Sitting Bull 01

Waupaca Record

November 26, 1908

SITTING BULL

How the Great Dakota Chief Came to Be Given His Name

Two of our states, as boys and girls know from their geography, are called Dakota – one North Dakota, the other South Dakota – and this was also the name of Indian people of different tribes speaking the same language, who lived in the country north of the great Platte River, and between and along our two greatest rivers, the Missouri and the Mississippi. The word Dakota means united by compact, and there were several united tribes who called themselves the Dakotas.

Sitting Bull was a Dakota Indian. He was born near an old army station, Fort George, on willow Creek, and his father was Jumping Bull. The Indian chiefs are very fond of giving boys new names when they begin to do something which their friends notice. If a boy runs fast with his head up they call him “The Elk”, “The Deer”, “The Wild Horse”, or some such name. Or perhaps if he has quick or sly ways, they name him the “Fox”, “The Wolf”, or “The Coyote”.

In North Dakota, at this time, there were great herds of Buffalo and the largest of them were the bulls. These were the leaders when a herd was running, swimming a river or jumping across a gully. Even when a lad, Sitting Bull’s father could hunt for Buffalos, and quickly jump the deep gullies so frequent in that country, always with is bow in his hand so his uncle, an Indian chief, named him Jumping Bull.

His son was a strange boy. His hair was straight like an Indian, but of a reddish brown color. His head was very large and his features were more regular in form than that of the Indian. He was so odd in his looks and his ways, keeping much by himself, thinking and planning how best to have his own way that his father named him when quite young “Sacred Stand”.

Once, at ten years of age, he went with some hunters on a wild chase for buffaloes and came back to his father’s wigwam very happy and proud, for he had succeeded in killing a buffalo calf, but he did not have a new name till four years later. At this time he frequently made drawings of his totem, what we might call his family coat of arms. This was a buffalo bull settled back on his haunches in a sitting posture, and from it the boy was named “Sitting Bull”.

His second feat, thot great by Indians, was when he met a Crow Indian traveling along a trail claimed by the Dakotas. The Crow Indian was riding a horse, and had, on another horse, his wife, with a baby strapped to her back. Sitting Bull, on an Indian pony, charged this little cavalcade, succeeded in killing all three without getting a scratch, and made a rough picture of the exploit, which he showed to his companions.

Chief Red Cloud had led the Indians in 1868 at the time when a large number of our men fell in battle near Fort Phil Kearney, and after that trouble a scout picked up an old army roster book which had once belonged to a company of our soldiers. On its blank pages Sitting Bull had made skeleton pictures, and each picture showed some wicked deed. The pictures were ridiculous enough, but they made a fairly good diary, and the meaning could not be mistaken. Nearly every record in the book was a sketch of the cruel Sitting Bull and his victims. Some times he was killing white men, sometimes Indians, sometimes stealing and driving off herds of horses. A man’s figure with a tall hat was enough to mean a white citizen, an d uncouth bonnet showed a woman, stiff outlines gave Indian was feathers or a soldier’s costume, and the book was a curious record of years when Sitting Bull was a famous brave and a cruel, bad Indian. – Gen. Howard in St. Nicholas.