According
to his own statement to Judge Ricker, Horn Chips was part
of the Spotted Tail Agency delegation to the Northern
Indians in Feb.-April 1877. Led by Spotted Tail himself,
plus Brule band chiefs Swift Bear, Two Strike and Iron
Shell, the 250-man party secured the surrender at their
agency of the Touch the Clouds village, plus several smaller
parties.
Horn Chips therefore indicates that he was living at Spotted
Tail Agency in 1876-77. My hunch is that he was at one
or other of the agencies for much of the period 1870-onward
- possibly as fallout from his disagreement with Black
Twin over the Crazy Horse elopement with Black Buffalo
Woman. He does not seem to have been among the Lakotas
who fled to Canada in 1877-78.
—
Kingsley Bray
There
was a man, back in the buffalo days, whose name was Ptehe
Woptuh'a. The name's implied meaning is a buffalo horn
that is so old it will crumble to little pieces in your
hand like a dried leaf. Most people now refer to him as
Horn Chips. Born in 1836, Horn Chips was originally known
as Tahunska or His Leggings. He was said to have been
a member of Chief Lip's band of Wajajes, Upper Brules
who joined the Oglalas around 1854.
Horn
Chips family died when he was a young child and he went
to live with his grandmother who raised him. Horn Chips
and Crazy Horse were childhood friends and later it is
said that Horn Chips was adopted by the uncle of Crazy
Horse. The relationship between Horn Chips and Crazy Horse
became stronger around 1862 or 1863, after Horn Chips,
now a medicine person, made a war medicine for Crazy Horse.
A small white stone with a hole through it, suspended
from a deerhide thong, worn over his shoulder, so that
it was under his left arm, which was said to protect him
from bullets.
Later,
it was said that a man named Black Horse dreamed of thunder
and worried he would be struck by lightning. He sought
out Horn Chips, considered by then to be heyoka. Horn
Chips put Black Horse on the hill on Eagle Nest Butte.
Then Horn Chips interpreted Black Horse's vision, saying
that Black Horse would become heyoka also. Black Horse
continued to learn from Horn Chips until he became a powerful
healer himself.
Originally,
Chief Lip's camp was east of Pass Creek on the Rosebud
Reservation. It was in the vicinity of Eagle Nest Butte,
an old site used for trapping eagles and a sacred site
used for vision quests, and the present community of Wanblee,
5 miles north of the Butte, that Chief Lip's band settled
around 1880. However, in the summer of 1890, the boundary
between Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservation was moved farther
east to the mouth of Black Pipe Creek, which placed Chief
Lip's camp on the Pine Ridge Reservation. While Lip's
band of Wajajes were technically Sicangu, they continued
to live and interact with Oglalas, even insisting that
they be counted on the Pine Ridge Rolls. This was the
home of Horn Chips, and he helped many people through
the night ceremony now referred to as yuwipi, until he
died in 1916.
Old
man Horn Chips had two sons, Ellis Chips and Joe Chips,
a cousin named Joe Ashley, and a half brother named Sam
Moves Camp, all of whom studied with Horn Chips and later
became powerful yuwipi men themselves. During this next
generation of yuwipi healers, others had also become prominent
yuwipi healers on Pine Ridge as well, such as George Flesh,
Willie Wounded, George Plenty Wolf, Mark Big Road, Frank
Fools Crow and John Iron Rope, just to name a few.
Grandpa
Ellis Chips and his wife Victoria had three sons, Charles,
Phillip and Godfrey.
—
HinTamaheca
The
Chipps family are having a bad time. They had some very
important bundles, including Crazy Horse's only possessions
and an ''unnamed" person sold them back when Unci
passed on. They are in the East, well South East I guess
you would say. Not good. I know where and who they are
with and we need to get them back here. They are unhappy
and this is why bad things are happening to certain people.
According to most full blood, traditional elders around
here, after Pete and Frank Fools Crow passed, there are
no true Sundances left. None of them are done properly
anymore.
—
Miyelo