Distinctly Montana Magazine

30 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G 2 0 2 3 against a monochromatic background, typically light to medi- um blue, with a multi-colored border. A U-shaped motif covered the area where the tail was previously attached to bighorn or elk hides used for these garments. Lakota women paid a significant price in terms of personal comfort for wearing the apex expression of style. Barbara Hail, curator emerita at the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, noted that a heavily beaded Lakota dress in their collections weighs 13 pounds, which "must have made it cumbersome to wear." This comment is consistent with observations by Carrie Lyford, author of Quill and Beadwork of the Western Sioux, who previously stated that Lakota dresses with solidly beaded yokes "might weigh from 12 to 16 pounds." In late September 1877, tribal leaders, including Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, traveled to Washington. Their visit, barely three weeks after Crazy Horse was killed at Fort Robinson, was overshadowed by political intrigue and a cloud of controversy. Nevertheless, photographs of this delegation established a high-water mark for the artistic quality of Plains Indian portraiture and provide a treasure trove of information per- taining to Lakota material culture. Most of these photographs are attributed to Mathew Brady; the image selected for analysis here depicts a veritable who's who of Oglalas that were prominent during this turbulent and transitional peri- od in their history. American Horse (standing, third from the left) and Young Man Afraid of His Horse (back row, second from the right) were two members of the last cohort of Oglala Shirt Wearers. They were so honored during a ceremony held at Old Man Afraid of His Horse's vil- lage in the summer of 1868, shortly after conclusion of the Fort Laramie Treaty Council. Fellow honorees, Crazy Horse and Sword, died before this delegation's departure. He Dog (standing, far left) was the lifelong brother-friend of Crazy Horse, and George Sword (standing, extreme right) was the younger brother of the Shirt Wearer Sword. Little Big Man (standing, third from right) was a firebrand who accom- panied Crazy Horse on many war parties during the 1860s and 1870s but became a political rival follow- ing their surrender at Fort Robinson in May 1877. Indeed, he informed Captain John G. Bourke at the Sun Dance in 1881 that he had "unintentionally killed Crazy Horse with the latter's own weap- on, which was shaped at the end like a bayonet (stiletto) and made the very same kind of a wound." Two years earlier, Bourke acquired a painted and hair-fringed shirt from Little Big Man, which allegedly belonged to Crazy Horse and may have been the shirt bestowed upon him in 1868. This garment is housed in the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian. Several objects in this photograph were worn or displayed by multiple delegates, so it is impossible to definitively establish personal ownership. For example, American Horse's heavily beaded and hair-fringed shirt appears in at least eight different photographs of the 1877 and 1880 Lakota delegations, where it was also worn by Red Cloud, Little Wound, and William Garnett, a mixed-blood interpreter. Similarly, American Horse's pipe bag, with its four-cross beaded composition, appears in associa- Running Antelope, Hunkpapa Lakota, 1872. Photograph by Alexander Gardner. National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Negative No. 3184-A. A S A N H I S T O R I C A L F I G U R E , R U N N I N G A N T E L O PE WAS PERHAPS BEST KNOWN AS ONE OF THE FOUR HUNKPAPAS SELECTED AS SHIRT WEARERS IN 1851. AMONG THE LAKOTA, THIS HONORARY POSITION CONFERRED GREAT RESPECT.

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