White Swan, Absaroka warrior, his war deeds and art & Little Big Horn

 Salvete Omnes,

June 2026 is the 150th anniversary of the Centennial campaign of the US army against the Lakota Sioux and their Northern Cheyenne allies (with some Arapahos).

Frank Rinehart took this photo of White Swan 

So, naturally, it is the 150th anniversary  of the Little Big Horn battle, fought on 25th (Reno Valley and Custer Last Stand, & 26th (M. Reno and F. Benteen's fight) of June 1876.

While operating on the Great Plains US Army - both cavalry and infantry units - used native 'wolves' or scouts who upon enlistment would act as the 'eyes and ears' of the American military commands. 

For the 7th Cavalry operating against the 'hostile' Lakota and Northern Cheyenne that late spring and early summer 1876 the goverment officials authorized various Indian scouts from friendly nations.
   The  Absaroka/Apsalooke//Crow nation held council and authorized 25 scouts for the US Army in April 1876. These warriors, and also Arikara/Ree and friendly Sioux warrior were to be spread  out between various commands during the campaign. 
White Swan was one of 6 Crow warriors   handpicked and assigned to scout for the famous 7th Cavalry regiment. Crows together with friendly Sioux and Rees  made up the 35 scout-strong unit under the command of Lieutenant Charles Varnum, called Peaked Face by the Arikara scouts, aided by French Canadian-Santee Sioux interpreter   Mitch Bouyer & famous frontiersman, Civil War veteran, guide and hunter  Charlie Reynolds. 
 White Swan fought along  his scout companions, the soldiers and officers of Major Marcus Reno command, and miraculously  survived the two day battle, much wounded from gunshots and  lance thrusts and cuts. 
During the battle White Swan counted coup on the enemy warriors in the true Plains warrior fashion.

Photo by Fred Miller - Montana Historical Society 

After the din of battle passed White Swan's made drawings of his exploits in the battle, pictographs drawn and colored in the tradition of Plains peoples, showing his battle experience during the major Reno's advance and retreat during the first phase of the battle of Little Big Horn (Greasy Grass River). 

Denver Art Museum has this war record made by White Swan, painted circa 1890.

Gilcrease Museum has this war record of the LBH battle by White Swan.

White Swan healed from his many wounds and reenlisted with the US Army for the winter campaign, and served as a scout until March 1881, among his exploits was the campaign against the Nez Perce. White Swan died in 1904, known for his role at the battle, his fine art depicting warfare and recollections about the conflict on the high  prairies. 

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Portrait by Joseph Henry Sharp circa 1900

White Swan's tombstone 

Valete

Comanche & Bloody Knife - books to borrow from archive.org

 Salvete Omnes,

- visiting Archive the world library - 

 

a short entry - there comes early summer or the  time of the year when I usually think about the famous Centennial Campaign of 1876AD, with the most famous battle of Little Big Horne/ Greasy Grass in the center of this commemoration. The battle anniversary just passed on the 25th of this month.

I recently did  discover a book by Elizabeth Atwood Lawrence about the horse that served as a war mount for Myles Keogh  of the 7th Cavalry- His Very Silence Speaks, Comanche, the Horse Who Survived Custer's Last Stand. - The book, published by Wayne University Press in 1989, is available for borrowing from the Archive. There is another book on Comanche, by Barron Brown - available eg on Amazon.

 

Also, another book is available for your pleasure - authored by Ben Innis titled Bloody Knife, Custer's Favorite Scout. (1994 edition published by Smoky Water Press). Bloody Knife was an Arikara warrior (from a Hunkpapa Lakota father and Arikara mother) and a US Army scout who died fighting the Lakota Sioux at Little Big Horn.

Pacem Aeternam
enjoy

Enjoy

The golden eagle and its feathers versus Plains warriors via Catlin etc

Salve,

eagle feathers are forever the symbols of American Indian warriors, especially the feather bonnets of the Plains warriors. I finished reading an essay, published as bilingual book English-German, by Colin F. Taylor "Wapa'ha. The Plains Feathered Head-dress, Die Plains-Federhaube'' (1994), a short but succinct analysis of the history, type and ceremonialism of the feathered bonnets of the Northern Plains warriors during the per-reservation period. Inspired by the book I decided to cite here some XIX century information on the golden eagle , then called a calumet eagle, the principal source of the feathers for the warriors.

I will start with George Catlin, who is the most prolific of all the observers, for he drew and wrote down his observations...

George Catlin (circa 1832) on eagle feathers (when visiting the Mandan Indians on the Upper Missouri)

[...]''and a part of our labours were vainly spent in the pursuit of a war-eagle. This noble bird is the one which the Indians in these regions, value so highly for their tail feathers, which are used as the most valued plumes for decorating the heads and dresses of the warriors. It is a beautiful bird, and, the Indians tell me, conquers all other varieties of eagles in the country; from which circumstance, the Indians respect the bird, and hold it in the highest esteem, and value its quills. I am unable to say to what variety it belongs; but I am sure it is not to be seen in any of our museums ; nor is it to be found in America (I think), until one gets near to the base of the Rocky Mountains. This bird has often been called the calumet eagle and war-eagle; the last of which appellations I have already accounted for; and the other has arisen from the fact, that the Indians almost invariably ornament their calumets or pipes of peace with its quills.

Some 30 years earlier US Government official explorers Lewis and Clark noted: The Calumet eagle sometimes inhabits this side of the Rocky Mountains. . [.. . ] descends to the plains only in the fall and winter seasons. The natives are at this season on the watch, and so highly is this plumage prized by the Mandans, the Minnetarees [Hidatsa], and the Ricaras [Arikara], that the tail feathers of two of these eagles will be purchased by the exchange of a good horse or gun, and such accoutrements. Amongst the great and little Osages, and those nations inhabiting the countries where the bird is more rarely seen, the price is even double of that above mentioned. With these feathers the natives decorate the stems of their sacred pipes or calumets, from whence the name of the calumet eagle is derived. The Ricaras have domesticated this bird in many instances, for the purpose of obtaining its plumage. The natives on every part of the continent, who can procure the feathers, attach them to their own hair, and the manes and tails of their favorite horses, by way of ornament. They also decorate their war caps' or bonnets with these feathers.

Circa 1831 nature encyclopedia on British America (''Zoology of the northern parts of British America'' by Sir John Richardson, William Swainson, William Kirby) described this bird in relation to the native inhabitants of the Great Plains and provides an anecdote too : ..it is held by the aborigines of America, as it is by almost every other people, to be an emblem of might and courage; and the young Indian warrior glories in his eagle plume as the most honourable ornament with which he can adorn himself. Its feathers are attached to the calumets, or smoking pipes, used by the Indians in the celebration of their solemn festivals, which has obtained for it the name of the Calumet Eagle. Indeed, so highly are these ornaments prized, that a warrior will often exchange a valuable horse for the tail feathers of a single eagle* (from Lewis and Clark). The strength of vision of this bird must almost exceed conception, for it can discover its prey and pounce upon it from a height at which it is itself, with its expanded wings, scarcely visible to the human eye. When looking for its prey, it sails in large circles, with its tail spread out, but with little motion of its wings; and it often soars aloft in a spiral manner, its gyrations becoming gradually less and less perceptible, until it dwindles to a mere speck, and is at length entirely lost to the view. A story is current, on the plains of the Saskatchewan, of a half-breed Indian, who was vaunting his prowess before a band of his countrymen, and wishing to impress them with a belief of his supernatural powers. In the midst of his harangue an Eagle was observed suspended as it were in the air directly over his head, upon which, pointing aloft with his dagger, which glistened brightly in the sun, he called upon the royal bird to come down. To his own amazement, no less than to the consternation of the surrounding Indians, the Eagle seemed to obey the charm, for instantly, shooting down with the velocity of an arrow, it impaled itself on the point of his weapon!