The Rest Is History - 449. Custer vs. Crazy Horse: Rise of Sitting Bull (Part 4)

Episode Date: May 12, 2024

"What would you do if your home was attacked? You would stand up like a brave man and defend it. That is our story."  Following the bloody Fetterman Fight, which saw the Lakota warlord Crazy Horse and his warriors ambush and massacre American troops, the American public was left stunned, its government and civilian population hungry for revenge. In the wake of this a new treaty was signed, further restricting the Lakota Sioux’s freedoms, but nevertheless signed by their political leader, Red Cloud. Still, many would not be constrained to reservations, and instead sought war. Chief amongst them was Sitting Bull, a legendary, mythologised figure of the Great American Plains and the Wild West - the embodiment of a vanished age. Born into the Lakota Sioux, and a world of shifting allegiances, violent initiation rituals, and intransigent spiritualities, as a young man Sitting Bull’s herculean destiny was sung to him by an eagle. The career that followed in his war against the U.S. government would exceed even the greatest of epics. By 1860 he was paramount leader of the Sioux Nation, when news reached him of the imminent arrival of a survey party, lead by none other than George Armstrong Custer… Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss Sitting Bull’s rise, his extraordinary upbringing, and his stand against the increasing encroachment of railroads into his homelands. EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restishistory Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! *The Rest Is History LIVE in 2024* Tom and Dominic are back onstage this summer, at Hampton Court Palace in London! Buy your tickets here: therestishistory.com Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Find their products through banks, credit unions, and associations, or visit SecurianCanada.ca. Securian Canada, insurance designed for life. I have lived a long time, and I have seen a great deal, and I have always had a reason for everything I have done. Every act of my life has had an object in view, and no man can say that I have neglected facts or failed to think. I am one of the last chiefs of the independent Sioux Nation, and the place I hold among my people was held by my ancestors before me.

If I had no place in the world, I would not be here, and the fact of my existence entitles me to exercise any influence I possess. I am satisfied that I was brought into this life for a purpose. Otherwise, why am I here? This land belongs to us, for the Great Spirit gave it to us when he put us here. We were free to come and go and to live in our own way. But white men who belong to another land have come upon us and are forcing us to live according to their ideas. That is an injustice. We have never dreamed of making white men live as we live. What would you do if your home was attacked you would stand up

like a brave man and defend it that is our story i have spoken so that uh dominic was uh sitting bull again yeah it's great to have him back on the show. Who introduced the last episode. And I think that my resonant Bull-like voice. Yeah. Very powerfully conveyed. You do think that, do you? Yes. That's nice that you think it. Don't you think?

I felt there was a little bit of Gordon Brown in there. He also is a kind of slightly ponderous but impressive person. Right, Yeah. Anyway, so that was Sitting Bull. And he was giving an interview to a Canadian journalist called James Creelman in 1882, which is six years after Little Bighorn. Yes. And is that when he is still in Canada? Because he goes to Canada after. Yes, he does go to Canada.

He was being held in a place called Fort Randall at the time. And what hangs over that whole interview is, I mean, this is just Creelman's account of it, right? Of course, yeah. So is that actually what Sitting Bull said? Is Creelman embellishing it for his readers who expect Sitting Bull to say slightly ponderous, semi-spiritual things of that kind? Or did Sitting Bull say it?

And is Sitting Bull consciously playing a part? As of course, I mean, he literally goes on to play a part, doesn't he? Yeah. Because he appears in Buffalo Bill's touring show. Well, Dominic, I mean,

we know he didn't actually say that because he didn't speak much English. Right. So apparently the phrases of English that he spoke were, hello, you bet, and see the boo. See the boo? A sitting bull.

Oh, right. Okay. And how much tea, which apparently was either how much or how are you? Or can I borrow a match? Hold on. They're very different things. Can I borrow a match and how are you?

Well, there was disagreement among people who knew him. No phrase adequately expresses both of those thoughts, I think. And also he was very keen on shaking hands. Was he? That's nice. So we've never done a history of the handshake. Of course, Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron

had that incredibly long handshake, didn't they, where neither of them would let go. So Sitting Bull might have enjoyed that. I think he probably would. I mean, I'm not sure whether he went around kind of crunching the hands of people.

Right. I mean, he might have done because the thing about Sitting Bull, he's simultaneously kind of very charming. People really like him. He's great fun, isn't he? He's good-humoured. But, I mean, he's also simultaneously terrifying. kind of very charming. People really like him. He's great fun, isn't he? He's good-humoured.

But, I mean, he's also simultaneously terrifying. Yes, he is. I agree. I mean, he fights and fights, and he does the whole killing and mutilating stuff as well. Yeah. Personally, Tom, I find him more congenial than Crazy Horse. But you don't really know about Crazy Horse.

Well, I never like a loner. I don't like an eccentric. And Crazy Horse, you know, he didn't turn up to meetings, went a loner. I don't like an eccentric. And Crazy Horse, you know, he didn't turn up to meetings, went off on his own, didn't wear enough clothes. He saw himself as a little bit different, where a sitting bull is more conventional, I would say. He conforms to stereotype more than Crazy Horse does. And I like that in a man. I don't think he's conforming to stereotype. I think he's upholding the customs of his people. Yeah. Well, that's what I like. I like a traditionalist.

Fair enough. So we should perhaps get back to the story. So, I mean, just to remind listeners, we've got this extra episode because Dominic, I mean, this has never happened before. Oh, never. You've gone the full Dan Carlin and what was meant to be four episodes is spiraling out of control. There's a spectrum, isn't there? You've got Dan Carlin at one end and actually another Dan at the other, Dan Snow. And we're somewhere, we've moved from the snow.

Well, we're definitely moving from Dan Snow to Dan Carlin. We are. Listen, that's too much inside baseball. We should talk about history. So last time we talked, didn't we, about Native Americans generally, about how this is a world of shifting alliances, of people constantly moving around, of war. And it's also a changing one.

So it's not a timeless traditional world, but it's a culture transformed by the horse and by guns and so on and so forth. We talked about the Plains Indians, in particular the Dakota, who'd moved from Minnesota, sort of southwest towards Montana, Wyoming, and so on, and moved from woodland people to kind of plains people, and how they are feeling under tremendous pressure from mass migration, from the migration of American settlers westwards towards Oregon, California, and so on in the trails. And so that is what Sitting Bull is talking about.

Exactly, exactly. And railroads, which mean the death of the bison culture on which they have come to rely. And so last time we said, this comes to a bit of a peak in the mid-1860s the lakota think they've done brilliantly because they've finally seen off the crows and taken the powder river country which they're very keen on scalped them with their long big bear grease pomaded hair exactly the crows yes there's another theme in this isn't about hair products as well as um handshaking yeah which i wasn't anticipating when i when we began it, I have to say. No. So the crows have let themselves

down with their pomades. I don't think so. I approve. I think they spent too much time on that, Tom, and not enough on military tactics. And that's what's cost them.

No, because they got wiped out by disease. Well, that's true too. And that's the difference with the Lakota, isn't it? Which, of course, they didn't because the Lakota are more nomadic

and they've been inoculated by missionaries. So, Red Cloud have got all this. He's the big't because the Lakota are more nomadic and they've been inoculated by missionaries. So Red Cloud had got all this. He's the big man in the Lakota world, although they're not a top-down kind of polity. And so he was outraged by the Bozeman Trail, Tom, which is your favorite trail. You're on record as saying that, aren't you? Yeah, it's a top trail. So Red Cloud is the political leader and actually Crazy Horse is the great military tactician.

And it's Crazy Horse, who we talked about last time, who inspires the most celebrated, or indeed notorious, of all of the Lakota attacks on the American army, which is the so-called Fetterman Massacre or the Fetterman Fight. Well, I mean, it depends which side you're on, right? On your perspective, of course. Because if you're Lakota, you'd say it's a great victory. Of course you would. And if you're the Americans, you say it's a massacre.

Exactly. So Crazy Horse does this thing, which they often try to do the Lakota, and they normally make a mess of it. But in this case, it really works. They basically entice a group of American soldiers led by this chap, Captain William Fetterman. There's about 80 of them out of Fort Kearney. They decoy them out and then they ambush them.

And there are 81 of the Americans and every single one of them is killed. They are horrendously kind of mutilated afterwards. Or so it seems to the people who find the bodies, of course, as we talked about last time. Yeah. The Lakota argument is this means they won't be able to get us in the afterlife. Well, they will. I mean, they'll be in the afterlife, but they'll be kind of shuffling around without any eyes

and with their testicles on rocks and their arms falling off and things. Precisely. So it's kind of the living dead. They'll be much less effective. But Dominic, you know, of course, what this reminds me as someone who's read British imperial history, I mean, this is a kind of very familiar episode from, you know, the Annals of Kipling or something, isn't it? Yeah. Kind of shades of the Northwest Frontier or Isanduana or... Oh, totally it is. Totally it is. People being lured out of forts.

And the notion that this is not a kind of imperial project is clearly not true. I mean, it's very imperial. It's very, very like British military expeditions in the 19th century. Of course it is. Yes. It's like something that you would see in Afghanistan or the Northwest frontier or something. Yeah. And all of the baggage that goes along with it.

So on the one hand, the idea of the kind of the noble savage. And on the other hand, the idea of kind of our plucky boys who are only trying to export civilization and that kind of liberal norms yeah but have found themselves in a world they don't understand i mean all of that is exactly the same heart of darkness heart of darkness exactly so the fetterman massacre is a shocking event you know it's just over a year after the civil war east coast opinion is horrified by it. But the interesting thing is that unlike Little Bighorn, it doesn't provoke massive American reprisals.

It has two or three interesting repercussions. Number one, everybody knows that Crazy Horse is responsible. And it's this fight, this ambush that enshrines him in the American imagination as the supreme warlord. Right. So one of the reasons, surely, why it doesn't impact on American public consciousness in the way that Bighorn does is that the defeated person is not as glamorous and exciting and charismatic as Custer. Yeah, Captain Fetterman. Yeah. But it's interesting that the Lakota commander, Crazy Horse, does have that element of charisma. Yes.

And so he does imprint himself on the popular imagination. Yeah, he does. So there does seem to be a kind of quite a strong element that these engagements, you know, their profile depends on the stature of the commanders. I think that's fair. And I think it depends when they happen as well. This is happening in the middle of the US is in the throes of reconstruction so all the attention is on the old confederacy and what's happening there but in 1876 at little bighorn it's the nation's birthday and they want a nice birthday present that a feat of the lakota and when it turns out the other way around it becomes

such a resonant story and as you say it's custer who's already a celebrity secondly i think a really important thing up to this point, although the Lakota Sioux did have a kind of mystique with their headdresses and all that stuff, they weren't seen, I think, as uniquely terrifying, dangerous. Or formidable. Or formidable. And so I think it elevates them, as one historian says,

into the most powerful and intransigent enemy on the plains. And people say this themselves internally. So General Sherman writes to Ulysses S. Grant a few weeks, I think, or a few days after the Fetima massacre. And he says, we must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children. In other words, people are thirsting for revenge. Well, I mean, that's literally a genocidal mission statement. Yes, genocidal. And actually that language of extermination, we can perhaps talk about that a

little bit later, how much they really mean that or how much they're just throwing around the word. Well, I mean, Sherman is a great one for vindictive earnestness, isn't he? Yes. But the really interesting thing is that actually the American reaction to this is to close the Bozeman Trail and to close the forts. To say, fine, you win. We'll go back home. Now, that might seem an extraordinary thing to do. The reason they do it, of course, is partly because the army, which has been cut the whole time, cannot do two things at once.

They cannot enforce order in the former Confederate South and south and the former slave south you know against paramountary violence and all these kinds of things and that is obviously the priority and that is the priority and it can't fight the lakota at the same time so they say sod the lakota just let's put a lid on this close the trail and all that and secondly i think the interesting thing is that american attitudes to the natives are always much more complicated and nuanced than we think so the trend now is to say well the whole Congress of the West was a genocidal project. Everybody hated the Indians. Irredeemably racist, all of this stuff.

And of course, there is an element of truth in that. But for example, in the aftermath of the Fetterman fight, Congress has an investigation under Senator James Doolittle. And he says, well, the big problem here is not the Lakota. It's what he calls the aggressions of lawless whites, the steady and resistless. So Custer, I mean, Custer is very, very aware of the fact that there is a lot of public sympathy in the United States for the Lakota. And he kind of, East Coast liberals, it's kind of that talk. They don't know what they're talking about. They're at a distance. They haven't seen people with their eyeballs gouged out.

Yes. That kind of thing. You know, they don't know what they're talking about. They're at a distance. They haven't seen people with their eyeballs gouged out. That kind of thing. Yeah. I think that sort of tension, that political argument, there are always some people on the East Coast who say, this whole business is absolutely terrible. The poor Lakota, you know, I mean, even at this point, I think there are people who say the earth is weeping. Let us commune with the spirits and all that stuff. So this is why the paleontologist I mentioned yesterday,

Charles Othniel Marsh, who is with COPE, they're the two rival paleontologists who are digging up dinosaurs, sending them back, attacking each other. Yeah. I mean, he's unbelievably sympathetic to the Lakota. He feels deep, deep shame as an American for what is happening. And I suppose because he is going out there as someone who's not a prospector, not a soldier, not someone who is trying to take things because

Lakota don't mind if he digs up a Diplodocus or whatever. And he then, as I said, he becomes a big partisan of red clouds in Washington, a big friend. And Tom, the interesting thing is, isn't that your parallel with sort of the European empires yet again? Yeah. The heyday of the British empire, there are people who go out to India or whatever and are accused of going native,

of championing the locals over their own country and who become very conflicted about the imperial project. I mean, it's the same thing. Actually, President Andrew Johnson, who is always seen as one of the worst presidents in American history because of his role in Reconstruction, he's seen as this sort of terrible racist. He sets up a peace commission.

And when that reports in 1868, it's actually really worth dwelling on this. The conclusion of the peace commission is, and I quote, if the lands of the white man are taken, civilization justifies him in resisting the invader. Civilization does more than this. It brands him a coward and a slave if he submits to the wrong. But if the savage resists, civilization with the 10 commandments in one hand and the sword in the other demands his immediate extermination. And the argument of the Peace Commission is not, well, therefore we should just let them get on with it and not expand. They do believe in manifest destiny as all of these people do, but they say, listen, we should be more straight with the Plains Indians.

We should actually listen to them. We should be more sensitive. You know, all of this sort of stuff that actually now, from the perspective of 2024, you sort of think, well, there's a lot of truth in that, isn't there? I mean, they're never going to stop going. There's no conceivable alternative reality in which there aren't railroads across the West. Well, I mean, the other thing, of course, that is happening at this time, and Marsh is a representative figure of it because he's a great partisan of Darwin, is that notions of evolution and racial hierarchies and survival of the fittest is really starting to kick in at this point.

And I think it's possible for scientifically literate figures back in Washington to hold two contrary opinions in their head at the same time. Firstly, that pity for the Lakota and the Plains Indians more generally, kind of admiration for them, a feeling of regret, maybe even a feeling of shame at what is happening. But also they can kind of wash their hands of it and say, well, you know, this is what biology is all about. This is the way of the world. The strong replace the weak. And actually, Tom, I think that's dead right. Absolutely right. I think that kind of social Darwinism has permeated into mainstream culture, into mainstream political opinion. I mean, you could also almost argue that Darwinism takes off as fast as it does because

it's answering a need. Yeah, that's a good point. You know, people raised in Christian, in British or American contexts, in kind of democratic notions of fair play or whatever, they need a justification for what they're going to do anyway, which is basically to grab stuff, grab land, grab resources from people who are weaker than them. And actually, again and again, the characters in this story say things like that. So General Sherman, the guy who I quoted talking about the extermination of the Indians, he despises a lot of the white settlers and the miners and so on. And again and again, he will say they're behaving very badly. You know, if I were a Lakota.

But then in the next breath, as Custer does, he will then say, however, it is the law of nature, it is the law of nature, it is the law of life, that civilization must proceed and steamroller this antiquated backward. I mean, they will say this again and again. So I think you're absolutely right that the Darwinist mentality is at the sort of center of American attitudes generally. Anyway, the upshot of it all is they sign a big treaty with the Lakota, with Red Cloud.

Well, it's two-thirds of the Lakota, isn't it? About. Yes, we'll get to this. So they give them a huge reservation, the Great Sioux Reservation, and this will include pretty much all of modern-day South Dakota west of the Missouri. American listeners in particular will reflect

that not all of South Dakota currently belongs to the Lakota, so they will know how that ended up. And the promise is this will all be yours. We'll have agencies that will give you goods and stuff. But slightly confusingly, you can roam a little bit with your hunting. You can roam south. As long as there are abundant buffalo to justify the chase, you can roam. And the huge wilderness to the west of the

reservation which is to say wyoming and montana that is designated very sort of confusingly as unseeded sioux territory so it's kind of yours but white people can settle there if they get your permission and the army can go in and do things. Again, they'll ask you first. So it's deliberately a very gray area. But actually, they sign the treaty. And at first, Red Cloud is very cross. He says, you're not obeying the treaty. And he actually makes a trip to Washington.

He does, yeah. And everybody is very impressed with him. They say, what a tremendous fellow he is. So this is when all the photos are taken, isn't it, of him in top hats and things? Yes. And he actually goes to meet Ulysses S. Grant. And he says, you're not honouring the treaty. You're not keeping settlers out of the Black Hills and the Bighorn Mountains. And Grant actually says to him, fair enough. You're obviously an impressive bloke. We haven't

delivered. And so Red Cloud goes back and he says, well, brilliant. I've gone to see the great father in Washington and all is good. And actually, most of the Lakota follow his. He's a war hero, Red Cloud. So people say, you know what? He knows what he's talking about. And actually, we have to accommodate to reality. We'll go on the reservation. We'll get all the food and supplies.

He manages to persuade most of the Lakota and a large number of Cheyenne and Arapaho, their usual kind of allies. Let's go on to this in South Dakota. You know, it's not ideal, but there's no point fighting reality. However, as you say, Tom, there are people who don't follow him. And they are particular groups. So the Hunkpapas, the Sansarks, the Blackfeet, the Two Kettles, the Mini-Condus, some of the Aglalas, and a Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse is like, no way am I going into a reservation.

That's not my thing at all. Because, of course, he hates any sense of being confined, doesn't he, Crazy Horse? He's the man who walks alone. He does. He's wild as the wind. Yeah, wild as the wind, Tom. Very nice. And the guy who really says, no way, is the man you so beautifully voiced at the beginning of this episode and the last episode, and that is Sitting Bull. So I guess for us,

the idea of a sitting bull, it implies a kind of stationary quality, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. But a bull presumably is referring to the buffalo. Yes. And the buffalo is the most sacred animal on the plains. And it's a creature of a creature of immense power it is i mean you would not want to face a buffalo and he's a very impressive person i think he's a very impressive person sitting bull so as far as we know he's probably born in 1831 he's a hunk papa i love that name his sounds like a kind of 1970s children's yeah hunk papa hunk mama hunk kids barber papa actually do you know you're getting into the Sounds like a kind of 1970s children's. Yeah. Hunk Papa, Hunk Mama, Hunk Kids, Barber Papa.

Actually, do you know, you're getting into the world of the Teletubbers there, aren't you? No, I was thinking Barber Papa. Oh, okay. Yeah. Do you remember Barber Papa? It was kind of great and wobbly thing. Yeah. Or the Moomins.

You could have been a Moomin. Anyway, listen, listen. This is very disrespectful to the Hunk Papas. It is. It is. It is. So his father is called Returns Again. Good name.

Odd name. But apparently this is because his father went out to fight some people once. And they all were going home. And his father said, I'm going back for more, actually. I love this. There's more of them left. And people called him Returns Again. You couldn't get him off the battlefield.

And his mother is called Her Holy Door. And Returns Again is quite an impressive guy. He's a kind of head man of a lodge, which means he's got a group. He's not a chief, but he's got a group of several dozens, maybe even a hundred people, extended family. So he's the rising gentry.

Yeah, yeah. He's a prosperous yeoman farmer, Tom. Yes, that's what he is. He's the middling sort. He's kind of Sandbrook's person. Right, thanks. He's middle Sue. Yes, that's what he is. He's the middling sort. He's kind of Sandbrook's person. Right, thanks. He's middle Sue. Right, okay. So, he's

a healer. Again, like you. Yeah, right. He's very brave. He has powerful dreams and visions, as I do. I think we've found the person in history who most resembles you. So you did a terrible thing the other day, because when I read out that description to Captain Benteen about how behind his chubby volubility was a...

Sinister Machiavellian cruelty. So you said that. And then I was so shocked by that that later that day, I went to my wife and I read that passage out. I started reading that passage. What did she say? And I hadn't even got to the point where I said, Tom Holland said that reminded him of me. And before I i could say that she said you just read me something about yourself

okay so so you found yourself both in captain bentine and in sitting bull i think that nothing to be ashamed of about that sitting bull's father sitting bull's father um i think sitting bull as well so so sitting bull's original, do you know what his original name is? No, Sit or something? No, he later is called Slow. Slow, that's right, yeah. But before then, he's called Jumping Badger. Oh, I like that.

Jumping Badger's a great name. Jumping Badger is his official name, but people nickname him Slow because apparently, well, there are two possible reasons. One is that he's literally quite slow, but the other other is just more plausible is that he always thinks before talking and he's very deliberate and considered so again like crazy horse getting off his horse to aim his gun exactly now interestingly that the sitting bull name that comes into the equation when his father has a chat with a buffalo. It's a buffalo who tells his father about this. So Returns Again and some other men are sitting around a campfire and this buffalo arrives

and starts sort of bellowing at them, grunting. Oh, bellowing? And the buffalo kind of wobbles from side to side. And I read that Return Again's companions were awestruck, but Return Again understood what the buffalo was saying. What the buffalo was saying was, i've never done a buffalo i don't know what a buffalo's voice sounds like oh yeah it'd be deep it'd be very deep i can do a buffalo can you the buffalo gives him four names so the four names buffalo ball sits down jumping ball ball stands with cow and one ball i felt you threw Buffalo Bull Sits Down, Jumping Bull, Bull Stands With Cow, and One Bull. I felt you threw those away to some degree, Tom.

Actually, I thought it would be more... I mean, a buffalo's not a showman. Okay, he's not appearing in Buffalo Bill's show. No. No, I mean, he says the names and then he goes off and eats his grass. He does. So he says these four names, Buffalo Bull Sits Down, Jumping Bull, Bull Stands With Cow, and One Bull.

And four is a sacred number, by the way, to the Lakota. these four names buffalo bull sits down jumping bull bull stands with a cow and one bull and four is a sacred number by the way to the lakota and returns again is very very impressed with this and he thinks they're a gift to him these names he goes back to the village he says i'm changing my name i'm going to call myself basically buffalo bull sits down sitting bull that's what he calls himself so he's called that but his son isn't. So the man we think of as Sitting Bull is called Slow. He has a chat to an eagle around this point, Tom. He's about 30.

The eagle sings to him and sings, My father gave me this nation to care for. I'm trying to fulfill my duty. Do we know what the song was like? Was it a good song? I don't want to hear you doing an eagle. Okay. I mean, that could be for the bonus

for that West is History Club member subscribers. I'm amazed that this hasn't been done as a track. It'd be a concept album, wouldn't it? It'd be a proper concept album from the 70s. Sacred Spirit could do it. Definitely. So the eagle sings to him and says, you have a special responsibility,

all of this kind of thing. And actually by this point, he's not very slow. He's really good at archery and hunting and all that kind of thing and then when he's 14 years old he has the great moment in his life when he counts his first coup yeah so he touches an enemy with a stick and they've gone out on a hunting expedition because he hasn't ever got any war honors and he's only 14 he's naked except for some beads and a sort of little loincloth. And he doesn't carry a weapon, but he knocks a crow off his horse with this stick. It's kind of very Homeric, isn't it?

It's very Homeric. Kind of the great hero. When you read this stuff, it's, you know, much as we are sort of enjoying doing the voice of a buffalo and imagining eagles singing, it's no different to telling the stories of the Greek heroes. I mean, that's the sort of the imaginative world, I think.

Yeah. Anyway, he knocks this bloke off his horse with a stick. His friends then rush up and they scalp the guy and kill him. And this is a tremendous moment for Slow. He goes back home. He has a great parade. His body is painted black and he has a single eagle feather

in his hair to mark his coup and his father sort of stands up in front of everybody and he says great moment for my son and in honor of this moment i will change my name again and i will now be jumping bull and my son you are the new sitting bull and this seems to be a thing then doesn't it so crazy horse's dad hands on his name yeah and now the guy who's going to become sitting bull has handed on his name has handed on his name and i think we should take a break there tom because it's such an exciting and moving moment and we'll return afterwards to talk about how sitting bull how his career unfolds we haven't really talked about religion at all i know you like to talk about religion, so we'll talk about sun dancing.

But Dominic, you will also know that I am suspicious of the use of the word religion. Of course, what a schoolboy error. In this context, because they don't have a notion of religion as something separate. Yeah. And this is the crucial point. Why shouldn't eagles talk? Why shouldn't bulls talk? Okay, agreed.

Because the wonder and power of the supernatural is manifest in everything. I was trying to get us to the break, but I failed because I made it. I made a schoolboy error. You did. You walked into that one. And I walked right into it.

Like Custer charging the little big horn. Custer, the nominal topic of this series, will return at the very end of this episode. So that's something to look forward to. We'll see you after the break. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment.

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therestisentertainment.com. Comrades, whoever runs away, he is a woman, they say. Therefore, through many trials, he is a woman, they say. Therefore, through many trials, my life is short. So that, Dominic, was a song sung by Sitting Bull as he charged a Crow Chieftain in 1856. Apparently he had a very high resonant singing voice like mine. Yeah, it could not have been less like what I imagine.

Should I do it again? No, for God's sake, don't do it again. No, he's 25. Yeah. That's not the voice of a 24-year-old man, Tom. And this is a highly significant moment in Sitting Bull's career, isn't it? Because we were talking about the Homeric quality of his life before the break. And this is kind of Achilles against Hector. It is.

It's a standoff between two mighty warriors on rival sides and everybody else has stood back to watch it. The crow drops to one knee and he's got a rifle. He fires. The bullet goes through the shield that Sitting Bull is holding and goes into his left foot rather oddly it must have been quite a bad shot i think yeah and it goes in at his toe and goes out his heel yeah so again kind of very achilles and now sitting bull turns aims his rifle fires the crow chief tumbles sitting bull takes out his knife obviously he's got a bullet through his foot so he's got to limp yeah he takes his knife raises it over

his fallen opponent plunges it into the heart yeah thrilling stuff it is exciting stuff makes Sitting Bull a great hero

gets all kinds of war on us and actually the song the idea of him singing the song so that reminds me of the Norse sagas or something

yeah kind of skaldic verse. They are, aren't they? They're like, he raised his axe, smote the guy's head, and he sang as he did so. Yeah. So there were Viking chieftains who are famous for their ability to do this and to sing and celebrate their own victories. Yeah.

And this is clearly what Sitting Bull is doing. Yeah. And I think, I mean, this is the weird thing about this whole story, that this world that feels very reminiscent of Homeric epic or Norse epic is taking place in the same arena as there are railroads and the Aster family and Custer and all of these things that are from the world of modernity. I mean, that's what makes the story so rich and so fascinating, isn't it? Yeah. And I think also the fact that custer is the kind of intersection point between those two worlds yeah i mean he's he is cast as a kind of knight errant from medieval chivalry and sitting bull is cast as a homeric or norse warrior and so this is part of the dynamic of the story that makes it so interesting to people back in the 19th century

but also let's be honest to us yes of course absolutely yeah i completely agree anyway sitting bull by the 1860s by his sort of 20s 30s he's a big man he is a very celebrated warrior he has a great buffalo kind of um horned headdress with feathers to show that he has won all these victories and killed all these chiefs and things. We talked before, I think we were talking about the dog soldiers and the Cheyenne. We were talking about how they had these kind of warrior fraternities. He's in loads of them and he's an officer of loads of these fraternities, which is a real achievement. And actually, although they don't really have a kind of

formal political structure they have an informal one he's very high in it and it's prestige based isn't it it is prestige base but the biggest thing about him that makes him different and gives him this fascination is his holiness is the sense that he has a link to what you undoubtedly would call the dimension of the supernatural. One of my favorite phrases, as people will know. It is. So he's danced the sun dance. Oh, yeah. I mean, this must be something that you must love all this.

I really do. Because you basically love torture and religion. I know religion is not the right word. Yeah. This combines both your interests. Yes. So the sun dance is a kind of big thing. It provides an opportunity to directly see into the dimension of the supernatural, to be given visions of the future, to be given advice

for what you should do that derives from the gods, from the spirits that lie beyond the realm of the human. And the big god is Wakan Tanka. That's right, isn't it? He is the kind of great father. The great mystery. The great mystery, yeah. So the sense he's great spirit, the great mystery. Dominant you as the master of tongues, presumably you would be alert to that way in which... Very alert to the nuances, yeah. The sense of mystery, but also spirit is an important part of what's being tapped into.

I think it is. And I think it's sort of less anthropomorphic than the kind of mythology that we associate with greece or the one day you know it's not all sort of people stealing each other's wives and wooden horses or all of that kind of it's more mysterious than that isn't it the world of lakota faith well it's shamanistic i guess would be the word that anthropologists would use yes um i mean probably anthropologists are now suspicious of the word shamanistic, I guess, would be the word that anthropologists would use. Yes. I mean, probably anthropologists are now suspicious of the word shamanistic. Yeah. But the idea that you put yourself through excruciating austerities and physical pain and open yourself up to visions that you wouldn't otherwise have.

So we were talking about medicine yesterday, that you either have medicine or you don't. And Sitting Bull definitely does. And there seem to be kind of two ways that are associated with the Sundance. So one, which Sitting Bull does shortly before the Battle of the Little Bighorn, is that you give flesh. So Sitting Bull will have someone take out 50 kind of gobbets of flesh

from each of his arms. Yeah, they're often described as the size of the head of a match. So they're quite small, but somebody will basically go at your arm with an awl and they will rip out 50 bits of flesh and as an offering to the gods but the sun dance itself it sounds to me is an absolute worse even worse much worse yeah so so you set up uh buffalo heads in a kind circle, and then you have a medicine pole, which is fixed into the ground.

And what is it? You have a pole, don't you? So, yeah, you have this big pole. Actually, medicine pole, it is called a medicine pole, but as we said last time, the language of medicine is very unhelpful. Yeah, it's not a kind of thing you get at the NHS. So there's this huge pole. Everyone assembles. There's a big feast.

You know, it's like on a religious feast festival. Lots of people have assembled. They've been drinking and they've been dancing and they've been having fun and stuff. But now it's very solemn. And they watch while you step forward and whoever else is going to do the Sundance. And a holy man, basically, he pierces your skin around your nipples. It goes under the muscles, doesn't it? And he puts a sort of skewer through it, a wooden skewer.

And then he ties leather thongs to this skewer. And those are then tied to a rope. A lariat, I believe, is the technical word. Right. And the rope is tied to the pole. And it's tightened so that you have to stand on your feet. It's so horrible. And I mean, that's the basic package, but you can have worse ones, which will obviously

raise your prestige because they're much more painful. So you might have sticks that get pushed through the cheeks of the dancer just beneath the eyes, or you might have them through the back muscles, which are obviously very dense. So I mean, that would be completely excruciating. So essentially you get kind of hooked up by these and you then get given a whistle and you have to blow on the whistle yeah and then you have to dance and they will be drumming and stuff won't they while you're dancing yeah but you have to dance for hours and hours and hours and you have to lift your face to the sun yeah and while you're doing it you're kind of giving away various stuff so you might give away a weapon or a pony or or something like

that and again those who are going to the limits, those who've got the sticks through their muscles or whatever, they will give everything away. So there are even warriors who give away their sisters, which must have been a bit grim for the sister, I guess. Very grim for the sister, yeah. And the thing is that if you fail the test, so if you don't measure up,

if you think you can do it and it proves you can't, you faint't you faint or you just say oh god this hurts too much i'm stopping yeah then you lose your status as a warrior you're given a woman's dress and you are set to picking berries or doing the washing up or whatever to be honest i mean i can see why you might choose that voluntarily you know it's a good way to get into the berry picking business. I mean, it sounds horrendous. So you basically, the point of the dance is to try and break free from the hooks, isn't it?

I think it's to have a vision. Yeah. Oh, of course. Yeah. You'll have the vision through pain. That's the point. Correct. But if you just faint and you don't have the vision, that's no good. Yeah, no good.

I mean, it is weird. On the other hand, I suppose, I think it's really worth stressing that to us in 2024, as kind of people living in a fairly secular country, it seems extremely unsettling. But is it any more weird and unsettling than so many other religious rituals? I mean, think about the self-mortification in Christianity. Or people going off into the desert and taking drugs and having visions that way. People want vision, people taking acid. Yeah, absolutely. So Sitting Bull does this, doesn't he? And nobody doubts that he is a very holy man, that he has enormous endurance and he will show off all of the scars, his scars on his

chest, his scars on his back, he has scars on his arms that are testament to his courage in various sun dances and similar kind of religious rituals. And he's a large man, isn't he? Yeah, he's a big man. So there's quite a lot of him to take bits of flesh out of, to gouge out. Yes, because he becomes, obviously later on, after the Battle of Little Bighorn, because he becomes such a celebrity. I mean, there's no other word for it.

He's an international celebrity. Well, so as well as the handshaking after Little Bighorn, he is also shown how to write his name. And his autograph apparently was the most prized after the president's. I mean, I would much rather have Sitting Bull's autograph

than some of the presidents of the 1880s who nobody remembers. Yeah, of course. I mean, who wants Chester Arthur's autograph when you could have Sitting Bull's autograph? Anyway, so later on when he's a celebrity, all these stories are told about him and nobody ever undermines him or questions his holiness. So people say, listen, this is a chap. He's always communing with badgers, doing all this stuff, getting information from the spirit world.

Bulls, eagles. Yeah. He can see into the future and his predictions are generally right. He will say, we will have meat in the spring, all this kind of stuff. And this ability to foretell the future will be crucial for the buildup to the Battle of Little Bighorn. So just keep that in mind. It will indeed. It will indeed.

But also, the interesting thing about him, I think the likable thing, Tom, is that he's not a sort of a stereotypical caricatured sort of very forbidding holy man, is he? He's a laugh. No, he's fun. He's good fun. He loves singing, as you have beautifully demonstrated. Yeah. He's a very good mimic.

Yeah. He likes jokes. Very good actor. Yeah. He's, like me, a very good actor. And very affectionate as well to people he loves yeah he's a nice person it's a nice person also he struggles with his mental health tom did you see this he suffers from bouts of depression i didn't know that so it's very

relatable in that sense anyway the one thing that perhaps is well i don't know what what listeners will think whether it's relatable or not. After Red Cloud has done this deal and said, fine, let's yield to reality. We'll go on this big reservation in South Dakota. Sitting Bull, the one thing that really marks him out, he says, no way. Absolutely no way. I will never, ever compromise with Washington, with the Americans. And he says of Red Cloud, he said, Red Cloud saw too much. The white people must have put bad medicine over Red Cloud's eyes to make him see

everything and anything that they pleased. This is after Red Cloud's trip to Washington. And when people say to him, listen, if we go on the reservation, sure, it won't be as exciting and it won't be shooting crows through the heart or all that stuff that was great fun before however you know we'll have food and we'll have somewhere to live and we'll be safe he says look at me see if i am poor or my people either the whites may get me at last as you say but i will have good times till then you are fools to make yourself slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hard tack and a little sugar and coffee. And of course, the thing is, there are loads of people who would agree with

that. Of course. Particularly younger warriors who want to have, they want to make a name for themselves. But also as you made the point last time, didn't you? It's exhilarating. I mean, it must be terrifying at times, but it's exciting. I assume that you don't need to divide it into saying, well, it's simultaneously fun and noble because to be noble is to be fun, I guess. Yeah, I guess that's right. I think that's right. And I think there are also a lot of people who say, do you know what? We could kind of do both. I mean, this undoubtedly happens. There are lots of people who say, in the winter, I'll go to the reservation. I'll hang around. I'll have that coffee and make small talk with the federal agent. And then when summer comes, I'm out of here.

Well, again, as we'll see at the Battle of Little Bighorn, a lot of reservation Dakota are there. Yeah. So there's not a neat sort of very stark divide between the reservation and non-reservation Indians. But the man who says, I'm not having this, I'm not compromising, I'm staying free, obviously comes to be a figure of tremendous charisma and significance. Yes.

So the fact that Sitting Bull has done that is what enables him to serve as the focus of loyalty, admiration, devotion for so many of the younger warriors. Yeah. So by the end of the 186060s he has now achieved a position that really nobody has ever achieved before he's almost a sort of paramount chief and they have a big meeting in 1869 of the of the lakota who are dead against the reservation and at that his uncle who's got four horns says to him for your bravery on the battlefields and as the greatest warrior of our bands we've elected you as our war chief as leader of the sioux nation when you tell us to fight we shall fight when you tell us to make peace we shall make peace so in other words he's been cast in this new kind of role which is again another sign of how it's

not actually a timeless culture no it's evolving in response to the pressures on it exactly so exactly so in the late 1860s early 1870s sitting bull is sending people on raids and things but they're all quite small scale however all the time the railroad is coming closer and one railroad in particular which is the northern pacific and the northern pacific has basically decided on its route and that route leads right through the lakota lands in 1872 they sent out a survey party and sitting bull and crazy horse because crazy horse is also holding out of course they got together to see it off. And then a year later, in the summer of 1873, Sitting Bull, it's been a quiet summer and they're kind of minding their own business, kind of, you know, they're going out hunting. He's talking to eagles and doing his thing.

And then he hears news that a new survey expedition with a US Army escort is advancing on the Yellowstone River. And the head of this expedition, Tom. Who is it, Dominic? Who is it? None other than our old friend, George Armstrong Custer. And on that bombshell, we should draw a close over the story. And we will return next time to find out what happens at the Yellowstone between Custer

and Sitting Bull and we'll get into the story of the Black Hills Expedition a year later. Yeah that's a terrible story. Now if you want to hear the rest of this thrilling series early before everybody else then you know what to do. You just need to go to

therestishistory.com sign up to join our warrior band. You get all kinds of thrilling benefits, but most importantly, you will get those episodes before your neighbours, and so you can lord it over them because you will know what happened to George Armstrong Custer, but they won't. I mean, amazing, we've got four episodes to go.

Yeah. We did the whole of the Reformation in five episodes. I'm so bitter about this. So bitter. So many complaints that I hear about that. And I was only allowed four on Byron. Exactly. This is the thing. The complaint isn't really that there are too many on the Lakota. Your complaint is that you weren't given enough on Byron. No, I stuck to our agreement and you're just spraying notes everywhere you go.

No. Roaming like a Lakota chieftain. No, it's a gross calumny because when I send you the notes thinking you'll suggest things to cut, which I would be delighted to hear, what actually happens... I just shovel a whole load more in myself.

...is that you shovel a whole load of new notes in. The only thing you wanted to cut and you rang me up and a great agitation about was you said... Yeah. Custer's father's beard. i just felt that was an extraneous detail an extraneous detail that custer's father had a beard but that was really important people don't want to go back and listen to episode one there's a lot of custer's father beard related

badinage going on and this is the subtext for it yeah anyway listen we will be back we still have four episodes to go. The build up to the battle of the Little Bighorn, the battle itself, and then the aftermath and the tragic, terrible story of the Ghost Dancers.

So that is all to come. Wonderful. See you next time. Bye bye. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip.

And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com.