When Sitting Bull Kicks Your Butt and the Perils of Oral History

By Shane Dunning

http://www.redshalereflections.com

Sometimes a story seems too good to be true, and history is often an inexact science. Because of this, using oral history is often like handling a lit firecracker. You trust it will operate as intended and hope it does not blow up in your face.

Recently I attended the memorial service of two well-regarded family members. While there, a cousin of my father's told a family story that fascinated me, partly because I didn't believe a word of it. I have read and analyzed hundreds of pages of oral histories, and I knew many of them contained serious historical errors. Often these errors are the result of honest confusion and misremembered events. In rarer cases, these blunders are outright lies used to inflate egos or obfuscate sensitive subjects. As I was listening at that moment, however, I recalled the many people I have interviewed who were reluctant to tell their family histories, partly out of the suspicion that they might prove unreliable. I always asked them to tell what they knew, but on hearing this story I could relate to these generous storytellers. A bad story is usually quickly forgotten. A good one, true or less so, can have a life of its own.

My great-great uncle was W.C. "Bill" Dunning. He was the elder brother of Grant and Luther Dunning, who settled on Otter Creek near the turn of the previous century. Bill Dunning eventually settled in Sheridan, Wyoming and was that Town's Chief of Police for several years in the 1920's. Other than knowing he also had a turn as a livestock inspector, he was a mystery to me. He was a name on a genealogical tree. That changed when my father's cousin told me a story about how Bill Dunning had literally had his behind kicked by the famous Hunkpapa Lakota Chief Sitting Bull. Even more unbelievably, my relative was able to return the favor to the fabled medicine man a few months later.

I had a real sense of "George Washington slept here," but my father's cousin insisted that there was a newspaper article regarding the incident. When I returned home, I was able to access some of the online archives I have available to me. After a brief search, I found the Billings Gazette of June 27, 1926 and an article entitled "Sitting Bull Kicked Chief: Sheridan Officer was Victim of Indian Joke Long Ago."

Sheridan, Wyo. June 26--Sitting Bull has never been a romantic figure to Bill Dunning, chief of police here, for Dunning still remembers a kick which he received from the moccasined foot of the chief 39 years ago. Sitting Bull was then on the reservation at Standing Rock. Dunning, then 22 years old, and Johnnie Kelly, a youth of his own age, were riding range on the Grand River when nine Indians overtook the two boys.

The Indians had an unpleasant habit of rounding up white men who came on the reservation and shooting at them if they showed fear or tried to run away. The Indians on this occasion held a parley and then ordered the two boys to go. Just as he started to get in the saddle, Sitting Bull gave Dunning boost with his toe which nearly sent him over his horse.

...Later in that same year, Sitting Bull came to the ranch where the two youths were working to beg something to eat.

The Indian chief recognized "Bill" Dunning because he extended his hand and uttered a guttural but evidently pleasant, "How."

The young cow puncher ignored the proffered hand and gave Sitting Bull the Yankee version of "Go to the Devil." What else transpired has never been known. The chief left immediately.

Upon reading this article, I silently gave my father's cousin the credit he richly deserved. He had considerably more backing for his story than many of even the most well-meaning storytellers I have interviewed. My attention, however, was now turned to the details of the story, of which I remained skeptical.

The main issue with the story is, of course, how braggadocious it is. It is almost too poetic in how it elevates Bill to the exclusion of nearly everyone else, including its infinitely more famous subject. Its obvious negative bias (reflective of the time) toward Native Americans very near the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn also seemed highly suggestive. Still, nothing about the story was demonstrably false. Also, while this story was almost forty years old at the time, there were a great many people alive at the time to counter it if it was false, potentially to the great embarrassment of Bill Dunning. There was certainly enough to warrant more research.

Bill Dunning passed away in March 1942. Local obituaries repeated the generalities of the Sitting Bull story along with other considerable personal accomplishments, but obituaries are usually written by family, and are hardly the place for historical nit-picking.

Last month, however, I found a document courtesy of the Wyoming WPA (Writers Project of America) from before World War Two. Dated October 1941, it is a piece on Bill Dunning written by Sheridan amatuer historian Ida McPherran. Significantly, it is dated before Dunning's death, and describes detail in what seems to be direct quotes from posteriorly afflicted cowpuncher.

The piece reasonably answered at least one question I had, namely, how sure was Dunning that the man who kicked him was the famous Sitting Bull. Apparently, the young rancher had seen the great chief previously.

Young Bill listened to all the stories he heard about the recent battle between the whites and the Indians and he used to like to get a glimpse of Sitting Bull who had just surrendered to Major Brotherton and returned to the Sioux reservation.

Sitting Bull did indeed surrender to Major John H. Brotherton in July 1881. In 1885 he was allowed to leave the reservation to perform in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show for a period of four months before returning to Standing Rock.

McPerran continued:

In 1885 Dunning went to work for the Anglo-American or E6 outfit. It was while he was working for this company that he again met Sitting Bull. By that time young Dunning had lost his admiration for Indians and Sitting Bull, in particular. Perhaps that is why he never forgot his meeting, face-to-face, with the Indian he once so greatly admired.

Some horses had strayed from the E6 and young Dunning and another cowhand had been sent to look for them. Sitting Bull had been known as a horse thief but young Bill and his companion didn't know that and neither were they looking for Sitting Bull or any other Indian-but they found them just the same.

Here is where McPherran's document appears to quote Bill Dunning extensively and directly.

Johnny Kelleher and I had followed the horses' tracks to the fringe of the Sioux reservation on Grand River. It was late in the afternoon and we were hungry so we decided to make camp for the night and continue our search for the horses the next morning, but we soon changed our minds or, rather, had them changed for us, for no sooner had we dismounted than we saw a bunch of Indians ride into sight and come our way.

I had learned enough about Indian to know that they were quick to shoot at a man who acted frightened. It was the law of the under-dog, I guess, without their realizing it. They figured if a man or a couple of men acted nervous and started to get away that they were out alone, scouting around for horses or cattle, but if a man or a couple of men, suddenly surprised by Indians, acted unconcerned and indifferent, the Indians figured that there were other white men in close proximity or soldiers from one of the neighboring forts were around nearby. Many a man's bones have been left to bleach on the prairie because he did not understand the ways of the Indian.

I guess Johnny and I would have been among them if I hadn't known so much about the ways of the Sioux because, as soon as we saw the Indians coming, Johnny gasped, "Come on, Bill, lets vamoose."

"Ah, don't be a-scared," I told him, "just pretend you're not any away."

On came the Indians and we stood, leaning against our horses, waiting for them. When they got near us I recognized Sitting Bull but I did not tell Johnny so. I didn't want him to scare me into running.

When they joined us Sitting Bull jumped off his horse and grunted. Johnny nor I knew anything about the Sioux language but I knew a lot of the signs that the Indians around there used to make themselves understood by the whites so I managed to make Sitting Bull understand that we were out looking for some cow ponies.

Well, Sitting Bull couldn't talk but a few words of English but he made us understand that we were to move on. We didn't need any coaxing but we didn't want him to know it and we started to mount our horses as if we had all the time in the world. I guess we weren't hurrying fast enough to suit Sitting Bull and when I put my foot in the stirrup of my saddle and had just thrown my other leg up to mount, Sitting Bull kicked me right in the seat of my pants.

Johnny didn't need the extra impetus and he was several yards gone when I sat my saddle. Then I joined him but we did not run until we were out of sight if Sitting Bull and his handful of warriors and then did we race.

The timing of this incident would be 1886. While there are still a great many questions regarding this story, only a few details are contrary to known evidence. Sitting Bull did indeed have a limited knowledge of English and was known to be wary of white men encroaching on Indian land (he famously opposed the sale of Indian land then part of the Great Sioux Reservation to whites).

With regard to Sitting Bull's later comeuppance, Bill recalled:

That fall Sitting Bull and half a dozen other Indians came to the E6 asking for something to eat and the cowboys beat up on them for scaring the life out of a couple of kids. Of course, Johnny and I helped with the beating.

It was not unusual, particularly given the scarcity of rations at this time, for a group of traveling Indians to seek food from homesteaders and ranchers. Still, while I cannot find any contradictory evidence, I consider this last part of the story unlikely at best. I can find no corroboration from any other source, and the notion that a bunch of cowboys beat up the famous Sitting Bull with only one willing to tell the tale is a stretch too long for my tastes. There could be several families in the region with a similar tale, for all I know. However, it is simply too entertaining a story to not be passed along. That is perhaps the best quality of oral history, its ability to entertain us and give historical context.