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Post by jinlian on Mar 22, 2009 17:04:33 GMT -5
White Swan as remembered by Elbridge Burbank:
"Most white people assume that the Indians smear their war paint on indiscriminately, but the truth is that each daub has a significance, as does each feather an Indian wears. White Swan, for instance, wore three feathers in his hair. That denoted the number of wounds he had received in the Custer fight...White Swan also wore red stripes of paint around his arm, indicating the number of Sioux he had killed, and yellow ones for the Cheyennes.
My best Indian account of the fight was from White Swan, another Crow, who had been a scout for Reno. After I had painted his portrait, White Swan agreed to show me over the battlefield. He was deaf and dumb, the affliction having been caused by the blow of a Sioux who had struck him over the head with a war club during a battle. So White Swan had to tell me about the Custer fight in the sign language and by drawing rude pictures illustrating features of the battle. One of the sketches showed a soldier trying to desert. White Swan explained in the sign language that Reno had sent him after this man. The sketch showed White Swan killing the soldier by striking him over the head. I came to the conclusion that he was bragging about his part in the Custer fight."
Was it really bragging? Here's what David Miller says about this accident in Custer's Fall: The Indian Side of the Story :
"In spite of a steadily mounting assault against his position, Reno had lost only one man aside from the Arikara scouts, most of whom were dead or missing. Sergeant Heyn of G Company had been shot through the chest during the change of front. Now the major saw he was about to lose another man-through desertion. A trooper was defying orders to hold fast and was making a run for it through the timber. "Stop that man!" shouted Reno. "No man leaves this line, dead or alive, until I give the order!"
White Swan, one of the two Crows with Reno, may have misunderstood. Or perhaps Bloody Knife, next to Reno, misinterpreted the major's words as an order for the Crow to overtake and kill the deserter, and passed it along as such in sign talk. At any rate, White Swan got up quickly and took after the trooper. Snaking his way through timber and brush, it did not take the scout long to run down the fugitive. The trooper's death cry as White Swan's knife plunged into him was lost in the din of battle. In a little while, the Crow quietly resumed his place in the line. Reno had his hands too full to notice what had happened."
White Swan did in fact paint this accident and not just once. I'll do some scans and post them in the next days.
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Post by jinlian on Mar 23, 2009 8:31:35 GMT -5
A B/W sketch of White Swan by Burbank:  |
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Post by Dietmar on Mar 23, 2009 11:12:10 GMT -5
Thank you jinlian for sharing so much of your knowledge about the Apsalooka!
I hope in the future some people from the Crow Nation will join us here and tell us more of their history and culture.
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Post by wolfgang911 on Mar 23, 2009 16:39:26 GMT -5
White Swan as remembered by Elbridge Burbank: "Most white people assume that the Indians smear their war paint on indiscriminately, but the truth is that each daub has a significance, as does each feather an Indian wears. White Swan, for instance, wore three feathers in his hair. That denoted the number of wounds he had received in the Custer fight...White Swan also wore red stripes of paint around his arm, indicating the number of Sioux he had killed, and yellow ones for the Cheyennes. My best Indian account of the fight was from White Swan, another Crow, who had been a scout for Reno. After I had painted his portrait, White Swan agreed to show me over the battlefield. He was deaf and dumb, the affliction having been caused by the blow of a Sioux who had struck him over the head with a war club during a battle. So White Swan had to tell me about the Custer fight in the sign language and by drawing rude pictures illustrating features of the battle. One of the sketches showed a soldier trying to desert. White Swan explained in the sign language that Reno had sent him after this man. The sketch showed White Swan killing the soldier by striking him over the head. I came to the conclusion that he was bragging about his part in the Custer fight." Was it really bragging? Here's what David Miller says about this accident in Custer's Fall: The Indian Side of the Story : "In spite of a steadily mounting assault against his position, Reno had lost only one man aside from the Arikara scouts, most of whom were dead or missing. Sergeant Heyn of G Company had been shot through the chest during the change of front. Now the major saw he was about to lose another man-through desertion. A trooper was defying orders to hold fast and was making a run for it through the timber. "Stop that man!" shouted Reno. "No man leaves this line, dead or alive, until I give the order!" White Swan, one of the two Crows with Reno, may have misunderstood. Or perhaps Bloody Knife, next to Reno, misinterpreted the major's words as an order for the Crow to overtake and kill the deserter, and passed it along as such in sign talk. At any rate, White Swan got up quickly and took after the trooper. Snaking his way through timber and brush, it did not take the scout long to run down the fugitive. The trooper's death cry as White Swan's knife plunged into him was lost in the din of battle. In a little while, the Crow quietly resumed his place in the line. Reno had his hands too full to notice what had happened." White Swan did in fact paint this accident and not just once. I'll do some scans and post them in the next days. |
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Post by wolfgang911 on Mar 23, 2009 16:44:41 GMT -5
great story  that was at least one 7th member for the crow then. you would not judge by his looks the man such a fierce warrior. weird story though that such an usual order was carried out without doublechecking by the crow. a little too eager.  |
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Post by jinlian on Mar 23, 2009 17:48:18 GMT -5
Probably they didn't have much time to double-check in the heat of the battle. Also, there's no way to know how the order was conveyed in sign-language (Mitch Boyer, who interpreted for the Crows, had stayed with Custer while White Swan and his fellow tribesman Half Yellow Face went with Reno - by mistake?). Anyway, these are two the White Swan paintings in which it is depicted the trooper's slaying:  The Glicrease Museum one  Detail with the trooper's slaying  The Paul Dyck collection one  Detail with the trooper's slaying By the way, there's a book (a PhD thesis, at least from what I've understood) on White Swan as native artist: White Swan: A Crow Indian Painter of the Nineteenth Century by Rebecca Nelson, 1984. Too bad it's quite difficult to find.  |
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Post by wolfgang911 on Mar 23, 2009 17:56:46 GMT -5
are these paintings of his own deeds or do they all referr to various Crow at LBH?*just wondering (as usual!) as there is a binocular spotting big camp in first painting...
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Post by jinlian on Mar 24, 2009 1:07:23 GMT -5
The paintings are all about White Swan's war deeds in different years and occasions - the binocular episode happened many months after the LBH.
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Post by jinlian on Mar 24, 2009 15:04:01 GMT -5
Henri has sent great pictures of some of White Swan ledger drawings (I've never seen them before, not even in Bradley's catalogue) - amazingly accurate details and a great skill in the use of colors . Undoubtly, White Swan was a great artist. Ahoo, Henri! Update: Henri sent also the descriptions (in bold) for the drawings
top left, dancers performing the Hot Dance
top right, dancers performing the Hot Dance
bottom left, White swan persuses two enemy indians on a horse
bottom right, dancers performing the Feast dance in which canine stew was served. (note: this dog-meat feast is also a part of the Hot Dance. Incidentally, the Crow weren't so keen on eating dog meat so it was often replaced with another kind of meat)  top left, White Swan persuses and kills two enemy indians
top right, White Swan is sent to retrieve an army deserter and shoots him
bottom left, White Swan counts coup on his attacker who has shot several arrows who missed target
bottom right White Swan pursuses and kills an enemy warrior, while carrying the 7th cavalry guidon (the last drawing is very interesting, as the episode wasn't painted in any of the other known White Swan drawings. Also interesting is the deatail of the Indian killed, holding a rifle and wearing a coat; in this sketch, White Swan added the detail of the army guidon, which means the episode happened during his service as scout, but not necessarily at LBH)  top left, White Swan is now severely wounded in his right hand and leg by enemy gunfire and bleeding profusely
top right, White Swan counts coup on the enemy, whose horse he has already killed
bottom left, White Swan and enemy shoot at each other, but arrows and bullets have all missed
bottom right, White swan counts coup on Sioux warrior, as the sioux shoots at him (the first drawing refers probably to the LBH wound episode; the last vignette refers to the intertribal battle know by the Apsalooke as the "Big Shoulder Blade battle" 1874-75)  top, White Swan has killed the horse of his enemy and is firing again at the other indian
bottom, The severely wounded White swan is rescued by his fellow scouts, who fabricated a travois. |
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Post by jinlian on Mar 24, 2009 15:09:01 GMT -5
Btw, I found out which clan Curley - and most probably White Swan - belonged to: the Ashkápkawiia (Bad War Deeds) - source R. Lowie "The Social Life of the Crow Indians".
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Post by jinlian on Mar 25, 2009 9:23:08 GMT -5
Just for completenesss...(these photos have already been posted in the LBH boards) White Swan at the Omaha Trans-Mississippi, 1898:    I'll try to identify the subjects of the drawings sent by Henri later (need to compare them with the ones presented in the exhibition catalogue) |
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Post by wolfgang911 on Mar 25, 2009 18:13:08 GMT -5
on those ledgers the trooper is once beside his horse and once without any horse (as he ran away throught the timber..), same event?
he sure did a lot of intertribal warfare at his young age! :-)
He looks like a nice quiet little man though, not a fierce Gall type of a warrior for so many deeds; so never judge a crow by his looks in battle is my advice!
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Post by jinlian on Mar 27, 2009 2:45:27 GMT -5
White Swan at LBH in various accounts:
From Custer in '76 - Walter Camp's notes on the Custer Fight - interview with D.Lynch, 1908-1909:
When [Reno was] corraled [on the hilltop] Lynch saw White Swan, the Crow Indian scout, at one time when Sioux making charge, drag himself out [to the firing line] by grabbing the grass with hands and pulling himself along with his gun to get a shot at the Sioux. The men would then drag him back and in a little while would find him trying again to get out to skirmish line to fire at the Sioux. He was wounded 5 o 6 times and legs so badly wounded that could not use them
The official reports speaks only of 3 wounds - it might be that, with all the heavy bleeding, Lynch believed that White Swan had been hit a few more times.
The Brave Bear (Cheyenne) episode may be placed a while after this one.
From Indian views of the Custer fight by Hardoff, Brave Bear interview (1906):
Two Crow scouts of Custer [the other being Half Yellow Face, the "pipe carrier" of the Crow group who, along with White Swan , had gone with Reno because of a misunderstanding] came charging towards me. I also charged on them. When I got near them they both jumped off their horses and got on the sid of their horses so they could shoot better. Just then a lot of warriors rushed up to count "coup" on them , but I was first to count coup on one. This gave me a big honor or big name by counting first "coup" in the Custer battle
Hardoff identified the "couped" Crow with White Swan - probably it was there where White Swan got his most severe wounds, including the shot-off hand. Brave Bear places the incident on the west side of the river, but Hardoff is quite positive that Brave Bear was mistaken in this and that it actually was the east bank of the river, where later White Swan was rescued by his fellow Crow Half Yellow Face and the Arikara scouts.
From The Arikara narrative of the Custer campaign by O. Libby, Young Hawk (Arikara) narrative:
(After Young Hawk and some of his companions, including the wounded Goose had sought refuge in a thick grove)...Just then Young Hawk saw Half Yellow Face crawling toward him. . He said "My friend is being killed, he's just on the edge of the thicket". Young Hawk went with him crawling on hands and feet to where the Crow scout lay on his back with his hands up. The two scouts took him by his arms and dragged him back to where Goose sat with his back against a tree. He was Strikes Enemy or White Swan (Crow). He told them he was not afraid and that he was glad he was wounded.
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Post by jinlian on Mar 27, 2009 10:36:59 GMT -5
Update: I've added the White Swan drawing's descriptions sent by Henri and some comments.
White Swan had already counted "coup" before the LBH and therefore was considered a batse'tse (literally "good man" i.e. chief which anyway wasn't the same as camp leader). He and Half Yellow Face were the only ones among the Custer scouts to enjoy this status (Curley, White Man Runs Him and Hairy Moccasin were too young and, according to his wife Pretty Shield, Goes Ahead never counted "coup"). This should explain the general mourning in the Apsalooke camps when the news of the supposed death of White Swan and Half Yellow Face reached them (will add the passage reported in Linderman's Pretty Shield tonight).
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jari
New Member
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Post by jari on Mar 28, 2009 7:18:05 GMT -5
White Swan at LBH in various accounts: From Custer in '76 - Walter Camp's notes on the Custer Fight - interview with D.Lynch, 1908-1909: When [Reno was] corraled [on the hilltop] Lynch saw White Swan, the Crow Indian scout, at one time when Sioux making charge, drag himself out [to the firing line] by grabbing the grass with hands and pulling himself along with his gun to get a shot at the Sioux. The men would then drag him back and in a little while would find him trying again to get out to skirmish line to fire at the Sioux. He was wounded 5 o 6 times and legs so badly wounded that could not use themThe official reports speaks only of 3 wounds - it might be that, with all the heavy bleeding, Lynch believed that White Swan had been hit a few more times. The Brave Bear (Cheyenne) episode may be placed a while after this one. From Indian views of the Custer fight by Hardoff, Brave Bear interview (1906): Two Crow scouts of Custer [the other being Half Yellow Face, the "pipe carrier" of the Crow group who, along with White Swan , had gone with Reno because of a misunderstanding] came charging towards me. I also charged on them. When I got near them they both jumped off their horses and got on the sid of their horses so they could shoot better. Just then a lot of warriors rushed up to count "coup" on them , but I was first to count coup on one. This gave me a big honor or big name by counting first "coup" in the Custer battleHardoff identified the "couped" Crow with White Swan - probably it was there where White Swan got his most severe wounds, including the shot-off hand. Brave Bear places the incident on the west side of the river, but Hardoff is quite positive that Brave Bear was mistaken in this and that it actually was the east bank of the river, where later White Swan was rescued by his fellow Crow Half Yellow Face and the Arikara scouts. From The Arikara narrative of the Custer campaign by O. Libby, Young Hawk (Arikara) narrative: (After Young Hawk and some of his companions, including the wounded Goose had sought refuge in a thick grove) ...Just then Young Hawk saw Half Yellow Face crawling toward him. . He said "My friend is being killed, he's just on the edge of the thicket". Young Hawk went with him crawling on hands and feet to where the Crow scout lay on his back with his hands up. The two scouts took him by his arms and dragged him back to where Goose sat with his back against a tree. He was Strikes Enemy or White Swan (Crow). He told them he was not afraid and that he was glad he was wounded. Hi, The photo and the extract are from ”Little Bighorn Remembered” by Herman J. Viola “Documents found in White Swan’s personnel file in the National Archives of the United States. The two bullet wounds in his right leg are clearly marked, as is the severe injury to his right hand. “ Best Regards Jari  |
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that was at least one 7th member for the crow then. you would not judge by his looks the man such a fierce warrior. weird story though that such an usual order was carried out without doublechecking by the crow. a little too eager. 
