PhilosopherJay

Around 5 A.M., on July 17, 1876, a young Native American on horseback approached two United States calvary riders. Shots rang out. One minute later, the Native American was dead. According to the report by General Merrick, “a party of seven Indians were discovered near the command, moving with the intention of cutting off two couriers who were approaching from Sage Creek. A party was sent out to cut these off, killing one of them….’ (http://www.historynet.com/buffalo-bi...et-creek.htm/5)

Besides the Battle of Little Bighorn, which happened three weeks prior, this was probably the most famous U.S. Government-Native American battle of the 19th century. There are now literally hundreds of narratives retelling the event, generally known as the Skirmish at Warbonnet Creek. These include newspaper accounts (both contemporary and generations later), plays (Buffalo Bill produced the first the following year) novels, magazine articles, monuments, paintings, movies, television shows, encyclopedia articles and history book accounts. The details change quite a bit from narrative to narrative. In most of them, Buffalo Bill Cody kills the Native American. In some of them, somebody else kills him. The only fact certain is that Buffalo Bill led the group of seven or eight men who intercepted the seven (?) Native Americans and one Native American was shot twice and died.

In many of these narratives two, three, six or even dozens of people die. In some of them the Native American is named Yellow Hand and in some Yellow Hair. It is difficult to find evidence that either was actually the name of the dead Native American. In some, he is described as a Cheyenne Chief, in some, a sub-chief, and in some as just a warrior. In the movie, “Buffalo Bill,” (Wellman, 1944), he was portrayed nobly by actor Anthony Quinn and, according to that narrative; he was a life-long friend of Buffalo Bill. In “The Plainsman (Demille, 1936) he was portrayed savagely by actor Paul Harvey. Yellow Hand doesn’t fight Buffalo Bill in that movie, but he does lead an Indian Uprising and torture Western legends Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.

Buffalo Bill himself wrote in his autobiography that he shot Yellow Hair twice, stabbed him with a knife in the heart and took his scalp. General Charles King, (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~na...harlesking.htm) an eyewitness, insists that it was only Yellow Hair’s feathered warbonnet that Bill held up, not his scalp. He did not see the actual shooting and or stabbing, but did arrive a minute later to see Buffalo Bill holding up the warbonnet. Another eyewitness Sergeant John Powers supports the scalping detail. Did Buffalo Bill Scalp Yellow Hair or merely hold up his warbonnet?

John Powers' contemporary report in the Ellis County Star, published the following week, seems to be the best report of what actually happened:

( from “Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill, by Don Russell, pg. 228).

Powers account supports Cody’s claim that he scalped Yellow Hair, but disagrees significantly with Buffalo Bill’s own famous account from his 1920 autobiography:

In this highly dubious account, it seems that 200 Native Americans were about to go after Buffalo Bill after he killed Yellow Hair. In reality, two wagon-loads of cavalry-men rode after the six other Native Americans, but they rode away without a shot being fired.

It is also quite interesting that according to Bill’s narrative, the Native American gave Bill the name “Yellow-Hair”/”Long-Yellow-Hair.” In later tellings of the narrative, it is the Native American who ends up with the name “Yellow Hair”

On the other hand, in a 1957 article entitled "Buffalo Bill As I Knew Him," in True West magazine, M. I. McCreight, a 92 year old veteran of the Old West, claims that Bill Cody came to his house for dinner in 1908 and told him, "that he did not kill Tall Bull, and that he did not kill Yellow Hand. He said earnestly that he had never knowingly killed any Indian." (http://manycoups.net/BuffaloBillAsIKnewHim_page1.html)

We should consider that the technology for information transfer was significantly better developed in late 19th century United States than it was in the 1st Century Roman Empire. There were some 10,000 newspapers, tens of thousands of printing presses and over 100,000 miles of telegraph lines. Judea had only hand copying of text and word of mouth.

Here we have a case happening less than 150 years ago where the death of a Native American is at the center of a famous narrative. Who he was, who killed him, was he scalped, did he fire back and what was he doing there remain open questions. Even if we assume the death of a Jew in the time of Pontius Pilate is a real event at the center of the gospel stories, why should we not be skeptical of all the other information that the gospel narratives convey?

show_no_mercy

In a related and much more recent experiment, after the Challenger expolsion, Neisser and Harsch conducted interviews with 44 students and asked them to fill out a questionaire to give their recollections of that traumatic event.

About two years later, Neisser and Harsch had the same 44 students repeat the questionaire. They found that recollections a mere two years after a traumatic event were woefully inaccurate. Some students even thought that their current memory was the more accurate one than the one they wrote closer to the event... even suggesting that an imposter wrote the earlier account!

http://pages.slc.edu/~ebj/iminds04/L...er-harsch.html (Here's the study that that website cited: Neisser, U. & Harsch, N. (1992). Phantom flashbulbs: False recollections of hearing the news about Challenger. In E. Winograd & U. Neisser (Eds.), Affect and accuracy in recall: Studies of "flashbulb memories" (pp. 9-31). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

How easy would it be for the much more superstitious culture of 1st century Palestine to have false memories about the deeds and life of Jesus?

No Robots

Perhaps you should find out if there are any native accounts of the episode. You might be surprised at the accuracy of oral transmission in an oral culture.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Show No Mercy,

This study is interesting because the students had no material motives to change their views about the events. Yet, even so, they appeared to have unconsciously done so.

In the case of the Skirmish at Warbonnet Creek, all the eyewitnesses had material motives to change (falsify) what happened. Buffalo Bill had already been appearing in stage shows for three years and had only returned to scouting for the publicity after the death of General Custer. His famous killing of Yellow Hair made him appear to be the man who had avenged General Custer and added to his fame. He quit scouting a month later and returned to acting.

The company of men that Bill was scouting for had just traveled 80 miles in 30 hours. They were sent to head off a 1,000 Cheyenne who were allegedly going to join Sitting Bull in an uprising. "in that time the soldiers had had nothing to eat except some hardtack hastily snatched from saddlebags while still on the move." (Historynet: http://www.historynet.com/buffalo-bi...et-creek.htm/4)

The reliability of accounts under such harsh circumstances of exhaustion and hunger makes the reliability of narratives of eyewitnesses even more suspect.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

PhilosopherJay

Hi No Robots,

The few references I could find suggest that the Native Americans thought that while Yellow Hair was scalped, Buffalo Bill did not kill him. Don Russell who wrote "The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill," considered one of the best historical accounts, dismisses their accounts as containing details that are only found in later embellished written accounts.

Warmly


Philosopher Jay

aa5874

Asking people about details of an event and asking them if the event ever occurred is a total different matter.

People can easily forget details about an event but they will hardly forget that the event happened, the very same applies to the Challenger accident.

I can scarcely remember anything that my father said to me at any specific time when I was a child but I can remember that he lived.

A person may forget where they were when JFK was shot, but it is far more difficult to forget that JFK was assassinated.

The NT is very problematic since the authors provide witnesses for events that could not have happened.

According to the NT, the 1st bishop of Rome, Peter, saw Jesus walk on water during a storm, saw Jesus transfigure, was with Jesus after the resurrection and was present when Jesus went through the clouds.

Even if these authors could not remember all the details of any event, the mere idea that they claimed events happened that never did show a deliberate attempt to write fiction.

avi

Thank you Jay, VERY interesting. Well done.

yes, I would be astonished to learn that embellishment was not a feature of oral transmission in an oral culture. Have you some reference supporting your notion that oral transmission in an oral culture results in a degree of fidelity that exceeds the accuracy of accounts in societies employing written formats?

Do you suppose that with 5000 years of record keeping, perhaps one of the Chinese societies could prove useful in proving or validating your hypothesis--> perhaps a discrepancy between some Chinese oral legend, which is demonstrably more accurate, than the written, documented account?

Eye witness testimony, at least in modern times, is notoriously unreliable:
One of many references on this topic.

I note, in passing, that it is quite customary at least in western society, for a group of like minded individuals to elaborate, and spin a yarn, and create an entire cast of characters, over something relatively banal in the life cycle-->it seems to represent a form of creativity, accelerated by the group's interaction. Television shows come to mind.....

Have we some illustrations of this phenomenon in literature? What about Gogol: Dead Souls?

The converse is also interesting: deliberate suppression of the truth about some event, often involving murder, as with Jay's example, for political reasons. Sometimes the truth emerges only decades later....

In the case of Mark, as the only gospel which may have had no antecedent to copy from, one must ask whether it makes more sense as literature or history. To me, Mark represents pure literature, and it offers, to my way of thinking, not an iota more information about history, than the jumbled, chaotic newspaper clippings in Jay's story, above.

avi

aa5874

But, you have provided a source that contradicts you. Eyewitnesses are MOST OFTEN CORRECT.

Doug Shaver

How does one confirm that accuracy? If you hear a story that is has been orally transmitted, how do you verify its truth?

dog-on

Faith.