Red Hawk, of the Oglala Sioux tribe

Red Hawk, of the Oglala Sioux tribe, letting his horse drink from an oasis.. love this majestic photo ,he must have been a sight too behold. In his warrior age he fought at the Little Bighorn, later he had his own following on the Pine Ridge reservation, where he settled in he Wounded Knee district.

He left an account of the Custer battle and several ledger book drawings.Red Hawk, Oglala, went on his first war party at the age of eleven.

He eventually participated in twenty battles, including the battle against Custer at the Little Bighorn in 1876. He fasted twice. The second time, after two days and a night, he had a vision of four women mourning as they circled the camp, followed by a warrior singing the death song.

His grandfather then appeared to him and told him to arise.

With that, he awoke. He looked eastward and saw the sun peeping above the horizon so he took his pipe and held it to the rising sun as he offered a prayer, “Let my people with glad hearts behold a good day.”

Unfortunately, a few days later, four men were killed in a raid, and their wifes circled the camp mourning, while the survivor of the battle followed them, singing the death song.

Photos taken by Edward Curtis, 1907. the drawing is red hawks..titled “Chasing Crow on Horseback, Shoots Him in the Head” – Cetanluta (Red Hawk) The Red Hawk ledger book comprises the majority of the Plains drawings in the collection of the Milwaukee Public Museum.

The collection consists of 105 ink and crayon drawings that the Milwaukee Public Museum purchased in 1897 from H.H. Hayssen of Chuncula, Alaska. According to a handwritten note found inside the ledger, Captain R. Miller originally “captured” the book from Red Hawk at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota on January 8, 1891, just days after the infamous massacre at Wounded Knee.