Black Elk Continues: “Men and women and children were scattered all
over the flat at the bottom of the hill where the soldiers had
their wagon- guns, and westward up the dry gulch all the way to
the high ridge, the dead women and children and babies were scattered.
When I saw this I wished that I had died too, but I was not
sorry for the women and children. It was better for them to be
happy in the other world, and I wanted to be there too. But be-
fore I went there I wanted to have revenge. I thought there might
be a day, and we should have revenge.
After the soldiers marched away, I heard from my friend, Dog
Chief, how the trouble started, and he was right there by Yellow
Bird when it happened. This is the way it was:
In the morning the soldiers began to take all the guns away
from the Big Foots, who were camped in the flat below the little
hill where the monument and burying ground are now. The
people had stacked most of their guns, and even their knives,
by the tepee where Big Foot was lying sick. Soldiers were on the
little hill and all around, and there were soldiers across the dry
gulch to the south and over east along Wounded Knee Creek
too. The people were nearly surrounded, and the wagon-guns
were pointing at them.
Some had not yet given up their guns, and so the soldiers
were searching all the tepees, throwing things around and pok-
ing into everything. There was a man called Yellow Bird, and
he and another man were standing in front of the tepee where
Big Foot was lying sick. They had white sheets around and over
them, with eyeholes to look through, and they had guns under
these. An officer came to search them. He took the other man’s
gun, and then started to take Yellow Bird’s. But Yellow Bird
would not let go. He wrestled with the officer, and while they
were wrestling, the gun went off and killed the officer. Wasichus
and some others have said he meant to do this, but Dog Chief
was standing right there, and he told me it was not so. As soon
as the gun went off, Dog Chief told me, an officer shot and killed
Big Foot who was lying sick inside the tepee.
Many were shot and killed right there. The women and children
ran into the gulch and up west, dropping all the time, for the
soldiers shot them as they ran. There were only about a hundred
warriors and there were nearly five hundred soldiers. The war-
riors rushed to where they had piled their guns and knives. They
fought soldiers with only their hands until they got their guns.
Dog Chief saw Yellow Bird run into a tepee with his gun, and
from there he killed soldiers until the tepee caught fire. Then he
died full of bullets.
It was a good winter day when all this happened. The sun was
shining. But after the soldiers marched away from their dirty
work, a heavy snow began to fall. The wind came up in the night.
There was a big blizzard, and it grew very cold. The snow drifted
deep into the crooked gulch, and it was one long grave of butch-
ered women and children and babies, who had never done any
harm and were only trying to run away.”
Excerpted from “Black Elk Speaks”,as told through
John G. Neihardt, author. Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London.
FINI. Islander.