“Iron Hawk continues:
I did not see much more. I saw Brings Plenty kill a soldier with a
war club. I saw Red Horn Buffalo fall. There was a Lakota riding
along the edge of the gulch, and he was yelling to look out, that
there was a soldier hiding in there. I saw him charge in and kill
the soldier and begin slashing him with a knife.
Then we began to go towards the river, and the dust was lifting
so that we could see the women and children coming over to
us from across the river. The soldiers were all rubbed out there
and scattered around.
The women swarmed up the hill and began stripping the soldiers.
They were yelling and laughing and singing now. I saw
something funny . Two fat old women were stripping a soldier,
who was wounded and playing dead. When they had him naked,
they began cutting off something he had, and he jumped up
and began fighting with the two fat women. He was swinging
one of them around, while the other was trying to stab him with
her knife. After awhile, another woman rushed up and shoved
her knife into him and he died really dead. It was funny
to see the naked Wasichu fighting with the fat women.
By now we could see our warriors were all charging on some
soldiers that had come from the hill up river to help the
second band that we had rubbed out. They ran back and we
followed, chasing them up on their hill again where they had their
pack mules. We could not hurt them much there, because they
had been digging to hide themselves and they were lying behind
saddles and other things. I was down by the river and I saw some
soldiers come down there with buckets. They had no guns, just
buckets. Some boys were down there, and they came out of the brush
and threw mud and rocks in the soldiers faces and chased
them into the river. I guess they got enough to drink, for they
are drinking yet. We killed them in the water.
After a while it was nearly sundown, and I went home with
many others to eat, while some others stayed to watch the
soldiers on the hill. I hadn’t eaten all day, because the trouble
started just when I was beginning to eat my first meal.”
Excerpted from “Black Elk Speaks”,
as told through John G. Niehardt, author.
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London.
Islander.
to be continued: