An Ominous Sign: Bears Belly

The regiment started marching the day after Custer returned from Washington in search of Custer's final victory. As they traveled and camped, the relationship between Custer and the Indian scouts grew deeper. Though Custer had command of the Seventh Cavalry and the Indian scouts who accompanied them, he would sometimes show appreciation towards his Indian scouts. Custer had told Soldier, "We are to live and fight together, children of one father and one mother."

The Sioux were understood to be forming one army out of the different Dakota regions, and Custer knew he needed Indians alongside him to battle effectively. Bear's Belly and the other Arikara scouts had years of battle with the Sioux as experience. The words of respect and the details Custer shared with his Arikara scouts that even if a scout perishes in the battle, his family will receive his pay and the promises given to them strengthened the relationship between Custer and the Arikara. The Indian scouts took positions outside the leading regiment, on the hills and flanking the Seventh Cavalry as they marched. There were three Arikara societies of scouts marching with Custer. The New Dog Society, the Grass Dance Society, and the Darochpa, identified by a crescent moon, shaved into their heads. But once camped, Custer wanted the scouts near his tent.

Custer took a liking to some of the Arikara scouts that accompanied him, especially two Arikara men named Young Hawk and Goose. Both men were decent hunters, often leaving the camp to catch food for themselves and the other Indian scouts. Custer would visit the Arikara scouts during downtimes, especially around mealtime, if he knew they had caught some game and were roasting it by the fire. Young Hawk knew how Custer liked his meat cooked and would always save some for him.

Custer didn’t speak their language, and the scouts didn’t speak his. But they communicated through hand signals and facial expressions. He liked the energy and silliness of Young Hawk and Goose mainly and would communicate through hand signals that he enjoyed spending time with them and sitting with them by the fire and that seeing them eat good game would make them strong. The Arikara and other scouts would sing war songs while camped and perform ceremonies as they prepared for Battle. Custer had paid attention to these ceremonies, leading Red Star to quip, “Custer had a heart like an Indian; if we ever left out one thing in our ceremonies, he always suggested it to us,” (Libby 77).

As they progressed deeper into Sioux territory, Young Hawk and other Arikara scouts discovered some abandoned Dakota camps along the way, with evidence of large numbers of Indians having been there. After this initial discovery, they also found a white encampment "showing evidence" that there were no survivors among the white settlers. The Arikara were on the trail of the Dakota Sioux and knew they were coming upon a large party. Several more camps were discovered along the way but often overlooked as inconsequential to the larger fight. Custer had a plan. He had a goal, and nothing would keep him from achieving it quickly. The scouts discovered more and more deserted camps as they continued to travel, showing that there was a large party of Dakota Indians ahead of them. These same camps would prove too significant for Custer's Cavalry and help the Lakota defeat Custer as they marched toward Little Big Horn. As Libby concluded:

“Many more forsaken camping places were passed this day and instead of realizing, as he should have done, that these were the camps of an unusually large number of Indians, Custer, probably influenced by the reports of military authorities that there were not more than five or eight hundred warriors in this hostile band, mistook these numerous camps for a succession of camps of the same or a few villages,” (Libby 29)

More ominous than the number of abandoned camps the scouts discovered, the cavalry also passed a Sun Dance lodge, which proudly held a white man’s scalp. The Sun Dance is a religious ceremony among many northern plains Indians who bring offerings — which can involve bodily sacrifice such as piercing of the skin and tying rawhide straps to a pole and dancing and pulling until those rawhide straps break through the skin — for healing and safety for the larger community. The Sun Dance is a grueling affair for participants but also a healing one. The number of hours spent dancing in the heat is a physical and spiritual test of goodness and heartiness.

Every member of the dance does so for the community and not just oneself, though those benefits also come to the individual. Not only is the heat and physical movement exhausting, Sun Dancers fast during their ceremony. The Lakota, along with the associated tribes from different areas, most likely held a Sun Dance in the lead-up to the battle, which would have weakened those who participated in the Sun Dance but helped the overall cause of the Lakota, at least in heart if not supernaturally or spiritually, to bear courage in their fight against the American army they knew was coming for them.

There was evidence of the Dakotas having made medicine, the sand had been arranged and smoothed, and pictures had been drawn. The Dakota scouts in Custer’s army said that this meant the enemy knew the army was coming. A long heap or ridge of sand was in one of the sweat lodges. On this one, Red Bear, Red Star, and Soldier saw figures drawn indicating by hoof prints Custer’s men on one side and the Dakota on the other. Between them, dead men were drawn, lying with their heads toward the Dakotas. The Arikara scouts understood this to mean that the Dakota medicine was too strong for them and that the Dakotas would defeat them. All of the signs pointed toward victory for the Dakota Sioux. The Great Spirit intervened and declared that the Lakota were to defeat their enemy on the battlefield, which was soon to come. All of the Indian scouts understood this as they walked through the sweat lodge, looking at the signs laid out before them. Soldier later mentioned he heard that Sitting Bull led the ceremonies in that sweat lodge before the battle.

This post is part of a larger series on Bears Belly. You can read the previous entry here.