Rain-The-Face

[ladonna]

Rain-in-the-Face was a brave warrior and stood firmly in preventing killing of game and buffalo of the Lakota. His warriors once attacked railroad survey crews. Captain Yates and Tom Custer and 100 cavalrymen arrested Rain-in-the-Face for killing two trespassers on Lakota land. He later escaped from the guardhouse at Ford Lincoln. He was a key leader who fought Custer in the Battle of the Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876. On a buffalo hunt in 1877, a gun he was carrying accidentally discharged hitting him in the knee and crippling him. True and loyal to the Lakota people, Rain-in-the-Face died at Little Eagle (Running Antelope), on the Grand River, September 12, 1905. (Cross H. 1927, p.57). He is believed to be buried at the Episcopal cemetery in Bullhead/Rock Creek, South Dakota. Done by Robert Gipp Rain-in-the-Face had five brothers, Red Thunder, Iron Horn, Little Bear, Shave Head, and Bear’s Face

[ladonna]

Rain-in-the-Face, Itonagaju
There were six full-brothers, sons of the Hunkpapa Bear Face I (Mato Ite). The latter was a signatory as a warrior to the 1825 Hunkpapa treaty with the Atkinson-O'Fallon Commission. He must have been born about 1800.
His sons were

Red Thunder - born about 1827
Iron Horn - born about 1829
Bear Face II - born about 1830
Rain in the Face - born about 1836
Little Bear - born about 1838
Shave Head - born 1840

The family was a leading tiwahe within the Che-okhba or Droopy thingy band.

The band occupied the place in the Hunkpapa camp-circle next to the Sore-Backs band, which suggests they may have been sister bands, one budded off the other.


Circa 1835, Hunkpapa Sioux he fought in the Little Big Horn Battle in the valley fight. Some say he killed Tom Custer. He died September 14, 1905, Standing Rock, N.D.

[tatanka]

There is a story regarding Rain-In-The-Face and Tom Custer. It was said that when the Lakota was incarcerated at Fort Lincoln Tom Custer treated him badly. After he escaped, Rain-In-The-Face vowed someday to kill him and eat his heart. When TCs body was found his chest had been sliced open, lending credence that Rain-In-The-Face had carried out his threat. Also some years after the battle he met Elizabeth Custer, inquiring about her health and whether she had "a new soldier-chief".

[ladonna]

1873 - Rain In The Face Rain-in-Face killed Dr. Honzinger and others accompanying him for trespassing on the land of the Lakotas.

1874 - Rain In The Face arrested
Rain-in-the-Face, Hunkpapa, was arrested for killing two civilians under clouded circumstances on Sioux treaty lands. A military detachment under the command of Captain George Yates arrested a Sioux warrior, Rain-in-the-Face, at Standing Rock Agency. They claim that Rain In the Face had murdered two civilians, Dr. Honzinger and Mr. Baliran, over a year before

1875 - Rain in the Face escapes 1875 - In addition to these problems, the invasion of the Black Hills by the military, and later the gold miners, caused the Sioux to remain restless through out the winter. Another source of tension was the escape of Rain-in-the-Face from Fort Lincoln

[jinlian]

In his interview with Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa), Rain in The Face denied the mutilation of Tom Custer's body and said he wasn't even sure about killing him. Here's the passage:

Many lies have been told of me. Some say that I killed the Chief, and others that I cut out the heart of his brother [Tom Custer], because he had caused me to be imprisoned. Why, in that fight the excitement was so great that we scarcely recognized our nearest friends! Everything was done like lightning. After the battle we young men were chasing horses all over the prairie, while the old men and women plundered the bodies; and if any mutilating was done, it was by the old men.

I have lived peaceably ever since we came upon the reservation. No one can say that Rain-in-the-Face has broken the rules of the Great Father. I fought for my people and my country. When we were conquered I remained silent, as a warrior should. Rain-in-the-Face was killed when he put down his weapons before the Great Father. His spirit was gone then; only his poor body lived on, but now it is almost ready to lie down for the last time. Ho, hechetu! [It is well.]

For the full interview, check: www.authorama.com/indian-heroes-and-great-chieftains-8.html

[ladonna]

This is my relative,
He said before he died
he did not kill Tom Custer

[tatanka]

I did say it was just a story.

[ladonna]

Don't you just love stories, do you know that it was
Lonesome Charlie was the one who turn in Rain-in-the-Face to the agency for killing Dr. Honzinger and Mr. Baliran.

Lonesome Charlie was also the one who told the
world there was gold in our Black Hill
when he was with Custer as a scout

[tatanka]

The same Lonesome Charley Reynolds who died at Renos'attack? If it was he certainly got his comeuppance.

[ladonna]

yup that is the one

[ladonna]

Rain-in-the-Face (also known as Ito-na-gaju or Exa-ma-gozua) (c. 1835 – September 15, 1905) was a warchief of the Lakota tribe of Native Americans. He was among the Indian leaders who defeated George Armstrong Custer and the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment at the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn.

Born in the Dakota Territory near the forks of the Cheyenne River about 1835, Rain-in-the-Face was from the Hunkpapa band within the Lakota nation. His name may have been a result of a fight when he was a boy in which his face was splattered like rain with his Cheyenne adversary's blood. Late in his life, the chief related that the name was reinforced by an incident when he was a young man where he was in a battle in a heavy rainstorm with a band of Gros Ventres. At the end of the lengthy combat, his face was streaked with war paint.

He first fought against the whites in the summer of 1866 when he participated in a raid against Fort Totten in what is now North Dakota. In 1868, he again fought the U.S. Army in the Fetterman massacre near Fort Phil Kearny in present-day Montana. He again was on the warpath during the Black Hills War, leading a raid near the Tongue River in which two white civilians accompanying Custer's cavalry were killed. He returned to the Standing Rock Reservation, but was captured by Custer after being betrayed by reservation Indians. He was taken to Fort Abraham Lincoln and incarcerated. However, he was freed by a sympathetic soldier and returned to the reservation, then fled to the Powder River. In the spring of 1876, he joined Sitting Bull and traveled with him to the Little Big Horn River in early June.

During the subsequent fighting on Custer Hill on June 25, Rain-in-the-Face is alleged to have cut the heart out of Thomas Custer, a feat that was popularized by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in "The Revenge of Rain in the Face." According to legend, Tom Custer had unjustly imprisoned Rain-in-the-Face. Some contemporary accounts also claimed that the war chief had personally dispatched George Custer as well, but in the confused fighting, a number of similar claims have been attributed to other warriors. Late in his life, in a conversation with writer Charles Eastman, Rain-in-the-Face denied killing George Custer or mutilating Tom Custer.

Rain-in-the-Face died in his home at the Bullhead Station on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota after a lengthy illness.

[liverpoolannie]

Hi Ladonna

George Crager sold the vest of Rain in the Face to the museum in Glasgow .... about the same time Rain in the Face was with Buffalo Bill !! .... but this man JC Worth seems to be wearing it in photos at Pine Ridge !! and I've been trying to find out who he is ... do you know ??

turtletrack.org/Issues00/Co06172000/CO_06172000_Waistcoat.htm



Annie

[ladonna]

I did not know Rain-in-the-face was in the wild west show??
Do you know when he went?

He was crippled after little Big Horn and did not travel much so
I don't know

[liverpoolannie]

I apologise Ladonna ... Rain in the Face wasn't with Buffalo Bill ... George Crager was !!



Annie

[tatanka]

I have just noticed in Rain-In-The-Faces' account of the LBH. He says he saw what he thought was the soldier leader waving a "big knife." I was under the impression that the 7th didn't carry sabres on that campaign as Custer thought they would make too much noise.