Sioux Chief Quotes

But the old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart, away from nature, becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans, too. So he kept his children close to nature's softening influence. — Chief Luther Standing Bear Oglala Sioux Some

For after all the great religions have been preached and expounded, or have been revealed by brillant scholars, or have been written in fine books, and embellished in fine language with finer cover, man - all man- is still confronted with the Great Mystery. Chief Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux

The tribe, led by one of its greatest chiefs, James Bigheart—who spoke seven languages, among them Sioux, French, English, and Latin, and who had taken to wearing a suit—

Crazy Horse was a new kind of leader to emerge after the Civil War, at the beginning of the army’s wars of annihilation in the northern plains and the Southwest. Born in 1842 in the shadow of the sacred Paha Sapa (Black Hills), he was considered special, a quiet and brooding child. Already the effects of colonialism were present among his people, particularly alcoholism and missionary influence. Crazy Horse became a part of the Akicita, a traditional Sioux society that kept order in villages and during migrations. It also had authority to make certain that the hereditary chiefs were doing their duty and dealt harshly with those who did not.

I was hostile to the white man…We preferred hunting to a life of idleness on our reservations. At times we did not get enough to eat and we were not allowed to hunt. All we wanted was peace and to be let alone. Soldiers came…in the winter..and destroyed our villages. Then Long Hair (Custer) came…They said we massacred him, but he would have done the same to us. Our first impulse was to escape…but we were so hemmed in we had to fight. After that I lived in peace, but the government would not let me alone. I was not allowed to remain quiet. I was tired of fighting…They tried to confine me..and a soldier ran his bayonet into me. I have spoken.

Third, the Sioux did not delegate real power to an individual, be he a head of an akicita society, tribal chief, or simply a brave individual. As Lowie puts it, “in normal times the chief was not a supreme executive, but a peacemaker and an orator.” Chiefs—all chiefs—were titular, “and any power exercised within the tribe was exercised by the total body of responsible men who had qualified for social eminence by their war record and their generosity.”33 Whites could never understand this point, incidentally; because they could not conceive of a society without a solid hierarchy, the whites insisted that the Indians had to have chiefs who would be a final authority and able to speak for the entire tribe. Later, much difficulty grew out of this basic white misunderstanding of Indian government.

We gathered up the kids and sat up on the hill. We had no time to get our chickens and no time to get our horses out of the corral. The water came in and smacked against the corral and broke the horses' legs. The drowned, and the chickens drowned. We sat on the hill and we cried. These are the stories we tell about the river," said [Ladona] Brave Bull Allard. The granddaughter of Chief Brave Bull, she told her story at a Missouri River symposium in Bismark, North Dakota, in the fall of 2003. Before The Flood, her Standing Rock Sioux Tribe lived in a Garden of Eden, where nature provided all their needs. "In the summer, we would plant huge gardens because the land was fertile," she recalled. We had all our potatoes and squash. We canned all the berries that grew along the river. Now we don't have the plants and the medicine they used to make.

In evoking the figures of the devil and the divine, Jung interpreted the trickster figure in comparative terms that made sense to European psychologists and scholars, but which had little to do with American Indians. His misreading should caution us about the dangers of this kind of comparative work. Indeed, having laid this base in Western theology, Jung found it hard to stop, and he found himself arguing that the trickster is: a forerunner of the saviour, and, like him, God, man and animal at once. He is both subhuman and superhuman, a bestial and divine being, whose chief and most alarming characteristic is his unconsciousness.23

What is this animal?” “A horse.” The chief smiled slightly, and then shouted something to his men in Sioux. They laughed heartily. “The white eye should stay out of the sun,” said the chief. Marsh couldn’t help but become a little defensive. “Wait. You’ve seen a horse’s bones, haven’t you?” The chief nodded. “Look at it closely.” Marsh held the tiny skull up alongside the head of Red Cloud’s mount, comparing the two. The chief reached down and took the skull gingerly, and peered at it intently, turning it in his enormous but surprisingly dexterous hands. “A small horse?” “Precisely,” said Marsh, indicated the size with his hands. “Very small.” The other Sioux laughed, but Red Cloud was fascinated. “Where are these small horses? Show me one.” “I’m sorry, I can’t. They are all dead. They died many, many years ago. Many snows. We search for their bones.” “Why?” “To . . . to honor them. To learn from them.” “They speak to you?” Marsh smiled. “Oh yes.” “What do they say?” “They tell us of their world. A world that has long since vanished.” The chief looked down at the skull, then at Marsh. He shouted again to his men, in Sioux, and they lowered their rifles. He dismounted and turned to face Marsh. “I am Red Cloud.” “My name is Professor Marsh.” “Marsh.” Red Cloud tested the name out loud, and then nodded in approval. “I will hear what these small horses have to teach.

Valley of the Damned. Valkyrie Kari tells of the great warrior Crazy Horse (abridged) ’Twas written of those of long ago, That honor should be “as long as grass shall grow.” In battle honor is a fearsome beast, none can contain, In the strength of heart, it brings only shame. A mighty warrior of the plains was he, Crazy Horse of Sioux battle creed. Given to the ravages of noble, savage war, Against his enemies, he vaulted fore. Peering down from lofty mountain hold, The Horse in dream; the warrior was of olde. The promises they were broken one by one, Until only war unbridled could be hardtily done. Understanding and honor was not for those weak, Only the evil Long-knives now he eagerly did seek. The Knives came to steal, to plunder their land, To kill sacred mother with marauding, guilty hands. They had no regard for their own swelling words, With lust in their eyes, their greed greatly stirred. From southern lands came noise that Longhair did kill, Black Kettle’s camp, their blood he had spilled. Longhair destroyed all; dastard agent of evil strife, Deprived them of children and their bountiful life. Yet this lone, brave holy man stood in Longhair’s way, Crazy Horse, vision man, his plans were well framed. His command rode north hard to that destined battle, To meet wicked Longhair—to dash him from the saddle. Fate led him on to Little Bighorn, Where warriors of the sun met with sacred horn. A hellish dry place of calamitous battle, Found many a soul hearing death’s final rattle. The Long-snakes scouted for the great camp, That morn’ they set their fateful, forked-tongue attack. They raised their sabers, waved them strong, Entered eternity, their deaths foresaw. A sea of pilfered blue engulfed in crimson red, Amidst swirls of feathers sacred of the motherland. Through carnage, The Horse did lead his men, Beyond the battle, to the place where legend began. Up hill rode the bold Crazy Horse, With a thousand others to show determined force. To engage Long-knives at their last stand, Striking them down until dead was every man. Great Gall and Crazy Horse led that righteous attack, Against forceful Custer, whose plans did not lack, For ’twas he himself who boasted, wantonly said, “I will become a great chief, if my enemies I fill with lead.” With righteous honor as their sacred ally, Holy arrows that day swiftly let fly. Horse met Longhair in battle forever stayed, Defeated mighty Custer; his corpse on the field in state. Upon that fateful day, on sage choked sandy plain, Spirits clashed with spirits, for the sacred domain. Unconquerable, indomitable this sacred warrior heart, Leads many against the evil now, for this righteous court. Thus, Horse brought the valiants into stark raved battle, Battle scarred by holy wounds delivered by blue devils. Yet he would not relent, this honorable man of gifted vision, But peace came through the lie; his life ended by steel incision. Breathing his last, quiet honor came his way, “Bring my heart home, the Great Spirit will find my way.” Thus ˊtis with all whose understanding shows what may, Honor leads righteousness to death, ask they of that claim. War spirit vigilant with mighty spear and bow in hand, Leads Great Plains spirits, under his gallant command. His spirit never conquered lives it to this good day, Among the heroic mighty, let us his spirit proclaim. In the hour of travail, honor can be finely seen, Leading multitudes unto battle, their hearts boundlessly free. Cowards can never know the freedom of the plains and wind, Or how she musters a soul and the courage found within. Born in deep commune of Earth and Great Spirit above, Understanding and honor flow from hearts of great love. One without understanding is a fool at best, One without honor is a spirit that ne’er rests. O’ majestic One of the relentless plain, The mountains ring joyous with thy name.

This beast that puffed smoke and spat fire and shrieked like a devil of an alien tribe; that split the silence as hideously as the long track split the once smooth plain; that was made of iron and wood; this thing of the white man’s, coming from out of the distance where the Great Spirit lifted the dawn, meant the end of the hunting-grounds and the doom of the Indian. Blood had flowed; many warriors lay in their last sleep under the trees; but the iron monster that belched fire had gone only to return again. Those white men were many as the needles of the pines. They fought and died, but always others came. The chief was old and wise, taught by sage and star and mountain and wind and the loneliness of the prairie-land. He recognized a superior race, but not a nobler one. White men would glut the treasures of water and earth. The Indian had been born to hunt his meat, to repel his red foes, to watch the clouds and serve his gods. But these white men would come like a great flight of grasshoppers to cover the length and breadth of the prairie-land. The buffalo would roll away, like a dust-cloud, in the distance, and never return. No meat for the Indian — no grass for his mustang — no place for his home. The Sioux must fight till he died or be driven back into waste places where grief and hardship would end him. Red and dusky, the sun was setting beyond the desert. The old chief swept aloft his arm, and then in his acceptance of the inevitable bitterness he stood in magnificent austerity, somber as death, seeing in this railroad train creeping, fading into the ruddy sunset, a symbol of the destiny of the Indian — vanishing — vanishing — vanishing —

The elders were wise. They knew that man's heart, away from nature, becomes hard; they knew that lack of respect for growing, living things, soon led to lack of respect for humans, too. -Chief Luther Standing Bear, Lakota Sioux

Friends, it has been our misfortune to welcome the white man. We have been deceived. He brought with him some shining things that pleased our eyes; he brought weapons more effective than our own. Above all he brought the spirit-water that makes one forget old age, weakness and sorrow. But I wish to say to you that if you wish to possess these things for yourselves, you must begin anew and put away the wisdom of your fathers. You must lay up food and forget the hungry. When your house is built, your store-room filled, then look around for a neighbour whom you can take advantage of and seize all he has. Chief Red Cloud of the Oglala Sioux

Key Apache Adversaries—U.S. Military Figures and Civilian Apache Agents Clum, John P.—born 1851. Civilian Apache agent at the San Carlos and Fort Apache reservations. Nicknamed “Turkey Gobbler” by the Apache for his strutting nature. Later became mayor of Tombstone, Arizona. His claim to fame was being the only person to successfully “capture” Geronimo. Died in 1932. Crook, General George—born 1828. Called America’s “greatest Indian fighter.” He was the first to use Indian scouts and was crucial in ending the Apache Wars. Called Nantan Lupan (“the Tan Wolf”) by the Apache, he advocated for Apache rights while at the same time becoming one of Geronimo’s greatest adversaries. Crook negotiated Geronimo’s “surrender” at the Cañon de los Embudos. He died in 1890. Gatewood, Lieutenant Charles B.—born 1853. A latecomer to the Apache Wars, Gatewood used scouts but failed to bring in Victorio. However, Gatewood would ultimately negotiate the terms of Geronimo’s final surrender to General Nelson A. Miles in 1886. He died in 1896. Miles, General Nelson A.—born in 1839. Civil War veteran best known for accepting Geronimo’s final surrender. Fought Sioux and Cheyenne Indians after the Battle of Little Big Horn. He died at the age of eighty-five in 1925 and was buried with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Sieber, Al—born 1843. A German-American, he served as the army’s chief of scouts during the Apache Wars. Died in 1907.

reputedly consulted with the spirit of a dead Sioux Indian chief.