Photo by Alexander Gardner, 1872

Many Horns (“He Ota”) was a Cut Head band chief of the Upper Yanktonais, who roamed in the late 1870ies the upper Missouri and even Milk River region in Montana. His band settled – at least for a time – at the Fort Peck/Poplar River Agency.

In 1872 he was one of the Yanktonais leaders who travelled to Washington with Yanktonais head chiefs Two Bears and Big Head.

Only a few Yanktonais fought in the Sioux War of 1876. But they skirmished a lot with tribes like the Gros Ventre (Atsina), the Upper Assiniboines and the Crows. In February 1878 for example Yanktonais belonging to Many Horns band stole twelve horses from a Gros Ventre camp and eleven from Little Chief´s Assiniboines. Many Horns refused to return the horses when scouts of Fort Belknap (the Gros Ventre/Assiniboine agency) came to his camp on Milk River.

In 1879 he attended with his following a Sioux sun dance at Fort Walsh in Canada. — Dietmar Schulte-Möhring