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Lest We Forof the Great Battle, as Told to Color(By BAN R. CONWAY)lb* right sad lb* wroas? vale* that la (all *{ tears.Aad sar that aar brahea faith Wraacht all this raia aad scathe la the rear af a hundred years.—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.But tt all comes back to me now Listen! I will tell you of a great prophecy—a prophecy which today coming true:Long Hair's Prophecy Many winters ago—so many that he was a very old man when I was your age there lived1 among the Crows a great medicine man and chief called Is-she-u huts-kl-tu, or Long Hair as the whiteI HOLD that to the man who hascaught the true spirit of the Old. , _ — _--Frontier, there Is nothing that lends, man called him. Before Long Hair died, quite so strong an appeal; nothing jhe warned our people that ‘there areso vividly expressive of Nature in all her j thfee things that will come to pass. Firstfullness; nothing so romantic as the pic- | there will come a night longer than was ture which focuses in a rough circle of, eJer known upon the earth before. Next touching some the wolves will become so numerous that they will All the lodges of the Crows andDu R. Canwaycone-shaped dwellings river bank In the heart of a wilderness as yet untouched by the harsh hand of a white man’s civilization.Six years ago this month I was at Hardin. Montana (in the land of the Crows); and the occasion was the commemoration of the forty-flfth anniversary of the Battle of the Little Big Horn.It was a momentous event and thousands of people representative of two separate and distinct races had gathered to re-enact the scenes akin to an event In this day regretted by both the descendants of the white usurper and the aboiiglne Following the road that leads south from the city of Hardin, and crossing the bridge which spans that deceiving river, I found myself In the midst of a laud transformed;The Crow Country Here, In the heart of this historic valley, the cottonwood groves and wlllowed coulees were dotted white with the lodges of these descendants of the aborigines. Rude tripods supported poles laden with freshly butchered meat; squaws sat In circles while out in the open space, bedecked In gala attire, the braves participated In the dances taught them by their fathers many years ago. Everything was significant of a life close to Nature—Just as the Indian would like it to be. It was an impreaive scene, and as I paused to catch the full significance of such a panorama, there* i .A ...devour their horses. Lastly, the white men whom you have seen In but small numbers, will swarm over the land of the Crows in such numbers as the Crows never Imagined of any people. Afterwards, the Crows shall decay and never be so powerful as In the past.’“Long Hair died. Then, one momlng.l after the Sun had started His walk across the sky, there came a sudden darkness which lasted for some time Thus, the first prophecy came true.“Many snows following this, there came a severe winter and the wolves be came so numerous that they swarmed Into the Crow camps In such numbers that our people could not leave their lodges. Our horses were eaten at their pickets. Long Hair’s second prophecy had been fulfilled.”The Last Sign The spirit voice then paused for _ moment, as If lor reflection, and then proceeded; And then, my son, after many moons, the Crows one day discovered an immense wagon train with many white people—crossing through the country along the eastern slopes of the mountains. Soon another train was seen coming from the southeast. Then It was, too, my boy, that the ‘fireboats’ came up Big river loaded with white people. Presently our people found the country to the north and west of them teeming with people of a new race.“Long Hair’s final prophecy had come true.“It was not possible, my son, for me to sit Idly by with the grim prospect that my people would be forced to starvation without a home, without food and driven from the land we loved.“Now. boy, I go to the Sand Hills. Go you with your mother and sister to your people. Long Hair’s prophecy Is coming lt;£true. Perhaps It Is the will of the Great Spirit that a new race overcome us and our people lose forever their power. At any rate, the Crows can never hope to block the progress of this invasion.”The camps of the Sioux, Cheyennes and Arapahoes have begun a hurried departure. The dead have ben buried In trees and the scalp dance has ended. On the slope of this little hill stands a Crow widow with her daughter and son. It Is now night and the wall of the chant of death can be heard above the din of departing horsemen, while from an opposite direction faintly sounds the bugle of pursuing troopers.Thfc bra command al Painful a a in all my III Gall.Chief G led a nomad at this time Ins Rock as to Colonel J character; a tblnta whiclSantees long _ whites, and bei slow to bring tlof game, they ;hllLest We Forget Today, when we are wont to celebrate the events which have resulted In our acquisition of' the great Northwest, It is well to remember that the scores of millions of a paler race now thronging the site of a vanished frontier are enjoying the luxuries of a later day over the ashes of GENERAL GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER fifteen million North AmerThis is a most striking likeness of the ill-fated raralrr com-!fan Indians. George Cat' aander and a photograph which Mrs. Cosier likes best. “n says that Six million ofthese fell victims of small-arose a vision of this valley of the Little Big Horn In the days when the last remnants of mighty red nations fought tenaciously to protect their home against an Inevitable white Invasion.On the Little Big Horn Scorched and yellow under the burning sun lay the endless stretches of rolling. grass-covered plains of the Big Horn valley. In one direction the rounded swells rise and fall like the heaving billows of an ocean after a storm has passed; In another the ragged, ravine-seamed soli rears sharp crests like breakers In the wake of a storm's fury. Through this and bordered by the winding snake-like groves of cottonwood and willows, wends the treacherous Little Big• pox, and the remainder ‘‘to the sword all of which means that their death and destruction have been introduced and visited upon them by an acquisitive white race; and by white men also, whose forefathers were'welcomed and embraced In the land where the poor Indian met and fed them with ears of green corn and with pemmlcan.The Sioux nation, who were dominant among the foes of General George Armstrong Custer’s command on the Little Big Horn June 25, 1876, are. more than all others of the northwestern tribes, accredited with Innumerable acts of cruelty and depredation, covering a period of more than fifty years.The Speech of Bone-Neck-Lace However cruel, however superstitiouswomen and ch. tered all over . white soldiers.My fair Ian whirlwind. No and fish in safe nor my young l Plains. When ] the smoke of tl rise from the pi road over my h heart sad. and forgotten his rlt; • I look out or and plains and the whites, and but I cannot ho to war when th their country, among us they i but I am not a shake hands. V travel through lt;but they may r take more than year to pay my in feeding and c we want our Gi let us live unr and hunting grc I never plani can learn, if mj roe; but my peo hunting of game planting is you (lour and sugar, will kill our me; to cover our na) friendly and ha ever stole anythtons sold a port that“X hope ___ears of my Orea the wants of hii The Northwe whom Bone-Nelt;wiuows, weuus Hie vreacueruus mine oig nowever cruel, however superstitious r'~’...Horn river, soon to lose itself in the and childlike may have been the under- I '
Newspaper Details
Hardin Tribune
Hardin, Montana, US
Fri, Jun 17, 1927
Page 3
Full Page
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USA 20 Aug 2023
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