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FORWARD – a premise to history
the sihasapa story
“Who were the North American Indians who today call themselves Dakota, but are known to white history since 1640 a.d. as Sioux? And what is their origin?
Who should know better than the Dakotas themselves? Sioux was never a word in their vocabulary. It is the French abbreviation of Nadowessioux, and old Algonkin epithet meaning adders, or snakes, therefore enemies – the name white history unwittingly adopted.
The Sihasapa (blackfoot Teton-Dakotas) state in their records drawn from word-of-mouth history, pictorial Winter Counts (calendars), songs, poetry and legends, that the Dakotas were first known to themselves as Saones, signifying “Those Who Wear Honor Well”, or “Honor People”; that they first lived in the Land of the Sunrise on the Shining Big Water – present Virginia on the Atlantic Ocean; that they had a King or Chief’ and that the Holy Peace Pipe was known to them.
The Saone pattern of camping as a circle in the center of which stood the Council Tipi and Council Fire.
As time passed and this parent tribe grew and spread over more territory, it gradually split off six bands (gentes), each with a Prince of Sub-Chief, a distinguishing name and a council with its own sacred fire. They then spoke of themselves as Oceti Sacowin Seven Council Fires. the parent body or nucleus retained the name Saone and carried the line of descent of royal Chieftains or Sovereigns of the growing nation.
The above quote is re-printed at this website by permission, a direct quote from manuscript “John Grass – American Indian Patriot” (loose leaf) written by Angela Boleyn, held in the Archives of the South Dakota Historical Society © Registration Number TXu000562111 Date 1993-03-26.
“7. Mato Watapke, Charging Bear, the first son of Used As Their Shield, is better known to white history as ‘John Grass’ – John Grass of Sioux wars and treaty fame. To the Sioux he was known as the Sovereign who “with the Pipe held before him”, led his people along the compulsory new road white men had made with their sharp guns and cannon.
As a youth and young warrior he knew the wonder of this shining land even as he realized the blight that threatened it. At the age of fourteen he had been taken by his father and grandfather to the Laramie Treaty of 1851 and there witnessed at first hand “the pattern of the white bother’s behavior”. In 1864 he watched his people struck by General Sully as they peacefully hunted buffalo and he vowed he would find a way to “the stand between them and white soldiers”. This book is an effort to show his struggle. He was a sovereign from 1873 until his death in 1918 at the age of eighty-one.”
The above quote is re-printed at this website by permission, a direct quote from manuscript “John Grass – American Indian Patriot” (loose leaf) written by Angela Boleyn, held in the Archives of the South Dakota Historical Society © Registration Number TXu000562111 Date 1993-03-26.
Later on – the number of generations is not now remembered- as seven little boys were playing on a hillside during such a gathering, an old woman carrying seven Peace Pipes approached the saying, “My children, give a Pipe to the Chief of each band for the Oceti Sacowin must be like the stars in the Great Dipper and the Seven Little Sisters (Pleiades), always together.”
With the gift of the Pipes, Oceti Sacowin attained the status of seven distinct tribes, each with its own position in the great circle of circles.
To the right of the entrance were camped:
1. Hunkpati, Those At the End of the Village;
2. Hunka Wapaya, Those Farther From the End of the Village;
3. Wacayukapa, Drags Them Down the tribe noted for their swift horses. They had once ridden down and dragged from their mounts eight daring enemies who had stolen into the encampment;
4. Saones, Those Who Wear Honor Well, the parent body – the keystone of the round arch – the First, or Royal Family;
5. Mnikan Ye Yozupi, Those Who Plant By the Water;
6. Itazipcos, those Who Make Fine Bows and Arrows;
7. Ihanka en Tunwanyanpi, The Big Village A the Other End, Yanktons.
“A nation calling themselves Seven Council Fires but knowing they were also Saones,” historian after historian would inform his listening tribesmen as he sketched in sand or ashes that early camping pattern.
From these seven tribes, each with its own developing gentes which in time divided, seven being a sacred number and the symbol of completeness, were the many tribes and gentes of the Saones formed.
The ideal which held together and governed the many tribes and gentes of this far-flung nation was Kinship, which conceived every individual as related to the other, no matter how remote or complex the tie. To know one’s relationship to every other Saone, and to think and act in accordance with the inviolable mandates controlling each kind and degree of Kinship was the preoccupation of the people – not war, conquest, love or prestige.
Everything, even life itself, was subordinate to the demands of Kinship. It was a disciplining and civilizing force which made for courtesy and dignity, privacy and decency in the crowded tipi or on the march, the protection and provision for the needy, the weak, the aged. It was a way of life which worked to the advantage of all. To be known as a “good relative” was the quintessence of Saone culture. Kinship was symbolized in the headband all wore which carried the tipi design. Tipi means the “place where one lives”, hence home, the most prized of Saone possessions.
During the centuries as the steadily growing nation spread from its original home North into Maine and Canada, and South and West into the Carolinas, Kentucky and Louisiana, they had met strong enemies. Some gentes had fallen before them and become lost to history; others had become rooted in a region and refused to leave, losing all contact with their relatives; a few gentes had wandered or been driven so far away that in time they forgot their ancient origin; still others had turned their backs on the parent body, breaking the sacred circle of Kinship, becoming enemies.
The vanguard that spearheaded the centuries-long migration South and Westward and eventually pushed into the lower Missouri River Valley in the early 1600s, were the first seven tribes headed by the parent body. They were the pioneers who faithfully followed the buffalo (bison) and kept ahead of encroaching white men. The more adventurous crossed that unpredictable watercourse to which they gave such significant names as Mother of Floods, The Big Roily and Mad River, into that hunter’s paradise, the Great Plains, where the explorers Merriweather Lewis and William Clark found them in 1804.
Lewis and Clark had considerable to say about the Saones in their Journals, but aside from spelling their name seven or eight different ways, they supposed them to be but a tribe or division of the Teton-Sioux.
Recorders who followed them, or edited their manuscripts, did no better with their spelling, nor did diarists, trading post record keepers or government documents as witness” Saoynes, Asione Scioux, See-oo-nay, Siowes, Saon, Sawons. As late as 1834 there was a “Sawan or Sawon Post” just South of present Bismarck, North Dakota, which was owned by the American Fur Company. In 1835 the Saon are mentioned in Chardins Journal of Fort Clark. No matter how the name was spelled, it was the Saones being mentioned.
In 1823 the last great Seven Council Fires gathering was held in the Grove of Tall Oaks near present Redding, South Dakota. Attending were the seven tribes of Tetons, Prairie Dwellers, and their close relatives, the six tribes of Minnesota Sioux known as Isanti-Sioux, who still held to their ancient origin and recognized the centuries-long admonition “to be always together like the stars in the Big Dipper and the Seven Little Sisters (Pleiades)”.
However, long before this these loyal ones had begun calling themselves Dakotas, signifying Leagued in Kinship, for they acknowledged that they were drawn and bound by the laws of blood and marriage ties – the scheme or plan of Saone civilization which had survived every vicissitude – winters of deep snow and bitter cold, starvation, pestilence, fierce wars and loss of tribes who broke the sacred Kinship circle; thirteen tribes out of what white history calls the Great Siouan Family.
Many of the heroes who had led the people through those mighty overcomings were still sung in the councils, but the words of the songs had lost much and in some instances all of the original meaning. For the language had grown and changed with the tribes as they had met with new experiences and had lifted their conception of events. Only the cadence of the drums – the very heart beats of the nation – could recapture the elemental rhythm and essence as they pulsed out the deathless saga of primordial beginnings and heroic achievements. In honor the Dakotas had preserved and used their ancient names as they do today West of the Missouri.
The names of the tribes had also undergone changes. Sometime during the long migration, probably after the trek up the Mississippi Valley was under way, the parent body, the first Saones, whose rulers led the way, had become known as Maka Icu, implying “Those Who Go Ahead and Prepare the (Earth) Way”.
From this Indian history it is seen why the Sihasapas claim they are the lineal descendents of the original Saone tribe – the tribe that carried the royal descent. It is on this premise that the story of John Grass takes on special significance. His descendants say he was the true heir to the sovereignty of the Dakota Nation. That in spite of every effort made by the Indian Bureau and its agents to break the power of the chiefs, John Grass held his place and power until his death in 1918.
SIHASAPA HISTORY CONCERNING JOHN GRASS’ GRANDFATHERS. With interpolations by the author.
How little is known about the great royal families of North American Indians – the chieftains whose lines of descent were as meticulously followed as those of other races and cultures. They were the ones who ruled this continent before Caucasians from across the Big Water wrested it from them; knowing and using every square mile of it. Like the smoke from their council fires this history seems lost in the winds of the world, yet there are today Indians who believe that much of it may be recovered.
Present day descendants of Chief John Grass state, “We are studying this thing and we know definitely the names of nine such hereditary rulers who go back to the parent body of the Saones – the Great Coat or Great Robe of Chieftaincy passing from father to son. So at this point in our study we say the hereditary chieftains start with:
“1. Oompah, The Moose. In white history books he was mistakenly recorded as ‘The Big Deer’, the French interpreter’s vocabulary being so limited that he did not know the English word for ‘moose’. He probably said, ‘Well, it is something like a big deer’. He probably said, ‘Well, it is something like a big deer’. The Moose was an Oohenopa-Saone, the Oohenopas being a gens of the parent tribe. We place the Moose in white history by explaining that he signed the treaty of 1815.”
This takes us back to approximately 1770, before the United States plan of government trade with the Indians was inaugurated, but not before the Sioux (Saones) knew traders.
“2. Hehaka Tanka, the Big Elk, was the son of the Moose. He was also an Oohenopa-Saone. He signed the Treaties of 1815, 1825 and 1830.”
White history has much to say about The Big Elk, although it spelled his name Ong-pa-tonka and Oupaatanga. He was sixty-six years old when he was in Washington in 1821, being one of the few Indians, according to white records, who knew his correct age. He was born in 1755. Opposite his picture, which appears in Aboriginal Portfolio of individual Indians of the 1825 Treaty, is a description which states in part, “There are few aboriginal Chiefs whose character may be contemplated with so much complacency as that of Big Elk, who is not only a able but a highly estimable man. He is principal chief of his nation. He is known for fair dealing, hospitality and friendship. He is a diplomat. Always asked the advice of his people….He is an orator and gave the funeral oration for Black Buffalo, a Minneconjou chief, in 1811, which white history recorded. The Big Buffalo died in 1846 at the age of ninety-one years.” He became an old-old-man chief.
“3. Tatanka Tanka, The Big Buffalo, was the first son of The Big Elk. He was also an Oohenopa-Saone. He signed the Treaty of 1825.”
An interesting bit of history told this writer by Chief Standing Alone is that Tatanka Tanka also had a white wife (a captive?) and they had a child whom they named “The Holy Peace Pipe On His Head.” This child became the next chief of the Oohenopa gens.
“4. Hehaka Wascasi, The Elk Man, was the second son of The Big Elk and became chief when The Big Buffalo died. His gens was Saone and his tribe was Saone.” His mother was another wife of The Big Elk, of the Saone gens. In the Dakota nation the man is the head of the family. The chieftaincy descended from father to son, the eldest taking precedent. But in making up the gentes the woman was an equal factor with the man.
The Elk Man met the explorers, Merriweather Lewis and William Clark, in 1804, granting them permission to ascend the Missouri River. He was presented with a Thomas Jefferson Presidential Silver Medal by them. In 1823 he presided at the last gathering of the Seven Council Fires in present South Dakota. At that time he invited the six Minnesota tribes who were being pressed by whites, to move west of the Missouri “where the buffalo are never ending and few white men come”.
“5. Sicola un, The Warrior Who Walked Barefoot, was the song of Elk Man. He was also known by his father’s name as well as by ‘the Chief’, ‘Grandfather’ and ‘Pezhi, The Grass’ – ‘The Grass’ destined to become the dynastic name of his descendants. With his father, he also received the Thomas Jefferson medal. Later, the Franklin Pierce medal dated 1853 – and known as the Labor, Virtue and Honor Medal – was bestowed on him.
Indian history also states that Chief Barefoot, as he was generally known to North American Indians, was in Washington in 1830, following the Treaty of Prairie duChien, in behalf of the Minnesota Sioux. At that time no land had been demanded of the Tetons. Andrew Jackson, a famous Indian fighter, was President. The year before he had put through Congress The Indian Removal Act which forcibly drove thousands of Indians from their eastern homelands into the west – the southern Indians eventually going into western Kansas and eastern Oklahoma. It is not thought that Barefoot knew about the Indian Removal Act in 1830, but he had had an unpleasant experience with Colonel Henry Leavenworth in 1823, and had seen the Colonel try to remove Elk Man as chief by making a “paper chief” of old Bare Bibs, so he as wary of the white man’s intentions.
In 1841 Chief Barefoot entertained the well known Jesuit missionary, Father Jean Pierre De Smet, in his camp where the priest performed many baptisms. Father De Smet left a lively record of his visit. In 1851 the chieftain attended the Treat of Fort Laramie, where he saw himself demoted as Commissioner Mitchell made reluctant Stirring Bear a “paper chief” to rule the Sioux nation. Barefoot did not sign this treaty. Indians say he never signed a treaty.
“6. Waha-canka-ya-pi, Used As Their Shield, was the first son of The Warrior Who Walked Barefoot. He was also known as ‘The grass’ and as ‘John Grass, Number One.’ With his father he attended the Treaty of 1851. Following the close of the Civil War he signed the 1865 Treaty allowing the United States a northern route of travel across Teton-Sioux territory. He sat in the Treaty Council at Fort Rice in 1868 but did not sign, having instructed his eldest son to act in his place.
By the time his first son was born in 1837, the government had negotiated ninety-four treaties with the Indians of the United States, and three years before that date the first mounted dragoons – the first American cavalry to see the Plains was a reality. Even so the Teton-Sioux were still at the height of their power and glory. The vanguard of the old Saones having secured a firm foothold on the west side of the Missouri river by about 1650, and having discovered Pa Ha Sapa, the Black Hills, they had remained there until around 1750; after that they had secured the Powder River country which reach to the Big Horn range; finally their explorations and power went as far a the Big horn river to the west of hat range, and as far north as the Yellowstone. The territory west of the Black Hills was splendid buffalo pasture, although it was disputed by the Crows, no mean antagonists. For at least a hundred years the Teton-Sioux had been practically supreme. Now the shadow of the long Knives – the white men – had fallen across it.
“7. Mato Watapke, Charging Bear, the first son of Used As Their Shield, is better known to white history as ‘John Grass’ – John Grass of Sioux wars and treaty fame. To the Sioux he was known as the Sovereign who “with the Pipe held before him”, led his people along the compulsory new road white men had made with their sharp guns and cannon.
As a youth and young warrior he knew the wonder of this shining land even as he realized the blight that threatened it. At the age of fourteen he had been taken by his father and grandfather to the Laramie Treaty of 1851 and there witnessed at first hand “the pattern of the white bother’s behavior”. In 1864 he was his people struck by General Sully as they peacefully hunted buffalo and he vowed he would find a way “the stand between them and white soldiers”. This book is an effort to show his struggle. He was a sovereign from 1873 until his death in 1918 at the age of eighty-one.”
Circa 1912 – “…the attire he is wearing has an interesting story. The shirt became famous when Red Cloud (Oglala) posed with it and it was identified as his. However, the shirt really belonged to Chief Smoke “Shota” (Oglala/Sicanngu/SihaSapa). Smithsonian records show the shirt was gift from Smoke to William O. Collins prior to 1864. Red Cloud was Smoke’s uncle. The shirt fit Smoke’s 250 lb. frame and has a Cheyenne design and color. It was brought out for photo sessions at the Smithsonian. There are photos of Smoke, Red Cloud, Squint Eye (Cheyenne), and John Grass all wearing Smoke’s regalia. John Grass is the last known person to be photographed with it in this 1912 photo. He is wearing an American cotton shirt under the buckskin shirt… (Photograph taken by Delancy Gill in Washington, D.C., 1912, courtesy of the Smithsonian Institute.” page 32 “Images of America Standing Rock Sioux” by Donovin Arleigh Sprague.
Owns Spotted Horses’ son, Hehaka Mani, Walking Elk, known in school and army records as ‘Albert Grass’ was killed in action July 18, 1918 in France, near Soissons. He was buried in Romagne Cemetery, Franc. Reburied at Cannon Ball, North Dakota, his body being brought home by Captain A. B. Welch. Albert Grass was cited “for gallantry in action and especially meritorious services. Entitled to wear a silver star”. He left no issue.
In 1913 John Grass blood-adopted a white son “to take my place among the people” – to help him understand the new road of the white man’s culture the Indians had to travel. While Sioux recognized the adoption, World War I came, the white son went to war, remaining with the Army of Occupation in Germany for nine months. With the death of John Grass in 1918, the direct line of “first sons” died. The chieftaincy then passed to:
“8. Makaska Najin, Standing Alone, (John S. Cadotte, Sr.) eldest son of John Grass’ eldest sister, Wini jin Waste, Pretty Face. Makaska Najin attended St. Elizabeth Mission School. In time he became the Old-Man-Chief and his son.
9. Ka-sa-ka-pi-sui, Never Whipped (Horses), (Leo Cadotte) became and now is the Chieftain or Sovereign of the Dakota Nation.
Further study is being done to uncover more of the early day Sioux (Saone) leaders.”
The above quote is re-printed at this website by permission, a direct quote from manuscript “John Grass – American Indian Patriot” (loose leaf) written by Angela Boleyn, held in the Archives of the South Dakota Historical Society © Registration Number TXu000562111 Date 1993-03-26.