A Sioux Love Story, part 1

In the summer of 1857, on the Great American Plains there lived a young Sioux boy of just fifteen summers old. To the members of his Oglala tribe he was known as Curly, and for a very good reason.

Curly was different in many ways from all other members of his band. The first of two most obvious differences was that he had rather curly hair. It hung to his waist when left unbraided and flowing, and it was far lighter than that of other Oglalas. Some said Curly’s hair was a light brown shade. Others said it was even a dark blond. The second obvious difference in this Oglala boy was that he also had very light skin, for an Indian.

But no matter these differences, in Curly’s heart he was all Oglala. These differences were not a concern to this budding warrior, or to his people. Being different was not looked upon as bad by these people of the Plains.

This particular summer Curly had spent visiting some of his friends of the Cheyenne people in the vicinity of the Solomen River in what today is know as north-central Kansas.

Earlier this summer these Cheyennes were visited by some other Sioux. One of them was a medicine man called Ice and he told Curly’s friends that some whites were coming to fight them. But Ice had a plan. He told these Cheyenne that if they dipped their hands into the water while they sang medicine songs and made certain ritual gestures that the bullets of these whites would not harm them.

Ice demonstrated all of this and then told the Cheyenne to shoot at him. They did not want to do this but Ice insisted. So the Cheyenne shot at this medicine man.

The Cheyenne were so amazed to see that their bullets did not harm Ice. Then they all rushed to the water, dipped their hands into it and sang the medicine songs and made the certain ritual gestures that Ice had taught them. Now the Cheyenne were ready to do battle with the whites.

At last the white soldiers arrived and the Indians all lined up and held out their hands to catch the bullets these whites would shoot at them. The soldiers were going to be very surprised the Indians must have thought, but then something went wrong.

The soldiers were surprised, all right. They did not expect these Indians to all stand, lined up in a row, with their hands extended. Surely the soldiers must have thought the Indians were up to some new trick. Because of this, the soldiers did not shoot at the Oglala. Instead, they drew their sabers and charged.

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