Yellow Thunder Family

[grigoryev]

Hello.
What is known about the family of the Yellow Thunder? The site Tiyospaye given the following information:
freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mikestevens/2010-p/p359.htm#i11466
Yellow Thunder was born at Lakota Territory circa 1820. He married (?) Her Holy Breath circa 1839.
Children of (?) Yellow Thunder and (?) Her Holy Breath
(?) Little Big Man b. circa 1840, d. 1887
Hannah Mule + b. circa 1840, d. Oct 12, 1898. Also known as Tocha Cesli

Can anyone add to this information or to correct it?

[kingsleybray]

I have some interesting new information from friends at Pine Ridge.

It is confirmed that Yellow Thunder was the father of Little Big Man and of Sioux Jim (killed by American Horse in 1876).

He was of the Wazhazha band originally. His sub-band was called Iglaka Tehila, Refuse to Move Camp. Supposedly this was a small sub-band of Wazhazha people which at first had resisted the move onto the high plains in the later 18th c. It stayed for a while in Minnesota, hence the name applied. At that time the leader was a man named Spotted Horn Buffalo, an ancestor of Yellow Thunder.

In the 1830s there was growing contact and intermarriage btw elements of the Wazhazha band and the Oglala Bad Face and Hunkpatila bands. Some went to live with the Oglalas, including Yellow Thunder's people.

From my reading of the documentary record, I believe that Yellow Thunder was made a Shirt Wearer in the re-organization of the Hunkpatila band that took place in summer 1841. He is mentioned several times in contemporary sources in the 1840s, though not to my knowledge after 1846.

[grigoryev]

Hello.
Were there any brothers or sisters from the Yellow Thunder?
And if you were, whether there are any data about their families?
Iglaka Tehila, Refuse to Move Camp in 1868 were divided into two groups - Iglaka Tehila, Refuse to Move Camp (10 lodges) and tiyospaye Little Big Man (10 Lodges). So there was a large core - several brothers Yellow Thunder, who have formed a large group, divide in half.
Or I'm wrong?

[kingsleybray]

I'm afraid I don't know much more than what has been posted, grigoryev. The 1868 listing of Northern Oglala bands was presented as a snapshot in time. The two sub-bands would have bonded back together later in the year, or next summer. The Iglaka Tehila camp was still intact at Pine Ridge Agency 1878-83, but it seems to dissolve soon after that date. Probably connected to the discrediting of Little Big Man after the Crazy Horse tragedy. What happened to Little Big Man is a mystery.He isn't in the census records known to me after the mid-1880s. My guess would be he died about 1886-87, just before census records really get detailed.

Nicholas Black Elk (born 1863) talks about a man called Refuse to Go (or Keeps His Tipi) as his maternal grandfather, still alive in 1873. Possibly he was the headman in Iglaka Tehila after the passing of Yellow Thunder. And possibly he was a younger, surviving brother of Yellow Thunder.

[grigoryev]

Thanks for information, Kingsley

[cankpeopi]

I know Little Big Mans Scout Headstone is in the Episcopal Cemetery on the south side of the town of Pine Ridge. Forget the date of death.

[Dietmar]

A member from New Hampshire has sent me this photo of Little Big Man's headstone, taken several years ago on Pine Ridge - probably in the Holy Cross Cemetery.

So it is confirmed that he died in 1887.



Thank you Karla!