Oglala leader "Thigh" and the Wagluhe band

[jinlian]

In his book "Among the Sioux of Dakota", Whetstone agent D.C. Poole, describing the aftermath of the killing of Big Mouth( at the time leader of the Brulé/Oglala band of Loafers), mentions an "Oglala warrior which I had always considered rather inoffensive". According to Poole's story (also reported by Hyde in his "Spotted Tail's Folk") Thigh, after denouncing the bad effects of whiskey on Indians and the murder of Big Mouth, was appointed chief of part of Big Mouth's band, the other half choosing Big Mouth's brother Blue Horse as their leader.

Does anybody have additional info on Thigh and this group of Wagluhe? Did they melt with the Brulé Loafers (led by White Thunder, if I'm not mistaken) or eventually rejoined the Blue Horse group?

[kingsleybray]

hi jinlian

A few thoughts on the Loafers in the period 1868-1870. The band numbered approximately 100 lodges, or 600 people. In origin they were mainly Oglala and Brule, but in the words of band head soldier Bad Hand (to Sanborn Commission, 1867) there were "grandmothers from all the bands" in the Loafer outfit. In mid-June 1868 a large party of Loafers and the inmarried trading community started from Ft Laramie to the new agency on the Missouri, Whetstone. My belief is that approximately half the Loafers, following Big Mouth, Fire Thunder, and other headmen, made this initial journey. The other half, led by Big Mouth's brother Blue Horse, by Little Crow (Red Shirt's father), and other headmen remained on the Platte. They may have joined Man Afraid of His Horse's village on the South Cheyenne River for the Sun Dance season. In August 1869 Blue Horse and his camp came to Whetstone in company with Red Leaf's band of Wazhazhas. A small group of Loafers remained about the North Platte, near fts Laramie and Fetterman, including Red Shirt, a rising warrior headman. Possibly Red Shirt's warrior society affiliation - he belonged to the Wichiska society founded by Old Man Afraid of His Horse - affected his determination not to go to Whetstone. This group was probably no larger than 15-20 lodges.

In October 1869 Spotted Tail killed Big Mouth, resulting in a crisis in band leadership. The removal of the Whetstone agency to upper White River in 1870-71, and the establishment of Red Cloud Agency on the North Platte in 1871, resulted in the band shifting its affiliation. Piecemeal several family groups rejoined the Oglalas at Red Cloud. By December 1871 Blue Horse had 36 lodges at Red Cloud Agency. Other groups identified as "Loafers Band" at RCA then were Spotted Cow, 16 lodges, and Spotted Horse, 10 lodges. A number of other families, identified as "Ogallalla" or "Half Breed" in Col. J E Smith's tabulation, had probably come from the Loafer community at Whetstone.

The Loafers remaining at New Whetstone (Spotted Tail Agency from 1874) increasingly amalgamated their village organization of chiefs, headmen and akichita police with the Brule Corn Band. A March 1872 report by Agent Risley included a petition by the Lakotas permanently settled at that agency. The signatures read

Yellow Hair
White Thunder
Swift Bear
Fast Dog
Dog Hawk
Owl Eagle
Iron Shell

A July 1872 request for farming implements was signed "For the Loafers" at "White Clay Agency" (the site near modern Whitney, Neb.) by:

Thigh
Blue Tomahawk
Goggle Eyes
Kick
Red Nose
Cut Pecker.

Simultaneously several Brule and Oglala headmen at the agency signed a claim for the loss of horses to white thieves in 1868:

Swift Bear
Thigh
John
Blue Tomahawk
Yellow Hair
Cook.

Thigh and his wife formed part of the Brule delegation to Washington summer 1872. Perhaps Dietmar could upload the Alexander Gardner portraits (two of each) to this thread?

These lists give a good idea of Loafer band leadership at Whetstone/Spotted Tail agencies in the 1870-75 period. In any case they show that Thigh remained at the Brule agency as you speculate.

Hope this helps

Kingsley

[jinlian]

Thank you so much for all the precious information, Kingsley. Is then Little Thigh or Thigh Bone our man? For some reason, I pictured him as an older man...guess my imagination played a joke on me.



Are the Red Shirt you mentioned and the Wild West performer the same person? I remember someone stating that latter was a mixed blood, born of a Lakota mother and a white man...I'll double check later, looks like I've read it on a thread in the LBH board.

Another interesting question is how the leadership of the Laramie group passed from Old Smoke to Big Mouth (and here another question comes: was actually Big Mouth a son to Chief Smoke or was he adopted)? According to Hyde, both Big Mouth and Blue Horse originally belonged to the roaming band later labeled Bad Faces and only in a second time they settled among Smoke's people at Fort Laramie.

Sorry for this flurry of questions, but I've always found the Wagluhe band quite interesting; another intriguing problem is their role in the Bozeman war...but I guess that this deserves a separate discussion.

Thanks again,
Jin

[Dietmar]

Here are the Gardner portraits of Thigh and his wife:


Che-Cha-Lu or Tsheh-Sha-Lah (Thigh or Thigh Bone or Little Thigh)
by Alexander Gardner, 1872


Thigh


wife of Thigh


wife of Thigh

See also the group photo with Thigh that Gardner took at Fort Laramie in 1868 in the „Gardner at Laramie“ thread.

[jinlian]

Thanks Dietmar, didn't see the photographs of Thigh's wife until now.

[kingsleybray]

jinlian

I too have come across reports that the Loafer band leader Red Shirt was the son of a white father. His facial structure indicates as much - the older he got the more white he looked I always thought. I have seen statements that he was related to Little Crow, also a Loafer headman. Little Crow is first mentioned in a newspaper report from 1855, already a fixture around the Ft Laramie area trading community.

The way I understand the band structure is that Smoke's band was called Bad Face, Ite Shicha, in the period from 1841, when it broke with the Kiyuksa/Kuhinyan band after the feud with Bull Bear. I differ from Hyde about Smoke's son being the fellow called Bad Face. I have studied Hyde's source, a letter from Scudder Mekeel, and other oral sources, and I think that Woman Dress was the son of Smoke himself. Family descendants have told me as much.

Later part of the Bad Face band led by Smoke lingered in the Ft Laramie district, forming the core of the Loafer (Wagluhke) band. A report by Thomas Fitzpatrick, Upper Platte Agent, from 1853, expresses surprise at the growing number of Indians settled around the trading posts along the North Platte, giving up hunting for a life on the fringe of the cash economy. Given that Fitz had been at Ft L. in 1852, and taking into account the extremely hard winter of 1852-53, I am inclined to think the Loafers were crystalising out right then, in 1853.

Big Mouth and Blue Horse, brothers, are identified in an 1867 report as formerly Bad Faces, now leaders of the Loafer band. They must have been kin of Smoke, and were approximately one generation younger than him (Smoke was probably born a little before 1800), but whether they were biological sons in the European sense - I dunno. Blue Horse's statement to Burbank seems definitive, he was the biological son of Smoke, but modern family statements don't include BH and BM among Smoke's boys. The jury's out I'm afraid.

I'd like to see your views on the Loafer band role in the Bozeman Trail war, it would be interesting. They acted as envoys and messengers, Blue Horse himself carrying tobacco to Red Cloud more than once from Ft Laramie in a bid to reopen negotiations. Of course there was a deep game also being played with Loafer intermediaries certainly supplying their 'hostile' relatives with intelligence and some indirect access to trade.

Toksha!

Kingsley

[grahamew]

I know what you mean about Red Shirt, but I've seen him described as the son of Red Dog - I'm sure by a crroespondent here but also in a book (I just can't remember where). Adopted?

[kingsleybray]

Two different Red Shirts. The Loafer band chief/Wild West Show celebrity is the fellow we've been talking about. In the 1890 Pine Ridge census he is listed, age 44, Okle Sa, Red Shirt in the Wagluhe Band, White Clay District.

The guy who was the son of Red Dog is separately listed, age 42, Okle Sa, Red Shirt, in the Makaicu Band, Wounded Knee District. George Hyde printed the classic image of the famous Red Shirt (in A SIOUX CHRONICLE) and mis-identified him as the son of Red Dog in the caption.

Kingsley

[jinlian]

Hi Kingsley, everyone

it was Ephriam that pointed out how several sources had the WWS'Red Shirt as a half-blood - reference is on the Red Shirt page in the main site:
www.american-tribes.com/Lakota/BIO/RedShirt.htm

About the Big Mouth-Blue Horse/Smoke connection: in the same source (Burbank) we found the assertion that "he (Blue Horse) was born the same day that Red Cloud saw light" - the statement seems to confirm that they belonged to the same family group. If I remember correctly, in Red Cloud's Folk Hyde (source He Dog) has Red Cloud's father's band as having a distinct camp from Smoke's. So, is it possible that Blue Horse and Big Mouth (assuming that they were biological brothers) were part of the same family group Red Cloud belonged to and that they joined Smoke's camp in the same time i.e. after their original headman (Red Cloud's father)'s death? To complicate things further, direct descendants of Blue Horse now claim that Blue Horse's original band was the Tapisleca - did he marry in that band? I cannot think of other explainations, since I don't recall Blue Horse ever being mentioned as a Tapisleca chief or headman.

About the Wagluhe's role in the Bozeman conflict: of course, mine is more an impression than a definite opinion, but the uninterrupted contacts of the Loafers with their Ite Sica relatives probably - as you noted - did bring the latter more advantages in term of intelligence and goods other than the tobacco gifts than one could think ( can't help remembering how Young Two Moons related how, unlike other Indians, "Red Cloud and Blue Horse had canvas tepees"). Probably, they were trying to get their "place in the sun", getting all the advantages their position as privileged intermediaries - this is a possible key to read Big Mouth's speech at the North Platte council in September 1867.

And then we have the unsolved problem of the "Blue Horse's band" presence on the hostile camp just before the Fetterman fight as reported by Two Moons; the fact that Two Moons identified Blue Horse as one of the principal leaders would suggest that he had quite a big following, surely bigger than the four-men group who followed Big Ribs in his earlier mission to the belligerant Lakotas. There's the possibility that a part of the Laramie Wagluhe has joined their Bad Faces relatives in their war, but in the end their leaders would stay faithful to their politics of straddling the thin line between cooperation with the whites and the keeping of strong familiar or business ties with their less friendly kin (and this would explain the story you reported in another thread about Blue Horse's rush to Fort Laramie just after the Fetterman fight). The fact that ten years later, in 1876, Blue Horse was arrested by General Mackenzie for hiding hostile Northern Indians in his camp can be read as well as yet another demonstration of the attitude previously described.

This is all I can think of now - maybe something more coherent will come up to my mind.

[grahamew]

There was a correspondent on the board who was related to Red Shirt; sadly, I don't think they posted much.

[kingsleybray]

You are right jinlian, Hyde says that Red Cloud's father Lone Man belonged to the Kuhinyan band. He Dog told Mekeel that, and Mekeel told Hyde. He Dog also told Mekeel that Smoke originally belonged to the Tasnahecha (Ground Squirrel) band, and later to the Bad Faces.

These bands were dynamic and fluid, and what I suggest is that He Dog is recalling the state-of-play before say 1820. Then intermarriages took place (e.g. Lone Man to Smoke's sister Walks As She Thinks) in the 1820s and 30s, and out of that a new band is created - the Bad Face band which crystalises as an autonomous band after 1840. Because of the feud with Bull Bear, the Bad Faces leave the Kuhinyan/Kiyuksa band at the end of 1841, and ultimately (1845?) align themselves permanently with the Oglala Proper / Hunkpatila band. Then in the 1850s as I outlined in my earlier post, a part of the Bad Faces hived away again to form the core of the new Loafer band.

Tapisleca band: what I think may be happening here is a confusion of two different men/families with similar names. There was a man called Blue Haired Horse, Sunk hin-to. This was quite a prominent family, earlier connected with Man Afraid of His Horse and the Hunkpatila-Payabya band. The Tapisleca settled next to the Payabya on White Clay Creek, and there was quite a blurring of families between these communities - just as we saw with Kuhinyan and Tasnahecha in the 1820s, except that now houses were permanent so the social situation as it were was frozen in place.

More later on Blue Horse's peace mission in Nov.-Dec. 1866 - hence Two Moons' recall of him being present at the time of the Fetterman fight

Kingsley

[jinlian]

Hi Kingsley,

I've checked again the Blue Horse family tree as provided by those family members who claim to belong to the Tapisleca band - they list a Balwin (or Baldwin) Blue Horse whose Lakota name apparently was Sunka hin-to (therefore Blue-hair Horse); however, in the Pine Ridge census we have this same man residing in Wakpamni, where the "other" Blue Horse (Sunka-to? Sunka-wakan-to ) family lived. Besides, they don't mention any close tie to the Hunkpatila/Payabya band, but state instead a connection with the Red Clouds (claiming that they were under his "protection"). I remember also at list another source giving Blue Horse's name as "Sunka-hin To" i.e. James Walker in Lakota Belief and Ritual - in this case, his informant is one hundred percent "our" Blue Horse (born ca. 1821 and living in Wakpamni).

About Big Mouth and Blue Horse's parentage: having them as belonging to the Kuhee/Kuhinyan band, and possibly to Lone Man's family group and later being adopted in Smoke's family would solve the incosistency between the statement of Blue Horse to Burbank and Wendyll Smoke's family tree in which Big Mouth and Blue Horse aren't listed among Smoke's biological sons.

I remember that, in a list of bands in A winter count of the Oglala John Colhoff had Red Cloud as leader of both the Bad Faces and the Loafers band - did those groups eventually re-united? From Charles Eastman's remarks it would seem that Blue Horse, in the early 1891s, had already relinquished active chieftanship (Eastman speaks of him as "chief emeritus of the Loafers).

Do you remember if at the time of the Fetterman fight Big Mouth and Blue Horse had already been enlisted in the Army as scouts?

Thanks a lot,
Jin

[kingsleybray]

In the 1980s a contact at Ft Laramie sent me photocopies of some post documents that he called "Scout Reports". They were from November 1866 and dealt with a visit by some Lakotas from the north. There was a big debate - were these people genuine envoys from Red Leaf (which is what they claimed) or simply visiting relatives in Loafer camp? Trivial in a way, but a real flavour of the times. Arising from this a number of friendly Lakotas, I think from Swift Bear's Corn Band (they definitely included a brother-in-law of James Bordeaux) were sent north with tobacco for various chiefs - Red Cloud, Red Leaf, Man Afraid of His Horse, Black Twin (first mention of the latter that I've come across). There is a quite lengthy if a little confusing account of the mission.

(Blue Horse went on a similar mission in December, a month later. According to an account in Nebraska State Historical Society (A. E. Sheldon papers) angry warriors threw his tobacco in the fire.)

Anyway my contact moved on and I've never tried to track down further Scout Reports, supposing they exist. I'm not sure about the scout status of Big Mouth et al. However Big Mouth was the leader of the Indian police force at Upper Platte Agency in 1864-65, they were fitted out with surplus army uniforms etc. Maybe they were on an Army payroll too? Maybe Tom Powers could help with this.

Kingsley

[kingsleybray]

After the settlement at Pine Ridge the Loafer band split. American Horse's part of the band settled over in the Medicine Root District, while the Blue Horse-Red Shirt groups settled to the immediate west and south of Pine Ridge village, Wakpamni District. Red Cloud was located right next to the latter group so there was some blurring.

In 1890 the census names Red Cloud's band as the Flat Bottles (also listed by Colhoff). The Bad Faces by that name are reduced to only one family, George Sword's - which perhaps tells us where the core blood line of the Bad Faces descends from. Much of the old Bad Face band of the 1860s was by then grouped under Flat Bottle, Sore Back (He Dog and brothers), and Badger Eaters (No Water). One more example of the extreme fluidity of these bands.

Kingsley

[grahamew]

As an aside, was Lone Man the leader of the Lakota who defeated the Crow in 1820-21, mentioned in the thread on the fight at Crow Butte?