Minneconjou and his guns

[jon_norstog]

I found this photo of Touch-the-clouds, a Minneconjou warrior, on an NDN photo site. The photo dates from 1877 and looks like it was taken in the field against an improvised backdrop. Most of the photos I've seen from that period look to be studio poses .. not this one. I think this is the only picture of a NDN warrior I've ever seen with a Remington. Mostly if they are carrying their own guns it's a trapdoor or a Winchester. Also looks like he got himself a Colt Army revolver.Touch_the_clouds_.jpg

He's got a pretty good writeup in Wikipedia. His band stayed on the rez during the Custer fight, but after that there were rumors all the reservation Lakota were to be disarmed and have their horses taken away. So he split with his band and apparently participated in some of the fighting in the fall of 1876. Nelson Miles talked him into giving up the warpath.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_the_Clouds

jn

[JBinIll]

Are you sure that's a Remington?The way the top of the receiver appears it looks like a Whitney.Good picture anyway.

[jon_norstog]

Could be JB, although it would be long odds. Is that an octagon barrel on that rifle?

jn

[JBinIll]

Can't tell.I tried isolating and enlarging the action but just comes out a big blur.

[Shooter5]

Neat. I wonder what his actual name is - not the transliteration into English.

[jon_norstog]

Found these:

Probably the most accurate translation of his Lakota name, Mahpiya Icahtagya, would be Touch the Clouds (as opposed to Touch the Cloud). According to Buechel & Manhart, Lakota Dictionary (2002), the word mahpiya means "the clouds" (p. 193). The word is already plural. If you were speaking of a single isolated cloud, you would distinguish that by saying mahpiya ayaskapa. The Lakota word icahtagya means "touching, as a cup-board does a wall, or as a man leaning against the wall"

and

The name is also sometimes given as Mahpiya Iyapato. Buechel & Manhart 'Lakota Dictionary' p. 251 defines the verb iyapato as "To butt against, to be struck by; to press on, be cramped by e.g., a short moccasin". So this version has the sense of Pressed Up Against the Clouds.

http://www.american-tribes.com/Lakota/BIO/TouchClouds.htm

jn