'Lone Horn', also known as One Horn (
Lakota: '''Ha-wón-je-tah''', c.
1790 to
1875, born in present day
South Dakota) was
chief to the
Minneconjou Teton Lakota.
Lone Horn was
father to
Big Foot and
Touch the Clouds, and was
uncle of
Crazy Horse.
[1] He participated in the signing of the
Treaty of Fort Laramie in
1868.
[2]
He died peacefully at the
Cheyenne River. After Lone Horn's death in
1875, Big Foot became the chief.
George Catlin paints Lone Horn
In
1832,
George Catlin painted Lone Horn, at
Fort Pierre, South Dakota. Back East, Caitlin wrote this description of him:
[3]
:"[Lone Horn was] a middle-aged man, of middling stature, with a noble countenance, and a figure almost equalling the Apollo, and I painted his portrait. ... [He] has risen rapidly to the highest honours in the tribe, from his own extraordinary merits, even at so early an age. He told me he took the name of 'Lone Horn' (or shell) from a simple small shell that was hanging on his neck, which descended to him from his father, and which, he said, he valued more than anything he possessed; affording a striking instance of the living affection which these people often cherish for the dead. ... His costume was a very handsome one, and will have a place in my Indian Gallery by the side of his picture. It is made of elk skins beautifully dressed, and fringed with a profusion of porcupine quills and scalp-locks; and his hair, which is very long and profuse, divided into two parts, and lifted up and crossed, over the top of his head, with a simple tie, giving it somewhat the appearance of a Turkish turban.
:"This extraordinary man, before he was raised to the dignity of chief, was the renowned of his tribe for his athletic achievements. In the chase he was foremost; he could run down a buffalo, which he often had done, on his own legs, and drive his arrow to the heart. He was the fleetest in the tribe; and in the races he had run, he had always taken the prize."
See also
★
Chief Touch the Clouds
★
Chief Big Foot
★
Chief Touch the Clouds
References
1. The Thin Elk/Steamboat Winter Count
2. Fort Laramie Treaty
3. Mourning a TragedySmithsonian American Art Museum Web site, which describes the original source as: "Source: William H. Truettner. The Natural Man Observed: A Study of Catlin's Indian Gallery (Washington, D.C.: The Smithsonian Institution Press in cooperation with the Amon Carter Museum and The National Collection of Fine Arts, 1979)", accessed February 20, 2007