-Voiced Hawk, of course! I've been trying to track down more information on this man Cetan Hotanka for a while now; very interesting to learn he was actually the same as Hawk's Voice/Noisy Hawk, Cannonball Woman's father.

I'm not near my notes right now, but I recall that he was one of the Hunkpapa shirt wearers in the 1850s. Interesting detail is that during the Battle of Rainy Buttes in 1858, Loud-Voiced Hawk rode together with No Neck as they slashed through the Crow ranks.

[kingsleybray]

If there was a family relationship, the 'Noisy Hawk' of the 1880s census data is not the same man as the chief of the 1850s and 60s - the latter died from an accidental stabbing when he fell from his horse in early 1868.

The four Hunkpapa leaders selected by the tribal council at the 1849 Hunkpapa Sun Dance to serve as band chiefs, wichasha itanchan, were said to each represent one of the major Hunkpapa bands of the day.

Running Antelope, Sore Backs band (southeast quadrant of camp circle).
Four Horns, Bad Bows/Ichira band (southwest).
Red Horn, Half Breechcloth band (northwest).
Loud-Voiced Hawk, Ishtemela band ?= Legging Tobacco Pouch (northeast).

Later during the 1850s and 60s they seem to have been supplemented by other leaders who were presented with hair-fringed shirts, including (according to Joseph White Bull) Black Moon (Bad Bows), Long Horn (Wakan), and a man I don't recognize (by this name, anyway) - Crutch. One Bull also listed Bear War Bonnet (or Bear Cap, Raw Meat Necklace band) and Chase the Tiger (Wakan band) as important leaders "when Sitting Bull was chief".

[carlo]

Sorry, Kingsley, I got a little too excited there and jumped the gun... Of course Loud-Voiced Hawk cannot be the same man, as he died in 1868. A family relation is still possible though.

[gregor]

This is Hattie Lawrence:



toksha ake
Gregor

[ephriam]

Thanks, Gregor, for posting this image. I have not seen it before. Where is it from?

[carlo]

It's the one in Densmore's Teton Sioux Music. (Source: Bureau of American Ethnology 61, plate 54)

[gregor]

Carlo, you said it! Densmore's Teton Sioux Music, always worth reading.