Jaw (Ćehu′pa) or His Fight (Oki' cize-ta'wa) c.1850-1924

[Californian]

Jaw (Ćehu′pa) or His Fight (Oki' cize-ta'wa) was born in the winter "that Turtle Catcher died" (ca. 1850), the son of a Sans Arc father and Hunkpapa mother. Jaw’s mother died when he was an infant. Thereafter, his grandmother took care of him, and Jaw never forgot that when he was seven he killed birds as the village moved from one campsite to another so she and he could eat. In his youth, Jaw was known as Loud Sounding Metal or Iron Sounding Good (Máza Howa_te). At the age of seventeen, around 1867, he participated in warfare against tribal enemies and earned the name His Battle, or His Fight and this remained the name by which his contemporaries knew him. The moniker Jaw, a nickname bestowed by a white brother-in-law, was frequently used by non-Lakotas when referring to him during the reservation era. Jaw acquired fame as a horse raider, someone who displayed exceptional skill in stealthily entering an enemy encampment at night and making off with his foes’ best mounts. On one particularly memorable occasion, he took no fewer than an astonishing seventy horses from the Crows. When he went to war Jaw carried a leather pouch containing red paint mixed with grease which he used to cover his hands and feet and draw a crescent over his mouth that pointed halfway up to his cheekbones. He also painted a crescent on his horse’s breast and another one on its left hindquarters, adding yellow paint across its nostrils and muzzle. Later, if the horse performed well, Jaw tied a feather in its mane or tail, sometimes knotting a strip of red trade cloth around its neck. If at any time Jaw believed his horse’s performance was affected by a headache, he provided the animal with relief by chewing a herb and placing it in the horse’s mouth. For purposes of warfare and raiding, Jaw kept a pair of Medicine bags, one for himself and another which he tied to his horse’s bit. These held a powdered mixture of dried Purple Coneflower root, Western Wall Flower, Daisy, and Blazing Star. Over his shoulder, Jaw wore a wolf skin — for Lakotas, wolves represented courage and stealth, precisely the traits a horse raider sought to emulate — with an eagle wing bone war whistle tied to its nose.   It is likely Jaw participated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 and accompanied Hunkpapa leader Sitting Bull into Canadian exile soon after. American artist De Cost Smith (1864-1939) met Jaw at Standing Rock Reservation in 1884, where he knew the famous horse raider as His Fight, the name Jaw’s own people used when referring to him. Smith made a painting of Jaw and obtained some of his drawings, one depicting a rare rendering of a visionary experience in which Jaw dreamed of Wakinyan (The Winged One), the horned and winged personification of the spirit of Thunder. Smith later wrote that by the time they met, Jaw “had already won the esteem of his people for virtues particularly Indian, but had never to any extent attracted the attention of the whites, nor, to judge from his bearing toward them, had he any desire to do so.” Smith felt Jaw “was not so much unfriendly as indifferent, and it was some time before I came to know him.” Ultimately, Smith concluded, with obvious admiration, Jaw was a “holy man” and “an interesting and agreeable companion.” As Smith noted, “His war expeditions and his horse stealing were undertaken in a spirit of patriotism, or loyalty, to his tribe, and almost as a religious duty.”

References
-Boller, Henry. Among the Indians: Eight Years in the Far West: 1858-1866 (Philadelphia: T. Ellwood Zell, 1868).
-Densmore, Frances. “Teton Sioux Music,” Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 61 (Washington, D.C.: 1918)
  see online edition books.google.com/books?id=Adw_AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=densm#v=onepage&q&f=false
-Smith, De Cost. Red Indian Experiences (London: Allen and Unwin, 1949).

[portraits of Jaw, courtesy of the National Anthropological Archives] 

[Californian]

more on Jaw = courtesy Welch Dakota Papers (web link: www.welchdakotapapers.com/2011/11/life-on-the-plains-red-mans-welcome-thru-womens-life/#religion)

Religion

Jaw prays to his totem, the Wolf, 1915 notes;

Jaw (Oehupa), a Hunkpapa, Standing Rock Reservation. Childhood name was Maza ho Waste (Good Voice Iron or Loud Sounding Metal). At the age of 17 he received the name of His Battle (Okicize Tawa). His mother was of the band of Hunkpapa known as Giglilaska and his father was Sans Arc (Teton). 63 years old in 1915, born the year he said was “Winter that Turtle Catcher died.” He Said:

“Before any great undertaking I always call upon Wakantonka and smoke a pipe in a ceremonial way – Wakantonka, hear me, behold this pipe, behold it. I ask you to smoke it. I do not want to kill anybody, I only want to get good horses. I ask you to help me. This is why I speak to you with this pipe.”

Then, holding the stem in his left hand and the bowl in his right, he pointed the stem toward the left shoulder and said:

“Wolf, now, behold this pipe. Smoke it and bring me many horses.”

Then, with his right hand on the stem and his left on the bowl, stem upward and bowl level with his face, he said:

“Wakantonka, behold this pipe. I ask you to smoke it. I am holding it for you. Look also at me.”

Then he touched to his lips the unlighted stem and prayed:

“Wakantonka, I will now smoke this pipe in your honor. I ask that no bullet may harm me when I am in battle, I ask that I may get many horses.”

He lit the pipe and smoked it, and then said:

“Wakantonka, behold this pipe and behold me. I have let my breast be pierced (in the Sun Dance). I have shed much blood. I ask you to protect me from shedding more blood and give me long life.”

After this he lit and smoked his ordinary pipe and talked, saying:

“I always did it that way and my blood was never shed after I took the Sun Dance. This is why I always ask Wakantonka to protect me.”

Lone Man’s Prayers, undated notes;

Lone Man (Isnala wico), Sihasapa Teton, made the following prayer before singing into a phonograph for a record of a “Dream Song” call “The Horseman in the Cloud:”

“Great Grandfather, again one of your songs I will sing, listen to me. These you required me to sing each day and now, this day. I shall recall one.”

Lone Man also sung a song to “My Horse,” but after singing, he bowed his head and very reverently said:”

“Makatankan wicasa wan wicohan wan awahiyaya tko hona on onsimala yo, tuwa wankatankan initancan he cina.”

Translation: “A man from the earth am I, I have sung concerning an event from which have compassion on me, whoever from above, you (who are) the supreme ruler.”

[grahamew]

See also: amertribes.proboards.com/thread/1224/jaws-painting-battle-rainy-butte

[grahamew]

I wonder if this is one of his too:

amertribes.proboards.com/thread/1226/lakota-painted-hide

[Californian]

thank you Grahame for both links, this is good information. I am planning to set up a wikipedia page on Jaw - his artistic legacy deserves a wider audience, but I still need to do my homework on his biographical details, which seem to be originating primarily from the ethnomusicologist, Frances Densmore. I am in contact with Emily Levine from the University of Nebraska who edited the book Witness: A Hunkpapa Historian's Strong-Heart Song of the Lakotas by Josephine Waggoner, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln NE (2013) to try to obtain more information. I also found Jaw in The Sitting Bull Surrender Census by Ephriam D. Dickson III (who's also on this board) indicating that he was part of Gall's group. Here I am a bit confused, it was my understanding that Jaw was known under the name His Fight (Oki'cize-ta'wa) and thus would have presumed that he would appear in the Surrender Census by that name and since another source stated that he was given the name Jaw by a white brother-in-law. Painter DeCost Smith who knew Jaw well and painted him (still need to find a copy of that painting) called him His Fight, rather than Jaw.
Thanks again for your input and best regards, Californian.

[grahamew]

There's more in the thread about red war capes, though some of the images are now missing.

Some of his drawings appeared on Skinner's auction site and included a depiction of Sitting Bear, who was a brother or cousin (the other being Hawk Man, the policeman involved in the arrest of Sitting Bull at Grand River).

Hawkman/Hawk Man

This his depiction of Sitting Bear's death at the hands of Crow warriors.



The following three images were taken from Sinner's Auction site:







There are a couple of his works in Berlot's Plains Indian Drawings, though she doesn't seem to have made the connection between Jaw and Okicinintawa and makes no attribution - but they are his. Again, the signature is there. He seems to have been one of those men who - on occasion - wore the red 'turban' and red cape combination.



Both bear the signature of a line separating what I take to be two horse hoof shapes, surrounded by lots of smaller marks that I take to be enemy fire




One of the drawings she prints is a variation on this one:



 

[Dietmar]

Here´s the portrait from the DeCost Smith book:



His Fight aka Battle, Hunkpapa Sioux

[Dietmar]

This page of a ledger book in 'A Song for the Horse Nation: Horses in Native American Cultures' (Fulcrum Publishing, 2006) indicates that His Fight and his brothers Hawk Man and Sitting Bear were sons of Long Soldier:

[Californian]

thank you both, Grahame and Dietmar, this is great information and I truly learned a lot today, come time we'll have enough material for the planned Wikipedia page on Jaw.

[Californian]

hi Dietmar - after looking more intensely at the DeCost Smith painting, the features are looking quite familiar and quickly came One Bull to mind, Sitting Bull's nephew, particularly the photograph by Bailey, Dix and Mead dated 1882 - what do you think ? One Bull looks more like the man depicted in the painting that the one in the photographs by Frances Densmore dated 1913. Of course there are about 30 years time between the painting and these later photographs, but honestly I see little resemblance and wonder if DeCost Smith didn't just paint One Bull and named it His Fight ?

[Californian]

it says...after a photograph of Leslie Smith ... who was Leslie Smith ? The last name might indicate a connection to DeCost Smith of course.

[Californian]

sorry for the multiple messages, I think the DeCost Smith portrait is One Bull - the resemblance to the below photograph, even down to the jacket, is uncanny

[Californian]

hi Dietmar, after some checking it turns out that Leslie Smith mentioned at the bottom of the painting was DeCost Smith's older brother.

Oct 7, 2019 15:04:49 GMT -5 Dietmar said:

Here´s the portrait from the DeCost Smith book:



His Fight aka Battle, Hunkpapa Sioux

[gregor]

Hi Californian,
the second Photograph of One Bull was shot bei Palmquist & Jurgens (St. Paul) in March 1884.
Up to now, I have never seen a Photograph of One Bull by a Leslie Smith.
Greetings from Germany, Gregor

[Dietmar]

I can see what you mean, Californian. There is a resemblance to the One Bull photo.