Kicking Bear

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Kicking Bear (1846-1904), also called Mato Wanartaka, was an Oglala Lakota who became a band chief of the Minneconjou Lakota Sioux. He fought in several battles during the War for the Black Hills, including the Battle of Little Big Horn (Greasy Grass). Also a holy man, he was active in the Ghost Dance religious movement of 1890, and had traveled with fellow Lakota Short Bull to visit the movement's leader, Wovoka (a Paiute holy man living in Nevada). The two Lakota men were instrumental in bringing the movement to their people who were living on reservations in South Dakota. Following the murder of Sitting Bull, Kicking Bear and Short Bull were imprisoned at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. Upon their release in 1891, both men joined Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, and toured with the show. A gifted artist, Kicking Bear painted his account of the Battle of Greasy Grass at the request of artist Frederic Remington in 1898, more than twenty years after the battle.

[edit] External links

• "Kicking Bear" at White Feather's Realm, accessed February 2, 2006
• Kicking Bear heritage
• Kicking Bear's painting of the Battle of the Little Bighorn