Iconic Lakota leader was singer and composer

BISMARCK – He was the leader of the Great Sioux Nation, a common man of immense influence among Plains Tribal People resisting colonization. He was feared by Americans during the settler wars and defamed in death. Those who sought to diminish him and erase his memory distorted the public perception of Sitting Bull.

Now, new audio recordings an written research posted on the Lakota Songs website promise to improve understanding about the Hunkpapa Lakota patriot who is remembered as a gifted singer and song composer.

Missed Opportunity

In the years after his death in 1890, one person who was taken-in by the scorn for Sitting Bull was Frances Densmore, the ethnomusicologist who visited Standing Rock from 1911 to 1914. Her audio recordings of tribal songs, and accompanying stories, helped preserve elements of the culture for more than a century. But, when it came to Sitting Bull, she ignored him.

“It’s clear she was influenced to steer clear of anything to do with Sitting Bull or his songs, or ideas,” said Courtney Yellow Fat, lead singer of the drum group Lakota Thunder and co-producer of the Densmore/Lakota Songs Repatriation Project.

Yellow Fat and co-producer David Swenson of Makoche’ Studios, in Bismarck, have added to the Lakota Songs website a new chapter containing Sitting Bull songs Densmore missed. The two relied primarily on research documents to learn the lyrics of songs by and about Sitting Bull that were not published in Densmore’s book, “Teton Sioux Music & Culture.”

Singular Disappointment

An answer to why Densmore failed to include Sitting Bull is contained in an unpublished research paper, authored by the late Isaac Dog Eagle Jr. (Standing Rock) a Sitting Bull descendant, and Dr. Carole A. Barrett, a retired American Indian Studies professor at University of Mary. Their work uncovered documentary evidence that the Standing Rock Indian agent was to blame.

Major James McLaughlin harbored a well-known dislike of Sitting Bull. At one point during Densmore’s visits to Standing Rock, she stayed with the McLaughlins in Fort Yates, ND. According to later correspondence, she said the Indian agent and his wife Marie succeeded in convincing her that Sitting Bull was not much of a hero, had many bad qualities, and was “intensely Indian.”

Densmore acknowledged there were a large number of songs connected with Sitting Bull’s name but, she wrote, “no attempt was made to collect many of these songs or to study the character of Sitting Bull.”

For all that she did to document the songs and culture, it was a singular disappointment that she failed to include the cultural contributions of the most revered figure in the tribe’s history, said Yellow Fat. “Singers are held in high regard in Lakota/Dakota society,” he said. “Long ago, in the time of our ancestors, a man could not be considered a leader unless he could sing and compose songs.”

Songs Recorded

To account for the absence in Densmore’s work, 18 recorded Sitting Bull songs have been added to the Lakota Songs website. These and more were documented in oral history research with Sitting Bull relatives and friends in the late 1920s. Researcher Robert Higheagle (Standing Rock) and author Walter S. Campbell (writing under the pen name Stanley Vestal) collected accounts from reliable sources for the 1932 book “Sitting Bull, Champion of the Sioux.” Vestal’s biography succeeded in correcting years of misrepresentations and falsehoods spun by the Indian agent and others. Also added to the website are connections to the research about Sitting Bull songs, including the unprecedented 1994 analysis by Dog Eagle and Barrett, published here for the first time.

The new Sitting Bull posts contain song lyrics, interpretation and written introductions. The songs are sung by Yellow Fat, who is the Standing Rock Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. He is a descendant on his mother’s side of Lieutenant Little Eagle, one of the Standing Rock Indian Policemen involved in the arrest of Sitting Bull in 1890, and a descendant on his father’s side of Thunder Hawk, a childhood friend of Sitting Bull. One-hundred-thirty-five years later, Yellow Fat is lead singer at the Sitting Bull Sun Dance along the Grand River in South Dakota.

For Educational Use

The Densmore/Lakota Songs Repatriation Project is intended for educational purposes only. All of the teaching materials, whether video, audio, written text, photographs or illustrations, are intended for free distribution and educational use. However, the content of traditional knowledge and cultural teachings and understandings conveyed in the project remain the intellectual and cultural property of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The resources may be accessed and downloaded from the Lakota Songs website.

Lakota Songs Teaching Materials:

• Audio recordings and lyrics of 18 songs by or about Sitting Bull

• Introduction by Courtney Yellow Fat, Densmore/Lakota Songs Project Co-Producer

• Twenty-Five Songs Made by Sitting Bull,” with translations, Collected & Translated by Robert P. Higheagle, August 17, 1929

• CAMPBELL’S RESEARCH METHODOLOGY and SITTING BULL’S SONGS,” Derived from The Walter S. Campbell Collection: Sitting Bull Materials, University of Oklahoma Western History Library, Norman, OK,1994, Isaac Dog Eagle Jr. & Carole A. Barrett (containing a new introduction by Carole A. Barrett, retired Native Studies Professor, University of Mary, Bismarck, ND)

• Carole Barrett and Courtney Yellow Fat podcast about Sitting Bull’s Songs and Sitting Bull research

• Information about Frances Densmore and her work at Standing Rock

• Updated e-book version of “Teton Sioux Music”

• Restored and cataloged copies of Densmore’s original wax cylinder recordings

• 75 songs from the Densmore collection re-recorded by Standing Rock singers in 2022

• 30 videos explaining meanings and significance of the songs

• Eight writings for further study

• Additional Videos:

• Importance of the White Buffalo Calf Maiden

• Project Overview

• Singers who participated

• The Ochéthi Šakówi.

• The Sun Dance

Any use or re-use of these materials outside of the educational purposes of the Densmore/Lakota Songs Repatriation Project requires prior consent of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

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