Old Little Hawk
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Little Hawk (Lakota: Cetancicala), (1836-1895), was a Oglala Lakota War Chief and half brother of Worm, the father of Crazy Horse (In the Lakota kinship scheme, Crazy Horse (Lakota: Tashuncauitco) was 'son' of Little Hawk).
According General George Crook notes, Little Hawk "..appeared to rank next to Crazy Horse in importance, was much like his superior in size and build, but his face was more kindly in expression and he more fluent in speech; he did most of the talking."
Long Face is the first known name of Crazy Horse's uncle Little Hawk. Crazy Horse had a younger half-brother also called Little Hawk - that died very young in 1870 - whose name was give by your uncle, that took for himself for a time the old name Long Face.
[edit] History
Through the 1860s and 1870s, Little Hawk had participate of the fights aside your famous nephew - just four years younger - Crazy Horse. According to official data, he is one of participants in the battle of the Little Big Horn Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Committed by political and personal imperatives to preserve his people's hunting grounds, and reluctant to follow Sitting Bull (Lakota: Tatanka Yotanka) into Canadian exile, Little Hawk chose to fight aside your nephew against the U.S. Troops.
The fight was temporary interrupted when the "Crazy Horse's Band" - how was known at the White River agencies -, tired and hungered, decided to accept the advantageous surrender terms from Department of the Platte commander General George Crook. According the terms, Crazy Horse was made First Sergeant of Company C (July 1, 1877) Indian Scouts Sergeants included Little Hawk, Jumping Shield, Big Road, and Little Big Man. Corporals were Iron Hawk, He Dog, Four Crows and No Water.
Little Hawk, the uncle, was one of the Northern Oglala Wakicunze (or "Deciders"), aside Little Big Man, Big Road and Iron Crow (Little Hawk's brother-in-law), seated by the Northern Oglala council in April 1877. The wakicunze were empowered with judicial authority to settle disputes, adjudicate crimes and make rules to ensure proper decorum in camp.
On September 5, 1877, Little Hawk was together Crazy Horse, when he was arrested by Little Big Man, ordered by General Crook. He makes a notable trouble when the body of your nephew - that received a mortal bayonet wound due your resistance to be detened - was carry out in a wagon. Laying out Little Big Man, in a snatching the revolver way from a Scout, he leveled the gun at the driver who involuntarily fell over into the lap of the attendant by this side. The Indian dissuaded him from taking a shot, and the ambulance proceeded.
The last of the Northern Oglala tiyospaye was the Hunkpatila, Crazy Horse's own band. The Hunkpatila was an offshoot of Young Man Afraid of His Horse's agency band, and the chief had sincerely attempted to integrate his Northern kinsmen into the smooth running of reservation life. Since the death of Crazy Horse, Hunkpatila leadership devolved to his father's half-brother Little Hawk, whose loyalties to his nephew's memory deeply conflicted with the interest of Commission of Indian Affairs. The festering resentment against Little Big Man focused within the Hunkpatilas. Akicita leader Standing Bull moved toward advocating flight to Canada.
At beginning 1878, convinced by their warriors, Little Hawk's and He Dog's Oglala tiyospaye "escape" from the agency to reorganize the resistance by Sitting Bull. A few Brulés, led by Black Eagle, a Sans Arc Indian, and the Miniconjou leader Roman Nose - had nevertheless resisted pressure to assimilate to the reservation bands - are between the group. In all, some eighty lodges fled, including approximately twenty lodges of Miniconjous, fifty lodges of Oglalas, and ten lodges of straggling Brulés and Sans Arcs. Northern Oglala headmen Iron Crow, leader of a mixed Hunkpatila-Oyuhpe band, and White Twin, a Bad Face leader, fled about the eleventh.
The fugitives hurried northwest, pausing to regroup at the staging camp near the junction of Elk Creek and the south fork of the Cheyenne River. The fugitives reorganized, the council of warriors nominating Little Hawk as the Pipe Owner for the projected flight. A Sun Dance was held to promote the spirit of solidarity. They "called to the Great Spirit to protect them, and carry them safely through to the British Possessions."
Sending ahead nine men and a woman to inform Sitting Bull of their march, the village pressed on. Little Hawk coordinated the journey well, skillfully eluding army patrols to slip over the Canadian line during March and reuniting with the November breakaways in a village estimated at 250 lodges by the Canadian authorities. Including the earlier departures, Sitting Bull's alliance had been strengthened by some 280 lodges in spring 1878, almost doubling its numbers.
For the next three years, the exiles sought to maintain their independence in Canada, but conditions deteriorated rapidly. The buffalo herds, which through the 1870s had contracted northward across Montana Territory, vanished under relentless pressure from the exiles, Canadian Indians and Métis, and American hide hunters.
A final series of surrenders followed as hungry Lakota bands capitulated at military posts along the upper Missouri and Yellowstone.
Some forty-four Miniconjous had chosen not to follow Touch the Clouds and were absorbed by the band of Young Man Afraid of His Horses, effectively becoming Oglalas. The Oglala leadership no longer indulged Northern independence, as was vividly demonstrated on January 28 when two Miniconjous, Across the Lodge and Elk Creek, appeared at the White River forks. Disheartened, they had deserted the Little Hawk breakouts at Slim Buttes. Oglala akicita turned out to "soldier" the pair. Scout Company A sergeant Spider declared that "It was no good to take there [sic] Horses so he shot one and then the Ball opened and shooting went on In full bloom till all the Horses was KiId the total number was 4 and then," concluded Ben Tibbitts, "Pease Rains once more."
Little Hawk surrendered at Fort Keogh with Big Road, September 1880.
In 1881 the interned Lakotas were transported to Standing Rock Agency and held pending transfer to their home agencies. One year later 656 Northern Oglalas were released from custody and, under the leadership of Little Hawk, Big Road, He Dog, and Low Dog, transferred home to their kin at Pine Ridge. At the same time, 172 Northern Brulés led by Bull Dog were returned to the new Brulé agency at Rosebud.
Little Hawk participate at Lakota Delegation to Washington on 1888.
On January 6, 1891, after Wounded Knee Massacre, Little Hawk, Big Road, He Dog, Jack Red Cloud, and High Hawk had negotiate the terms of surrender. On January 24, he led a group with about twenty Indians that came to Pine River agency to surrender thirty-one guns, attended the order of General Miles civilians to disarm the Indians.
Little Hawk died in 1895.
[edit] References
- Sandoz, Mari. Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas. Univ. of Nebraska Press.
- Clark, Robert. The killing of Chief Crazy Horse. Bison Books / Univ. of Nebraska Press.
- Bray, Kingsley M. We Belong to the North': The Flights of the Northern Indians from the White River Agencies, 1877-1878. Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Summer 2005. [1]
- Hardorff, Richard G. The Death of Crazy Horse: A Tragic Episode in Lakota History. Univ. of Nebraska Press.
- Bourke, John Gregory. On the Border with Crook
