Friday, October 27, 2023

Red Cloud - an autobiography to... borrow from Archive world library



 Salvete omnes,



I would like to point your horses to two books on  Archive World Library , namely to two books on the well known historic leader of the Oglala Lakota - Red Cloud (1821/2-1909)
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First one is a feast - edited by R. Eli Paul  - Red Cloud's autobiography, the war leader of the Oglalas -  as told to his friend  Sam Deon(French-Canadian, known as Foot among the Lakota), who in turn told the stories to Charles Allen, Pine Ridge postmaster in 1893, who wrote them down into an manuscript. it took almost a century to edit and publish the manuscript (1997).
This narrative starts, after a short story of the Lakota,  and their divisions ( Red Cloud was a member of  Bad Face band of the Oglalas), with Red Cloud's first war path, taken against the Pawnee, continues with many  raids against Crows, Omahas, Ponca, Shoshones, Ute, Arikara, and even Arapahoes etc, trails and tribulations among the  powerful of the Lakota, including mayhem and murder of head chief Bull Bear. We watch his raise in status as blotahunka or war leader and eventually as a member of the chief echelon of the Sioux society(but the  principal headman of the Oglalas was Man Afraid of His Horses  and then his son Young Man Afraid of His Horses/ Tasunka Kokipapi family)

 Nota bene we learn that the Lakota Sioux elite possessed Hawken rifles  in 1840s -like in the Tavernier's painting -  and that they preferred it to the other firearms. The storytelling ends with the last major raid against the Crow, when a noted Lakota warrior The Sword was killed in this fight, and Red Cloud proceeded to tell the story of his funeral, involving the buying back of Sam Deon's horse from the relatives of the fallen hero (perhaps 1861 or 1863). Red Cloud made no accounts of the war with the US goverment and the Army. Therefore the narrative deals with the pre-1864 conflict in the Powder River country et al. 

Second , the album with commentary by Frank Henry Goodyear - a compilation of portrait photos of Red Could, ranging from the 1870s through last days in his homeland.





enjoy

Valete

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