Early Life: Buffalo Bull Facing The Wind
Plenty Coups was born into the Mountain Crow tribe in 1848 at the-cliffs-that-have-no-name (possibly near Billings, Montana), to his father Medicine-Bird and his mother Otter-woman. He was given the birth name Chíilaphuchissaaleesh, or "Buffalo Bull Facing The Wind".
At the time of his birth, the Crow nation's numbers had been decimated by smallpox from contact with white foreigners, reducing their population from between ten and fifteen thousand members down to around one- to two-thousand. Surrounding tribes took advantage of their reduced numbers and were incessantly attacking the Crows, in particular the Sioux. Additionally, all Indian nations, including the Crow, were under heavy pressure from foreigners who were exterminating bison and squeezing the various Indian nations together to compete for land and food, which created a peak of inter-tribal warfare at this time. Plenty Coups grew up facing perhaps the most difficult times his people had seen in many years, perhaps their history.
Read more about this topic: Plenty Coups
Famous quotes containing the words early, buffalo, bull, facing and/or wind:
“Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends—the few”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“As I started with her out of the city warmly enveloped in buffalo furs, I could not but think how nice it would be to drive on and on, so that nobody should ever catch us.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Not only the bull attacks his enemies with curved horn, but also the sheep, when harmed fights back.”
—Propertius Sextus (c. 50–16 B.C.)
“Biographical data, even those recorded in the public registers, are the most private things one has, and to declare them openly is rather like facing a psychoanalyst.”
—Italo Calvino (1923–1985)
“By measure. It was word and note,
The wind the wind had meant to be
A little through the lips and throat.
The aim was song the wind could see.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)