Lakota Women

[Wakalapi]

In my opinion, there is so much to appreciate, admire & acknowledge women for that one would probably end up writing an award winning novel.

My question to you is, who are some of our Hunk-Papa women that are known for traditional & cultural teachings that had/have impacted our tribe?

Wakalapi

[Wakalapi]

Hau, I have made discover of some pictures on the web. One of the women (White Hawk) is the wife of Big Foot. Interesting!

www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/legends/vpost?id=2455759

FYI: The posting states that these pictures were originally posted by HinTamaheca. Interesting! I have seen this name on other website postings.

Wakalapi

[jinlian]

Hi Wakalapi,

I see you've changed the thread's heading into "Hunkpapa or Oglala women", so I think you may appreciate some pictures and information about Chief Red Cloud's wife, Pretty Owl aka Lean Woman aka Mary Good Road, who was the only wife Chief Red Cloud ever acknowledged and had a lifelong influence on him. A few months ago, I collected some info into and shaped them into a lenghty discussion for an Italian forum - if you're interested , I can track my sources back and post them here.

In the meanwhile, here are some basic info:
from: freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mikestevens/tiyo2-p/p4.htm

Mary Good Road - b. 1835- d. July 22 1940 (did she die at 105?)
membership: Bad Face Band of the Oglala Lakota. Mary Good Road was also known as Pretty Woman and Pretty Owl.3 Mary was born at Lakota Territory in 1835. She was the daughter of Hollow Bear and Good Owl. As of circa 1850,her married name was Red Cloud. She married Chief Red Cloud at near Raw Hide Buttes, Lakota Territory, circa 1850. Mary, as Chief Red Cloud's wife, resided with him, at North Platte River Region, Lakota Territory, after 1865.
She was listed as Chief Red Cloud's wife in a census on June 30, 1904 at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Wakpamini District, Shannon Co., South Dakota. Mary died on July 22, 1940 at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, USA.

She and Chief Red Cloud raised 4 or 5 daughters and one son.

More details about the dramatic beginning of their marriage can be found in Red Cloud's autobiography and are also reported on this webpage:
mhs.mt.gov/pub/press/redcloudex.asp

Here are the pictures of Pretty Owl/Good Road I've managed to find so far:

[clw]

Jinlian ~ interesting stuff. Thanks!

If you have more information and/or photos referencing Lakota women of ANY division would you start some new threads and share them?

[jinlian]

Hi Clw,
of course, in time I'll finish posting all the information about Chief Red Cloud's wife. I have quite a good number of photos featuring Lakota women, and I agree it would be great to have them gathered in a single thread (even if sometimes it is difficult to get the "stories behind them"). We should ask Wakalapi if he doesn't mind changing the thread's name into "Lakota women".
In the Italian forum I was speaking of, we had a whole discussion about stories of Native women - we had Pretty Owl, Black Shawl, Lozen, Dilchthe ...I was just trying to collect some information about the Crow Woman Chief. I hope to finish it soon, and to post it here too in the Apsalooka section.

About Lakota women, I think our Native friends here could help us to tell more of their stories.

[tatanka]

HinTamaheca posts quite a lot on the Lakhota.com website.

[jinlian]

Most direct sources report that Pretty Owl was Chief Red Cloud's only wife; however, as reported by Mrs. James Cook in J. Olson Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem, it would seem that in his younger days the Oglala chief took other 5 (!) wives. In his biography of Red Cloud, R. Larson reports the data of a probate document of the South Dakota State Historic Society in which are mentioned the names of Red Cloud and Pretty Owl's children: Jack Red Cloud (their only son), War Bonnet, Leading Woman, Plenty Horses, Charges at Him and Tells Him. In Red Cloud's autobiography instead we find just Jack's and 4 daughters' names: Wears War Bonnet aka Julia Long Soldier, Libbie Slow Bear, Fanny Chase Alone and Suzie Kills Above. This would leave out 2 or 3 daughters: the wife of One Stab (reported in Fought With Custer: The Story of Sergeant Windolph, Last Survivor of the Little Big Horn), the wife of Big Road (reported in Mike Stevens' website), "Louisa", who was the wife of the half-blood Pete Richard (a key witness in the Plenty Horses trial) and maybe, if Judge Eli Ricker's report is correct, one of the wives of Chief American Horse. I guess only the Red Cloud family can shed some light on this.

Almost all of our sources agree that Pretty Owl had quite a strong personality: even if Mari Sandoz's description of her being " not silent as a winter mole" and the hint that "many a man planted his mocassin firm and long on the warpath because there was no peace in his lodge" sound quite unfair, she had indeed a strong personality and didn't seem ready to share her famous husband with other women. As she said to an old friend, Charles P. Jordan:
"When he [Red Cloud] was a young man, I was very jealous of him and used to watch him very closely for fear some other woman would win him from me". Julia McGillycuddy, daughter of the V.T. McGillycuddy, who was agent at Pine Ridge for 7 years, reports in her father's biography that in the 1880s Red Cloud did attempt to take a younger wife, but was prevented by Pretty Owl's threat to kill the intruder - anyway, Julia McGillycuddy is far from being a reliable source. What's more, at one point both Red Cloud and his wife were baptized Catholics and this would have been a serious obstacle to a polygamous household.
Years later, painter Elbridge Bourbank said that at the beginning he had a very hard time in persuading Chief Red Cloud to pose for him and then he "discovered that at Red Cloud's home, his wife was the boss. Any time the Indian agent or officials wanted something of Red Cloud, they went to his wife." and remarked "Had I known this, I might have secured his portrait much sooner." It was also true that Pretty Owl had quite an influence on her husband in political matters: Jeffrey Ostler reports that in 1888 Pine Ridge Gallagher, believing that Red Cloud was reluctant to sign the Sioux bill because his wife opposed it, had W.J. Godfrey paid more a visit to the couple in the attempt of persuading them to accept that resolution, but failed. When Red Cloud, in the Ghost Dance's final days (January 1891) was abducted by Two Strike's band, rumors said that it was Pretty Owl who decided to join the hostiles "declaring that she would take the warpath alone, even if her husband wouldn't join her", but this seems to be a groundless story.

Pretty Owl is buried next to her husband in Pine Ridge's Holy Rosary Cemetery.

Other information about her and Chief Red Cloud's immediate family would be, of course, greatly appreciated.

[jinlian]

Found this picture of two of Chief Red Cloud's daughters in their late years:

[liverpoolannie]

You can tell they are their fathers daughters jinlian !! same photograph pose !!

How about this woman ?? .... you can't help but "feel" for her !! Moving Robe - a Hunkpapa Sioux woman warriors account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

www.astonisher.com/archives/museum/moving_robe_little_big_horn.html

Annie

[tatanka]

Good site, Annie. I didn't know there were any Lakota scouts with Custer. I heard the story about Dorman before. I believe the story refers to him.

[liverpoolannie]

I wonder if these "gutsy" women would qualify under traditional & cultural teachings that had/have impacted our tribe

One Who Walks With the Stars was an Oglala Sioux woman who was the wife of Crow Dog a Brule Sioux warrior - she killed two soldiers by slashing and clubbing them in the water of the river bank during the Battle of Little Big Horn

www.friendslittlebighorn.com/LBH%20Warriors.pdf

Minnie Hollow Wood was a Lakota Sioux woman who earned the right to wear a warbonnet because of her actions in the Battle of Little Big Horn ... her husband's name was Hollow Wood

www.lbha.org/Indians/NameM.htm

Annie

[clw]

Tatanka ~

I think that tale refers to Dorman too. But there were three full blood 'Dakota' scouts with Custer. At least they started with the column, but information about them is sketchy and I've never pinned down when and where they left the command.

[liverpoolannie]

Sorry to go off topic Wakalapi ............ but just to answer ...... I'm not sure about Lakota but Bloody Knife was born in 1840 to an Hunkpapa Sioux father and a Ree mother..... he spent his first 16 years with his father but was frequently taunted beaten and abused for being a "half-breed."
At age 16 he left the Sioux camp with his mother but returned in 1860 to visit his father ..... Bloody Knife was still despised by the Sioux and was almost killed during this visit
Chief Gall a leader of the Hunkpapa and participant in the Battle of the Little Big Horn killed Bloody Knife's two brothers in 1862 !

And this is Dorman .....

www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=16174686

Annie

[jinlian]

Thank you for the links, Annie...I have this picture of Crow Dog and his family:



His wife should the first standing from left.

Here's another Lakota Hunkpapa woman: Martina Blue Earth, last wife of Chief Gall.



Chief Gall fell in love with Martina, who had been the wife of his comrade Iron Cloud, in 1885. Gall was already married with Stand in Center, a woman older than him, but would have taken Martina as second wife. He then sought advice from agent McLaughlin, telling him that "his heart was good, but sad because he was in love". McLaughlin however discouraged him from marrying Martina and Gall apparently gave up his project. He and Martina eventually got officially married on November 12 1894, two months before Gall 's death. At the time, they had a 9 years old daughter, the evidence that, even without the authorities' consent, they were already married according the Lakota custom.
.

[clw]

There were four Dakota enlisted scouts, not three (probably recruited from the area around Ft Abraham Lincoln) named Bear Waiting, Bear in Timber, White Cloud and Buffalo Ancestor. An unpublished source indicates they were probably with the Arikara who took the captured ponies back to the Yellowstone. It's a good source.

Glad you made me look it up. I got thinking this afternoon that I HAD recently read some more detailed information about them.