This is also a great site to visit. This is the web site of the author Tom Cunningham. He's published two books based on the academic research he's done on these events (including the complete history of Paul Eagle Star). In addition Tom has provided lots of on line information about this time in history.
http://www.tnais.com/bbis/Tom was been very helpful to Annie & myself sending us the January of 1891 newspaper clippings (see entry 133) quoting my Great Grandfather George C. Crager (GCC) from his New York home. This clipping were published a few days after Wounded Knee, so by the time GCC arrived in the area of the Wounded Knee Massacare the victims had been buried for nearly two months.
An 1891 photograph that was previously displayed on this thread (see attached), was allegedly taken at the Counsel of Chiefs at Pine Ridge in mid February of 1891. The individual seated on the box, front row-right side, is identified as J. G. Worth. What can be presumed about this man is that he's not an Indian. But the Indian waistcoat he is wearing is none other than the one 'identified' as belonging to Chief Rain in The Face (1835-1905)! This waistcoat being recently 'rediscovered' in the Glasgow Museum. The waistcoat is one of 80 items half of which were given to the museum by GCC. Also during this same time while on his 1891 tour in Scotland, GCC acted as a broker to sell the revolver which was used to kill Jessie James.
At the time of my Great Grandfathers death, in 1920, he reportedly had an attic full of Indian artifacts which he had collected over his 25 years (1876-1904) of living within various Indian communities, i.e. Spotted Tail, Rosebud and Pine Ridge. These artifacts where just hauled away. Why and how Chief Rain In The Face parted with the vest, if it was his, or why J.W. Worth is wearing it in this photo is one of history's mysteries. What is factual is that after Wounded Knee a large Indian 'cottage industry' was created to produce 'Genuine Wounded Knee Artifacts' and souvenirs for the 1000's of people that arrived on the scene (soldiers, newspapers and tourist). Besides being a horrible event Wounded Knee was huge event followed by the world and
everyone wanted to see it. Special trains ran just to bring in the sight seers. How do we really know if this was the Chief's waistcoat, the museum record records it as such, but that was 117 years ago and the only visual proof it even came from the area is the attached photograph. According to some historians, during the Battle of The Little Bighorn Chief Rain In The Face is alleged to have cut the heart out of Thomas Custer and eaten it! Was this the origin of western fast food . . . Well the facts of these alleged acts of this extreme mutilation resulted in Elizabeth Custer and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow writing the poem "The Revenge of Rain In The Face"
In that desolate land and lone,
Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone
Roar down their mountain path,
By their fires the Sioux Chiefs
Muttered their woes and griefs
And the menace of their wrath.
"Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face,
"Revenue upon all the race
Of the White Chief with yellow hair!"
And the mountains dark and high
From their crags re-echoed the cry
Of his anger and despair.
In the meadow, spreading wide
By woodland and riverside
The Indian village stood;
All was silent as a dream,
Save the rushing a of the stream
And the blue-jay in the wood.
In his war paint and his beads,
Like a bison among the reeds,
In ambush the Sitting Bull
Lay with three thousand braves
Crouched in the clefts and caves,
Savage, unmerciful!
Into the fatal snare
The White Chief with yellow hair
And his three hundred men
Dashed headlong, sword in hand;
But of that gallant band
Not one returned again.
The sudden darkness of death
Overwhelmed them like the breath
And smoke of a furnace fire:
By the river's bank, and between
The rocks of the ravine,
They lay in their bloody attire.
But the foemen fled in the night,
And Rain-in-the-Face, in his flight
Uplifted high in air
As a ghastly trophy, bore
The brave heart, that beat no more,
Of the White Chief with yellow hair.
Whose was the right and the wrong?
Sing it, O funeral song,
With a voice that is full of tears,
And say that our broken faith
Wrought all this ruin and scathe,
In the Year of a Hundred Years.
The following books maybe out of print but can probably be found in your public library;
Eyewitness at Wounded Knee by Richard E. Jensen, R. Eli Paul, John E. Carter, James Austin Hanson. It's loaded with photographs, it discusses the horror of the event and the sideshow activities afterwards.
Voices Of The American West, Volumes 1 & 2. The Indian Interviews of Eli S. Ricker 1903-1919. This book contains interviews between taken from 1903 & 1919 from the living survivors of Wounded Knee. (the dust jacket for this book uses the companion group photo to the one below, George C. Crager is in both).
Regards
Philip
