Native American History (2025)

18/06/2025

In his prime, he made his career under the elder Huupi-pahati (Tall Tree), head chief of the Nokoni band, and Quenah-evah (Eagle Drink), second chief and later successor to Huupi-pahati himself possibly after the smallpox and cholera epidemics occurred in 1849; during the 1840s and 1850s he gained a good fame as a war leader against the Comanche's Indian enemies and a raider through Texas.

Diplomat and peaceful leader
In 1861, along with the Yamparika head chief Ten Bears and the Penateka chiefs Tosahwi (White Knife) and Asa-havey a.k.a. Esihabit (Milky Way), went to Fort Cobb where they met General Albert Pike (C.S.A.), and the Comanche chiefs (including Quena-evah) signed for an allegiance with the Confederate States of America. He became head chief of the Nokoni after Quena-evah's death or retirement, possibly in 1866. Not a long time after Peta Nocona (Lone Wanderer)'s death about 1864, and having become Parua-ocoom (Bull Bear) the new first chief of the Kwahadi Comanche, Kobe (Wild Horse) second Chief of Kwahadi took with him the two adolescent sons of the dead Kwahadi chief and grandsons of Iron Jacket, Quanah Parker and Pecos, to complete their training as young men and warriors; the two youngsters settled with the Nokonis, their foster grandfather Tabby-nocca (Lean Elk)'s kinsmen, under the supervision of Horseback.

Horseback was involved, like Esihabit and some other chiefs, in the policy of ransoming white prisoners from the other Comanche bands, and in January 1867 he or Esihabit (according to two different versions) were the makers of young Theodore "Dot" Babb (kidnapped in September 1865 or 1866) ransoming, bypassing the U.S. authorities.

Horseback signed for the Nokoni the Medicine Lodge Treaty (Oct. 21 1867), emerging as the leader of the "peaceful" faction of the band, but the second-ranking chief, Big Red Meat, took the leadership of the uncompromising faction, and on the same "hostile" line was Tahka (Arrowpoint), war chief of Tʉhʉyakwahipʉ's own party.[2] According to the treaty, signed by ten Comanche chiefs (Tʉhʉyakwahipʉ a.k.a. Kiyou, for the Nokonis; Parua-wasamen, his sons Esananaka and Hitetetsi, Howea, Tipenavon, Puhiwitoya, Saddyo for the Yamparikas; Tosawi and Ceachinika for the Penatekas) obliged the signing Comanches to go and settle into a reserve under the surveillance of Fort Cobb's garrison.

On December 12, 1868, while Tʉhʉyakwahipʉ was not in his village in the spot after known as Soldier Spring, a battle occurred there against 3rd Cavalry and 37th Infantry U.S. troops; the soldiers came on the village and the war chief Tahka reacted against the "long knives" leading the Nokoni warriors to fight; the Nokoni were defeated, Tahka being killed in the battle, and the village was burnt and stocks destroyed.

Attack on Horseback's village
On December 19, 1868 a large Comanche and Kiowa band faced a company of 10th Cavalry (Maj. Meredith H. Kidd) on the way from Fort Arbuckle to Fort Cobb. On December 25, six companies of the 3rd Cavalry and one company of 37 Infantry, with 12 officers and 446 troopers (Canadian River Expedition, led by Maj. Andrew W. Evans), with a battery of mountain howitzers, on the way from Fort Bascom crossing the Texas Panhandle to the Antelope Hills, and then turning south toward the Wichita Mountains, on December 12 came on the Nokoni village (about 60 tipis) of Horseback and Tahka, where Yamparika chief Howea was as a visitor; Horseback, the peaceful civil chief, was not in the camp, and Tahka’s blood was still boiling after the Wash*ta massacre perpetrated by lt. col. George A. Custer and his 7th Cavalry less than one month before. Seeing the soldiers arriving, and being taunted by the Kiowa allies, Tahka, the war chief, led the Comanche warriors in a charge. He was killed and the village and the stocks were destroyed. Kiowa warriors led by Manyi-ten came to take part in the fight; Big Red Meat's Nokonis and Mow-way's Kotsotekas ran to the fight; only one soldier was killed. Within December 1868, exhausted after lack of food and freezing weather, the Nokoni went to Fort Cobb and there surrendered.

The last fight for freedom
Like Tosahwi, Horseback managed to keep out the Nokoni preventing their involvement in the Red River War in 1873–1874, but only a minor faction of Nokoni band followed him along the "peace road", and he lost most of his former followers, while Big Red Meat joined the hostile Comanche and Kiowa faction, uniting himself and his Nokoni warriors to Quanah Parker, Parra-ocoom, Kobay-oburra (Wild Horse), Kobay-otoho (Black Horse), Isatai'i, and their Quahadi Comanche, to Mow-way and his Kotsoteka, to Tabananika (Sound-of-the-Sunrise), Isa-rosa (White Wolf) and Hitetetsi aka Tuwikaa-tiesuat (Little Crow), son to Ten Bears, and their Yamparika, and to the Kiowa led by Guipago, Satanta, Zepko-ete (Big Bow), Tsen-tainte (White Horse) and Mamanti (Walking-above).

The sunset years
After the Palo Duro campaign (1874) and the surrendering of the last hostile Comanche groups coming back from the Staked Plains, Horseback was appointed by the Army as head chief of all the Comanches, and was ordered to pick out the "worst" Comanche, to send them to Fort Marion, Florida; the same happened to Kicking Bird for the Kiowas, and the Kiowa chief pointed out 27 chiefs and warriors, but Horseback was able to sacrifice only nine men (one Black Horse - Tu-ukumah -, but probably not Kobay-otoho third chief of the Quahadi band, and eight "outlawed" warriors), preventing the deportation of all the defeated chiefs (but, unfortunately, not the life of Parua-ocoom, dead on June 27–28, 1874, during the Adobe Walls fighting, and that of Big Red Meat, dead in the icehouse – temporarily used as a jail – of Fort Sill on January 1, 1875. Together with Quanah and some of the old chiefs, Horseback was a constant point of reference for the Comanche people in the reservation until his death in 1888

11/06/2025

ANGELA PERRY, SENECA/CAYUGA, 1957...
LITTLE INFO ABOUT:
The Seneca–Cayuga Nation is one of three federally recognized tribes of Seneca people in the United States. It includes the Cayuga people and is based in Oklahoma, United States. The tribe had more than 5,000 people in 2011.
They have a tribal jurisdictional area in the northeast corner of Oklahoma and are headquartered in Grove. They are descended from Iroquoian peoples who had relocated to Ohio from New York state in the mid-18th century.
The other two federally recognized Seneca tribes are located in New York: the Seneca Nation of New York and the Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians.
*The SENECA,, or Onödowága (meaning "People of the Great Hill"), traditionally lived in what is now New York between the Genesee River and Canandaigua Lake.
*The name CAYUGA,(Gayogohó:no') means "People of the Great Swamp" and they also lived in what was later known as western New York.
Both tribes were part of the Iroquoian languages family. The Seneca are the largest tribe of the Five Nations (or League of the Iroquois) who traditionally lived in New York.
The Five Nations are the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca. The latter were the westernmost nation, known as "Keepers of the Western Door."
When the Tuscarora joined the Iroquois Confederation in 1722, after migrating from North Carolina, the confederacy was known as the Six Nations. The Tuscarora are also an Iroquoian-language people who had migrated to the South centuries before. They were driven out by warfare with other tribes and English colonists.
In the mid to late 18th century, a confederation of Iroquois Indian bands was pushed west from throughout the Northeast. Its members moved west to escape encroachment by the colonists.
It included the Mingo (from the upper Ohio River), Susquehannock, Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Tuscarora, Onondaga and the Seneca of Sandusky (who had lived in New York at the outset of the American Revolution).
After the Revolutionary War, some of the Cayuga moved to Ohio, where the US granted them a reservation along the Sandusky River. They were joined there by the Shawnee of Ohio and members of other Iroquois bands.
All the main Iroquois nations except the Oneida and Tuscarora had allied with the British in the Revolution. They were considered defeated in the war. The British gave up both their and Iroquois claims to lands in treaty negotiations, and the Iroquois were forced to cede their lands to the United States.
Most relocated to Canada after the Treaty of Canandaigua in 1794, although some bands were allowed small reservations in New York. New York made separate purchases and leases of land from the Indians, which were not ratified by the US Congress.
The Indian Claims Commission's opinion in Strong v. United States (1973), 31 Ind. Cl. Comm 89 at 114, 116, 117, details the separation of this small band of the Seneca–Cayugas' ancestors (who were known as Mingoes) from the Six Nations. It noted their migration to Ohio in the mid-18th century

09/06/2025

Seneca woman Ah-Weh-Eyu (Pretty Flower), 1908.
The Seneca are a group of Indigenous Iroquoian-speaking people who historically lived south of Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes in North America. Their nation was the farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois League (Haudenosaunee) in New York before the American Revolution.
A Seneca oral tradition states that the tribe originated in a village called Nundawao, near the south end of Canandaigua Lake, at South Hill. Close to South Hill stands the 865 foot (264 m)-high Bare Hill, known to the Seneca as Genundowa. Bare Hill is part of the Bare Hill Unique Area, which began to be acquired by the state in 1989. Bare Hill had been the site of a Seneca (or Seneca-ancestral people) fort.
Thanks very much! The incredible history of Native Americans is full of things that are not in the books and are not taught in schools! Hope you can share with your friends so we can all learn from this post!

08/06/2025

Keanu Reeves was abandoned by his father at 3 years old and grew up with 3 different stepfathers. He is dyslexic. His dream of becoming a hockey player was shattered by a serious accident. His daughter died at birth. His wife died in a car accident. His best friend, River Phoenix, died of an overdose. His sister has leukemia.
And with everything that has happened, Keanu Reeves never misses an opportunity to help people in need. When he was filming the movie "The Lake House," he overheard the conversation of two costume assistants; One cried because he would lose his house if he did not pay $20,000 and on the same day Keanu deposited the necessary amount in the woman's bank account; He also donated stratospheric sums to hospitals.
In 2010, on his birthday, Keanu walked into a bakery and bought a brioche with a single candle, ate it in front of the bakery, and offered coffee to people who stopped to talk to him.
After winning astronomical sums for the Matrix trilogy, the actor donated more than $50 million to the staff who handled the costumes and special effects - the true heroes of the trilogy, as he called them.
He also gave a Harley-Davidson to each of the stunt doubles. A total expense of several million dollars. And for many successful films, he has even given up 90% of his salary to allow the production to hire other stars.
In 1997 some paparazzi found him walking one morning in the company of a homeless man in Los Angeles, listening to him and sharing his life for a few hours.
Most stars when they make a charitable gesture they declare it to all the media. He has never claimed to be doing charity, he simply does it as a matter of moral principles and not to look better in the eyes of others.
This man could buy everything, and instead every day he gets up and chooses one thing that cannot be bought: To be a good person.
Keanu Reeves’ father is of Native Hawaiian descent

06/06/2025

I don't know why this hasn't received more publicity, but this fifty-foot sculpture was unveiled recently in South Dakota.
It's called 'Dignity' and was done by artist Dale Lamphere to honor the women of the Sioux Nation.

19/05/2025

Traditionally, the people now known as Cherokee refer to themselves as Aniyunwiya (ah nee yun wee yah), a name usually translated as "the Real People," sometimes "the Original People."

▪The Cherokee never had princesses. This is a concept based on European folktales and has no reality in Cherokee history and culture. In fact, Cherokee women were very powerful. They owned all the houses and fields, and they could marry and divorce as they pleased. Kinship was determined through the mother's line.
Clan mothers administered justice in many matters. Beloved women were very special women chosen for their outstanding qualities. As in other aspects of Cherokee culture, there was a balance of power between men and women. Although they had different roles, they both were valued.

▪The Cherokee never lived in tipis. Only the nomadic Plains tribes did. The Cherokee were southeastern woodland natives, and in the winter they lived in houses made of woven saplings, plastered with mud and roofed with poplar bark. In the summer they lived in open-air dwellings roofed with bark.

▪The Cherokee have never worn feathered headdresses except to please tourists. These long headdresses were worn by Plains Natives and were made popular through Wild West shows and Hollywood movies. Cherokee men traditionally wore a feather or two tied at the crown of the head. In the early 18th century, Cherokee men wore cotton trade shirts, loincloths, leggings, front-seam moccasins, finger-woven or beaded belts, multiple pierced earrings around the rim of the ear, and a blanket over one shoulder. At that time, Cherokee women wore mantles of leather or feathers, skirts of leather or woven mulberry bark, front-seam moccasins, and earrings pierced through the earlobe only. By the end of the 18th century, Cherokee men were dressing much like their white neighbors. Men were wearing shirts, pants, and trade coats, with a distinctly Cherokee turban. Women were wearing calico skirts, blouses, and shawls. Today Cherokee people dress like other Americans, except for special occasions, when the men wear ribbon shirts with jeans and moccasins, and the women wear tear dresses with corn beads, woven belts, and moccasins.

▪The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) are descended from Cherokee people who had taken land under the Treaty of 1819 and were allowed to remain in North Carolina; from those who hid in the woods and mountains until the U.S. Army left; and from those who turned around and walked back from Oklahoma. By 1850 they numbered almost a thousand. Today the Eastern Band includes about 11,000 members, while the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma claims more than 100,000 members, making the Cherokee the largest tribe in the United States.

▪Cherokee arts and crafts are still practiced: basket-weaving, pottery, carving, finger-weaving, and beadwork.

▪The Cherokee language is spoken as a first language by fewer than a thousand people and has declined rapidly because of the policies of federally operated schools. However, since the tribe has begun operation of their own schools, Cherokee language is being systematically taught in the schools.

▪Traditional Cherokee medicine, religion, and dance are practiced privately.

▪There have never been Cherokee shamans. Shamanism is a foreign concept to North America. The Cherokee have medicine men and women.

▪"aho" is not a Cherokee word and Cherokee speakers never use it. Most are actually offended by the misuse of this word. It's not some kind of universal Native word used by all tribes, as many believe. Each individual tribe have their own languages. We can respect these languages by using them correctly or not at all.

▪In order to belong to one of the seven Cherokee clans, your mother had to have been/be Cherokee and her clan is passed on to you. If the maternal line has been broken by a non Cherokee or someone had all sons, you have no clan, which is the case with many today.

▪There is only one Cherokee tribe that consist of three bands. The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, United Keetoowah Band of Oklahoma and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina. All others who claim a different band than one of the three above are not considered Cherokee and are a direct threat to Cherokee tribal sovereignty. In fact, to be Cherokee, one must be registered with the tribe, as Cherokee is a citizenship granted through documentation. One can have Native DNA but is not considered Cherokee until they are a registered tribal citizen.

Via N. Bear
Cherokee man
North Carolina

19/05/2025

Wes Studi's has had one long enjoyable acting career. He was raised in Nofire Hollow Oklahoma, speaking Cherokee only until he started school. At 17 he joined the National Guard and later went to Vietnam. After his discharge, Studi became politically active in American Indian affairs. He participated in Wounded Knee at Pine Ridge Reservation in 1973. Wes is known for his roles as a fierce Native American warrior, such as the Pawnee warrior in Dances with Wolves. In the Last of the Mohicans he plays the Huron named Magua, which was his first major part. Soon after he got the lead role in Geronimo: An American Legend. He was in Skinwalkers, The Lone Ranger, and The Horse Whisperer. He played the Indian out in the desert in The Doors movie, and he was also in Avatar. Studi also plays bass and he and his wife are in a band called Firecat of Discord. Wes Studi also serves as honorary chair of the national endowment campaign, of the Indigenous Language Institute that's working to save Native Languages. He and his family live in Santa Fe New Mexico, and Wes has been in several other movies, TV shows and movies, and mini series. He also received an Academy Honorary Award, becoming the first Native American and the second North American Indigenous person to be honored by the Academy, the first was Buffy Sainte-Marie, a First Nations Canadian Indigenous musician.

13/05/2025

DOG TRAVOIS. Travois were hauled by dogs before horses started appearing on the Northern Plains by the late 1600s. Horses, named “elk dogs” or “big dogs” by some tribes, could carry more weight, thus allowing larger tipis for nomadic tribes. Horses also revolutionized hunting and warfare techniques.
The elderly woman, perhaps a Lakota Sioux named Red Thunder, reportedly held the staff of her husband, Little Bull, and posed in her best regalia. A finely-crafted miniature buffalo was on the dog’s back. (PC users click click image to better see detail.) What appeared to be a dead skunk was in the travois. Dating from about 1910-20 or so, the photo by Frank Fiske of Fort Yates (ND) was found at the Buffalo Bill Museum

13/05/2025

“Before I was six years old, my grandparents and my mother had taught me that if all the green things that grow were taken from the earth, there could be no life. If all the four-legged creatures were taken from the earth, there could be no life. If all the winged creatures were taken from the earth, there could be no life. If all our relatives who crawl and swim and live within the earth were taken away, there could be no life. But if all the human beings were taken away, life on earth would flourish. That is how insignificant we are.”
Russell Means, Oglala Lakota Nation (November 10, 1939 – October 22, 2012).

13/05/2025

"Grandma how do you deal with pain?"
"With your hands, dear. When you do it with your mind, the pain hardens even more."
“With your hands, grandma?"
"Yes, yes. Our hands are the antennas of our Soul. When you move them by sewing, cooking, painting, touching the earth or sinking them into the earth, they send signals of caring to the deepest part of you and your Soul calms down. This way she doesn't have to send pain anymore to show it.
"Are hands really that important?"
"Yes my girl. Think of babies: they get to know the world thanks to their touch.
When you look at the hands of older people, they tell more about their lives than any other part of the body.
Everything that is made by hand, so it is said, is made with the heart because it really is like this: hands and heart are connected.
Think of lovers: When their hands touch, they love each other in the most sublime way."
"My hands grandma... how long since I used them like that!"
"Move them my love, start creating with them and everything in you will move.
The pain will not pass away. But it will be the best masterpiece. And it won't hurt as much anymore, because you managed to embroider your Essence.”~

11/05/2025

From the heart of sacred forests, our spirit rises, crowned by eternal stars.

11/05/2025

Comanche portraits
North America was a place of great turbulence and many conflicts when the newcomers decided to inhabit the land and take parts of it for themselves.
In the 18th and 19th century, many tribes, such as Iroquois, Cherokee and Shawnee were overwhelmed by the number of settlers moving westward across America.
When the settlers started moving to the southern edges of the continent their movement was put to a halt for some time. A fierce tribe of Comanche were the reason for it.Even though many tribes have adapted to the introduction of the horse, the Comanche were the group who took most advantage out of it.Previously being an obscure mountain tribe, the Comanche became the fiercest and most famous riders that caused many troubles to the settlers.
In contrast to, for example, Sioux and Cheyenne that would dismount their horses before battle, Comanche continued riding in a fight, which gave them a significant advantage.

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