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History of the Lakota People
Bear Butte (now a South Dakota State
Park) is a sacred site for the Lakota and Cheyenne people. (Photo
Copyright 2000 by Mark Hollabaugh, all rights reserved.)
The American bison , or buffalo as it
is commonly know, was the crucial element in the
Lakota's traditional life on the Great Plaines. The greatest of
Lakota
leaders took his name from this great animal. (Photo Copyright
2002
by Mark Hollabaugh, all rights reserved.)
Sitting Bull, Tatanka Iyotaka,
was a great Hunkpapa spiritual leader and he is one of the best known
of the Lakota chiefs. His body is now buried on the bluffs overlooking the
Missouri River near Mobridge, South Dakota. (Photo Copyright 2000 by
Mark Hollabaugh, all rights reserved.)
In mid-June, 1876, Sitting
Bull held a great Sun Dance in southern Montana along the banks of the Rosebud Creek .
This was when Sitting Bull had his vision of "soldiers falling
into the camp." A few days later, this was the site of Custer's
last campsite as he made his way into history at the Battle of the
Greasy
Grass (known to the white world as the Battle of Little Bighorn.).
(Photo Copyright 2002 by Mark Hollabaugh, all rights reserved.)
A few days later, General Crook
encounted Sitting Bull's forces at the Battle
of the Rosebud . Capt. John Gregory Bourke, who in 1881
recorded an eyewitness account of a Sun Dance, took part in the battle.
(Photo Copyright 2002
by Mark Hollabaugh, all rights reserved.) Frederick Schwatka was also
present at this conflict.
Captain
John Gregory Bourke, was present at a Sun Dance held on 22 June
1881, at the Pine Ridge Reservation. This was the morning of the
Summer Solstice and the pre-dawn morning sky presented a spectacular display. Unfortunately it was
cloudy and no one saw the conjuction of the planets! The Sun Dance probably was held few kilometers south of the present-day
rodeo grounds on an open plain in what is now Nebraska. Approximately 12,000 Oglala and Brulé Lakota were present at this Sun Dance. Bourke was a
West Point graduate who distinquished himself in the Civil War (Medal
of Honor) and went on to become a self-taught ethnographer and
anthropologist. He was present with Crook at the Battle of the
Rosebud. (Photo Copyright 2002
by Mark Hollabaugh, all rights reserved.)
The Medicine
Wheel in the Bighorn Mountains of northern Wyoming, is an important
site for archaeoastronomy. It was probably not used by the
Lakota. The Wheel has 28 spokes, reminiscent of the 28 days of
the moon's visibility during each lunar month. Some of the
spokes are aligned with the summer solstice sunrise and sunset
azimuths. Other spoke alignments suggest the wheel is about 300
to 400 years old. It probably served ceremonial
and calendar purposes. (Photo Copyright 2002 by Mark Hollabaugh,
all
rights reserved.)
