Black Elk Speaks
The Butchering at Wounded Knee
That evening before it happened, I went in to Pine Ridge and heard
these things, and while I was there, soldiers started for where
the Big Foots were. These made about five hundred soldiers that
were there next morning. When I saw them starting I felt that something
terrible was going to happen. That night I could hardly sleep at
all. I walked around most of the night.
In the morning I went out after my horses, and while I was out
I heard shooting off toward the east, and I knew from the sound
that it must be wagon-guns (cannon) going off. The sounds went right
through my body, and I felt that something terrible would happen.
When I reached camp with the horses, a man rode up to me and said:
"Hey-hey-hey! The people that are coming are fired on! I know
it!"
I saddled up my buckskin and put on my sacred shirt. It was one
I had made to be worn by no one but myself. It had a spotted eagle
outstretched on the back of it, and the daybreak star was on the
left shoulder, because when facing south that shoulder is toward
the east. Across the breast, from the left shoulder to the right
hip, was the flaming rainbow, and there was another rainbow around
the neck, like a necklace, with a star at the bottom. At each shoulder,
elbow, and wrist was an eagle feather; and over the whole shirt
were red streaks of lightning. You will see that this was from my
great vision, and you will know how it protected me that day.
I painted my face all red, and in my hair I put one eagle feather
for the One Above.
It did not take me long to get ready, for I could still hear the
shooting over there.
I started out alone on the old road that ran across the hills to
Wounded Knee. I had no gun. I carried only the sacred bow of the
west that I had seen in my great vision. I had gone only a little
way when a band of young men came galloping after me. The first
two who came up were Loves War and Iron Wasichu. I asked what they
were going to do, and they said they were just going to see where
the shooting was. Then others were coming up, and some older men.
We rode fast, and there were about twenty of us now. The shooting
was getting louder. A horseback from over there came galloping very
fast toward us, and he said: "Hey-hey-hey! They have murdered
him!" Then he whipped his horse and rode away faster toward
Pine Ridge.
In a little while we had come to the top of the ridge where, looking
to the east, you can see for the first time the monument and the
burying ground on the little hill where the church is. That is where
the terrible thing started. Just south of the burying ground on
the little hill a deep dry gulch runs about east and west, very
crooked, and it rises westward to nearly the top of the ridge where
we were. It had no name, but the Wasichus sometimes call it Battle
Creek now. We stopped on the ridge not far from the head of the
dry gulch. Wagon guns were still going off over there on the little
hill, and they were going off again where they hit along the gulch.
There was much shooting down yonder, and there were many cries,
and we could see cavalrymen scattered over the hills ahead of us.
Cavalrymen were riding along the gulch and shooting into it, where
the women and children were running away and trying to hide in the
gullies and the stunted pines.
A little way ahead of us, just below the head of the dry gulch,
there were some women and children who were huddled under a clay
bank, and some cavalrymen were there pointing guns at them.
We stopped back behind the ridge, and I said to the others: "Take
courage. These are our relatives. We will try to get them back."
Then we all sang a song which went like this:
- "A thunder being nation I am, I have said.
- A thunder being nation I am, I have said.
- You shall live.
- You shall live.
- You shall live.
- You shall live."
Then I rode over the ridge and the others after me, and we were
crying: "Take courage! It is time to fight!" The soldiers
who were guarding our relatives shot at us and then ran away fast,
and some more cavalrymen on the other side of the gulch did too.
We got our relatives and sent them across the bridge to the northwest
where they would be safe.
I had no gun, and when we were charging, I just held the sacred
bow out in front of me with my right hand. The bullets did not hit
us at all.
We found a little baby lying all alone near the head of the gulch.
I could not pick her up just then, but I got her later and some
of my people adopted her. I just wrapped her up tighter in a shawl
that was around her and left her there. It was a safe place, and
I had other work to do.
The soldiers had run eastward over the hills where there were some
more soldiers, and they were off their horses and lying down. I
told the others to stay back, and I charged upon them holding the
sacred bow out toward them with my right hand. They all shot at
me, and I could hear bullets all around me, but I ran my horse right
close to them, and then swung around. Some soldiers across the gulch
began shooting at me too, but I got back to the others and was not
hurt at all.
By now many other Lakotas, who had heard the shooting, were coming
up from Pine Ridge, and we all charged on the soldiers. They ran
eastward toward where the trouble began. We followed down along
the dry gulch, and what we saw was terrible. Dead and wounded women
and children and little babies were scattered all along there where
they had been trying to run away. The soldiers had followed along
the gulch, as they ran, and murdered them in there. Sometimes they
were in heaps because they had huddled together, and some were scattered
all along. Sometimes bunches of them had been killed and torn to
pieces where the wagon guns hit them. I saw a little baby trying
to suck its mother, but she was bloody and dead.
There were two little boys at one place in this gulch. They had
guns and they had been killing soldiers all by themselves. We could
see the soldiers they had killed. The boys were all alone there
and they were not hurt. These were very brave little boys.
When we drove the soldiers back, they dug themselves in, and we
were not enough people to drive them out from there. In the evening
they marched off up Wounded Knee Creek, and then we saw all that
they had done there.
Men and women and children were heaped and scattered all over the
flat at the bottom of the little hill where the soldiers had their
wagon-guns, and westward up the dry gulch all the way to the high
ridge, the dead women and children and babies were scattered.
When I saw this I wished that I had died too, but I was not sorry
for the women and children. It was better for them to be happy in
the other world, and I wanted to be there too. But before I went
there I wanted to have revenge. I thought there might be a day,
and we should have revenge.
After the soldiers marched away, I heard from my friend, Dog Chief,
how the trouble started, and he was right there by Yellow Bird when
it happened. This is the way it was:
In the morning the soldiers began to take all the guns away from
the Big Foots, who were camped in the flat below the little hill
where the monument and burying ground are now. The people had stacked
most of their guns, and even their knives, by the tepee where Big
Foot was lying sick. Soldiers were on the little hill and all around,
and there were soldiers across the dry gulch to the south and over
east along Wounded Knee Creek too. The people were nearly surrounded,
and the wagon-guns were pointing at them.
Some had not yet given up their guns, and so the soldiers were
searching all the tepees, throwing things around and poking into
everything. There was a man called Yellow Bird, and he and another
man were standing in front of the tepee where Big Foot was lying
sick. They had white sheets around and over them, with eyeholes
to look through, and they had guns under these. An officer came
to search them. He took the other man's gun, and then started to
take Yellow Bird' s. But Yellow Bird would not let go. He wrestled
with the officer, and while they were wrestling, the gun went off
and killed the officer. Wasichus and some others have said he meant
to do this, but Dog Chief was standing right there, and he told
me it was not so. As soon as the gun went off, Dog Chief told me,
an officer shot and killed Big Foot who was lying sick inside the
tepee.
Then suddenly nobody knew what was happening, except that the soldiers
were all shooting and the wagon-guns began going off right in among
the people.
Many were shot down right there. The women and children ran into
the gulch and up west, dropping all the time, for the soldiers shot
them as they ran. There were only about a hundred warriors and there
were nearly five hundred soldiers. The warriors rushed to where
they had piled their guns and knives. They fought soldiers with
only their hands until they got their guns.
Dog Chief saw Yellow Bird run into a tepee with his gun, and from
there he killed soldiers until the tepee caught fire. Then he died
full of bullets.
It was a good winter day when all this happened. The sun was shining.
But after the soldiers marched away from their dirty work, a heavy
snow began to fall. The wind came up in the night. There was a big
blizzard, and it grew very cold. The snow drifted deep in the crooked
gulch, and it was one long grave of butchered women and children
and babies, who had never done any harm and were only trying to
run away.
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