Turning a Battle Into a Massacre

Additional Comments about Albert Marrin’s Sitting Bull and His World

In 1857, in a well-known incident, Sitting Bull acquired an adopted brother after a battle with the Assiniboines.

According to Charles Eastman,

The second incident that made him well known was his taking of a boy captive in battle with the Assiniboines. He saved this boy’s life and adopted him as his brother. Hóhay, as he was called, was devoted to Sitting Bull and helped much in later years to spread his fame. (Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, 1918, 1991, p. 114)

In 1857,…another boy also joined Sitting Bull’s family. He was an Assiniboine youth of about thirteen who had been caught up in a sudden, fierce clash between his people and a Hunkpapa raiding party. The fight occurred in Hohe country, north of the Missouri. The Sioux chased the Hohes across a shallow lake, the horses half running, half swimming. Sitting Bull…counted two first coups, one in the water and one at the edge, before his horse was struck down. The surviving Hohes ran into dense timber and made good their escape. Several Hohes were killed along with eight Sioux.

As Sitting Bull made his way out of the lake on foot, he found that Swift Cloud had captured a Hohe boy. He had tried to defend himself, but his arrow had slipped from the bow string. As Swift Cloud and others prepared to kill their captive, he cried and turned to Sitting Bull, threw his arms around him, and called him "older brother." Touched, Sitting Bull declared that the boy should be spared… Sitting Bull took the boy into his tipi as an adopted brother… People called him simply Hohe, or Stays Back, because he refused to return to his people when given the chance, or Kills Plenty, because he killed plenty of enemies. (The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull, 1993, pp. 23-24)

In Utley’s account, which he documents from several primary sources, it was a battle, with several members of the raiding party killed. In Eastman’s account, it was a battle.

A third version, by Stanley Vestal, tells a completely different story:

The first ones to arrive shot down the Hohe man and his woman, destroyed the baby, and put an arrow through the little boy, as he ran screaming away. In less time than it takes to tell it, the four of them lay on the bloody snow, their bodies full of feathered shafts.

But the tall, weedy boy, aged eleven, though he saw his parents and brothers slain before his eyes, did not lose heart. He faced his enemies with his little bow and arrows, and shot at them until he had only one arrow left. Then the Sioux charged on him, counting the coup: first, Swift Cloud; second, Bear Ribs; third, High Bear; and last of all, Sitting Bull, who had arrived too late to have a hand in killing the family.

The Hohe boy was surrounded by his enemies. His time had come. But he did not cry. As he looked around at the hard, fierce faces of the Sioux, hot and excited by the run across the ice, by their recent kill, he had small hopes of survival. Only one face there showed any gentleness–Sitting Bull’s. The boy turned to him, called out, begging for mercy, "Big brother!"….

Sitting Bull took pity on the helpless, courageous Hohe boy, flung his arms about him, shielded him from the weapons of the Sioux.

"Don’t shoot him!" he cried. "Don’t shoot! This boy is too brave to die. I have no brother. I take this one for my brother. Let him live." (Sitting Bull, Champion of the Sioux, 1932, pp. 35-37)

Even in Vestal’s highly romanticized, undocumented version in which a battle becomes a massacre of a helpless family, it’s pretty much agreed that Sitting Bull arrived at the scene late.

Here is how Albert Marrin portrays this incident:

The mother fled, holding an infant in her arms and dragging a toddler by the hand. The father and his eleven-year-old son, a tall, thin boy armed with a small bow, tried to cover their escape. Moments later, all except the boy lay in pools of blood. But the boy stood his ground, shooting arrows at his family’s killers. The warriors counted coup on him and were about to strike the death blow when he did the unexpected. Grabbing hold of Sitting Bull’s leg, he called him "older brother" and begged for mercy.

Sitting Bull’s friends later recalled that those words went to his heart. "Don’t shoot him!" he cried. "Don’t shoot! This boy is too brave to die. I have no brother. I take this one for my brother. Let him live." Sitting Bull and His World, 2000, pp. 56-57)

For all the plains peoples, honor was very important, and a part of that honor was the quality of mercy. Women and children were killed in enemy attacks. But it’s beyond imagining that Sitting Bull of all people would have murdered in cold blood a helpless family for no other reason than that they belonged to a nation who had been enemies to the Lakota. There is nothing anywhere either in memory or the literature that would indicate that Sitting Bull was this kind of person. In the face of conflicting versions, Marrin borrows from the least credible, most sensationalized one–the version which portrays the Sioux in the most brutal light possible–without acknowledging the existence of the others. He further embellishes that version by making Sitting Bull the leader of the murderous party.

This is typical of what Marrin does throughout this book–he demonizes Sitting Bull on one hand, and humanizes him on the other. Although the Lakota were bloodthirsty savages, he implies, this one wasn’t always quite as bad.

And More

Excerpt: "Before long…everyone was calling him Hunkeshnee, or ‘Slow.’ Not that Slow was slow in the sense of unintelligent. On the contrary, he seemed wise beyond his age; perhaps ‘Thoughtful One’ would be a better translation of his Lakota name." (p. 17)

Comment: Charles Eastman, whose Lakota name was Ohiyesa and who knew Sitting Bull personally, wrote this in <Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains> about Sitting Bull’s childhood name: "He also had a common nickname that was much to the point. It was ‘Hunkeshnee,’ which means ‘Slow,’ referring to his inability to run fast, or more probably to the fact that he seldom appeared on foot."

Excerpt: "The storyteller…described how Wakantanka, the Great Spirit,…created Wasiya, the Giant of the North, whose icy breath brings winter, and the Itkomi, the tiny spider people who leave flint arrowheads for their human friends to find." (p. 18)

Comment: It’s Iktomi or Inktomi, not Itkomi, and here, Marrin has confused the trickster-hero Iktomi with the Little People of someone else’s cosmology.

Excerpt: "Discussions might last for days, since all decisions required a unanimous vote." (p. 20)

Comment: In tribal councils, consensus was sought. This is far different from a "unanimous vote." This is also not true of "all decisions." Sometimes, during a battle or raid, for instance, decisions were left up to whomever was in charge.

Excerpt: "The buffalo…were the true lords of the Great Plains." (p. 22)

Comment: The buffalo were regarded as relatives, giving their lives so that the people could live. The concept of "lord" is a christian concept.

Excerpt: "Dried buffalo meat could keep for months without spoiling." (p. 23) "When prepared this way, the meat…held its nutritional value for years." (p. 24)

Comment: No comment.

Excerpt: "[T]he Apache [were] a warlike tribe of farmers and hunters….At first the Apache feared the strange beasts. Gradually, however, they learned to sit on a horse’s back without falling off." (p. 25)

Comment: If they were indeed a "warlike tribe," whatever that means, I doubt that they would have been afraid of horses. And Marrin has no way of knowing, either.

Excerpt: "The buffalo became their staff of life. Its meat provided good food, having 50 percent less cholesterol, 70 percent less fat, and 30 percent more protein than beef. Since each person ate, on average, ten pounds of buffalo meat a day, a typical band consumed 3,600 tons of meat a year, or about 30,000 animals." (p.25)

Comment: By Marrin’s figures, each animal would provide 240 pounds of meat. According to the National Bison Association, a "prime butcher bull," live weight of about 1,100 pounds, provides about 450 pounds of standard cuts and burger. Add to this all the other good parts of the animal that people normally ate, you’d get about 500 pounds. Working backwards from Marrin’s figure of 30,000 animals, the yield would be 15 million pounds (7,500 tons) of meat per year, not 7.2 million (3,600 tons). If each person ate 10 pounds of meat per day (3,650 pounds of meat per year), then Marrin’s "typical band" would consist of 4,110 people. Although a band would more likely number somewhere between 20 and 500, there is, in fact, no such thing as a "typical band." The numbers would vary according to relationship, food supply, and any number of other factors. Even if Marrin’s figures were accurate, to say that each person would (or could) consume ten pounds of meat per day defies reason. And even if it were physically possible to do so, each person would have had to do nothing but hunt, kill, butcher, cook and eat buffalo, 24 hours a day. They would never have any time to collect or eat anything else, let alone create clothing, housing, tools, gifts, or ceremonial materials. And they certainly wouldn’t have time to wage war against enemy tribes…

Excerpt: "It was a good feeling, knowing they were masters of their own destiny." (p. 28)

Comment: Lakota people saw the horse as a gift from the Creator. The horse made aspects of life easier. "Masters of their own destiny" is a term that would have been foreign to Lakota cosmology.

Excerpt: "Slow learned always to beg an animal’s forgiveness for taking its life." (p. 28)

Comment: Whenever possible, an animal was/is killed in the proper way. An animal is asked for its life, it is thanked for giving its life so that the two-leggeds can live. "Begging forgiveness" was not/is not part of the relationship between the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds.

Excerpt: "Most hunters could send an arrow into a buffalo up to the feathers, even drive it completely through, downing a second buffalo running alongside." (p. 32)

Comment: It is possible, but highly unlikely that a hunter could send an arrow through one buffalo and strike another. It is even less likely that a hunter could send an arrow through one buffalo and down another. But Marrin’s comment that "most hunters could" do this is ridiculous.

Excerpt: "Animals ‘spoke’ to Slow, and he to them." (p. 36)

Comment: By placing quotes around the word "spoke," Marrin implies "but it really wasn’t so," and thereby insults Slow and Lakota cosmology.

Excerpt: "This scalp probably belonged to a Plains Indian and was taken by another Indian. White men also took scalps during the Indian Wars." (p. 43)

Comment: If "white men also took scalps," how does Marrin know that this one was "taken by another Indian"? And why does he consistently call the wars between the Indians and the settlers "the Indian Wars"?

Excerpt: "Burning with envy, he mounted his horse and set out after them alone. He did not tell his mother or sisters, knowing they would object."

Comment: And Marrin knows this how?

Excerpt: "During battle, he shouted advice and led by personal example, which a warrior was free to ignore." (p. 47)

Comment: No. During battle, war leaders called the shots and warriors obeyed.

Excerpt: "If the leader wanted to cover ground quickly, they rode all night, taking turns sleeping in the saddle." (p. 47)

Comment: What saddle?

Excerpt: "Red handprints on the horse’s hips showed the number of scalps its owner had taken." (p. 48)

Comment: No. The handprint is a source of power. The color red is sacred. A handprint says, "This is my horse. I honor and protect him."

Excerpt: "Indians often became addicted to this poisonous brew (whiskey). Some modern researchers think this may have been due to genetic factors." (p. 61) "Warriors, driven crazy by whiskey, sometimes murdered their own families." (p. 168)

Comment: Alcohol is an addictive substance. Period. White people also "often became addicted to this poisonous brew." White people, "driven crazy by whiskey, sometimes murdered their own families." So, what’s his point?

Excerpt: "Whites had learned to prevent smallpox through vaccination….Plains Indians, however, knew nothing about vaccination. They had never experienced anything so devastating as smallpox." (p. 69)

Comment: Here, Marrin, pretending to be objective, blames Indian people who "knew nothing about vaccination" for the devastation that wiped out whole bands and threatened entire nations. In his discussion of smallpox, he leaves out the fact that smallpox, transmitted by blankets, was the first known case of germ warfare on this continent. This is documented. As early as 1763, Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander-in-chief of the British forces, wrote to an officer named Bouquet, "You will do well to [infect] the Indians by means of blankets as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race."

Excerpt: "Others tried to have the best of both worlds. During the hunting season, they led the old free life of the plains. During the winter, they enjoyed the security and rations of the agencies." (p. 96)

Comment: The best of both worlds? Once they came in, people were not allowed to hunt, and had no access to dried meat. Rations were insufficient and late. People were starving.

Excerpt: "Coming so soon after the Fort Laramie Treaty, the fight on the Washita River…" (p. 100)

Comment: Custer and his men massacred an encampment of Cheyenne along the Washita River in 1868. It was not a fight, it was a massacre.

Excerpt: "At various tribal councils, warriors vowed to kill any Indian who revealed the secret of the Black Hills. We do not know if they ever carried out the threat." (p. 112)

Comment: We also do not know if they ever made any threats.

Excerpt: [T]hey elected Sitting Bull supreme war chief. Even those who had not voted for him in 1869 now voted for him unanimously. Once elected…" (p. 126)

Comment: People chose leaders by consensus. They talked until everyone agreed. There were no elections, no votes.

Excerpt: "Curley (a Crow scout) and his comrades were the only survivors of the Custer fight." (p. 149)

Comment: Uh, what about the thousands of Lakota, Arapaho, and Cheyenne warriors who won this battle?

Excerpt: "This time it involved the Nez Percé tribe, or "Pierced Noses," so called from their custom of wearing nose rings as ornaments." (p. 172)

Comment: Sometimes the Nimiipu people slit the septums of their horses’ noses to improve their breathing. They did not pierce their own noses. They did not wear nose rings as ornaments. The French called them Nez Percé because the trading sign that named the people was the index finger across the front of the nose, as if to "slit" the nose. (Thank you to Rudy Shebala, Young Horseman Program, Nez Percé Tribe, for this information.)

Excerpt: "A woman, One Who Speaks Once, entered the room last. Since women never attended tribal councils, Sitting Bull intended her presence as an insult to the Americans." (p. 175)

Comment: Marrin constantly ascribes thoughts and motivations to Sitting Bull and others. Here, Marrin has no way of knowing what Sitting Bull’s intention was.

Excerpt: "This noisy, shaking, spark-spitting creature of wood and iron had a magic power….[W]hen the engineer released the brake, and it rolled a few feet, he backed away in fear." (p. 190) "[I]ce cream…puzzled him. What medicine, he wondered, allowed the Wasichus to make things freeze in summer?….Then there were those people who took their teeth out of their mouths and put them back again. He did not know what to make of this odd behavior." (p. 191)

Comment: Sitting Bull was a well-traveled diplomat, yet Marrin describes his behavior and thoughts as infantile. This is ridiculous, not to mention insulting.

Excerpt: "Warriors saw farming as women’s work, unworthy of men." (p. 193)

Comment: Food gathering and preparation were traditionally women’s work, but all work that resulted in feeding, clothing or housing a family was considered worthy.

Excerpt: "Ethnocide was not a war waged by brutal enemies, but by white people with good intentions." (p. 195)

Comment: And we all know what road is paved with good intentions.

Excerpt: "And then hope suddenly returned. It came as a new religion called the Ghost Dance. Within a year, that religion would cost Sitting Bull his life." (p. 205)

Comment: It was not the Ghost Dance that cost Sitting Bull his life. He was murdered by U.S. government forces.

Excerpt: "They also found four babies alive in the snow. All were sick and only one, a girl of about four months, lived….The Lakota called her Zinkta Lanuni–‘Lost Bird.’"

Comment: Her name was Zintkala Nuni.

—Beverly Slapin