We know these drawings were collected by Riley Miller, a 'captain' in the notorious Home Guard and the assumption is that he bought them from Red Hawk on 8 January 1891 rather than took it from the Wounded Knee battlefield, though as Ephriam has pointed out, he was a known relic hunter or, perhaps we should be more straight forward than this: a looter.
In the original collection, there are - or were - 116 drawings, 14 featuring Red Hawk and 12 each for Sitting Hawk and Holy Standing Buffalo, but there are another 14 named men. The handwriting for the Lakota names varies, but it's different from the hand used for the names in English. "The same ink used in drawing the pictures seems to have been used in the names written in Lakota, suggesting the names were written by one or more of the artists." The descriptive captions were written by yet another hand, implying they were added sometime later. (Janet Catherine Berlo in Plains Indian Drawings 1865-1935: Pages from a Visual History (Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1996), pp 210-215).
This raises any number of questions. Who added the descriptions? Who wrote the names? Were the descriptions written by someone with a clear understanding of what was being said? And so on.
To give an obvious example:
'Standing Bear. Sioux visiting Crow camp.' Well, maybe he is or maybe it's been misinterpreted because of the pipe but until I'm told otherwise, I would suspect this shows Standing Bear as a leader of a horse raid on a Crow camp; judging by the hoofprints, many horses were taken - and it would seem only one of the dogs took any notice of the raiders.
Several of the added descriptions reference Ghost Shirts, yet none of the images show them, so I can't help thinking this sort of annotation was added to make the book saleable post-Wounded Knee.
For instance:
'Charging the Crows with Ghost Shirt on. Secured one scalp.' We know the Ghost Shirt was not used against the Crow and we can see White Magpie wears an animal skin war cape with feathers and a painted design, which perhaps renders the owner bulletproof. I do wonder if this is the same White Magpie, photographed by Huffman following his surrender (and possibly while he was a scout):
'Testing the Ghost Shirt.' Again, no Ghost Shirt but rather an animal skin cape with painted designs and feathers, which, perhaps, gave the wearer invincibility (as maybe did the dragonfly designs on his horse, making him blurred, fast-moving and hard to hit).
In this image, Standing Bear, wearing an unusually designed capote, shoots a robed Crow(?) man who stands there, seemingly unperturbed and, tellingly, without any of the blood that you normally see in images of conflict denoting a wound or a kill, as opposed to counting coup. Berlo speculates that Standing Bear is raiding for horses or may be defending his horses from a Crow horse thief, but the capote and gun-rest would imply the former, surely. The caption reads, 'Testing the Ghost Shirt bullet proof. Many Indians came to witness this test.' Again, this seems to be conflating stories of the bulletproof qualities of ghost shirts and another event. The image, to me, shows a raid on a Crow village for horses and a Crow brazenly confronting an armed Lakota whose bullets appear to be having no effect, or, maybe, Standing Bear has returned from somewhere and nabbed a Crow horse thief (note the lariat) in the act. Perhaps the robe indicates a disguise to aid him in moving about the village - or perhaps it is his village and he's just emerged from his tipi. Either way, it doesn't explain the caption or his stance while Standing Bear shoots him without any visible effect.
'Ghost Shirt protecting. Sioux escapes.' And again: no Ghost Shirt in sight. What I find particularly interesting about this image is the red stroud cape and headgear combination that denotes the elder Hump/High Backbone in the Bad Heart Bull drawings. I'm assuming the man at the
front of the horse is Red Living Bear.
'Ghost Shirt Test' - one of the original images not duplicated by W. Ben Hunt. No sign of the Ghost Shirt.
The Milwaukee Public Museum images are from here:
www.mpm.edu/index.php/research-collections/anthropology/online-collections-research/ledger-art-collection/collection Unfortunately, they can't be blown up in size in anything like a decent resolution.
There are other images of men wearing capes with designs and others showing men riding through a hail of bullets, though none claim a connection to the Ghost Dance; for example:
Quick Thunder 'steals government horse and saddle.' He wears this cape in one other drawing where he's stealing Crow horses.
Red Hawk. 'Riding though a shower of bullets.'
It's noticeable that several other captions are incorrect. The non-white enemies are always labelled Crow even though it's plain to see that some are Pawnee:
For example:
'Crow on a mule shoots a Sioux pony.'
We also have this:
One of the very few images where a larger copy can be found on the internet!
'Trading a gun for a pistol.' I presume this was something far more significant, from the pipe (which may represent a raid) and the two Crow bonnets. A Crow with a distinctive Bear Warbonnet appears in the Bad Heart Bull drawings where Runs Fearless counts coup on him and either he or those with him, kill him.
This shows Red Hawk again. 'Running fight - Each has taken one scalp.' Note this time, the non-Lakota is clearly udentified as a Ute, but I can't read what it says above the word, "Ute." I wonder if the note about each taking a scalp really only refers to the fact that both have scalps hanging from their bridles.
This is one of three images no longer in the Milwaukee Public Museum collection and can be found at Heritage Museums and Gardens, Sandwich, Massachusetts.
This is labelled 'Holy Standing Buffalo. Captures a squaw [sic].' You'll notice that whatever else is going on, there is no woman present. Are these men Crow? The man in the bonnet seems to be wearing that loop necklace favoured by the Crow (and others, admittedly), though the breechclout doesn't follow the usual style guide in that it's not striped. Are they Nez Perce or maybe Shoshoni?
This is the third image in the Heritage Museums and Gardens collection, but it has no annotation at all.
heritagemuseums.pastperfectonline.com/Search?search_criteria=ledger&onlyimages=falseThis is another that's no longer in the MPM's collection and was up for sale at Cowan's: 'Kills Sioux and pony over scalp.'
In this drawing, we have one of five appearances of Crazy Horse:
However, note the warbonnet, which it has long been said that he didn't wear. Another Crazy Horse? A mistake? He doesn't wear the bonnet in the other images - such as:
'Wounded pony. Spears the Crow.' Note, though, the absence of blood - and spear, for that matter. It seems Crazy Horse has shot at the Crow and wounded the pony and is now counting coup on the unhorsed man as he turns to confront him.
This one shows Red Hawk and is entitled Crows shoots at Sioux warrior. The Crow is easily identifiable by his hairstyle, but what of the other man in the red leggings?
Way back here -
amertribes.proboards.com/thread/803 Ephriam quoted an interview with Red Hawk in the Meany papers, from 20 July 1907, with
Nicholas Rouleaux as interpreter, where he talks about being in Canada with Sitting Bull after Little Bighorn and crossing the border and confronting soldiers and "Sioux, Ree, Assiniboines, Cheyenne and Crow scouts" and I wonder if this shows him against a Crow and a Cheyenne or Lakota during that period.
Now it is, I grant you, very hard to make out, but that would appear to be a wound spurting blood above Red Hawk's blanket. Here's what he says in the Meany interview: "They charged on the scouts, some of whom stood their ground. As they drew near Red Hawk was wounded by one of the scouts and this was the first time he was ever beaten in any battle. He did not fall from his horse and so he escaped." The same incident as illustrated?
Three Red Hawk drawings show him fighting Crows wearing what appear to be uniform jackets:
'Crow kills one Sioux and is shot by Sioux.' As Rod pointed out further back in tne thread, this could possibly appear to show the death of Black White Man at Little Bighorn.
'Chasing Crow on horseback. Shoots him in the head.'
'Shoots a Crow.'
Another shows him shooting a white scout - or possibly a soldier, depending on how much credence you want to give the caption:
'Kills a scout.'
While Red Hawk and some of the other men can be traced to Red Dog's band, let's not forget the fluidity of things during the 'Great Sioux War' (for I suspect the bulk of the images reflect events of the early-late 1870s rather earlier) and the immediate aftermath, so we wouldn't necessarily expect all the men in the ledger to be from the same band.