Size of the Village

[tbw]

Joe,

While researching Wallace for your other thread I ran across this.

Wallace, "The village, as passed over afterwards was over three miles long, and varing in width from a few hundred yards to half a mile where the teepees had stood."

The bigger half a mile wide circle "where the teepee's had stood" would produce a circle of over a mile and half of teepee's around that circle. That's a lot of teepee's for one circle. From the few photo's I've seen of these circles, they usually aren't in any particular order which I think would make it most difficult to even get a good estimate from, but lets try anyway. The photo's of the Indian teepee's I've seen were usually 10 to 15 feet wide and about as proportionately tall as they were wide. I guess if they were all 15 feet wide teepee's and each one abutted the other they could have had 550 teepee's there just in that one circle. Take a teepee out (every other one) and there would be about 276 tepee's there. I have no idea, but I'd say this one big circle of Tepee's would have made me wonder where all the Indians were if it was empty devoid of warriors. Even at 276 teepee's it would have produced somewhere in the vicinity of 550 warriors about as many as were reported to have attacked Reno. And I think that's why Custer and his officers wondered where the rest of the warriors were. There were seven village circles, and this big one alone should have accounted for those fighting Reno, where were the rest? Buffalo Hunting seemed to have been the consensus answer, and the only Indians they had observed buffalo hunting were those over in the Tulloch's when at the Crows Nest.

[tbw]

deferred.

[joewiggs]

While I don't put much stock in Wallace's inquiry testimony I have no problem with his measurement of the village. based on the measurement of over three miles the information rings true.

The problem, as I see it, is that the Wallace (and others) did not measure a village, they measured the remnants of a village; a village that was moved north of the night of the 25th.

The residents themselves give a different interpretation when making the measurements of their village. When using measuring terminology other than "miles" they were uniformly consistent in estimating length and width:

Pretty White Buffalo said the Cheyenne and Sans Arc camps were at the lower (north) end of the village, across from the easy (Medicine Tail) crossing.,

Standing Bear said the mouth of Muskrat (Medicine Tail) Creek was north of the Santee Camp which was the northernmost circle.

Two Moon said the village stretched from Sitting Bulls Hunkpapa camp at the Big Shoulder's allotment (Shoulder Blade Creek to the Cheyenne Camp at Medicine Tail's Place.

The Cheyenne Soldier Wolf drew a map for George B. Grinnell by drawing a map that depicted the camp conforming to the course of the river, with the northernmost limits across from Dry (Medicine Tail) Creek.

Using natural terrain familiar to the Indians the village is now approximately 1 mile and 1/2 from Shoulder Blade Creek to Medicine Tail Coulee.

Another possible mis-conception is that the village was pictured/described (David Miller) as 7 Circles one half mile or more in circumference. That would have over flown the valley! The term circle may have been used as a descriptive word for the village to acknowledge each group without actually signifying a geometric figuration.

Indian testimony unilateral describe the width of the village as not exceeding the line of the modern interstate highway. The total area According to Michno) is a little over One and one-fourth square miles or 877 acres.

Michno uses, for an example, a tipi 23.4 feet across. One tipi of that size would fit in an area 48 square yards. Question: How many 48 square yard tipi's can be placed in an acre which contains 4,840 square yards?

If they were packed in with their sides touching, you could fit 100 48-square-yard tipi's into one acre.

Roger Darling's village of 1,900 tipi's packed a into three mile-by-one mile area (640 acres in a square mile)would actually contain 19,000 tipi's. Packed to the limit 64,000 tipi's. At five people per lodge would hold 960,000 Indians.

Recorder Lee attempted to inject similar rationalization in his summery at the Inquiry to no avail.

The hour is late and I may have erred in the math but, the point remains that the village contained enough warriors to destroy Custer command piecemeal due to the separation of forces and terrain suitable for the type of warfare utilized by the warriors.

As Russel means alleged, 800 warriors could have done the job.l

[tbw]

Jun 16, 2011 21:30:56 GMT -5 joewiggs said:

While I don't put much stock in Wallace's inquiry testimony I have no problem with his measurement of the village. based on the measurement of over three miles the information rings true.

The problem, as I see it, is that the Wallace (and others) did not measure a village, they measured the remnants of a village; a village that was moved north of the night of the 25th.

The residents themselves give a different interpretation when making the measurements of their village. When using measuring terminology other than "miles" they were uniformly consistent in estimating length and width:

Pretty White Buffalo said the Cheyenne and Sans Arc camps were at the lower (north) end of the village, across from the easy (Medicine Tail) crossing.,

Standing Bear said the mouth of Muskrat (Medicine Tail) Creek was north of the Santee Camp which was the northernmost circle.

Two Moon said the village stretched from Sitting Bulls Hunkpapa camp at the Big Shoulder's allotment (Shoulder Blade Creek to the Cheyenne Camp at Medicine Tail's Place.

The Cheyenne Soldier Wolf drew a map for George B. Grinnell by drawing a map that depicted the camp conforming to the course of the river, with the northernmost limits across from Dry (Medicine Tail) Creek.

Using natural terrain familiar to the Indians the village is now approximately 1 mile and 1/2 from Shoulder Blade Creek to Medicine Tail Coulee.

Another possible mis-conception is that the village was pictured/described (David Miller) as 7 Circles one half mile or more in circumference. That would have over flown the valley! The term circle may have been used as a descriptive word for the village to acknowledge each group without actually signifying a geometric figuration.

Indian testimony unilateral describe the width of the village as not exceeding the line of the modern interstate highway. The total area According to Michno) is a little over One and one-fourth square miles or 877 acres.

Michno uses, for an example, a tipi 23.4 feet across. One tipi of that size would fit in an area 48 square yards. Question: How many 48 square yard tipi's can be placed in an acre which contains 4,840 square yards?

If they were packed in with their sides touching, you could fit 100 48-square-yard tipi's into one acre.

Roger Darling's village of 1,900 tipi's packed a into three mile-by-one mile area (640 acres in a square mile)would actually contain 19,000 tipi's. Packed to the limit 64,000 tipi's. At five people per lodge would hold 960,000 Indians.

Recorder Lee attempted to inject similar rationalization in his summery at the Inquiry to no avail.

The hour is late and I may have erred in the math but, the point remains that the village contained enough warriors to destroy Custer command piecemeal due to the separation of forces and terrain suitable for the type of warfare utilized by the warriors.

As Russel means alleged, 800 warriors could have done the job.l

I defer to one who should know about teepee's, and how the Indians camped.

[joewiggs]

Spoken like a true gentleman to whom I have the greatest respect and admiration. Your knowlege of this battle is truly envious.

[joewiggs]

I sincerely do not wish to "press" an opinion of mine but, the discovery of a true approximation of the village size is critical in extrapolating evidence of the numbers of warriors involved in the battle. Kate Big head offers the following:

"All the lodges in the six camp circles were taken down as soon as the dead warriors were taken there (after the battle). New camp spots were chosen, all of them back from the river and down the valley below the first the first location.

This movement automatically expanded both the
width and length of the village.

"The Indian regular custom was to move the camp right away when any death occurred among the people of the camp."

The logic that was given birth by the myth was simple in content: The bigger the village, the larger the amount of warriors residing there, the greater the accusation of Custer's culpability for daring to attach such a hoard, the more the responsibility for the fatal outcome of the battle lies upon his shoulders.

I believe he deserves a better legacy;truth.