Curly - Life

Life

Ashishishe was born in approximately 1856 in Montana Territory, the son of Strong Bear (Inside the Mouth) and Strikes By the Side of the Water. His name, variously rendered as Ashishishe, Shishi'esh, etc., literally means "the Crow". He resided on the Crow Reservation in the vicinity of Pryor Creek, and married Bird Woman. He enlisted in the U.S. Army as an Indian scout on April 10, 1876. He served with the 7th Cavalry Regiment under George Armstrong Custer, and was with them at the Battle of Little Bighorn in June of that year, along with fellow Crow warriors White Man Runs Him, Goes Ahead, Hairy Moccasin and others. Curly and the other scouts did not participate in the battle, but were ordered away before the fighting began. Curly evidently watched the battle from a distance, and, seeing Custer's defeat was imminent, rode off to report the news.

A day or two after the battle Curly found an army supply boat at the confluence of the Bighorn and Little Bighorn Rivers. He was the first to report the 7th's defeat, using a combination of sign language, drawings, and an interpreter. Curly did not claim to have fought in the battle, but this first report was accurate, leading historians to believe he had been present at Little Bighorn but to have witnessed it from a distance. He was sought out by historians and the media, and two of the most influential historians of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Walter Mason Camp (who interviewed Curly on several occasions) and John S. Gray, accepted Curly's early account. Later, however, when accounts of "Custer's Last Stand" began to circulate in the media, a legend grew that Curly had actively participated in the battle but had managed to escape. Later on, Curly himself stopped denying the legend, and offered more elaborate accounts in which he fought with the 7th, and had avoided death by disguising himself as a Lakota warrior, leading to conflicting accounts of his involvement.

Curly later lived on the Crow Reservation on the bank of the Little Bighorn River, close to the site of the battle. He served in the Crow Police. He divorced Bird Woman in 1886, and married Takes a Shield. Curly had one daughter, Awakuk Korita ha Sakush ("Bird of Another Year"), who took the English name Nora. For his Army service Curly received a U.S. pension as of 1920. He died of pneumonia in 1923, and his remains were interred in the National Cemetery at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, only a mile from his home.