Kickingbear
New Mexico CultureNet
Exploring Questions of Identity: The Battle of Little Big Horn
Introduction
How do events help us define who we are -- as individuals, as groups with special interests and common links, and as a people and a nation made up of many peoples? How do representations of these events -- in words and through art -- help us reach these definitions? The Battle of Little Big Horn, painted by the Lakota warrior Kicking Bear, provides a focus for thinking about who we are and how we define ourselves.
The World Wide Web offers extensive opportunities for students to explore how Native Peoples and descendants of settlers alike have defined themselves through the experience of the Battle of Little Big Horn. We've provided ways to use Web sites to explore the connections between identity and events:
Battle of Little Big Horn
Kicking Bear (Mato Wanartaka)
c. 1898
Lakota (born c. 1846, unknown; died May 28,
1904, near Manderson, South Dakota)
Watercolor on muslin
2 ft. 11 in. x 5 ft. 10 in. (frame included)
Biographical Background
Kicking Bear Photographed by William Dinwiddie, 1896
Kicking Bear was an Og lala by birth. Through marriage he joined the Minneconjou and became a band chief. Both the Oglala and the M inneconjou belong to the Lakota Nation. Kicking Bear distinguished himself in several battles to protect Lakota land during the War for the Black Hills (1876-77), including the battle at Little Big Horn Creek.
Kicking Bear was a leader in the Ghost Dance religious movement, practiced a century ago by Indian men and women in the belief that it would restore them and their deceased ancestors to a fast-disappearing way of life. The U.S. Army stopped the movement with the Wounded Knee massacre.
Kicking Bear was arrested and imprisoned at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. In 1891 his sentence was commuted provided he join the European tour of Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, an experience he found humiliating. After a year-long tour, Kicking Bear returned to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to care for what mattered most to him -- his family.
In 1898, more than twenty years after the event, Kicking Bear painted his account of the Battle of Little Big Horn at the request of artist Frederic Remington. General George Armstrong Custer can be seen in yellow buckskins on the left side of the painting. Sitting Bull , Rain-in-the-Face,
Instructions
First delve into the list of Source Links to examine different accounts and points of view of the Battle of Little Big Horn.
Next try out the Discussion Questions and Activities (some with Web links) that suggest approaches to investigating issues of multiple perspectives of events and the creation of heroes and myths.
