Little Bighorn, June 25th 1876, 3:12 p.m. "Thirty days' furlough to the man who gets the first scalp.", Lieutenant Varnum, the officer in command of the scouts, sings out to the men, swinging his hat around in the air as he rides ahead of Reno's battalion. _____________________ It's a sunny, hot day at the Little Bighorn. The people who have pitched their lodges at the southern edge of the Hunkpapa circle consider themselves lucky. With thousands of people encamped in the string of crowded villages, they enjoy the privilege of an unobstructed view of the green open space beyond the villages and short walks to the natural bounties waiting to be harvested. While little boys and girls are playing games in the sunshine, the women are busy doing their chores. Look at the two women who are just returning to camp with a rich harvest of prairie turnips and strawberries. Unfortunately our sources leave much to be desired, but it looks to me that these two are the wives of Pizi (Gall), a very prominent Hunkpapa warrior. Is it just me or do they look like sisters? Actually, that's pretty likely. Those plains Indian men who can afford to have more than one wife often marry the younger sister or sisters of their first wife. The idea behind this is that this reduces rivalry between the wives. In fact, the sorority effect is often so strong that living together with their sisters is more important to the women than the husband - who is absent a lot of the time anyway. If you look closely, you can see four children (that includes the baby in the cradle. It's a bit in the shadows but it's there, and it's gorgeous, trust me). Three of them are the children of Pizi. I guess those would be the two little boys and the girl in the red dress. I think the woman in the olive dress holding her hand is a cousin or the like of the Pizi family who is looking after the daughter while her Moms are working. The Moms really seem to be enjoying the day and each other's company. Can you hear what they're joking about? It's a shame that I don't understand Lakota... Anyway, if I would have to guess I would say that the Pizi family seems to be a happy family. Damn... I don't know how to put this... It's just... this very moment here, this is as happy as it will ever get for the Pizi family. Because, in a few short, terror-filled moments there won't be much left of the Pizi family. Do you see these blurry, bluish riders in the distance? Those are the scouts of Reno's charge. The girl in the red dress and her glad-I-could-help-babysitter - they're running already. They won't make it, the riders are already within shooting distance. Mom, whoever of the two sisters she is, will watch in helpless terror as her daughter and her cousin get unceremoniously shot down. And before they will get over the initial shock, it will be too late for them as well. They will run, run like mad, screaming for help, frantically trying to get the other kids out of harm's way - while the riders will play cat and mouse with them. All ten women and children you see here will be dead in a few moments. This is what happens when the cavalry attacks an Indian village. This is what the 7th cavalry came here for. This is what they begin doing just now. I would have loved to tell you more about the women and children, about their lives, at least I would have liked to tell you their names. But history is written by white men. And while those white men often interviewed the widowed Gall about this fateful day in later years, most of them never bothered to ask even for the names of his slain family members. One interviewer, however, did ask that question to Gall and some of his surviving family members, and they told him they couldn't remember their names. Now, that's also pretty odd, isn't it? I suppose it might have something to do with taboos on mentioning the dead. We know little more than that in the initial charge 6 women and 4 children were killed, among them Gall's 2 wives and 3 children. Gall's second wife was Winjan Waste (although my Lakota is lousy, that's easy enough for me: "Good Woman"). I suppose that's the one with the strawberries...? Everybody knows the heroic images of how the battle of the Little Bighorn supposedly ended. This is how it starts. Your tax money at work. If you could time-travel to this point in space-time, run up to the troopers, press the PAUSE button and then ask one of them what he thought of the fact that just ten days later this fight would be called the "Custer Massacre", he would probably smirk, roll his eyes and mutter that the eastern press doesn't know what's going on anyway. I probably would have nodded in assent - although, with twenty-twenty hindsight, for a different reason than the trooper... _________ PS: The two slain wives were indeed sisters - they were daughters of a woman called White Lightning who was alive then and would later continue to live with Gall, her son-in-law. Gall was quite a womanizer. He had five wives at this time, three of which survived the assault. Also, there were more children than the three killed here. _________