Rain-in-the-Face

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Rain-in-the-Face
Ité Omáǧažu
Rain-in-the-Face in 1874
Lakota leader
Personal details
Bornc. 1835
DiedSeptember 15, 1905(1905-09-15) (aged 69–70)
Bullhead Station,
Standing Rock Reservation (North and South Dakota)
Signature

Rain-in-the-Face (

U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment under Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer
.

Biography

Born in the Dakota Territory near the forks of the Cheyenne River about 1835, Rain-in-the-Face was from the Hunkpapa band within the Lakota nation. His name may have been a result of a fight when he was a boy in which his face was splattered like rain with his Cheyenne adversary's blood. Late in his life, the chief related that the name was reinforced by an incident when he was a young man where he was in a battle in a heavy rainstorm with a band of Gros Ventres. At the end of the lengthy combat, his face was streaked with war paint.

He first fought against the whites in the summer of 1866 when he participated in a raid against

Little Big Horn River
in early June.

Rain-in-the-Face circa 1880–1890

During the subsequent fighting at the

Battle of Little Big Horn on Custer Hill on June 25, 1876, Rain-in-the-Face is alleged to have cut the heart out of Thomas Custer, a feat that was popularized by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in "The Revenge of Rain in the Face".[1] According to the dubious legend, Rain-in-the-Face was fulfilling a vow of vengeance because he thought Captain Thomas Custer had unjustly imprisoned him in 1874. Some contemporary accounts also claimed that the war chief had personally dispatched George Custer as well, but in the confused fighting, a number of similar claims have been attributed to other warriors. Late in his life, in a conversation with writer Charles Eastman
, Rain-in-the-Face denied killing George Custer or mutilating Tom Custer.

Rain-in-the-Face joined other Hunkpapa as they fled north into

Standing Rock in September 1881, Rain in the Face's band is recorded as numbering 39 families or 180 people.[2]

Rain-in-the-Face died in his home at the

Standing Rock Reservation
after a lengthy illness. On his deathbed he reputedly confessed to a missionary that he thought that he might have killed Custer, shooting him from so close as to leave powder marks upon his face.

References

  1. ^ The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  2. ^ Ephriam D. Dickson III, The Sitting Bull Surrender Census: The Lakotas at Standing Rock Agency, 1881 Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine (Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2010) p. 59-68.

Sources

  • Grant, Bruce, The Concise Encyclopedia of the American Indian. New York: Wings Books, 2000.
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