A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Historiae Literarum et Artium, 1. (Szeged, 1997)

Nagy Imre: „The Black Came over the Sun...” Lame Bull’s spiritual oeuvre

Lame Bull = Hótóa-viá, died 1902. He saw it at „Gift Mountain" and on the same occasion as White Shield's tipi (q.v.) He now modifies his original story of White Shield's tipi and says it was seen each morning, and this (No. 26.) each evening, and that both were body color yellow. Lame Bull made it for himself, about three years before the 1874 outbreak (Adobe Walls battle). Never renewed, because he dreamed several at the same time which were to be made in turn for him and his family, and therefore not renew this. Eviqsnipahis Shield - see: No. 28.+ Harvey also saw another of his - [what is] more recent - in canvas, set up at Darlington, near Robert Burns' site in 1878. Body plain, with upright stripes as in these two, and top and bottom with many round black spots = stars. His widow at Kingfisher would know (Mooney notes, NAA 2538, Box 1 : Lame Bull). Before analyzing the ethnographical and historical data in these short paragraphs, we should explore those further references which are suggested by Mooney himself. The most important of these is the description of White Shield's tipi. White Shield was a noted Southern Cheyenne chief, and his son Harvey White Shield, who graduated from Carlisle Institute, was Mooney's foremost Cheyenne interpreter and informant, beside George Bent. Harvey was also the primary informant on the Fire Dance already referred to in Mooney's Cheyenne monograph. We learned from the previous Mooney notes that Lame Bull dreamed several tipi designs while fasting at Bear Butte, the Cheyenne sacred mountain - what Mooney's unidentified informant called „Gift Mountain," a free translation of the original Cheyenne term Nóvávóse. We find shorter notes beside the drawing of the White Shield tipi. Here, Henry Roman Nose, Lone Wolf the cousin of Lame Bull, and Harvey White Shield the nephew of Lame Bull gave the following information to Mooney: White Shield tipi Made 1906. Harvey White Shield's father Panthers should be behind black stripe, on yellow ground. Poles plain. Light blue [referring to the crescent.] Same clay that [arrow pointing to crescent on front] see crescent and star at top. Four narrow black lines down. Take out red [referring to colored lines at the bottom of tipi], next [in order] blue, black, plain - same width. Add panther tracks at bottom of yellow, facing each way, also four eagle feathers on the back of each panther. And buffalo hoofs dewclaws inside at door - Roman Nose Thunder - February 10. Lone Wolf doesn't know meaning of panther figures, unless because the panther is good hunter, and owner of tipi would be so. It was not explained to him, but White Shield would know if living. 62