Chief Smoke and his family

[jinlian]

According to Mike Stevens' website, Chief Smoke (Šota) was born around 1800 and died in 1864 at Fort Laramie. His sons Big Mouth and Blue Horse later became leaders of the Wagluhe band (Loafers) which used to camp in the In Donovin Sprague's book has also No Neck and Woman Dress as sons of Smoke and adds that the Smoke family was part Cheyenne. We also know that a sister of chief Smoke called Bega was the mother of Spotted Bear , the first itancan of the Bad Faces (and their namesake, according to George Hyde). Another sister, Walks as She Thinks, was Chief Red Cloud's mother (by the way, how many were Red Cloud's brothers and sisters? The numbers seems to be quite uncertain). I don't know if White Hawk, Red Cloud's uncle who helped raising him was also a relative of Smoke - the scarce news we have about this man would corroborate this hypothesis, but I'd like to have a confirm of this.

After Chief Smoke's death, the leadership of his band seems to have passed to his sons Big Mouth and Blue Horse, while Woman Dress (also according to Sprague's book) remained associated with the bands near Fort Laramie.

Can anyone help to draw a clearer picture of this complicated family tree?

[Dietmar]

Good question!

Are you sure Blue Horse and Big Mouth were sons of Smoke? I can´t remember reading that before.

I think Woman Dress was the grandson of Smoke. Wasn´t he the son of Smoke´s son nicknamed Bad Face?

Another son of Smoke was Iron Hawk, born 1833.

Okay, we have to explore this further...

[jinlian]

Hi Dietmar,

Blue Horse himself stated his (as well as his brother Big Mouth's) being a son of Chief Smoke in a letter to painter Elbridge Burbank:

" I am the second son of the great Sioux Chief, Smoke, to whom more than seventy-eight years ago, there was born two sons, viz, Big Mouth and Blue Horse. As Big Mouth was the elder, he became head chief upon the death of our father..."

www.harvard-diggins.org/Burbank/Years/1910/1910_HI_Chief_Blue_Horse.htm

In Donovin Sprague's book Pine Ridge Reservation, Woman Dress is said to be the son of Chief Smoke and one of his wives called Burnt Her (p.28)

Another of Chief Smoke's sons was a man called American Horse (not to be confused with the famous True Oglala/Loafer chief).

In Mike Stevens' website two women called Ulala (b. 1843) and Cloud Horse Woman (b. 1855) are also mentioned as Smoke's daughters.

According to Sprague, Ulala was a sister of No Neck (therefore considered a son of Smoke as well) and of another daughter called Breath Wind (who later married Louis Shangreau). Another half-sister was Walks with White.

On Spotted Bear, nicknamed "Bad Face" the reports are quite confusing: in some he's considered a son of Smoke, in others a nephew (son of his sister Bega). I suppose this is due to the Lakota customs in which a nephew may be considered a son (and a cousin a brother).

This is all the information I was able to collect.

[jinlian]

A curiosity: on this webpage, it is described a shirt allegedly belonging to Chief Smoke, who is said to have given it as a present to William Collins.

anthropology.si.edu/redcloud/redcloudpage4.htm

The shirt is quite large, and the owner must have been a really big man, which fits the description of Chief Smoke, who's said to have weighed about 250 lbs. Also interesting, is the Cheyenne-style beadwork, which would confirm indirectly Chief Smoke's Cheyenne descent.

Here's a picture of this shirt:

[jinlian]

In a 1993 letter reported in The Guilt of Nations by Elazar Barkan, Elizabeth Young Bear wrote to the Smithsonian Insitute, claiming to be the only direct descendant of Chief Smoke and requesting the institute the return of Chief Smoke's mandible and skull, which, sometime after his funeral, were taken away from his scaffold and sent first to Fort Laramie and then to Washington, D.C.
The Smithsonian compelled, and Chief Smoke's remains went back to the Young Bear family.

[Dietmar]

There are several photos of Blue Horse at the Smithsonian, unfortunately only the Gardner images are presented at SIRIS with a sample picture.

This entry is very interesting regarding Blue Horse being a son of Smoke:

"His father was killed by Red Cloud." "Blue Horse was shot in back with arrow. Red Cloud also killed Bull Bear and Standing Soldier. All killed from ambush."

It´s a comment on a Post card photograph by Stevens ? /(Full length, standing, front, native dress, holding bow and arrows.)
see: Local Number: OPPS NEG 3222 F

Obviously there is some confusion in this comment. I would interpret this words as: Blue Horse was present, when the feud between Smoke and Bull Bear in 1841 happened. Red Cloud of course didn´t kill his father, but defended him. Blue Horse received an arrow wound in this fight and Bull Bear and Standing Soldier died.

[jinlian]

Thank you for the update, Dietmar. Of course, the comment about Blue Horse's father being killed by Red Cloud is completely out of track, given the close association between them (with many episodes confirming this, as Red Cloud's grudge with Spotted Tail after the killing of Big Mouth, Blue Horse living in Red Cloud's same district [Wakpamini] at Pine Ridge...).

Also, the close resemblance between Red Cloud and Blue Horse looks also as a clear evidence of their kinship.

[liverpoolannie]

Somebody was looking for WhiteHawk a few years ago Jinlian .... maybe an email might push you in the right direction ... and give you the information you need !

boards.ancestry.com/topics.ethnic.natam.nations.assiniboin.assiniboinnat/36/mb.ashx

Annie

[jinlian]

Hi Annie,

thanks for your message. Unfortunately, I don't think this White Hawk is related to the Oglala White Hawk, as the link refers to his descendant as an Assiniboine. Besides, I'm not sure the Oglala White Hawk, who was an uncle of Red Cloud, had direct descendants.

Best,

Jin

[jinlian]

Speaking of Woman Dress, in E. Ricker's Indian Interviews he's said to be a son of Spotted Bear aka Bad Face (and therefore a grandson to chief Smoke) and having a brother name Keeps the Battle, also a scout for George Crook.

Also, there's an indirect confirmation of Big Mouth being the eldest of Chief Smoke's sons when it is said that "he became chief after Smoke's death in 1864".

In his entry on Spotted Tail in Rosebud Sioux, Sprague mentions an oral family tradition having Spotted Tail as a "brother" of Chief Smoke. If so, they were probably hunka brothers, given also the family ties between Smoke's family and the Sicangu (Smoke's sister Walk as She Thinks married Brulé headman Red Cloud aka Lone Man, father to the famous Oglala chief).

[Dietmar]

I have taken a look through Francis Parkman´s writings today. He visited the Oglala camps of Smoke, Bull Bear II and Red Water in the 1840s.

Unfortunately he wrote less about Smoke´s family than he did about Bull Bear´s. What he said is that Smoke had several wifes, as it is to be expected for such a prominent chief. Daughters are mentioned by Parkman, but without name. So I assume there must have been more than two sons (unlike Blue Horse stated).

[jinlian]

I don't know Dietmar. It may be that Smoke had other sons, but died in childhood or at early age (therefore not mentioned by Blue Horse); on the other hand, I don't think Chief Smoke having only but two sons being that unlikely. Red Cloud had just one son (Jack) and at least 7 daughters (also, it's questionable his having married only once); Big Mouth too is reported as having many daughters (one of them married John Farnham, a saloon keeper who had his business near Fort Robinson), but I don't recall any report mentioning sons.

[grahamew]

I'm sure I remember reading that the One Stab who Custer briefly took hostage in the Black Hills in 1874 was a relative of Smoke. The leading man of the village, Slow Bull (I'm presuming it's not THE Slow Bull because the physical description suggests a younger man), was said to be married to a daughter of Red Cloud.

However, I'm damned if I can recall where I read this (the reference to One Stab) and I haven't found it in anything I've checked since this thread began.

Wa One Stab the same Stabber photographed by Gardner in 1872? From the newspaper descriptions of Custer's enterprise, I assumed he'd be rather older.

[jinlian]

I've found the reference in I Fought With Custer: The Story of Sergeant Windolph, Last Survivor of the Little Big Horn and The Custer Companion; however, it is said that One Stab (Stabber) married Red Cloud's daughter. However, I doubt he was a relative of Smoke, because Lakotas generally avoided to marry in the same tiyospaye. Could it be that he became related to Smoke's family through his marriage to Red Cloud's daughter?

About the Stabber who joined the 1872 - he seems to me to be in his late forties.

[grahamew]

Yeah, he doesn't look like he'd be an 'old man' two years later. According to the New York Tribune's reporter with the expedition, Slow Bull was married to RC's daughter; Donald Jackson says the same in Custer's Gold.