Page 29 - Sorrow of the Earth: Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull and the Tragedy of Show Business

THE WORLD’S L AST PILGRIMS will be wretched groups of individuals, peoples
driven from their lands, men and women who have been deported or cast
aside. Long lines of dead people. And so, in Dakota, after a fierce campaign
by the ranchers—who spread rumours about an Indian rebellion—tension had

palpably risen, and many Indians were planning to flee. The big stockbreeders
were hoping to frighten off the farmers who were settling the area in ever
greater numbers and whose land was breaking up their vast grazing grounds.
They rapidly armed a home guard and set about harassing the Indians.
Following a deadly ambush, which killed dozens of warriors, tension rose
again and General Nelson Miles ordered the arrest of Sitting Bull.
After one season with the Wild West Show, the Indian chief had

abandoned his acting career and returned to live among his own people in the
Grand River reserve. He was old now, and weary. And he wanted to end his
days here, in peace.

In the early hours of 15th December 1890, some forty Indian policemen
advanced at a trot to within a kilometre or so of Sitting Bull’s camp, and then
burst into the village at a gallop. Everyone was asleep. Ah! how we love the
early morning, the cool air, the great shafts of light on the earth’s stony

surface. But that morning, it wasn’t birds singing, it wasn’t a young girl
humming as she got dressed in the hut next door, it was the hooves of forty-
three horses that the drowsing villagers heard. Profit and the respect for power
were responding to the voice of God. History is dead. Scum is all that’s left.
There’s no mistaking the sound of iniquity on the move. General Miles is a
creator of examples, a technician of discipline. It’s daybreak. We’re outside
the Indian chief ’s cabin. Progress has no time to lose. The sun is shining. The

air is ice-cold. Mouths blow columns of mist. Someone shouts. Sitting Bull
emerges from his cabin. His face looks drained; the past reaches us devoid of
colour. When they tell him they’ve come to arrest him, he replies that he
needs time to get dressed, and that he’ll come with them.
The dogs howl. The light crackles. A few Indian warriors remonstrate with

the police officers. Very soon, there’s mayhem. People hurl abuse at the
police, there’s a scuffle; and at that point no one knows what happened.
Dramas sweep up their witnesses with them. A man produces a gun and fires.
A mouth quivers. Reality has vanished, everything is happening at once,