Indian Memorial Sculpture at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument

by Catherine Sherman

Title

Indian Memorial Sculpture at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument

Artist

Catherine Sherman

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

"Indian Memorial Sculpture at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Montana" by Catherine Sherman.

Oglala Sioux artist Colleen Cutschall (Sister Wolf) designed this dramatic sculpture for the Indian Memorial at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana.

The sculpture is part of the Indian Memorial at the Battlefield. On Veterans Day, November 11, 1999, the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument Advisory Committee and the NPS jointly sponsored groundbreaking ceremonies that kicked off a fundraising campaign for constructing an Indian Memorial that would honor all Native Americans who fought at what the Indians called the “Battle of the Greasy Grass [Creek]”

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana memorializes the US Army's 7th Cavalry and the Lakotas and Cheyennes in one of the Indian's last armed efforts to preserve their way of life, according to the National Park Service. Here on June 25 and 26 of 1876, 263 soldiers, including Custer and attached personnel of the US Army, died fighting several thousand Lakota and Cheyenne warriors.

The Indian Memorial is located on the battlefield near Last Stand Hill. The Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield organization described the remarkable sculpture and its setting:

"The Indian Memorial will surprise you. ….. If you didn't know it, you wouldn't know it's there. From the visitor center it appears to be a mound, slightly lifted above the ground. There is already prairie grass sprouting from the outside walls blending it beautifully within its environment.

You cross the street from Last Stand Hill and the first thing you come to is the wayside for Wooden Leg Hill and the Unknown Warrior marker on a distant ridge. Wooden Leg witnessed the death of an unknown warrior wearing a warbonnet when he was shot through the head.

From there you turn northwest and pass by the Horse Cemetery with the new marble marker including a 7th Cavalry Horse drawn by Park Historian, John Doerner. There is a wayside exhibit explaining the archeological dig that was conducted there. From there you follow the sidewalk to where it forks going east and west. The proper way to enter the Memorial is from the east entrance and exit from the west. As you approach the memorial it begins to swallow you into its power. It becomes taller and more mysterious. As you approach the east entrance of the Memorial you can see just above the mound the very tops of the Spirit Warriors….

When you enter the Memorial, you enter another world -- somber, deep, retrospective, and sacred. The Memorial is in the shape of a perfect circle. In the center is a circle of red dirt. Around it is a circled stone walkway. On the inner walls sit panels for each tribe that fought in the battle (Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Arikara). Each tribe lists their dead and there are some pictographs.

You are immediately taken by the Spirit Warriors standing high above you to the north. The area is wide open so the Montana prairie shines through. If you turn around from the Spirit Warriors you look through a gap in the mound called the Weeping Wall. It is here that water continually trickles down into a pool representing tears for the fallen warriors and soldiers. And, centered perfectly within the Weeping Wall can be seen the 7th Cavalry Monument. This Spirit Gate welcomes the fallen soldiers to enter the Memorial and join the fallen warriors in friendship; “peace through unity.” Its symbolism is powerful in so many ways to say the least.

It is peaceful in this place, within this circle……"

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March 25th, 2020

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