{"id":2007,"date":"2020-08-20T19:49:25","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T19:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/?page_id=2007"},"modified":"2020-08-20T19:49:25","modified_gmt":"2020-08-20T19:49:25","slug":"black-elk-7","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/black-elk-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Elk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Standing Bear Continues:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We could see the women coming over now in a swarm,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

they were all making the tremolo. We waited around there<\/p>\n\n\n\n

awhile, and then we saw soldiers coming on a hill toward <\/p>\n\n\n\n

the south and east[a detachment of Reno’s command <\/p>\n\n\n\n

had set out to help Custer, and the rest of the command<\/p>\n\n\n\n

followed. They were driven back to the hill to which they<\/p>\n\n\n\n

had retreated after the disastrous fight in the valley at the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

southern end of the village]. Everybody began yelling<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Hurry!”, and we started for the soldiers. They ran back<\/p>\n\n\n\n

toward where they came from. One got killed, and many <\/p>\n\n\n\n

of us got off and couped him. Then we chased all the <\/p>\n\n\n\n

soldiers back to the hill where they were before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had their pack mules and horses on the inside and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

they had saddles and other things in front of them to hide<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from bullets, but we surrounded them, and the hill<\/p>\n\n\n\n

we were on was higher and we could see them plain. We<\/p>\n\n\n\n

put our horses down under the hills so that they were safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all kept shooting at the soldiers and their horses. It <\/p>\n\n\n\n

was very hot, and there were some soldiers who started <\/p>\n\n\n\n

down the hill with kettles to get water from the river. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They did not get far, and what was left of them went<\/p>\n\n\n\n

running back up the hill. I heard that some soldiers did<\/p>\n\n\n\n

get some water later, but I did not see them. Once a<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lakota on the other side charged alone right up to the <\/p>\n\n\n\n

soldiers to show how brave he was, but they killed him,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and we could not get his body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By now it was nearly sundown. I had not been feeling<\/p>\n\n\n\n

hungry because there was the smell of blood everywhere;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but now I began to feel hungry anyway. The bravest of the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

braves got together and talked over what we should do <\/p>\n\n\n\n

that night. They decided that some of us should go home<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and eat and bring back something for those who stayed<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to watch the soldiers. We could not get at the soldiers,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

so we were going to starve and dry them out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went home with the others, and it was sundown then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first I thought they had broken camp, but they had not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had only gathered all the camps together in one solid<\/p>\n\n\n\n

village. I did not go back to the hill with the others that <\/p>\n\n\n\n

night. We built fires all over the camp, and everybody was<\/p>\n\n\n\n

excited. I couldn’t sleep because when I shut my eyes I <\/p>\n\n\n\n

could see all those horrible sights again. I think nobody<\/p>\n\n\n\n

slept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next morning early the crier went around and said “The<\/p>\n\n\n\n

remainder of the soldiers shall die today!” So after we had <\/p>\n\n\n\n

eaten, we all got ready. This time I was dressed and had <\/p>\n\n\n\n

my moccasins and leggings on. The day before I had only<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a shirt. This time I had my saddle too. I was prepared<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all rode over there, and the party that had watched all<\/p>\n\n\n\n

night went home. We were scattered all around the <\/p>\n\n\n\n

soldiers, with our horses under the hill; but it was harder<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to hit the soldiers now, because they had been digging in <\/p>\n\n\n\n

the night. The day was very hot, and now and then some <\/p>\n\n\n\n

soldiers would start crawling down toward the river for<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a drink. We killed some of these, then the others would<\/p>\n\n\n\n

run back. Maybe some got water. I do not know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We kept shooting at each other. Once I heard someone cry<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Hey-hey!” I crawled over there, and a Lakota had been<\/p>\n\n\n\n

shot above the eyebrow and he was dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a long while we heard that more soldiers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

were coming[General Terry was coming up river to the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

scene of the battle from the mouth of the Little Bighorn].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then everybody started back home, and there the people<\/p>\n\n\n\n

were saying: “We will leave this and let it go!” If those<\/p>\n\n\n\n

soldiers had not come, we would have rubbed them<\/p>\n\n\n\n

all out on the hill.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Excerpted from “Black Elk Speaks”,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

as told through John G. Niehardt, author.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lincoln and London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Be Continued:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Islander.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Standing Bear Continues: “We could see the women coming over now in a swarm, they were all making the tremolo. We waited around there awhile, and then we saw soldiers coming on a hill toward the south and east[a detachment of Reno’s command had set out to help Custer, and the rest of the command … Continue reading “Black Elk”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2007","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2008,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2007\/revisions\/2008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}