Rain in the Face was a Hunkpapa Lakota chief and warrior who played a significant role in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, where Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry was decisively defeated. Known for his courage and ferocity in combat, Rain in the Face was also believed to hold a personal grudge against Custer, whom he accused of killing his brother and sister in an earlier engagement.
According to some narratives, Rain in the Face was among the warriors who assaulted Custer’s unit during the battle, and he may have even delivered the fatal strike that ended Custer’s life. However, historians continue to debate this claim, and the precise details of Custer’s death remain uncertain.
Rain in the Face eventually surrendered to U. S. forces and served a period of imprisonment.
After his release, he became an advocate for Native American rights and a well-known figure in Wild West shows, where he would recount his battlefield stories.
For many years, army officers and government agents tried to get Rain in the Face to discuss the fight, but he refused to speak. They tried every approach—being friendly, offering assurances, and even intimidating him—but nothing succeeded. Rain was renowned for killing Custer, and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow even composed verse about him.
Therefore, it was a shock when Rain finally shared his story.
Rain in the Face recounted his perspective on the events leading up to and including the Battle of the Little Bighorn. He spoke with great expression and feeling, remembering the specifics of that decisive day.
Two years before the great battle, Gaul and Sitting Bull had their camp at Standing Rock. All the Indians there were opposed to the government. They were Hunkpapa and they feared nothing.
The Yanktonais were friendly Indians who lingered around the agency attempting to obtain food and provisions. The camp was full of dancing, racing, shooting, and games, with an abundance of buffalo and deer to eat and many ponies.
One evening, a girl challenged Rain in the Face to go to Fort Lincoln and kill a white man. He told her it was too risky, with soldiers constantly on watch and scouts close by. But she said, “A brave man has no fear.
If you are a coward, do not go. I will ask another who is not afraid, someone who has danced in the Sun Dance.” That was a challenge he could not refuse.
Rain in the Face went to his lodge, painted his face black, and took his gun, bow, and pony. He slipped out of camp under the darkness and went to Fort Lincoln, 45 miles north. He waited for two days, seeking an opportunity to shoot a soldier.
He had opportunities to kill a renegade woman or a woodcutter, but he wanted to bring a soldier’s brass buttons back to the girl who had mocked him.
One morning, he saw the storekeeper and a horse doctor going to a spring. Long Hair—as the Indians called Custer—and his men were riding back approximately 100 yards away. Rain rushed up, shot the storekeeper, and struck the horse doctor with his war club.
Then he shot them full of arrows and cut off some buttons. Long Hair heard the shot and charged back. Rain did not have time to scalp the men he had killed.
He jumped on his pony and yelled at them to catch him. They pursued him to the Cannonball River.
The following winter, Rain went to the agency store at Standing Rock. He did not receive any rations because he had not signed the peace treaty. The storekeeper, One Arm, was there.
Rain was not afraid of him or the 30 soldiers with Little Hair—a reference to Captain Tom Custer. One Arm crept up behind him, and they all piled on to him. They threw him in a wagon and held him down until they reached the guard room at Fort Lincoln.
Rain was treated like a woman, not a chief. They put him in a room, chained him, and gave him only a single blanket. The snow blew through the cracks and onto him all winter.
Once, Little Hair let him out, and the soldiers told him to run. Rain knew they wanted to shoot him in the back. He told Little Hair that he would escape and cut his heart out and eat it.
Rain was chained to a white man, and one night they escaped. They fired at them, but they ran and hid on the bank of the Heart River. The white man cut the chains with a knife, but they captured him the next day.
Rain got away, but he knew they would be searching for him. He rejoined Sitting Bull and Gaul, but they were afraid to come get him. Rain sent Little Hair a picture of a bloody heart on buffalo skin, so he knew the vow had not been forgotten.
When asked about the battle itself, Rain was shown a sketch of Custer’s last charge and asked if it resembled the fight. He studied it, then burst out laughing.
“No, this picture is false,” he said. “Soldiers did not fight us with swords, but with guns and revolvers. They fought on foot, with every fourth soldier holding the horses.
We tie ourselves to our ponies and fight in a circle. We strip naked and paint ourselves and our ponies. This picture shows us with bows and arrows, but we were better equipped.”
Rain explained that the soldiers’ guns only fired once, with shells stuck inside. He saw dozens of guns on the battlefield with shells still in them. When the warriors saw the guns would not work, they used their war clubs to knock the soldiers down.
It was simple, he said, like killing sheep. Some pleaded for mercy, but none was shown.
Rain turned the paper over and drew a large sideways S-shape with a pencil. “This is the Little Bighorn River,” he said. “Our lodges were along the banks, shaped like a bent bow.”
When asked how many lodges there were, Rain said there were many, many times ten. The Indians were as numerous as blades of grass—approximately 4,000 to 6,000 people, so at least a thousand lodges.
Sitting Bull performed powerful medicine on a hill. He brought it back in a bag on a coup stick and delivered a great speech. He said the Great Spirit had told him the soldiers were coming, but they would vanquish them.
His speech made the warriors joyful.
The next day, runners informed them the soldiers were approaching. Sitting Bull had the women set up empty lodges to deceive the scouts. The brush and bend in the river concealed the real lodges.
Then Sitting Bull left to make more medicine and did not return until the fight was finished. He was a great chief, but he did not fight that day.
Gaul was the head chief. Crazy Horse led the Cheyennes. Goose led the Banacks.
Rain in the Face was not a head chief, but he led a band of fierce Hunkpapas.
The warriors knew the soldiers’ horses were exhausted, and the soldiers were tricked by the empty lodges. They believed the Indians were just a small band. The warriors were prepared and fought courageously.
They knew the soldiers had erred when they divided their forces.
Gaul took most of the Indians up the river to intercept them. When the warriors saw the scouts remain behind with Long Hair, they were pleased. They let the soldiers come over the bluffs, and some of the young men cut off their retreat.
Then they revealed their line, and the soldiers charged. The soldiers fell back under fire, and the young men behind them opened fire.
Rain saw officers talking and pointing, but they all looked similar. He did not see Long Hair then or later. The warriors heard the soldiers singing their death song.
They knew they had them surrounded.
The soldiers dismounted, and every fourth man held the others’ ponies. The warriors closed in around them, rushing like a wave upon the sand. They shot the pony holders and stampeded the ponies by waving their blankets.
The women caught them, for they were tired.
Rain had sung the war song and smelled the gunsmoke. His heart was wicked. He was as one without a mind.
He rushed in, seized the flag, and his pony fell dead. He cut the thong, jumped up, and struck the flagman with his war club. He ran back to their line with the flag.
He was proud—he had performed a brave deed.
The warriors cheered and kept fighting. The soldiers’ blood and brain splashed on Rain’s face, feeling hot and tasting bitter. He was enraged, so he got a new pony and charged back, shooting, cutting, and slashing.
This pony was shot too, so he got another.
That is when he saw Little Hair, and he remembered his vow. He was frenzied, fearing nothing, knowing his white weasel tail charm would protect him. He did not know how many he killed trying to reach him.
Little Hair recognized him, and Rain laughed and yelled at him. He saw his lips move, but the noise was too loud to hear his voice. Little Hair was afraid.
When Rain got close enough, he shot him with his revolver. He jumped off his pony, cut out his heart, bit a piece off, and spit it in his face. Then he rode off, shaking it.
He was satisfied and tired of fighting, so he did not scalp him. He had fulfilled his vow, and that was all that mattered.
Rain did not return to the battlefield after that. The women came later and killed the wounded, taking their possessions and cutting off their boots for leather. They even cut off fingers to get rings more quickly.
They searched for Long Hair’s scalp but could not find him, as he wore no uniform and had cut his hair.
That night, the warriors celebrated with a feast and scalp dance. Sitting Bull spoke, saying, “I told you my medicine would work. It made you brave.”
He took credit for winning the fight, but Gaul disputed this, saying, “We did the fighting. You only made medicine.” This caused tension between them.
The warriors could have defeated the others on the hill, but the argument between Gaul and Sitting Bull prevented it. Both wanted to be leader, and some Indians sided with each. Rain did not care.
He led his own group and obeyed neither. He was tired of fighting and wanted to dance.
They heard more soldiers were coming with big guns, so they moved north. The soldiers followed them until they crossed the border. Rain stayed there until Sitting Bull returned, and he came back with him.
He was glad to be home.
When Rain finished speaking, he was asked, “If you did not kill Long Hair, who did?” He replied, “I do not know. No one knows.
It was like fighting in the dark.”
When asked why Long Hair was not scalped like the others, Rain said, “No one is too brave to be scalped.” The women wondered why they could not find him. He must have been concealed under other bodies.
When asked about Curley, the Crow scout who claimed to have escaped, Rain said, “Curley is a liar. He was not in the fight. His pony broke down and he ran away like a coward.”
Rain in the Face was about 60 years old at the time of this account and was the only chief still alive to tell the story of the Custer fight. He could write his name in English but did not understand its significance. His English vocabulary was limited to about 30 words, but he could comprehend most of what was said.
Like other Indians, he was grateful for future favors, not past ones. He was brave but lacked morals. However, he kept his promises, though it took patience to get him to make one.
Even at 60, he was still strong and physically imposing. His redeeming feature lay in the fact that you could depend upon any promise he made. But it took a world of patience to get him to promise anything.
This firsthand account offers a rare and personal perspective on the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Great Sioux War of 1876, shedding light on the events from the viewpoint of one of the warriors who was there.