Big Head (Big Brain)/Hole in the Head family

[frenchman]

: I Greetings from France
I am trying for a long time to reconstruct the genealogy of the Big Head / Hole in the Head family  , prominent among the Kuhinyans , through the different threads I had read on American Tribes !
I want to know if my conclusions are right or not and possibly learn more about the kindred of this two headmen .
I summarize what I had read :
1)Wears Yellow Earrings was the Big Head's father
2)Hole in the Head and Big Brain were brothers
3)Flies above ( born 1854 ) was the Hole in the Head's brother (full or half brother ? )
4)The Flies Above's mother , Good Woman , married White Dress but before she had Flies Above and Last Horse (born 1852 ) so was she , at one time , married with the Hole in the Head 's father ?
5)Face (aka Scalp Face ) was an other Big Head's Brother
6)Were all this men (Big Brain ,Hole in the Head, Flies Above, Last Horse ,Face ) brothers of the same family ?
7)No Flesh , Spotted Horse and maybe Big Brain 2 were Big Brain 's sons
8)Spotted Horse was a Paint his Chin Red's nephew : on what side father or mother ?
9)In 1874 we found Hole in the Head in the Two Lance's band of Southern Oglalas  but who was this Two Lance ,the Whistler 's half brother (same father ) or an other man ? I had read that Flies Above (born 1854) had a son called Two Lance ( surely too young to be a band leader ) and the Whistler's half brother was born around 1828/29 and I have never learn the name of Whistler's father !
Thank you very much for your upcoming answers!

[kingsleybray]

hi frenchman, you've obviously done a lot of thinking about the Big Head / Hole in the Head family of Oglalas, which Lone Bull (aka John Long Bull) identified as belonging to the Kuhinyan ("Guhia") band in his long 1939 interview with Donald Collier.

I can't address all your points right now, but looking at the early part of the family tree, I can confirm that from my own Oglala friends I have learned that Wears Yellow Earring was the father of the first Big Head (Nasula Tanka, born c. 1800). Wears Yellow Earring was probably born about 1775. He was the son of the previous Kuhinyan chief Crouches Running (Pustak Inyanke), who presumably was born around 1750. Crouches Running was a prominent man by the mid-1780s. Wears Yellow Earring had succeeded his father by c. 1818. That was the year that the Kuhinyan returned to the Oglala after twenty years or so "camping away from the circle". Their return was marked by them being allocated the place of honour at the rear of the Oglala camp circle at that year's Sun Dance.

The family comes down to that spread of brothers and cousins prominent in the generational frame 1850-75, Big Brain (Big Head no. 2), No Flesh, Spotted Horse. Note that Big Head no. 1 seems to have died or retired early, soon after the mid-1850s. His place as most prominent Kuhinyan headman was then taken by Whistler. I will try to find out more about Big Head's disappearance from the record. Hope this helps.

[kingsleybray]

Spotted Horse no. 1 was a Kuhinyan of the Big Head family; I'm not sure of the exact relationship. Anyway, his mother was a sister of Paints His Chin Red, the Oglala chief killed by Pawnee raiders in early 1838. Paints His Chin Red was a cousin of the first Bad Wound (c. 1757-1825), the headman of the Tasnaheca-yuta (Ground Squirrel Eaters) band. The Kuhinyan and Tasnaheca-yuta became very closely linked by marriage in the early 1800s. Smoke (Tasnaheca-yuta) and Lone Man (Kuhinyan; father of Red Cloud) married each other's sisters about the time the Kuhinyan came back to the Oglala hoop.

Man Afraid of His Horse -- nb the grandfather of 'Old' Man Afraid of His Horse -- was married to a sister of Crouches Running, and became an important family head within Kuhinyan.

[hreinn]

Frenchman, have you seen Donald Collier's field notes ?

[frenchman]

Hreinn ,
thank you for your post !
no I had no read the Collier's field notes because in France it's very difficult to find books or documents about Lakota people espacially in english !
But as you could see in my first post in that thread I'm very interested by the genealogy of these two men , so if you have some details I will be very happy to learn more about them and their whole family !
Best regards !

[hreinn]

Regarding Big Brain's family based on Lone Bull to Donald Collier.
There were 8 siblings (1 female, 7 males), but names of their parents is not given.
The genealogical tree of these 8 siblings indicates they were either of same father or same father and mother.

Information about the 8 siblings in Collier's field notes:
1. Big Brains (his son was Black Prairie Chicken, who was Lone Bull's "chum")
2. Hole in the Head (he had 2 children. His son was Bluffing Bear. Name of his daughter is not given but she married Poor Skunk (who is said to be from Red Cloud's camp))
3. Spotted Horse
4. Flys Above (his son was Two Lance)
5. High Hawk (his son was Broken Robe)
6. American Horse (in Red Cloud's band)
7. Journeys
8. unnamed female, who married Back Bone (from Mnikhówozu) and together they had 4 sons; Prime Coyote Skin, Red Rabbit, Back Bone and Short Owl


It is strange to see American Horse listed here.
Perhaps Kingsley Bray can explain this ?

[kingsleybray]

Afraid I can't add anything to the Lone Bull genealogy in this regard, hreinn. One I decided to leave alone.

[hreinn]

OK