Talk:Sitting Bull

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good article Sitting Bull has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Sitting Bull article.
Article policies
This article, or a portion of it, was copyedited by the League of Copyeditors in February 2007. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

Contents

[edit] Thoughts on expansion and need for rewriting

What the heck is going on here? Why does the Sitting Bull article end with his childhood? Why does the introduction sum up his whole life and the proper article then only mention his childhood? I think the article should also say something on the historical importance of Sitting Bull and not just stake out biographical facts. There are lots of good photos of Sitting Bull - why is there only one in this article? Yours sincerely,Yeah. 4th March 2006

"Why does the introduction sum up his whole life and the proper article then only mention his childhood?" It was deleted. I restored it. Ashibaka tock 15:57, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

This article has been tagged for a rewrite for a couple of months now, and there have been some complaints as to its accuracy. It includes some speculative, flawed, hoaxish and unencyclopedic information – and it is a frequent target of unreverted vandalism. I suggest we strip out the sections "Childhood" and "Involvement" (better stub-standard than sub-standard), then nominate it for Article Improvement Drive. I know that is radical, but the amputated parts will grow back quite quickly, but without infections. Sitting Bull is a great historical figure, and his Wikipedia entry deserves featured-article standard. Unless there are any protests, I will proceed and strip the article, then nominate it for improvement. If my suggestion is not acceptable, then lets leave it as it is, but at least it should be nominated for improvement. --Ezeu 18:54, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Please! I've been wanting to do it for a while, but I'm just not bold enough... 71.96.234.140 05:10, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Good idea.--62.158.73.244 01:59, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I have done what I suggested above. I may have removed some correct and/or important information. In you reckon I have, feel free to reinsert that information. And please, if you have anything you want to add or change, be bold and do so. --Ezeu 01:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

To overcome the errors in this article and lack of information, I have put an expand tab at the beginning of the article. If anyone has any questions, please reply on my talk page. Wikipedia Stubmechanic 08:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I have had a go at rewriting this Lukewalsh123417 nov 2006

I've made a lot of minor grammar and arrangement edits, which I hope improves things. Please help out by continuing the refinement. LightYear 07:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I saw a request at the League of Copyeditor's page for help with the article. Here's my take on how I might rewrite the "Early Life" section...

Sitting Bull was born around 1831 on the Grand River at a place in present-day South Dakota that the Lakota tribe called "Many Caches", named for food storage pits that helped the tribe survive the winter. He was given the birth name Tatanka-Iyotanka, which describes a bull bison sitting intractably on its rear legs. Translated to English, Tatanka-Iyotanka means Sitting Bull, and it is this name that became famous towards the end of his life.

Sitting Bull first encountered American soldiers in June of 1863, when the Army mounted a broad campaign in retaliation for the Santee Rebellion in Minnesota, in which Sitting Bull’s people played no part.

The following year, his tribe clashed with U.S. troops at the Battle of Killdeer Mountain. The battle was a decisive victory for the Army, largely because of the devastating effects of their artillery.


I tightened up the prose by removing some redundant words without changing the meaning, and changed haunches (possibly an unfamiliar word to people who don't speak English as a first language) to rear legs. I didn't make the changes in the article itself. I wanted opinions first. Maybe my changes make the text too dry. Cheers, Itsfullofstars 01:45, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Well done. Better flow than my attempt, but loses none of the meaning that I've seen in the various revisions. I do believe "haunches" is better in this case though, since it describes the area at the back of the animal naturally used for sitting, not just the legs. I don't believe it is any more unfamiliar than "intractably". Missing a couple of wikilinks too. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by LightYear (talk • contribs) 01:10, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

I agree, a rewrite is necessary -- This section, under "fame" reades poorly and appears to requlire further evidence or citation

"...Although it is unknown if this was true, the Native American took this as evidence that he was still regarded as a great chief.
In his trips throughout the country, Sitting Bull realized that his former enemies were not limited to the small military and settler communities he had encountered in his homelands, but were in fact a large and highly-advanced society. He realized that the Native Americans would be overwhelmed if they continued to fight." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.92.129.125 (talk) 02:24, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Upon finding the article, there wasn't anything about Sitting Bull's life before 1876, at which time he was 45. So I added a bunch of pretty basic information about him and the growth of his importance to the Hunkpapa and his rising animosity toward the government and reorganized a bit. I also just cleaned up this talk page so all the stuff about rewrites was in one place and I moved some other topics so that people can easily navigate to the topic they want to comment about. I have been using Utley's standard text about Sitting Bull for most of the information, although I also have Vestal's biography (but it's a little outdated in light of the Lance and the Shield). I've been adding citations and outside sources as I go along, but I'm a bit of a citation-freak, so if you think there's stuff that needs to be de-cited, go for it. I hope I haven't stepped on anybody's toes in doing all this. poroubalous (talk) 03:05, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sitting Bull's name and title of article

I read somewhere in an old British enyclopedia. He was the son of 'Jumping Bull' this reference doesnt appear in Funk & Wagnalls surprisingly but might appear in Britannica. He was the son of Tatanka Psica, Jumping Badger (sometimes known as Jumping Bull or Sitting Bull), from http://nativeamericanrhymes.com/chiefs/sittingbull.htm

Shouldn't this article be under the heading Tatanka Iyotake and a REDIRECT command be placed under Sitting Bull? I know that 'Tatanka Iyotake' is not the widely know denomination but the other one smells to me sort of nineteenth-centurish, not very adequate for this century. Keeping this kind of translations seems to me very picturesque but quite outlandish for the 21st century. Why was never Julio Iglesias rendered into English as July Churches, Severiano Ballesteros as Harsh-like Crossbowmen or Plácido Domingo as Placid Sunday? - Piolinfax 23:26, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) - Hephaestos 23:27, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I know that stuff, and I don't have any problem to comply with it. It is just that I still don't understand why a person's name has to be changed into something he would probably never have accepted and keep it for such a long time. I find a redirect option more fair to the individual. I, personally would like to be shown a real name of a person (unless that person decided, for any of a number of possible reasons, to change it). I agree with the benefits of conventions for such complex works as this encyclopaedia but I think that conventions sometimes should be a bit flexible to allow certain complexities of human reality to take place. In the wiki in Spanish, the same thing as here has been decided but, anyway, I just find it plainly unfair. Anyway, I acknowledge that Wikipedia's option is sensible in some sense. -Piolinfax 23:49, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I understand your concerns and share them somewhat myself, but I tend to think that guideline is the only thing stopping people from instituting articles at whatever their "favorite" name might be, which would be chaotic. I tweaked the intro to this one a bit. - Hephaestos 23:54, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Yeah. I like it (the intro) better now. Ta, Hephaestos! - Piolinfax 02:25, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Just a question, is the spelling "Tatanka Iyotaka" more correct or is it another accepted spelling? This is what the Cheyenne River Sioux's website has as Sitting Bull's Lakotan name. Could this be dialect differences?--okieman1200 07:22, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I changed the original words in the first sentence from "Sitting Balls" to "Sitting Bull" as the first set of words was obviously from a funny vandalized version. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DrDHMenke (talk • contribs) 18:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Battle of Little Bighorn

I'm wondering if the term 'massacre' to describe the killing of Custer's cavalry is NPOV. It has certainly been described as a massacre historically, but doesn't seem any more of one than any number of historical battles with high casualties. Saforrest 13:12, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

I dont really think that statements of peoples intentions such as, "They did not mean to kill him, but when he refused to go and his warriors attempted to rescue him he was killed." , really belong in an encyclopedia. 68.71.35.93 21:55, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I added a couple of lines about Custer's fame in order to put in to a bit more context the public's sentiment and the government response at the time. I felt that an understanding of Custer's popularity and the impact on the public consciousness of seeing his unit utterly defeated in the graphic manner that it was communicated at the time was important to understanding the government's response and the popular support for it. I kept it short, two or three sentences, and added the two references from which I got the information. Srajan01 16:15, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Leadership role and titles

Shouldn't his title not be clergyman but shaman? Clergy/clergyman is usually reserved for Christians. See http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/clergyman --Bodhirakshita 10:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Obviously it should be shaman and not clergyman - whoever put in clergyman has probably been doing some serious kitten huffing. 19 March 2006

He was not a leader in the sense that it is generally understood. Plains Indian "chiefs" were more like ambassadors appointed to speak to the washichu (because they would come in and say "Can I speak to your chief"). The real leaders varied from day to day and project to project (religious ceremony, hunting, trading, raids on other tribes, defense, natural disasters, etc.). People would listen to whoever made the most sense to them at the time. There were highly respected honor societies and warrior societies that a person might join, but these guys were not leaders either. The book that best describes how this worked is Mari Sandoz' Crazy Horse. Like many others, Sitting Bull seems to have "led" mostly through inspiration. He was not a political or war leader in any case but a wikchasa wakan (holy person). Any band of Indians might have one or a dozen of those, and there was not a the medicine man, in the same sense that they didn't have the leader. Keep in mind that Indians giving accounts of people and events to ethnologists, historians etc. often used the language they knew their audience wanted to hear, so might say "chief" even though it wasn't exactly that. --Bluejay Young 22:41, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that you add this distinction to the article, and since you seem to know something about the man help get this poor article into shape. Let's do Sitting Bull a favour here and get this page fixed! So long, -62.158.108.130 16:57, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Errors and things that need to be changed

Sitting Bull was not sent to the Standing Rock reservation with the rest of his people following his surrender. He was again lied to. He was sent to Fort Randall as a prisoner of war, where he stayed for 2 years before finally returning to his people at Standing Rock. In addition, he did take part in the Battle of Little Big Horn, though not as a war chief. He did not kill Custer, but was still present for the battle. Please see "Sitting Bull: Champion of the Sioux" by Stanley Vestal, published 1957.

Is it just me, or was Sitting Bull born the same year he laid siege to Fort Rice? Also, he apparently first encountered American soldiers five years before he was born. Is there some way to better reconcile the year of his birth?Ereid01 12:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Someone put profanity in this section - "horny" "shitting" "jacked off." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.114.180.173 (talk) 17:25, 15 April 2007 (UTC).

Pretty sure they didn't sing Mr. Roboto at his funeral. 129.105.203.249 21:54, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

KAWAII DESU NE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitting_Bull#Victory_at_Little_Big_Horn_and_the_aftermath ZOMG I didn't know that Naruto took place in the 19th century! Wikipedia sucks. 02:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)02:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)~

Counting two cats, the word "Native American/s" is in the article 15 times. It would be more accurate to include it zero times.

BtoAundulling 09:25, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citecheck template removed

The citecheck template is for articles that may contain inappropriate citations, such as quotes taken out of context. I see not talk page discussion for the template on this article. Please go to Wikipedia:Cleanup resources if another template is needed and discuss the matter on the talk page. Durova 02:23, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Jumping Bull was named Sitting Bull, but gave the Sitting Bull we know his name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.104.206.20 (talk) 03:34, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Things that need to be added

Map needed
 It is requested that a map or maps be included in this article to improve its quality.
Wikipedians in North America may be able to help!

A map of his original place, Canada migration, reservations, military campaigns,... would be nice. The Buffalo Bill tour is not so important so you could leave it out. --84.20.17.84 10:25, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

What was his wife's name ,or did he have any other family? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.119.19.164 (talk) 22:10, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

I added information about Sitting Bull's family in the latest changes. poroubalous (talk) 03:05, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Another bibliographical reference could be "Killing Custer: The Battle of Little Bighorn and the Fate of the Plains Indians", by James Welch with Paul Steckler, published by Norton in 1994 and Penguin in 1995. I have read several accounts of Sitting Bull's later life and death, but none as good as this. The author, James Welch, was a Blackfeet, and wrote "Winter in the Blood" and "Fools Crow". I wish I could have met him. If I hear no objections, I will add this reference.

[edit] Work with Buffalo Bill

The article includes "Often asked to address the audience, he frequently cursed them in his native tongue to the wild applause of his listeners[citation needed]."

This has the definite flavor of urban legend. It might be true anyway, but it needs a very good citation. If one is not forthcoming fairly soon, I'm scrapping the phrase. It's unfortunate that this uncited (probably actually wrong) excerpt is being featured on the main page. -- Vonspringer (talk) 19:47, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good article

This article is well written and well referenced, and an excellent overview of the topic. I was particularly impressed with the breadth of historical coverage. The article meets all of the GA criteria... Johnfos (talk) 23:55, 14 January 2008 (UTC)