A long trench was dug and into it were thrown all the bodies, piled one upon another like so much cordwood, until the pit was full, when the earth was heaped over them and the funeral was complete ([plate c]). Many of the bodies were stripped by the whites, who went out in order to get the “ghost shirts,” and the frozen bodies were thrown into the trench stiff and naked. They were only dead Indians. As one of the burial party said, “It was a thing to melt the heart of a man, if it was of stone, to see those little children, with their bodies shot to pieces, thrown naked into the pit.” The dead soldiers had already been brought in and buried decently at the agency. When the writer visited the spot the following winter, the Indians had put up a wire fence around the trench and smeared the posts with sacred red medicine paint ([plate ci]).
PL. CI
GRAVE OF THE DEAD AT WOUNDED KNEE
Fig. 81—Survivors of Wounded Knee—Jennie Sword (1891).
A baby girl of only three or four months was found under the snow, carefully wrapped up in a shawl, beside her dead mother, whose body was pierced by two bullets. On her head was a little cap of buckskin, upon which the American flag was embroidered in bright beadwork. She had lived through all the exposure, being only slightly frozen, and soon recovered after being brought into the agency. Her mother being killed, and, in all probability, her father also, she was adopted by General Colby, commanding the Nebraska state troops. The Indian women in camp gave her the poetic name of Zitkala-noni, “Lost Bird,” and by the family of her adoption she was baptized under the name of Marguerite ([figure 80]). She is now (1896) living in the general’s family at Washington, a chubby little girl 6 years of age, as happy with her dolls and playthings as a little girl of that age ought to be.
Another little girl about 5 years of age was picked up on the battlefield and brought in by the Indian police on the afternoon of the fight. She was adopted by George Sword, captain of the Indian police, and is now living with him under the name of Jennie Sword, a remarkably pretty little girl, gentle and engaging in her manners ([figure 81]).
Fig. 82—Survivors of Wounded Knee—Herbert Zitkalazi (1892).