Earlier I had read that Sitting Bull was a medicine man and after engaging in the “Ghost Dance,” and inciting the Indians to fight, he was assassinated and buried in unconsecrated ground because he was a heathen. Another theory has it that he lead a faction which refused to sign away their rights to land granted in previous treaties.

General Leonard Colby, head of the Nebraska National Guard, wrote that there was an “understanding between the officers of the Indian and military departments that it would be impossible to bring Sitting Bull to Standing Rock alive, and even if successfully captured, it would be difficult to tell what to do with him. It is therefore believed that there was a tacit arrangement between the commanding officers and the Indian police, that the death of the famous old Medicine man was much preferred to his capture, and that the slightest attempt to rescue him should be the signal for his destruction.” (Colby “Sioux”, p 151)

Bogle claims that Sitting Bull was not an adherent to the Ghost Dance, and his remains were later removed to a Catholic graveyard. Most likey he gave up practicing medicine at his conversion. I’m inclined to believe and hope that Sitting Bull did indeed die a Catholic. One of the Indians mortally wounded with him lived long enough to ask for a priest. His wife and children were all Catholics but he had put off his Baptism. A priest came and Baptized him and he died shortly after.

p. 16, note 5: “Sitting Bull sent a war exploit robe to the pope [sic] in 1886 (Smith 1943: 192, 197), . . .”

A “war exploit robe” would be a buffalo hide robe with Sitting Bull’s war exploits painted on it. I don’t know of any photos. If you click the link, you will see what similar hides look like.