Bloody Knife (Sioux:Tamena Way Way or Tamina WeWe; Arikara:Nes I Ri Pat or Nee si Ra Pat; ca. 1840 – June 25, 1876) was an American Indian who served as a scout and guide for the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment. He was the favorite scout of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and has been called "perhaps the most famous Native American scout to serve the U.S. Army."
Bloody Knife was born to a Hunkpapa Sioux father and an Arikara mother around 1840. He was abused and discriminated against by the other Sioux in his village because of his background, in particular by Gall, a future chief. When Bloody Knife was a teenager, he left his village with his mother to live with the Arikara tribe. His brothers were killed during a Sioux raid led by Gall in 1862. Bloody knife found employment as a courier and hunter for the American Fur Company and later served under Alfred Sully before scouting for George Custer on several military expeditions. He died from a bullet wound to the head on June 25, 1876 during the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Read more about Bloody Knife: Early Life, First Years As A Scout, Friendship and Early Work With Custer, Black Hills Expedition, Death At The Battle of Little Bighorn, Legacy
Famous quotes containing the words bloody and/or knife:
“The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of the snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones of his prey in the coil of the anaconda,—these are in the system, and our habits like theirs. You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughter-house is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity, expensive races,—race living at the expense of race.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Why use an ox-slaughtering knife to kill chickens?”
—Chinese proverb.