Hearing Witness: The Wičhówoyake of Matȟó Nážiŋ’s Little Bighorn Muslins

Abstract

Mnikhówožu Lakȟóta community leader, warrior, and artist Matȟó Nážiŋ (Standing Bear) testified to his experience of the Battle of the Little Bighorn on many occasions, in both words and images. The circa 1920 work by Matȟó Nážiŋ in the Charles and Valerie Diker Collection of Native American Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art vividly details the events of June 25, 1876, the day he and other members of Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Seven Council Fires), along with their Tsistsistas (Northern Cheyenne) and Hinono’ei (Arapaho) allies, defended their families against the illegal attack led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and the U.S. Seventh Cavalry (fig. 1). This confrontation, dubbed “Custer ’s Last Stand” in U.S. popular culture, is referred to by Lakȟótas as the Battle of Phežísla Wakpá (the