“They loved us. So we deserve to live good lives. This battlefield represents that love they had for us. Everything that happened here, all our warriors that lived and died here- fought here, bled here. Our women, who only used their knives, they followed them, followed the warriors. They weren’t invited, but these ten women saw the warriors leaving–we’re following our brothers. We’re going to follow them and we’re going to help them. And we’re going to wipe the tears off our relative’s faces for what happened at Sand Creek.”
-Ter Reshaw on the warriors who fought The Battle of the Hundred in the Hand.
On December 20th, 2014, I rode in the passenger seat of a Chevy Impala heading southeast on I-90. The driver, Ter Reshaw, pointed at the mountains as they flashed outside the windows.
“You looked mesmerized bro,” he said.
“I’ve been in the New York City for three months,” I said.
He smiled, “Man you were missing this huh.” I looked at the passing landscape and let his words feed my imagination— a vast herd of Buffalo moved across the plains, and the landscape imprinted in a scattering of tipi rings. In that world, medicine men and warriors could be heard singing to the chorus of thousands of hooves stampeding across the grasslands. He drove us to the Northern Ogala Winter Camp. Where Ter said warriors and allies would come together to reclaim “The Battle of the Hundred in the Hand.”
Ter is part of Ogala Lakota tribe, and grew up on the Pine Ridge reservation. He’s over six feet tall, barrel chested, and looked used to labor. Between his constant laughter, he flashed his teeth in a grin, displaying a gap where his top pair of incisors were knocked out from some unknown occurrence. “You know what bro?” he said, “The problem is the white-man has been telling our[Ogala Lakota] history for so long they think they own it.” He lowered the window as he lit a cigarette. He puffed out smoke as we drove through the land once populated by the Ogala Lakota in the early 1800s, when they moved into the valley following one of the last remaining herds of buffalo. He said for a short time this place was heaven for the Lakota. He renamed the world around me from The Big Horn Mountains to the Shining Mountains, the Fetterman Battle to the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand. The creeks and rivers regained their original names for the Lakota who lived here. He drove across the illusion separating imaginary Montana from imaginary Wyoming, to reach the winter camp.
The Northern Ogala Winter Camp stood in the small town of Dayton, Wyoming, and was made up of a Solitary tipi with15 foot poles. It was standing next to a pit used to purify rocks for the sweat lodge located in front of the fire pit. A small path took me through a creek bed and up behind a trailer home set up at the front of the property. Of all the near 800 residents, Ter’s place was the only one to sport a tipi, Ter and his family were the only non-anglo residents of Dayton. I’d spend the next three days in a tipi talking trough cultural memory and history with twenty or so folks. We were made up of a smattering of allies, journalists, and Lakota warriors. We were from New York, Denver, and the warriors mentioned places like Eagle Butte, Pine Ridge, and Wounded Knee. The warriors all wore camouflage, some with eagle feathers in their hair from previous events. They called camouflage “Earth’s colors,” and wore the “cammies” not only as a utility, but also a nod to the land they all told me they protected.
We’d sit in the Tipi and talk over the past as cigarettes were consumed at startling rates. I sat in a circle of decedents of the most well known indigenous warriors. Stories of Sitting bull, and Crazy Horse were told, but the stories were pushed deeper than the names already inked into history books. Ter leaned forward and said, “You know what I think about? Who did Crazy Horse pray to as a warrior. He had heroes too?” Ter leaned back and puffed at a cigarette. “Remember,” he said, “Crazy Horse fought for his people, he fought for us, so we are all Crazy Horse. Remember that before we head into that fort tomorrow.” Grunts of agreement were heard as others nodded.
The warriors were briefed on their conduct the day before the action. Ter said tomorrow was about cleansing and reclaiming their history. That they’d walk into the fort non-violently. He had advised the fort’s keeper of their plans. I overheard the conversation, he told the women in charge of the fort of their intentions. She’d been advised by some unnamed person to have police officers present in case the Lakota clashed with the tour guides and tourist that would be commemorating the Fetterman battle. Ter said, that he and his people were coming in a peaceful way, and if they decided to bring police officers into the mix, it would raise the chances of the police officers agitating people. He said that authority always agitates, look back at the battle, “The US was on our lands agitating.” When we arrived to Fort Kearny the next day, there were no police officers were in sight.
Misty, the women Ter spoke to on the phone, met us at the entrance of Fort Kearny, the fort that Captain William J. Fetterman, 148 years early, left to engage the roving bands of native warriors living around the area. She thanked us for coming and explained that she too wanted the name to change, and that the Lakota coming to share their story only broadened “the knowledge that this place holds.” We were welcomed. And walked into the fort with a small contingent of Lakota warriors who counted coup against the fort. Ter Reshaw held a medicine staff, touched it to the wooden walls. Inside the fort walls a small gathering of locals and tourist were being guided through the fort’s history by reenactors wearing US soldier garb dated from the era when fort acted as a respite against the local wilderness and tribes.
Ter spoke letting the tourist and reenactors know that they came in a peaceful way to acknowledge the Lakota’s history of this place. He said,
“So we are here today to bring back a little pride to our people. To remember this battle and our relative’s that fought and died for us. How much they loved us, because we have heroes too. We have heroes too. And we survived near genocide. It amazes me everyday that my people are still alive. That the blood of the Lakota, the Cheyenne and Arapaho are still even on this Earth, because we survived genocide[…]We know that we all suffer from historical trauma. Both sides. Both sides suffer from that. You know, from the mutilations, the Sand Creek and the Wounded Knee[…]to come together as one, is something, is something. It’s greatness… We’re here and we want to do that, we’re here, and we’re reaching out. We’re reaching out.”
After his talk, some of the warriors, tourist, and renactors shook hands. We walked the grounds together and Ter reminded the gathered warriors that their people had burned this fort down at one time. That right now they should feel the eyes of their ancestors looking at them with pride. After an hour of walking the fort, which was interspersed with snow ball fights and constant warrior attempts to sneak up on each other. “Boom, you’re dead man? I just snuck up on you–could have ended your life.” We walked back to where we parked under this constant playfulness as everyone relaxed. We rallied around our vehicles and drove towards the actual site of the battle. I’d assumed the battle happened at the fort, but that wasn’t true. This is how I heard it:
The Lakota were weary of the whites by 1866. Stories of the Sand Creek Massacre were being passed around the tribes of the area, and they didn’t want the white people moving onto their lands. Their plan to engage the soldiers in the fort consisted of an attack on the fort’s daily wood train to draw the soldiers out, and then the use of decoys to draw the soldiers into an ambush. Crazy Horse, the famed Lakota warrior, was one of the decoys that led Fetterman’s soldiers into the ambush.
Before the ambush, a Chief called a Heyoke, a spiritual person, or holy man. This Heyoke was blind, but could see into the future. The Chiefs gathered at Otter creek near Fort Kearney, and asked to be given something to let them know they should attack. The blind man was lead into the darkness by his horse who it was said he saw through. When he disappeared, the chiefs could hear the sound of battle, pierced by the Heyoke’s Eagle bone whistle. He came back and slowly climbed off his horse with his hands extended, “I have ten soldiers’ spirits in my hands.” The chiefs said that wasn’t enough, and he went out twice more each time returning with ten spirits, the chiefs still said it wasn’t enough. The fourth time the Heyoke went into the darkness, the sounds of battle crescendoed, the chiefs heard cannon shot, and screams. After a long time the Heyoke road in from the darkness, his eagle bone whistle still pressed between his lips. He slumped over his horse. When he reached the chiefs, he fell from his horse and raised his hands to them, “I have a hundred soldiers spirits in my hands.” The Chiefs nodded, and said that tomorrow they go to battle and the warriors came and counted coup on the spirits in the Heyoke’s hands to prepare for the battle.
The wood train attack caused the fort to send troops as the Lakota predicted. As the soldiers rode to relieve the wood train detail they were signaled by some of them that the battle was over. Up on a hill sat the warrior decoys, leaned over their horses. The United States soldiers started pursuit at the chance to kill what seemed to be wounded native warriors. Crazy Horse, feigned injury to try to draw the troops into chasing him, and the soldiers did. They followed down the hill firing their rifles in hopes of ending the warriors’ lives. Every shot missed. Crazy Horse moved like water swaying from side to side, sliding under his horse, jumping off and back on until the soldiers stopped their chase. Crazy Horse’s horse started to limp as though it taken a bullet from the soldiers. The soldiers were reinvigorated by the site of this and took up the chase again. The well-trained horse had faked the wound and the soldiers fell for the bait. When the decoys reached the bottom of the ravine, three war chiefs watched from the top of three hills, where their war parties hid from view. One Arapho, one Cheyenee, and one Lakota all signaled that it was time to attack. They fell on the soldiers and decimated them. Not a single US soldier survived the battle.
Ter said, that this battle was a victory for the Lakota, “and many of the things we have today, we have because this battle. Because warriors fought for us and died for us.” Behind him stood a lone cottonwood on the barren hilltop. Big Nose, a participant in the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand, was heard to say, “Today I show how a warrior dies for his people,” died at the battle. His body was hung from the branches of that lone Cottonwood.
On December 21st, 2014 aLakota warrior lay in the grass by the base of that tree his head cradled in its bark. Ter said, this tree was placed here by the creator as a monument to all the battles that occurred here. The United States has a monument at the entrance to the battle site made of stone and steel. Ter looked around and said that he knew that their ancestors were proud of them. People circled around and started to exchange statements on how they found themselves on this battle site and what they prayed for. The prayers twined around the circle linking everyone to this moment, after the last person spoke, the group stood in silence. On that hilltop decedents of Crazy Horse and Red Cloud stated that they hoped that their people found their way back. Back from everything that was tearing them apart: drugs, alcohol—suicides, a long list of tragedies that punctuates their everyday lives. That, on this day, their people should look on with pride at everyone who fought and died for them. They were still here, and they’re finding their ways back to their ancestors.
The ancestors of countless warriors prepared to leave the land where the “Battle of the Hundred in the Hand,” occurred, the sun was already starting to curve towards the west, where the Shining Mountains stood silent witness. Over the rim of the mountains a cloud formation was visible, it looked like waves, and each peak of the wave could have been face. Ter looked towards the west and said there, there, they are coming over the mountains to see us. Small songs started near the single cottonwood tree where birds landed and started to jump from branch to branch singing to us. Ter looked around around and said, “Our ancestors are proud of us. They’re looking upon us. This morning we were blessed and cleansed by rain, and now they are marching across the sky looking upon and us, and singing to us in the trees.”
Written by Lorenzo Serna
Edited by Brian Matta