Rain in the Face was a Hunkpapa Lakota chief and warrior whose name became inseparable from the most famous defeat in American military history. At the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his entire Seventh Cavalry command were wiped out. Rain in the Face was renowned for his ferocity in combat, and it was widely believed he carried a personal grudge against Custer, whom he accused of killing his brother and sister in an earlier clash. Some accounts claimed Rain in the Face was among the warriors who struck down Custer himself, possibly delivering the fatal blow.
Historians have long contested that assertion, and the exact circumstances of Custer’s death remain uncertain. What is certain is that Rain in the Face eventually surrendered to United States troops, served a prison term, and after his release became an advocate for Native American rights and a performer in Wild West shows, where he would recount his wartime experiences. For years, army officers and government agents had tried to get Rain in the Face to speak about the battle. They offered kindness, made direct threats, and tried every tactic in between.
He refused to utter a word. His reputation as a possible killer of Custer had even inspired verse from the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. So when Rain in the Face at last agreed to share his account, it was a shock. Speaking with great emotion and many gestures, he recalled the events of that decisive day with remarkable specificity, and his testimony was recorded exactly as he delivered it.
Rain in the Face began his story two years before the great battle. Gall and Sitting Bull had established their camp at Standing Rock. Every Indian present was opposed to the government, and they were Hunkpapa Sioux who feared nothing. The Yanktonais, by contrast, were friendly Indians who lingered near the agency hoping to obtain food and provisions.
In the hostile camp, there was a wonderful time to be had: dancing, racing, firing weapons, and playing games. There was abundant buffalo and deer to eat and many ponies. Rain in the Face was well liked by the girls, and they would provoke him to make him lose his temper. When he became angry, he desired to fight.
One evening, a girl challenged him to go to Fort Lincoln and kill a white man. He told her it was too risky, with soldiers constantly on duty and scouts in the vicinity. But she declared that a courageous man was not scared, and that if he was a coward, she would ask another who was not afraid, someone who had danced in the Sun Dance. That was a provocation he could not refuse.
He went to his lodge, painted his face black, and collected his gun, bow, and pony. Under the cover of darkness, he slipped out of camp and traveled forty-five miles north to Fort Lincoln. For two days he waited, watching for an opportunity to shoot a soldier. There were chances to kill a white woman or a wood cutter, but he wanted to bring back a soldier’s brass buttons to the girl who had laughed at him.
He rushed up, shot the storekeeper, and hit the horse doctor with his war club. Then he shot them full of arrows and cut off some buttons. Long Hair, as the Indians called Custer, heard the shots and charged back. Rain in the Face had no time to scalp the men he had killed.
He jumped on his pony and yelled at the soldiers to catch him. They chased him to the Cannonball River. The next winter, he went to the agency store at Standing Rock. He had not signed the peace treaty, so he received no rations.
The storekeeper, called One Arm, was there. Rain in the Face was not afraid of him or the thirty soldiers with Little Hair. They snuck up behind him, piled on him, threw him in a wagon, and held him down until they reached the guard room at Fort Lincoln. He was treated like a woman, not a chief.
They chained him, gave him only one blanket, and the snow blew through the cracks onto him all winter long. On one occasion, Little Hair released him and the soldiers instructed him to run. Rain in the Face understood they wanted to shoot him in the back. He told Little Hair that he would break free, cut out his heart, and eat it.
He was shackled to a white man, and one night they managed to escape. The soldiers shot at them, but they fled and concealed themselves on the bank of the Heart River. The white man sawed through the chains with a knife, but he was captured the following day. Rain in the Face got away, and he went back to Sitting Bull and Gall.
They were too frightened to retrieve him. He sent Little Hair a picture of a bloody heart drawn on buffalo skin, so the officer would know he remembered his promise. The next time he encountered him, Rain in the Face said, he took his heart. His listeners knew most of this was accurate, matching the government’s report on the deaths of the settler and surgeon Hunsinger.
But they wished to hear about Tom Custer’s heart, referring to the captain, George Armstrong Custer’s brother. They presented Rain in the Face with a drawing of Custer’s final charge and asked if it resembled the battle. Rain examined it and suddenly laughed aloud. No, he said, the image was false.
The soldiers did not fight with sabers but with rifles and pistols. They fought on the ground, with every fourth soldier holding the horses. The Indians fastened themselves to their ponies and fought in a circular formation, removing their clothes and painting their bodies and their ponies. The picture depicted them with bows and arrows, but they had superior weaponry.
The soldiers’ rifles could only fire once, with cartridges jammed inside. Rain in the Face said he had personally observed dozens of firearms on the battlefield with shells still lodged in them. When the Indians saw the soldiers’ guns were not working, they used their war clubs to strike them down. It was simple, he said, like slaughtering sheep.
Some soldiers pleaded for their lives, but no quarter was given. He flipped the paper over and sketched a big sideways S-shape with a pencil. This was the Little Bighorn River. The Indian lodges were all along the banks, arranged like a curved bow.
Asked how many lodges there were, he said many, many times ten. There were approximately four to six thousand Indians, meaning at least a thousand lodges. Sitting Bull performed powerful magic on a hill. He brought it back in a pouch on a coup stick and delivered a great speech, saying the Great Spirit had told him the soldiers were approaching but the Indians would overcome them.
The speech made the warriors very joyful. The following day, scouts reported the soldiers were coming. Sitting Bull had the women construct empty lodges to deceive the scouts, while the brush and the river’s curve concealed the real lodges. Then Sitting Bull departed to perform more medicine and did not return until the battle had concluded.
He was a great leader, Rain in the Face said, but he did not participate in the fighting that day. Gall was the principal war chief. Crazy Horse commanded the Cheyennes, and Goose led the Arapahoes. Rain in the Face was not a head chief, but he guided a group of fierce Hunkpapas.
The Indians knew the soldiers’ horses were exhausted, and the soldiers were deceived by the vacant lodges, believing the Indians were only a small party. The Indians were prepared and fought courageously. They knew the soldiers had erred when they divided their forces. Gall led the majority of the Indians up the river to block the soldiers’ path.
When the Indians saw the scouts had remained behind with Custer, they were pleased. They allowed the soldiers to come over the bluffs, and some of the young warriors isolated them from the rear. Then the Indians revealed their line, and the soldiers attacked. The soldiers retreated under gunfire, with the young warriors behind them shooting as well.
The soldiers got off their horses, and every fourth soldier held the mounts of the others. The Indians tightened the circle around them, surging forward like an ocean wave upon the shore. They shot the horse holders and spooked the ponies by shaking their blankets. Rain in the Face charged in, seized the flag, and his pony was killed beneath him.
He cut the strap, leaped up, and struck the flag bearer with his war club. He ran back to his line carrying the flag, filled with pride at having performed a courageous act. The warriors shouted in approval, and the fighting continued. The soldiers’ blood and brains splattered on his face, feeling hot and tasting bitter.
Consumed by fury, he found a fresh pony and charged back in, shooting, cutting, and slashing. That pony was also shot, so he acquired another. It was then that he saw Little Hair, the officer from Fort Lincoln, and he recalled his promise. He was in a frenzy, afraid of nothing, certain his white weasel tail charm would keep him safe.
He did not know how many men he killed while trying to reach him. When he was near enough, he shot the officer with his revolver. He leaped from his pony, cut out the man’s heart, bit a piece from it, and spat it into his face. Then he rode away, waving it about.
He was content and weary from the battle, so he did not take the scalp. He had kept his promise, and that was the only thing of importance. He did not return to the battleground after that. The women arrived later to finish off the wounded, taking their possessions and cutting off their boots for the hide.
They even severed fingers to remove rings more quickly. They looked for Custer’s scalp but could not identify him, as he wore no officer’s coat and had shortened his hair. That evening, the Indians held a celebration with a feast and a scalp dance. Sitting Bull addressed everyone, saying his magic had been strong and had given them courage.
He claimed responsibility for the victory. But Gall contested this, arguing that the warriors were the ones who fought, while Sitting Bull only performed magic. The argument created friction between them. Rain in the Face believed they might have destroyed the remaining soldiers on the hill, but the dispute between Gall and Sitting Bull prevented it.
Both wished to be the sole leader, and various Indians supported each one. Rain in the Face was unconcerned. He commanded his own band and followed neither, having grown tired of fighting and wishing only to dance. Word arrived that more soldiers were approaching with large cannons, so the Indians traveled north.
The army pursued them until they crossed the border. Rain in the Face remained there until Sitting Bull came back, and he returned alongside him. He was happy to be home. When Rain in the Face concluded his story, he was asked if he had not killed Custer himself, then who had.
He answered that he did not know; nobody knew. It was like battling in the darkness. Asked why Custer was not scalped like the rest, he said no one was too courageous to be scalped. The women were puzzled why they could not locate him, and he must have been concealed beneath other corpses.
Asked about Curly, the Crow scout who claimed he had gotten away, Rain in the Face declared Curly a liar who did not participate in the battle at all. His pony gave out, Rain said, and he fled like someone without courage. Now approximately sixty years of age, Rain in the Face was, by then, the sole surviving chief who could recount the tale of the Custer engagement. He could sign his name in English but did not comprehend its meaning.
His knowledge of English words was small, though he could grasp most of what was spoken to him. Despite his age, he remained powerful and physically impressive, resembling the ideal Indian from the stories of James Fenimore Cooper. He was a man of his word, though it required immense patience to secure a commitment from him.
His direct testimony, given after decades of silence, offered a rare firsthand view of the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Great Sioux War of 1876.