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hard not to add a side

1:12

of hot, crispy hash browns to

1:15

your favorite McDonald's breakfast. It's

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even harder not to eat said

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hash browns before you get

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home. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.

1:36

I see. I know.

1:39

I began to see when I was not yet

1:41

born, when I was not

1:43

in my mother's arms, but

1:46

inside of my mother's belly. It

1:49

was there that I began

1:51

to study about my people. God

1:53

gave me the power to see out of the

1:56

womb. I studied

1:58

there, in the womb. room, about

2:01

many things. I

2:03

studied about the smallpox that was killing

2:06

my people, the

2:08

great sickness that was killing the

2:10

women and children. I was

2:12

so interested that I turned over on

2:15

my side. The God

2:17

Almighty must have told me at that time

2:19

that I would be the man to be

2:21

the judge of all the other Indians, a

2:24

big man, to decide for

2:26

them. So

2:29

that, Dominic, was the

2:31

Lakota chieftain, Sitting

2:33

Bull, talking to a

2:35

Chicago Times reporter in 1877, which

2:37

is the year after the Little

2:40

Bighorn, when he was probably one of the most

2:42

famous people, not just in America,

2:44

but maybe in the world. Yeah,

2:46

that's right. And it's all, from

2:49

our perspective, quite odd, isn't it? It's

2:51

odd, Tom, yeah. Being given visions in the

2:54

womb and things like that? Yes, absolutely

2:56

it is. It captures the strangeness, I

2:58

think, that has always surrounded the Sioux

3:01

Sitting Bull. And I guess, to people

3:03

from Britain, there's always this sense of

3:05

use of Tom Hollandism. Is it not

3:07

a case of the weird? I think

3:09

it is. And that, I guess, is

3:11

also completely part of the fascination and

3:13

charisma of not just

3:15

Sitting Bull, but of the Lakota

3:18

and the Indians generally, who,

3:20

for Custer and people like

3:22

him back in the late 19th century, were

3:25

objects of fascination, but also seen

3:27

as savages, as primitives. Yeah. And

3:29

obviously, that is a perspective that

3:32

has changed quite radically over the

3:34

past decades. It has, absolutely. So

3:36

when I was growing up in

3:39

the 70s, cowboy and Indian films

3:41

were still on TV a lot. I

3:44

had children's books, I can remember them, Ernest

3:46

and the Wild West, there was the Ladybird

3:48

book, the Ladybird book of Custer. Custer's Last

3:50

Stand. Yeah. And those books freely

3:52

use the term, which lots of people now find

3:54

very offensive, red Indian, or

3:57

indeed redskins, like the Washington redskins. But

3:59

there was always a sense of, you call it the

4:01

weird, that the divide

4:04

between the world of

4:06

the everyday mundanity and

4:09

the supernatural was very thin with Native Americans.

4:11

And that still hangs over them, right? There's

4:13

sort of a sense of, oh,

4:15

all the books about them are called things like,

4:17

the earth is weeping, the earth

4:19

is all that lasts. Well, in the

4:22

90s, there was sacred spirit. Sacred spirit,

4:24

yeah. Which was kind of ambient music

4:26

put to Native American chanting. Yes. And

4:29

it conveyed an idea of timeless wisdom, I

4:32

suppose. A sense that Native Americans were guardians

4:34

of the earth. All of that stuff is

4:36

still very apparent. So if you go, you

4:38

know, last year I was traveling in the

4:40

American Southwest, and in the shops

4:42

and stuff, you know, there's still

4:44

a lot of buy this lovely blanket, here's

4:46

a CD of people chanting, here's some sort

4:48

of incense that you can burn that

4:50

will make you commune with the spirits. So

4:53

the new agey, I guess, is the... Yeah.

4:56

... timeless. So as we were discussing today's

4:58

podcast, which is all about the Lakota, about

5:00

Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, their world

5:02

is absolutely not timeless. Their world has changed

5:04

enormously and it's always changing the whole time.

5:07

And nobody's in the right place. Everybody's customs

5:09

have changed a lot in recent years. They

5:11

are as liable to the influence

5:13

of technology and trade and all those

5:16

things as anybody else. So it's

5:18

a huge stereotype. So the classic image of

5:20

the Plains Indians, as they would have been

5:22

called in the 19th century,

5:24

is their hunting buffalo. They have horses.

5:27

They have guns. You know, they're not just

5:29

armed with bows and arrows. And obviously all

5:31

of these are very recent. Totally. Exactly.

5:33

By the way, we've already, so far

5:36

in the first few minutes, gone

5:38

all over the shop with our nomenclature, haven't we? Yeah,

5:40

we have. We might call them the Lakota, the Sioux.

5:43

We've used Native Americans and we've

5:45

used Indians. And obviously

5:47

the one thing that they're not is, as it

5:50

were, Indians from India, which is a label put

5:52

on them by European settlers. But

5:54

the complicating thing is that some natives

5:56

now have reclaimed the

5:58

word Indian and American. very keen on it and

6:01

some absolutely loathe it. So whatever we do, Tom,

6:03

well, we're going to be offending somebody. Well, I

6:05

think it also reflects the fact that no matter

6:08

the, you know, Dee Brown, Barry Mowat, Heart at

6:10

Wounded Knee and all the attempts to see

6:12

how the West was won as being how

6:14

the West was lost, it remains the fact

6:17

that it is a Western,

6:19

white, American, historiographical

6:21

tradition that frames the story.

6:24

Totally is. And it's really,

6:26

really difficult to get back

6:28

into the mindset of a

6:30

people whose traditions and

6:33

way of life are utterly devastated over

6:35

the course of the period that we

6:37

are describing. So much so that you

6:39

don't even appreciate often the entirety of

6:41

what has been lost. And that sense

6:43

of the strangeness of the weirdness, of

6:45

course, is only strange and weird to

6:47

us. Yeah, absolutely. It's not to them.

6:49

No, no, you're absolutely right. Even

6:51

that quotation that we began with, by the way.

6:53

Yeah, because he's giving it to a newspaperman. And

6:56

so he's playing a part, he's playing a role

6:58

and he'll go on to play the role of

7:00

the Indian chieftain in Buffalo Bill's Wild West story.

7:02

Yes, exactly that. It's filtered through the newspaperman and

7:04

even in all the books that I've read, all

7:06

those books that I was just talking about, you

7:08

know, the Earth is all that lasts, the Earth

7:10

lies weeping, all that kind of. The vast majority

7:12

of them are by white American, you know,

7:15

university academics who are often putting on

7:17

a sort of cod, Native

7:20

American voice when they're telling

7:22

you the story. But I would say that even

7:25

if you are, I mean, I

7:27

hesitate to say this because obviously I way

7:29

out of my comfort zone, but I would

7:31

suspect that it is very

7:33

difficult now, even if you are Lakota,

7:36

even if you were steeped in the traditions of your people,

7:38

to get back to the mindset of

7:42

someone like Sitting Bull, who

7:44

lived in a world that was not

7:46

yet entirely American because

7:48

the scale of the devastation, the cultural devastation is

7:51

so profound that everyone in America now is completely

7:53

Americanized. Yeah, I think there's a degree of truth.

7:55

And of course, we know how the story plays

7:57

out, which Sitting Bull never knew. But I think

8:00

part of the tragedy and the heroism of

8:02

this story is that they kind of do

8:04

know. The smartest of them do know. Right.

8:07

Some of them certainly do know. And as we'll see,

8:09

Sitting Bull has that power to see into the future.

8:11

Yeah. At least that is what people believe.

8:13

I mean, his people believe it. He believes it. And

8:16

the visions that he gets, although they

8:18

do foretell the great victory over Custer

8:20

that will happen at the Little Bighorn,

8:22

you know, it's full of ominous forebodings

8:24

as well. All right,

8:26

Tom. Well, we'll get on to that in due course, but maybe we should

8:28

crack on with the story. Let's start. Shall we

8:30

give some very, very broad context? So the camera will kind

8:33

of zoom in as the first half of this podcast continues.

8:35

So let's go back to the very beginning of this

8:38

story, the very, very beginning. So

8:40

1492, Columbus arrives in the new world.

8:42

In today's United States and Canada, how

8:45

many native people are there?

8:47

There are probably somewhere around the region of

8:49

three, four million. Some historians would go as high as seven

8:51

or eight million. But that

8:54

number drops incredibly dramatically over the

8:56

next few centuries, largely

8:58

because of disease, not because of campaigns,

9:01

battles or anything like that. But it's

9:03

smallpox in particular. So by 1776, the

9:05

birth of the United States, that number

9:07

is probably halved. And then as

9:09

the former, what we'll want is

9:12

the decent, law abiding, tax-paying American colonists

9:15

expand. They become independent and

9:17

then they expand westward. Disease obviously

9:19

travels and the number

9:21

of native peoples continues

9:23

to collapse. So by

9:25

about the early 1800s, there may be fewer

9:27

than three quarters of a million and

9:30

continue to fall very quickly. Now you

9:32

compare that with the population of European

9:34

settlers and African slaves and their descendants,

9:37

that number is surging from about five million in 1800 to

9:39

about 25 million in So

9:43

at the heart of this story is a massive

9:46

demographic mismatch. The native

9:48

peoples are totally outnumbered, but also dominant,

9:50

a movement west, right? And a movement

9:52

west, exactly. And the more westward you

9:55

move, the more the mismatch widens. Because

9:58

by 1860, I read an article. estimate,

10:00

there were 1.4 million Euro-Americans in the Trans-Mississippi

10:03

West. By 1890, an estimated

10:05

8.5 million. So

10:07

that sense of a tidal wave of people

10:10

moving westwards, kind of

10:12

submerging and swamping the

10:15

peoples of the plains. Yeah, the sense

10:17

of it being like an unstoppable natural phenomenon

10:19

almost, of course it isn't. Now

10:21

a really important thing for people to get into their heads

10:24

is that there is no sense of unity

10:26

whatsoever among the native peoples of North America.

10:29

So those people who listen to our podcasts

10:31

about Cortes and the fall of the Aztecs

10:33

will remember that the people of

10:35

Mesoamerica spent all their time fighting

10:38

among themselves. There was no sense of unity

10:40

against the Spaniards. And it's exactly the same

10:42

story. They don't think of themselves

10:44

as Indians, they don't think of themselves as

10:46

part of a common ethnicity, because, never mind,

10:49

they're not. They're not at all. They're big

10:51

rivals. If you're a Pawnee or something, your

10:54

big rivals are the people over the next hill

10:56

that you're fighting for hunting grounds with, not the

10:58

white settlers far away on the coast. But don't

11:00

you think, I mean I entirely accept that, but

11:03

by the 1860s or 1870s, there is a

11:07

sense on the part of the

11:09

various peoples who are living in

11:11

the Great Plains who are not

11:13

white, that the

11:16

white settlers are a

11:19

kind of quantum difference. I

11:21

think possibly by that stage, yes. And certainly

11:23

among some of the more farsighted leaders who

11:25

will come to our great called Red Cloud

11:27

later, there are people who say, listen, hey,

11:29

these white people, they're not just another variable.

11:32

Yeah. They're not like us. They're

11:34

not another tribe. They're a transformative factor.

11:36

Although against that, I mean, one of

11:38

the really noticeable things of this story

11:40

is how readily various

11:43

Native American peoples are willing to

11:45

side with the Americans to do

11:47

down their rivals. Yeah, massively important,

11:49

Tom. So wherever the American cavalry

11:51

are going or American infantry, they're

11:54

being guided by Native American guides.

11:57

Absolutely. We talked in the last episode

11:59

about. of sage scouts

12:02

at the Wichita River Massacre.

12:05

They always, as you say, have allies. There are

12:07

some who sort of

12:09

tend to side with the United States,

12:11

so the crows or the prawny, they're

12:14

often allied with the Americans. And actually the Lakota

12:16

Sioux. Yeah, they're allies, aren't they, from the beginning

12:19

of the 19th century? Yeah, you're absolutely right. So

12:21

there are lots of white immigrants going across the

12:23

Great Plains in the first half of the 19th

12:25

century who say that they would never have

12:27

made it without the help of the Lakota. And

12:29

the other thing that makes this a really complicated story. So

12:32

your sacred spirits, kind of the

12:34

earth cries out or whatever sort

12:37

of stuff assumes a fixedness

12:39

on the part of the Native Americans.

12:41

These are our ancestral lands. They've been

12:43

sacred to us for generations. That

12:46

is all tosh. Everybody is a migrant.

12:49

So all of these people are settlers and

12:51

conquerors. They have all moved around. We talked

12:53

about the Cheyenne last time, having moved from

12:55

the woods of Minnesota. That's exactly the

12:57

same story with the Lakota. So

13:00

it's really important to remember

13:02

the kind of fluidity of the sea. The Great

13:04

Plains are this great expanse where people are moving

13:06

around and they're fighting and nobody's stuck in the

13:08

same place. And stealing each other's land.

13:10

And stealing each other's land. Everybody's a conqueror. War

13:12

is the way. Okay, so 1776

13:16

when the United States is born, how does it

13:19

propose to deal with all of these peoples to

13:21

the west? The answer is at first they sign

13:23

lots of treaties. And then they break the yeah,

13:26

the Museum of the American Indian in

13:29

Washington. There's a huge exhibition about treaties,

13:31

all of which they end up breaking

13:34

sometimes willfully, but also sometimes because

13:36

frankly, the treaty proves outdated. Because

13:39

a huge wave of settlers arrives and the federal

13:41

government make a very sort of feeble and half-hearted

13:43

sense of restrain them and it ends up completely

13:45

futile. I mean, that was a huge part of

13:47

the American War of Independence, wasn't it? It was.

13:49

They didn't want to be restrained. The British were

13:51

trying to uphold treaty that said you can't go

13:53

so far. Yeah. And the American settlers just kept

13:55

ignoring it. Then in the sort of let's say

13:57

the 1830s or so, there's a change attack. associated

14:00

very much with President Andrew Jackson, there's

14:02

a policy of what is called very

14:04

euphemistically removal, we might call it actually

14:06

ethnic cleansing. So this is

14:08

to take tribes like the Choctaws, the

14:10

Chickasaws, the Creeks, the Cherokees, the Seminoles,

14:13

and to physically move them hundreds

14:15

of miles to the west, west of the

14:17

Mississippi, get them all out of the area,

14:20

east of the Mississippi. If we'd basically dump

14:22

300,000 natives west

14:25

of the Mississippi, then all the rest of the land

14:27

will be for us. And at

14:29

the time, people say, well, this will work

14:31

in the long run, because actually why would

14:33

we even want to go to the Great

14:35

Plains? There's nothing there, there's no point. It's

14:37

not suitable for human settlement. They talk of

14:39

a permanent Indian frontier, this chain of forts

14:42

that goes from Minnesota to Louisiana, and

14:44

they say everything to the west of that, let

14:46

them have it, we don't care. But

14:48

obviously almost straight away, that

14:50

collapses because first of all,

14:52

people want to build trails to get to

14:54

Oregon and California and so on.

14:56

The Bozeman Trail. I think that's my top

14:59

trail. Yeah, the Bozeman Trail we'll come to.

15:01

It's your favorite trail. And

15:03

then of course you get the gold rushes. So

15:05

1848, in the middle of the Mexican-American War,

15:07

when the United States is gonna require a

15:09

lot of territory, gold is

15:11

discovered in California, you get mass migration.

15:14

So at this point, people are setting

15:16

off in stagecoaches and wagon trains and

15:18

all these kinds of things. And of

15:20

course, later on, there will be railroads

15:22

going across the Great Plains. And

15:24

so at that point, the Great Plains is suddenly back on

15:27

the table. The native people don't want

15:29

all these people coming through their lands to get to

15:31

the gold of California. So by

15:33

the time that George Armstrong Custer is

15:35

growing up, which is the

15:38

1840s, the focus has moved

15:41

from the east coast very much to

15:43

the plains. And as we said, the

15:45

plains is this vast landscape of

15:47

constant warfare and conquest and battles

15:49

for hunting grounds. The culture

15:52

of the peoples there has been transformed by

15:54

the arrival of the horse. Thothio

15:56

was very keen that in the last episode, that

15:58

we point out that he's... Europeans who brought

16:00

the horse to America, although of course originally

16:02

the horse was America. I know, isn't that

16:05

weird? So what happened to the horses in

16:07

the meantime, Tom? They went extinct. And then

16:09

they returned? Yeah. The return of

16:11

the horse, return of the horse. Anyway, the horse returned and

16:14

so then you get the rise of

16:16

big scale buffalo hunting. So

16:18

that wouldn't have been possible without horses.

16:21

No. And so the habit of buffalo

16:23

hunting changes because in the 18th century it's

16:25

still very much a habit of chasing buffalo

16:27

over cliffs. Yeah. And

16:29

in the 19th century, they can gallop

16:31

along, use their guns. So

16:34

they are killing buffalo in the way

16:36

that Europeans will. The difference obviously is

16:38

one of massive, massive scale. Yeah, of

16:40

course. But they are... I

16:43

mean, later on when the European demand or

16:45

the capitalist demand, should we say, for leather

16:47

goes off the charts, not least because people

16:49

want it for conveyor belts and factories, then

16:52

it's often Plains Indians who do a lot of

16:54

the killing. They are actually integrated

16:56

within the trading structure. Although, Tom, I

16:59

have to say there are some absolutely

17:01

terrible stories about white settlers. Oh, it's

17:03

horrendous. It's horrendous. The train would kind

17:05

of rattle along the plains. People would

17:07

be leaning out of the window just

17:09

taking random potshots at passing buffalo. Yes,

17:11

the guns get so hot that they

17:13

can't hold them anymore. Yeah. I

17:15

mean, the scale of the slaughter is horrendous.

17:17

Yes. Up there with the passenger pigeon as

17:19

one of the great tragedies of

17:21

mass extinction in North America. Yeah. You

17:24

feel these things, don't you, very keenly? Very, very keenly.

17:26

I mean, can you imagine seeing buffalo herds

17:28

surging over the plains? I went to Yellowstone

17:31

purely so that I could see buffalo in

17:33

the wild. I mean, when I say wild,

17:35

I use the term loosely. Yeah. Did

17:38

you? Yeah, I did. Oh, that's nice.

17:40

Well, anyway, we'll crack on with this. I

17:43

don't want it to generate into maudlin holiday reminiscences.

17:47

Anyway, again, a point worth

17:49

emphasizing. Peter Cousins does this brilliant in

17:51

his book, The Earth Lies Weeping. He says, the

17:54

grand iron in the Great Plains is that none

17:56

of the tribes with which the army would clash

17:58

were native to the lands they claimed. This

18:00

cannot be over emphasized. The wars that were

18:02

to come between the Indians and the governments,

18:04

the Great Plains, the seat of the longest

18:07

and bloodiest struggles, represented a clash of immigrant

18:09

peoples. A way of life was lost, but

18:11

it had not been one of long duration.

18:13

So that's quite surprising because we don't think

18:15

of it that way. We're conditioned, aren't we,

18:18

to think of it as a clash between

18:20

sort of industrial modernity and a timeless, unchanging

18:22

way of life. Yeah, that couldn't be less

18:24

true. And it's changed both because, well, let's

18:26

focus in on the people called the Sioux

18:29

now. Yes. But it's changed because they

18:31

are migrants. They have moved from the

18:33

east to the west. But also, as

18:35

we're saying, they have horses and guns

18:37

and they are using them in a way that they simply wouldn't

18:39

have done before because previously they were kind of hanging out in

18:41

forests. They were. And everything about them

18:44

is very complicated, even the name. So

18:46

the name is wrong, isn't it? The name

18:48

comes from... It's kind of French, isn't it?

18:50

... come French and the French heard it

18:52

from some people called the Ojibwa who hated

18:54

them and called them the Snakes. It basically

18:56

means the Snakes, the Bad Guys. And

18:59

actually, if the Sioux, I mean, we'll still

19:01

use the word because some Sioux have reclaimed

19:03

the word and say they do want to

19:05

use it. So again, it's kind

19:08

of contested and stuff. They are

19:10

the people who wear the eagle feather

19:12

headdress that is identified with Native Americans.

19:14

They are the sort of paradigmatic stereotypical

19:16

Native Americans. They are. So

19:19

Guy Gibbon, who wrote a brilliant history of the

19:21

Sioux. For most people in the world, the

19:23

very symbol of Indianness is the Sioux eagle feather

19:26

headdress. Even other Indian people throughout North America wear

19:28

some version of this headdress at powwow as a

19:30

symbol of Indian unity. So what that implies

19:32

is that the Western sense of the Sioux as

19:34

the archetype of Native Americans

19:36

is one that other Native Americans

19:38

have kind of adopted for cultural

19:40

reasons. Yeah, isn't that weird? Which

19:42

is kind of an example of

19:45

how complex the story is. Yeah, it is

19:47

complex. So as you were saying, that

19:49

kind of not in as it were, in a

19:51

vertical, the right place. By the way, if people

19:54

remember the Aztec podcast, that was true. They were

19:56

the Mexica as well, wasn't it? Yeah, they migrated

19:58

southwards, didn't they? They had migrated southwards. So

20:01

they had originally been in sort of Minnesota

20:03

and northern Wisconsin, so not that far from

20:05

the Great Lakes on the border with Canada,

20:08

although that would have been a meaningless

20:10

description to them then. And then they've moved south

20:13

and they've divided into three groups, the

20:15

Dakota, the Nukota, and the Lakota.

20:18

Well, it's all the same word, isn't it? It's

20:21

just kind of linguistic variance, dialect. It's just

20:23

dialect, isn't it? And the Lakota are the

20:25

most famous, so they're the biggest group, and

20:27

they move towards the

20:29

place called the Dakotas and

20:32

also Montana and Wyoming. And

20:35

they are the people who are kind of, you know, when you

20:37

think of the Sioux, riding

20:40

round on horses, as you said, Tom, kind of

20:42

firing their rifles at bison, that's

20:44

the Lakota. And they themselves

20:47

are divided into seven groups, which we

20:49

call tribes, though again, that word is

20:51

quite a loaded word. It is. Let's

20:54

use tribe. Okay. And it's

20:56

a recognition that it is, again, projecting European

20:59

stereotypes. It's when an

21:01

invisible asterisk next to it, Tom. Is that

21:03

what we're doing? With an invisible asterisk, yes.

21:06

And those seven tribes are called the

21:08

Oglalas, the Brulais, the Miniconjus, the Two

21:11

Kettles, the Hunkpappers, the Blackfeet, and the

21:13

Sans Arcs. Sans Arcs? Yeah.

21:15

That doesn't sound French in any way.

21:18

Or indeed the Brulais. The Brulais, yeah.

21:20

I mean, again, everything is kind of

21:22

filtered through the white people's descriptions. Well,

21:24

so Oglala and Crazy Horses

21:26

Oglala, it was spelled in some

21:28

American documents, O, apostrophe,

21:31

Galala, and there was talk that perhaps

21:33

they were of Irish extraction. I saw

21:35

that. Although interestingly, Custer

21:37

thought that they were Israelites. Custer, bonkers.

21:40

In the beginning of My Life on the Plains,

21:42

he has this kind of mad riff where he

21:44

talks about how the native peoples of America are

21:46

clearly Israelites. You can't go anywhere in the 19th

21:48

century, can you? I know, but that's some fool

21:51

telling you that the people you've met are actually

21:53

the lost tribe of Israel or something like that.

21:55

Yeah, well, that's what he thought. So the Lakotas

21:58

kind of, they're not, you know. top-down

22:00

nation state by any stretch of the

22:02

imagination. They don't have a kind of

22:04

central authority. They're very decentralized. And that

22:07

is a crucial part of the appeal

22:09

of them ideologically for, say, anarchists or

22:11

kind of radicals in America at the

22:13

moment, isn't it? It is, absolutely. The

22:15

sense of, you know, that they are

22:18

completely decentralized. Although, in some ways, they're

22:20

not totally good role models for very

22:22

progressive people. The German explorer,

22:24

Prince Maximilian Wied travelled up the Missouri in

22:26

1833 to him, even

22:29

he was quite struck. He thought

22:31

they were quite regressive in their

22:33

gender relations. He said, the

22:35

women have to do all the work and the

22:37

men lead a very easy and comfortable life once

22:39

they have provided food. They sit about all day,

22:41

smoke their pipes or walk about leisurely. Well,

22:44

so in some ways not progressive, but in other ways

22:46

quite progressive, as we'll see, perhaps. Yeah.

22:49

In due course, when we come to another

22:51

aspect of gender relations. I very much look

22:53

forward to it. So

22:55

war is enormously important to them.

22:58

They are fighting all the time.

23:00

They have regular allies, particularly the

23:02

Cheyenne and the Arapahos. They

23:05

have regular enemies. So the people they

23:07

absolutely despise, far more than white Americans.

23:10

They can't stand the pornis or the

23:13

crows and the crows. They hate

23:15

the crows. The crows have incredibly

23:17

long hair. They do. And they oil it

23:19

with bare grease. Bare grease. Yeah. Imagine that.

23:22

Do you think that would smell? Not if

23:24

you're a crow, of course. They're

23:26

acting parallel with Custer with his pomade. That's

23:28

true. And his nickname is Cinnamon.

23:30

Cinnamon. Yeah. So actually

23:32

they should have bonded over their love of

23:35

grease. Anyway. Well, they kind of

23:37

do, don't they? I mean, the crows end

23:39

up kind of riding with Custer. That's true.

23:41

Yeah. Maybe this is an underappreciated element. The

23:44

shifting loyalties of the plane stomp. Yeah.

23:46

Hair care products is what bonded them. There's a

23:49

great article on this. It doesn't mention hair care

23:51

products at all. It was written in

23:53

1978 by a guy called Richard White, and it

23:55

was absolutely transformative in the world of Native American

23:57

studies. It was called The Winning of the West.

24:00

And. He basically said, listen, we've got

24:02

the Lakota Roman. Sort of seeing

24:04

them as passive victims, and it's

24:06

a single. this. Plains Indians as

24:09

passive victims of American expansion. They

24:11

are ruthlessly expansionist people themselves, with

24:13

a very profound sense maybe national

24:15

identity is not quite the right

24:17

word. But. What really animates

24:19

them? Is this relentless strive to

24:22

expand their hunting grounds and the Lakota op

24:24

displacing the crown? They they are A that's

24:26

it. Very consists of the Geico Blackhawks he

24:28

says to an American assist in the mid

24:30

nineties and she says these lands once belonged

24:33

to the craze that we whips those nations

24:35

out of them. And in this we did.

24:37

What white men day when they want the

24:39

lands of the Indians. That's fascinating. Yeah that

24:41

is fascinating. So this a sort of sense

24:43

where we will win as of the game,

24:46

an hour on the losing side but another

24:48

way in which the Lakota are also in

24:50

a sense. Kind of paralleling. the about says

24:52

that the whites have is that they

24:54

had all been inoculated. Happen by against

24:56

the law says diseases a hat by

24:58

Miss Miss or the crows hadn't Yeah

25:00

so the crazy will get wiped out,

25:02

their numbers plummet and the locator able

25:04

to move in and the space of

25:06

pets right? And I will say some

25:09

of their rivals i the pony or

25:11

little bit more sedentary them or agricultural

25:13

and that means smallpox can still take

25:15

hold on would destroy a settlement bellicose

25:17

are moving around them or nomadic so

25:19

I see smallpox doesn't take hold. With them

25:21

and the same way that it does with the

25:23

some of the at the site again that gives

25:25

them a big advantage and seats into the Lakota

25:28

contempt for farmers. Yes, sedentary people's summit is also

25:30

an important part of the story. Totally. So

25:32

the question is how the Us government in a

25:34

deal with the Lakota. And eighteen Fifty

25:36

One. They. Signed a treaty

25:38

of Fort Laramie, Wyoming and basically

25:41

the street he said. We'll.

25:43

stop fighting other people you have fight us your

25:45

allow us to build roads and forced to your

25:47

territory you i'm blessed that pioneers stuff the basement

25:50

sailed on it and then you're desperate stop by

25:52

the basement what is it has to some about

25:54

the name it was driving through montana and saying

25:56

bozeman full of the romance of the american west

25:59

okay overcomes mr and due course. So

26:02

under the treaty, the Native Americans are supposed

26:04

to do all this, be very nice. On the

26:06

other hand, the government say we will shield you

26:08

from white settlers, we'll pay you annuities, we'll give

26:11

you supplies and all this stuff. Well,

26:13

this treaty in 1851 has a total amount

26:15

of fiction. First of all, the Plains

26:17

Indians have absolutely no intention of stopping

26:19

fighting or respecting the boundaries that the

26:21

Americans are asking them to keep to.

26:24

And on the other hand, the federal

26:26

government has absolutely no intention of protecting

26:28

them from white incursions, from settler incursions.

26:31

So actually what happened is

26:33

in the rest of the 1850s, the decade before the

26:35

Civil War, there was a huge influx

26:38

of miners of people traveling on the Oregon

26:40

Trail and all these other trails. So there's

26:42

that. And then in 1862, Dominic, gold is

26:44

discovered in Montana. Right. And the Bozeman Trail

26:47

kicks off. And not only that, so in

26:49

1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act. So this

26:51

is under Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War.

26:53

And this basically says if you go out

26:56

West and you live on some land for

26:58

five years, it is yours.

27:01

You can establish your homestead and it will

27:03

be yours by right. And there's a huge

27:05

flood of people during the Civil War. And

27:07

actually it's during the Civil War, the six

27:09

new territories. So a territory is the kind

27:11

of precursor of a state. You become a

27:14

territory first, then you'll become an official United

27:16

States state. And they are

27:18

Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Montana, Dakota, they're

27:20

not divided into North and South

27:23

and Colorado. And through

27:26

and to these new territories, there are

27:28

stagecoach lines and telegraph lines. And of

27:30

course, in due course, there will be

27:32

railroads. And this is the classic thing

27:35

that is often repeated now as being

27:37

an expression of anti-capitalism,

27:39

the idea that you can own

27:41

the earth. Yeah. Because that

27:44

is something very difficult. It is meaningless.

27:46

I mean, it makes no sense at all that

27:48

you can draw lines and say, I own this

27:50

and you've got to keep out. Exactly. They can't

27:52

get their heads around that at first. And it's

27:54

only over time that they begin to realize what

27:57

the implications of this are. The

28:00

expansion is coming and this is obviously provoking

28:02

great unrest and displeasure among the people of

28:04

the plains. The other

28:06

thing that happens in 1862, Tom, is

28:08

that the cota win a

28:10

big, big victory against the crow. They

28:13

have been fighting for 20 years or

28:15

so for a particular area called the

28:17

Powder River Country which is prime hunting

28:19

grounds. In 1862 they finally

28:22

get it under this bloke called Red Cloud.

28:24

This is a very formidable,

28:26

charismatic leader, the closest

28:28

they have to a kind of paramount chief. He's

28:31

their big strategist. But as you rightly said, in

28:34

1862 they find gold in Montana, a

28:36

man called Mr. Bozeman, and

28:38

he wants to have a trail to Montana right

28:41

through this territory and that the US government

28:43

is going to build two forts, Fort

28:46

Carney and Fort Smith, to guard the

28:48

trail. And the forts are very disruptive

28:51

for Plains Indians because you get that kind

28:53

of shanty towns connected with the forts, you

28:55

get all the kind of the hangars on,

28:58

the cam hangars on and it just basically

29:00

destroys the ecosystem. Although to look

29:02

at it from the point of view of those

29:04

who are in the forts, I mean they are

29:06

very, very isolated. So

29:08

both sides are feeling nervous of the

29:10

other which obviously doesn't foster good relations.

29:13

Exactly. So Red Cloud

29:15

says, what? We've just conquered

29:17

this land from the crows and now literally

29:20

within kind of weeks you're going

29:22

to come in and build your forts and all

29:24

that business. No way. And he

29:26

becomes the figurehead for, I'm

29:29

not going to use the word uprising because I think it's

29:31

too loaded. It's a war. It's called Red

29:33

Cloud's war. You know, it's not

29:35

an uprising because they're not controlled by the US. That's

29:37

their way of looking at it. It's a fair fight.

29:40

Red Cloud's war. Well they fought the crow

29:42

over territory and land and the right to

29:44

hunt and now they're fighting the Americans, I

29:47

guess. Exactly. And he is the political

29:49

face of this and the

29:51

military face is this guy called

29:53

Crazy Horse. So Domini, I

29:55

think just at this point, let's take a break

29:57

and when we come back, we'll continue looking at

29:59

the this extraordinary culture,

30:02

this embattled culture, but I mean, so

30:04

fascinating. The

30:07

NBA playoffs are here, and we

30:09

all know, playoff mode is a

30:11

thing. Listen to the evidence. playoff

30:13

crowds are going wild. playoff players

30:15

are lighting up the court. Even

30:17

the speakers are in playoff mode. Okay,

30:21

we'll take it down a notch, which is a

30:23

notch, because this is

30:25

the turning up to 11 NBA playoffs.

30:27

playoff mode is clearly a thing. This

30:29

is what you love about playoff basketball.

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America and a member of FDIC. Welcome

31:44

back to the Rest is History. We're talking

31:46

about the Plains Indians. So Tom, Crazy

31:49

Horse. Now Crazy Horse is

31:51

a fantastic character. Crazy Horse

31:53

was probably born in about 1840 and

31:56

his name wasn't Crazy Horse at first, was

31:58

it? It was Curly. No, even before that

32:00

it was among the trees. Well this is

32:03

the difficult thing isn't it about following the

32:05

lives of Native American heroes is that their

32:07

names are constantly changing. But also, so a

32:09

crazy horse. Everything

32:11

we will say now is sort of,

32:13

I'm about to say probably untrue. It's

32:17

very contested. It's very muddled.

32:20

Everything is filtered through, you know,

32:22

white newspapermen, people who are

32:24

giving interviews telling white audiences what they

32:26

want to hear, folk tales, legends, all

32:29

that stuff. But it's

32:31

also an understanding, as you said earlier,

32:33

that the boundaries between what white

32:35

Americans would see as the natural and

32:38

supernatural, a consequence of their kind of

32:40

Christian framing of the universe, is not

32:42

something that is a part of

32:44

the mental furniture of the Lakota. The

32:47

supernatural is woven through the very

32:50

fabric of everyday existence. And

32:52

so visions and an

32:54

interface with the supernatural, you know, is a

32:56

part of, you know, every Native American story

32:58

that is being told. And so in the

33:00

life of someone like Crazy Horse, you know,

33:03

there'll be descriptions of him leading a warband.

33:06

And then suddenly having incredible visions. And the

33:08

two are not distinguished. Yeah, I think that's

33:10

right, Tom. If we were doing

33:12

this podcast about Alexander the Great, we'd be telling

33:15

all kinds of anecdotes about crazy things that

33:17

had happened and talking snakes and things, talking

33:19

snakes or whatever, exactly. And it

33:22

would be fine because almost everybody in that world, you

33:24

know, you're using the same register for everyone in that world.

33:27

The complicated thing with this is some of the

33:29

characters, their lives are a

33:31

compound of folk tales, myths, stories, as

33:33

you say, about the sort of porous

33:36

boundary between the natural and the supernatural.

33:38

They feel like the stories of Greek heroes. And

33:41

on the other hand, you've got somebody like Custer, you

33:44

know, occupying the same space where

33:46

the register that we use, the sort

33:49

of the historical idiom with which we

33:51

discuss him is totally different. Well, and

33:53

also the dimension of the supernatural is

33:56

shot through with relationships to Buffalo, to

33:58

the rhythms of the year. that

34:00

are migratory. So aspects

34:02

of life that depend on them

34:05

not being confined within reservations and made to

34:07

live as farmers and take

34:09

up Christianity. So being

34:12

penned in a reservation, it's not

34:14

just physical, it's also psychological and

34:16

cultural. Yeah, I think that's absolutely

34:18

right. I think it's true. Okay, let's go

34:20

back to a crazy horse. We don't know what he looked

34:22

like because he never posed for a photograph. It

34:25

is said, and of course it is said as doing a lot

34:27

of lifting there, that he thought the camera

34:29

would rob him of his soul. So we don't

34:31

know any pictures of him. We do know that

34:33

it was said that his hair was very light.

34:35

People commented again and again lighter than other Indians

34:38

when he had a kind of androgynous look

34:40

to him. So when Indian agent described

34:42

him as a bashful girlish looking boy.

34:45

So like custom being called Fanny? Yeah.

34:47

And they're both called Curly. They are both called

34:50

Curly because he's called Curly because of his curly

34:52

sort of lightish hair. There's

34:54

a story in 1850

34:57

that he single-handedly tames this kind

34:59

of formidable stallion. I have to

35:01

say this story sounds very Alexander the

35:03

Great. And therefore I raise an eyebrow

35:05

a bit and some people say this is when he gets

35:07

a name, his horse stands

35:09

looking. And there's a lot of different

35:11

anecdotes about how he gets his name crazy horse.

35:14

There's a lot of just so isn't there? There's

35:16

a lot, yeah. But we can get a sense

35:18

of what his early life was like because we

35:20

know what Lakota boys, what happened to them. And

35:22

it's actually quite intimidating routine

35:25

they go through. So at five or six, they're

35:27

being trained for war. That is the way

35:29

of things. At five or six, you're made

35:32

to run long distances, you have to swim

35:34

streams, you're often deprived of food or water

35:36

to kind of toughen you up. By

35:39

about seven or eight, you've been given your first

35:41

bow and arrows and you're told to shoot, you're

35:43

trained to shoot, you're trained to

35:45

ride, you would take part in your

35:47

first raid when you're about 14 or

35:49

15, you would be expected by the

35:51

time you're 18 to have

35:53

stolen a horse to probably have

35:56

taken a scalp. We'll get

35:58

on to scalping just a second. You can opt

36:00

out, Dominic. Yes. So you were talking about

36:02

how unprogressive the Lakota are in their gender

36:04

relations. Yeah. But say you decide that the

36:07

whole scalping... It's not for you. You know,

36:09

it's not for you. This is your loophole,

36:11

Tom. Your loophole is that you can put

36:13

on a woman's dress and

36:15

turn to cooking and things like that.

36:18

And you become a wink-tay. A wink-tay.

36:20

Which apparently is a kind of contraction

36:22

of a Lakota word, basically meaning a

36:24

male who wants to be female. So

36:27

a sort of Lakota Gordon Ramsay would

36:30

have been a wink-tay. But he

36:32

was actually a footballer first, wasn't he? So he'd

36:34

have done both. Yeah, I don't think he'd have

36:36

gone for that. No. Do you know, I think

36:38

I probably would have gone for the wink-tay option.

36:40

I knew you were gearing up for this. Well,

36:42

what would you have gone for? Would you have

36:44

gone for the whole scalping thing? I'm very conventional.

36:46

I would have gone for the scalping, I think.

36:49

But I'd have tried to move into kind of

36:51

military intelligence as quickly as possible, if that were

36:53

an option. A Lakota flashman. Exactly. Yeah. Thanks. Spluffing.

36:55

Yes. So the hurdles that

36:57

you cross, the most important one

36:59

is this thing called counting coup. And

37:02

basically, this does seem kind of a bit odd to me.

37:04

But anyway, I'm not a Plains Indian,

37:06

so no wonder. It's really a mark

37:09

of tremendous distinction. And what you

37:12

need to have done is basically touched an enemy with

37:14

a very long stick. And that's

37:17

the highest war honour you get. And actually, what

37:19

you want to do is you don't want to

37:21

do it with a weapon. Because, yeah, that's sort

37:23

of less audacious. It's touching him

37:25

with this stick, a live enemy, not

37:27

trying to kill him. But basically,

37:29

it's almost tagging him, isn't it, Tom? Yeah.

37:31

And to have done that, when you've counted

37:34

your first coup, that is seen as an

37:36

absolute tremendous thing in a really crucial step

37:38

towards manhood. That you've dared, basically, to ride

37:40

up to a crow, sort of prod him

37:42

with your stick, and then ride away without

37:44

him killing you. Meanwhile, I'm off picking berries.

37:46

Of course you are. Now, the other thing

37:49

you can do, which is kind of obviously

37:51

always fascinating to us, but that's actually regarded

37:53

as lesser than counting coup, is taking a

37:55

scalp. And the way that

37:57

works, that doesn't actually necessarily kill somebody, I was surprised.

38:00

No, it doesn't. So there's this guy William Thompson,

38:02

who's an Englishman. Yes, yeah. I mean, seven Englishmen

38:04

are going kind of, you know, they're obviously fascinated

38:06

by going out there. So there was that old

38:09

Italian who got shot. Yeah, Mr. Williams. But there's

38:11

this guy, William Thompson, who gets scalped. And

38:13

he goes back to England and he makes a living

38:15

kind of bending his head forward and... Showing

38:18

off his scalp. Showing off his basically tripand, the

38:20

skull. So the way that would work is someone

38:22

would grab your hair, they're very long hair, and

38:25

they make a kind of cut around your skull

38:27

two or three inches and then they literally pull

38:29

it off. Yeah. And apparently

38:31

a huge popping sound, but

38:33

report like a pop gun and then you might

38:36

attach the scalps to your sort of horse or

38:38

something, or you would hang them from your tent

38:40

and they would show what a tremendous fella you

38:42

were. It's kind of tougher with white people, isn't

38:44

it? Yeah, because their hair's too short. Yeah. I

38:47

mean, in my case, Tom, a potential

38:49

scalper would have a very tough task.

38:51

You know, we'll come to what happens

38:53

to customers. Yes. Into your course.

38:55

Very interesting. If you did kill somebody, then

38:58

the important thing is to mutilate their

39:00

body, isn't it? And that's not just

39:02

for sadistic reasons. No, it's to stop

39:04

them from functioning in the afterlife. Exactly.

39:07

I mean, they'd really go to town. They'd take out

39:09

the teeth, they'd cut off your chin and your nose,

39:12

take off the joints of your fingers. Yeah. We've

39:15

talked already about how your private parts get chopped off and

39:17

left on rocks. Yes. Eyes get

39:19

taken out, don't they? They do. And

39:21

left. So not fun. And actually, the

39:23

fact that we are dwelling on that, we are

39:25

part of a continuum that goes right the way

39:28

back to Easter's age. Because everyone, all white Americans,

39:30

for understandable reasons, particularly if they're actually out in

39:32

the plains, are obsessed by this. But I mean,

39:34

Caster, for instance, is fascinated by scalping. Yeah. He

39:37

says it's, you know, Barbara Savage, but he

39:40

is really, really very interested in it, as we

39:42

are now. Yes. Now, of

39:44

course, we find it, I mean, it's always described in

39:46

terms of this is a sign of savagery and sort

39:48

of goreiness and stuff. But obviously, that's not how the

39:50

plains Indians themselves perceive it. So

39:53

let's put it this way, Tom. I think to us, people

39:55

with that kind of lazy decadence, it

39:58

seems like a very demanding lifestyle. But

40:01

I imagine quite fun if you've been kind of

40:03

raised and you're good at the whole taking scouts

40:05

and having people with sticks and things. Yeah,

40:07

if you're good at it. Exactly. Very

40:09

exciting. Oh, it's definitely exciting. And I think the

40:11

fact it's fun and exciting is a massive, massive

40:13

part of it. Do you know what? It is

40:15

a massive part of it because this explains why

40:18

younger men in particular are very

40:20

reluctant to accept a new life

40:22

on the reservations because they say,

40:24

hold on, the older men are happy to

40:26

accept the new life on the reservations because they've

40:29

had their fun and they've proved their manhood. We

40:31

are being denied our chance to

40:34

have adventures. But I think it's more than

40:36

just wanting to prove their manhood. I think

40:38

it's the fact that it's kind of physically

40:40

exhilarating. It's a bit like people

40:42

who object to having fox hunting bands, you

40:44

know, who are growing up. Yeah. People

40:47

want the chance to break their neck because without the chance of

40:49

breaking the neck, the excitement is, I mean, it's not my kind

40:51

of bag, but I can understand that. Yeah. And

40:54

that is a crucial, crucial part of why

40:57

they don't want to give it up. They enjoy it. No.

41:00

And Crazy Horse certainly enjoys it. So they're all stories

41:02

told about him when he's in his teens, seeing

41:05

off grizzly bears, fighting arapahos,

41:07

fighting crows and things. And

41:09

this is what gives him his name, Crazy Horse.

41:12

Because his dad's called Crazy Horse, isn't he? Yeah, that's

41:14

right. And his dad at one point says, basically,

41:16

I'm no longer Crazy Horse. I give the name to you. This

41:18

is quite common. Now, the other thing that people say

41:20

about him is he's not just brave, but they say he has, he

41:23

has medicine. Now, this is such a

41:25

mistranslation. We talk about a medicine man,

41:28

and it sounds like a GP. It

41:30

does. It sounds like they're walking

41:32

around with painkillers. Your medicine is much more than

41:34

that. It is a kind of the force. It

41:37

is a force and it has an element of the,

41:40

you read Harry Potter to your children. You probably didn't,

41:42

did you? No. Did I have

41:44

a thing called a patronus, which is like a spirit animal?

41:46

Oh, as in like Philip Pullman. Kind of a bit like

41:48

that. Yeah, a little bit like that. So

41:50

there's an element of that with these chaps. So they

41:52

would have a vision and a

41:54

creature might appear to you and that

41:57

becomes your medicine and you

41:59

would emulate your. your helper said it

42:01

might be an eagle, and you have the swiftness

42:03

of an eagle, or it might be the cunning

42:05

of a fox, and you would paint that symbol

42:08

on your shield. What do you think you'd have?

42:10

Deep down I know it's a dog, there's no

42:12

way of getting away from this. What

42:14

would you have to... Oh, a velociraptor.

42:18

A velociraptor? I mean, that's mean you wouldn't be

42:20

allowed that. Why not? They'd say you can have

42:22

a bird of some kind, maybe. Okay, so the

42:24

same period, you know, this is when palintologists are

42:26

going out. Oh, come on, we can't allow this

42:29

to spout. So one of them will become big

42:31

friends with Red Cloud. Right, okay. Othonyl Charles Marsh,

42:33

and he'll become a big ally of Red Cloud

42:35

in Washington. Is that so? Yeah, well,

42:37

we'll come to that. Okay, I

42:39

think you'd have like a sparrow or something. Yeah,

42:43

for me a cat. Right, anyway, the

42:45

vision that you have is

42:47

a massively serious thing, and actually has been

42:49

greatly introduced by the kind of new agey

42:51

way of talking about this. You would go

42:54

for days without food and water, you would

42:56

sit on a mountaintop or something. It's shamanistic,

42:58

isn't it? It is. I mean,

43:00

there's a guy, John Fire at a coder, he said,

43:02

it hits you sharp and clear like an electric shock.

43:04

You're wide awake, suddenly there's a person standing next to

43:06

you who you know can't be there at all. You're

43:09

not dreaming though, your eyes are open. People

43:11

would be desperate to have visions, and if they

43:13

didn't have them, they would actually have to pay

43:15

a medicine man for his medicine, for his supernatural

43:17

powers. Crazy Horse undoubtedly has

43:19

them. He has visions of

43:22

thunderstorms, of being struck by lightning. There's a

43:24

very famous vision he has where the wind

43:26

blows grass into his hair, and

43:28

then he has this vision when he knows

43:30

that he has been given the role of

43:32

fighting for his people, and from

43:34

that point onwards he always wears straws of grass in

43:37

his hair. But he also has this famous one, doesn't

43:39

he, of a man on a horse rising out of

43:41

a lake? It's right, yeah, he does. Who says to

43:43

him, you must never wear a warp on it. So

43:46

he never does, and that's really unusual.

43:49

So basically he rides, I mean apart from his

43:51

pants and his moccasins, he rides naked, doesn't he?

43:53

He does indeed. He's also told he can't be

43:55

killed by a bullet. You will

43:57

die by being stabbed, but you cannot be.

44:01

Now trouble is, Tom, with all

44:03

these stories, we've had them obviously

44:05

very much at third hand by

44:07

people telling scouts, Indians telling newspaper

44:09

interviewers in later life, kind of what

44:12

they wanted to hear. So perhaps to some degree of

44:14

taking all of them with a pinch of salt. I

44:16

think that's less true with Crazy Horse. Than with

44:18

Sitting Bull. I think Sitting Bull definitely plays to

44:21

the gallery. I think that most of them do.

44:23

So, you know, the

44:25

thing about the photograph, Sitting Bull and Red

44:27

Cloud both allow themselves to be photographed both

44:29

kind of looking as American photographers

44:32

expect a zoo chieftain to look

44:34

like. But also, you know, Red

44:36

Cloud kind of pops up wearing

44:38

top hats and things. Crazy Horse

44:40

doesn't. Because I

44:42

think one of the reasons why he's such a charismatic

44:44

figure and why he's maintained his allure into the present

44:46

day is that he seems to have

44:48

had a kind of integrity.

44:52

He seems to have had a kind of

44:54

instinctive sense that he doesn't want to compromise

44:57

with his truth. I totally agree, Tom. And

44:59

so I suspect that the stories that he

45:01

tells, I mean, true

45:03

again, is a kind of loaded word, but I don't

45:05

think he's shaping them to the

45:07

expectations of his white listeners. I mean,

45:09

I suspect that they are likely to

45:12

be truer than say Sitting Bulls. So

45:14

all the stuff about how he paints kind

45:17

of white hail spots on his body, doesn't

45:19

he? And that lightning bolt down his cheek

45:21

kind of quite Harry Potter and he ties

45:24

brown pebbles behind one ear and

45:26

all this kind of... He has very kind of distinctive

45:28

rituals. I suspect that must be true both because it

45:31

would have come from him, but also because so many

45:33

people would have seen him. It would have been his

45:35

branding. Well, he has a branding. He has a very

45:38

strong, as you say, sense of his own... I

45:40

think integrity is the right word. He's a loner.

45:42

He doesn't join in with the rituals very

45:44

much. He doesn't join in with councils. He

45:47

doesn't even join in with the Sundance,

45:49

the annual big, big religious ritual. He's

45:52

a man who walks alone. But on

45:54

one point, everybody agrees Crazy

45:56

Horse is by far the

45:58

outstanding warrior. bravest, he's the

46:01

most intrepid. He is

46:03

also a brilliant tactician. And so when

46:05

Red Cloud's war starts in

46:07

the mid 1860s, this is the moment when the

46:09

Lakota are finally going to stand up to the

46:12

incursions of all the kind of white settlers, to

46:14

the US Army and so on. When

46:16

that fighting breaks out, it's Red Cloud who

46:18

is the kind of political face of it,

46:20

but it is Crazy Horse who

46:23

is going to be the kind of the military

46:25

face, the sort of standard bearer of

46:27

resistance in the field. And I

46:29

think that again, this is the parallel

46:32

with Custer, you know, they've shared a

46:34

boyhood nickname, Curly, but there are also

46:36

obvious parallels that Crazy Horse has one

46:38

fame very young, as Custer has done.

46:41

And clearly Crazy Horse has

46:44

Custer's ability to spot

46:46

an opportunity to strike hard, kind

46:48

of Alexander the Great style. And

46:50

like Custer, he is completely fearless.

46:53

Yeah. But I think there is, there

46:55

is a difference. And that is the

46:57

fact that Crazy Horse

46:59

is never reckless. He

47:01

always scopes out the strategic

47:03

context. And it was noted

47:05

of him and seen as

47:07

something distinctive, that he

47:10

would dismount before shooting. And

47:12

he wants to do this because he wants

47:14

to make certain of his shot. Right. Before

47:16

going in for the kill, he will pause,

47:18

he will work out what the best situation

47:20

is. And that of course is a contrast

47:22

with Custer. And it kind

47:24

of brilliantly sets up the dynamic

47:26

for the rest of the series,

47:28

which essentially is the kind of

47:30

the great showdown between Custer and

47:33

Crazy Horse. Yeah. Although Dominic, of

47:35

course, Crazy Horse is not the

47:37

only No Lakota chieftain we opened

47:40

with the other celebrated

47:42

leader. We did. Sitting Bull.

47:44

We shamed ourselves, Tom. We

47:47

talked so long that we're going to

47:49

have to record an entirely separate episode

47:51

all about the other great character. And he is

47:54

an incredible character. And that of course is Sitting

47:56

Bull. So I think in the

47:58

next episode, what we'll cover, we'll talk about What

48:01

happens in Red Clouds War, the

48:03

very tangled relationship between the Lakota

48:05

Sioux and the Federal Government, and

48:07

we will talk specifically about

48:09

the life and times of Sitting Bull. And

48:12

he really is a quite remarkable character.

48:14

Yeah, he's a brilliant character. I mean,

48:16

in his way, just as charismatic as

48:18

Crazy Horse, but in a completely different

48:20

way. Oh, definitely.

48:22

And if you like visions and religious rituals, which

48:24

you do... Oh, so much. If you like hawks

48:26

being put into the sinews of the chest, we're

48:29

going to love what's coming in the next episode.

48:31

And have we got an episode for you? So

48:34

if you love hawks that much,

48:36

you can listen to that episode right now, Tom.

48:38

You can join our own... Is

48:41

tribe the right word? I don't know. Our

48:43

own Sundance. I prefer tribe to chat community, which

48:45

is the line that we're always being pushed to

48:47

read by our producers. You can join the Restless

48:49

History Club and hear that episode right

48:51

now. If not, you'll have to wait

48:53

till whenever Theo in his wisdom deigns to put it

48:56

out. And on that bombshell, thank you very much. And

48:58

we will see you next time for Sitting Bull. Bye-bye.

49:16

I'm Anthony Scaramucci, former White House

49:18

Director of Communications and Wall Street

49:20

financier. Thanks for watching. I'm Cathy

49:22

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