Talk:Mo-nah-se-tah

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[edit] Removed refimprov tag

To whom it may concern: I am the original author of this page. I have removed the tag "Needs additional sources" as I consider it now is very adequately referenced and sourced. Thankyou. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.9.11.123 (talk • contribs) 18:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, most of the sources provided in the current version of the article -- specifically, all the genealogy sources -- do not meet Wikipedia standards as reliable sources. Having done lots of genealogical work, I know from experience how inaccurate the user-uploaded genealogies at LDS Ancestral File & Rootsweb often are. As family histories, they are starting points only -- I certainly would not trust them as reliable sources, given the many errors I've found in them for my own family's history. These family trees are uploaded by individual family historians, whose original data (if any) upon which their assertions are made is not even shown. See for yourself: here's the LDS Ancestral File record for Yellow Bird listed in the references: note the disclaimer that the LDS site itself provides on this page: "Ancestral File is a collection of genealogical information taken from Pedigree Charts and Family Group Records submitted to the Family History Department since 1978. The information has not been verified against any official records. Since the information in Ancestral File is contributed, it is the responsibility of those who use the file to verify its accuracy."
As the data uploaded at Ancestral File, at Rootsweb, & other similar family history sites is contributed by individual family historians, it falls under what Wikipedia policy considers self-published sources -- which are not considered as reliable sources except in very limited ways, none of which apply to this article.
If there are primary source documents such as birth certificates, or reliable secondary sources that are based on such primary sources, that's a different -- but user-uploaded genealogies at Rootsweb or LDS Ancestral File are only starting points at best in tracking down such sources. They are not in & of themselves reliable sources.
A number of the assertions made in the article are also inaccurate. But I'll make a new subject header for that. --Yksin 23:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unreliable sources removed; reliables sources added

In line with the above, I've removed the unreliable user-uploaded family trees from the references. I've also corrected the bibliographic format for the two remaining references (including correcting the date of publication of Wert's bio of Custer -- published in 1997, not 1964 as had been stated) & added a number of additional reliable references which mentioned Monaseetah & which I will be using to correct/improve the article. --Yksin 21:04, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article accuracy disputed

I've added the {{disputed}} tag to this article because of the several factual inaccuracies I've found in the current version of the article. I don't have time to correct them right this minute, but will work on them over the weekend. I've already addressed (under the #Removed refimprov tag topic) the unreliability of most of the article's sources. Having done extensive research & work on the Battle of Washita River article over the last three months, I also see several factual inaccuracies.

For example, the article currently claims that "Some researchers have postulated, albeit without any evidence, that she was in effect his captive, but others over the ages have decried this, pointing out that on 27 November 1868, she entered into a marriage ceremony with him, although he was actually bigamous as he had already married." Although there is evidence that George Armstrong Custer did have a sexual relationship with Monaseetah, it most certainly did not begin on 27 Nov 1868, which is the date of the Battle of the Washita, when the 7th Cavalry under Custer attacked the camp of the Cheyenne chief Black Kettle on the Washita River in Indian Territory (what is now the state of Oklahoma). At that battle, Monaseetah's father, Little Rock, who along with Black Kettle was a Cheyenne chief and hence member of the Council of Forty-Four, was killed. Monahseetah herself, along with 52 other Indian women and children, was taken captive by the 7th Cavalry. Custer was kept quite busy commanding his troops in that battle & in withdrawing from potential attack by the downriver villages; there is no evidence he embarked upon a sexual relationship with Monahseetah on that date, nor is there evidence in any reliable source that I've seen (which, again, the user-uploaded family trees at LDS Ancestry File, Rootsweb, & similar sites do not qualify as) to substantiate that Custer's alleged sexual relationship with Monahseetah was a "marriage" or a "bigamous marriage."

Even that they had a sexual relationship is a matter of allegation which is not undisputed, & the article needs to reflect that in order to meet Wikipedia's policy of neutral point of view. The same goes for the allegation that Monahseetah had a child by Custer.

I'll try to work on this article over the weekend. If not this weekend, soon. Meanwhile, the {{disputed}} tag at least makes it clear that there are significant problems with the article in its current incarnation. --Yksin 00:17, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disputed tag removed

I've now done a very basic rewrite; everything in there now is to my knowledge verifiable to the sources in the reference list. Will add more later. Meanwhile, I've removed the {{disputed}} tag, since I don't dispute the facts now presented. --Yksin 21:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More on Monaseetah (copied from Talk:George Armstrong Custer)

A bit more concerning Monaseetah and Custer: evidently Custer himself writes about his relationship with her in My Life on the Plains, though obviously he doesn't come out and say it was a sexual relationship (and certainly he doesn't claim to have fathered any of her children). I don't have My Life on the Plains, but Welch in Killing Custer (p. 173) quotes briefly from Custer's description of her. Welch comments:

Custer himself acknowledges a ceremony in which he and Me-o-tzi (or Mo-nah-se-tah, as she was also called) held hands while a Cheyenne woman said some solemn words. To his surprise (or so he claimed), he discovered that he had just become the nineteen-year-old Me-o-tzi's husband. Although he professes nothing more than a passing admiration for the girl, his description of her is glowing. ... Such a description seems to indicate a sexual attraction, but whether it was acted upon is conjectural. Rumors circulated--that an army doctor caught Custer and Me-o-tzi in the act of making love, for instance--and a child was born to the young woman shortly after she met Custer. The time frame was all wrong and the infant looked purely Cheyenne, but the rumors persisted. Another rumor had it that Me-o-tzi had another child shortly thereafter and it had curly blond hair.

Apparently, Custer's description of Monaseetah is on page 282 of My Life on the Plains, according to Welch's endnotes for pg. 173 (pg. 306). --Miskwito 21:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Miskwito. Yes, I've seen reference to Custer's mention of her too. I think there's a searchable copy of My Life on the Plains at Google books, so I'll look it up. I believe there was even mention of Monahseetah in one of Libbie Custer's books or in her letters, so I'll look that up too. --Yksin 21:50, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More work started

I've started doing a bit more work on this article -- right now basically on what happened with the women & children at the Battle of Washita River (which will also help towards fixes to that article later on). Although some of this material is not specific to Monaseetah, it reflects an experience she went through with the other 52 women & children taken captive there, so it seems appropriate to include. I'm being interrupted now, but will commence as soon as I can. --Yksin 21:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Update. I'm in the process both of organizing my work & then working on the various articles I've made a commitment to on Wikipedia. Right now I'm more actively working on Battle of Washita River, as those commitments are of longest standing; but as work on that article bears on this one, I'll be coming to this one soon. A lot of the sources for the two articles are the same. --Yksin 01:59, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name

I've moved this article to Mo-nah-se-tah (which I'd been contemplating for awhile), as it is the more common spelling (others including Monaseetah, Monahseetah) -- CJLippert's work has just helped to move me along on it. Thanks for the name info, this is great, & hopefully it'll help me not pronounce her name as a close relative of "Mona Lisa." On Me-o-tzi, the sources I've come across, mostly those about the Battle of Washita River, have translated it as "Spring Grass." Since that is close to the meaning of Mo-nah-se-tah, that might help explain the name variance -- two ways of saying the same thing. Supposedly Tom Custer & other officers of the 7th called her "Sallie Ann." --Yksin 23:24, 19 September 2007 (UTC)