Touch the Clouds (Lakota: Maȟpíya Ičáȟtagya or Maȟpíya Íyapat’o) (c. 1838 – September 5, 1905) was a chief of the Minneconjou Teton Lakota (also known as Sioux) known for his bravery and skill in battle, physical strength and for his diplomacy in counsel. The youngest son of Lone Horn, he was brother to Spotted Elk, Frog, and Roman Nose. There is evidence suggesting that he was a cousin to Crazy Horse.
When Touch the Clouds's Wakpokinyan band split in the mid-1870s, the band traveled to the Cheyenne River Agency. He assumed the leadership of the band in 1875 after the death of his father, and retained leadership during the initial period of the Great Sioux War of 1876-77. After the Battle of the Little Bighorn, he took the band north, eventually surrendering at the Spotted Tail Agency, where he enlisted in the Indian Scouts. However, not long after being present at the death of Crazy Horse, Touch the Clouds transferred with his band back to the Cheyenne River Agency.
Touch the Clouds became one of the new leaders of the Minneconjou at the Cheyenne River Agency in 1881, keeping his position until his death on September 5, 1905. Upon his death his son, Amos Charging First, took over as the new chief.
Read more about Touch The Clouds: Rise To Leadership, Great Sioux War of 1876–77, The Cheyenne River Reservation
Famous quotes containing the words touch the, touch and/or clouds:
“The sick do not ask if the hand that smoothes their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“What are you now? If we could touch one another,
if these our separate entities could come to grips,
clenched like a Chinese puzzle . . . yesterday
I stood in a crowded street that was live with people,
and no one spoke a word, and the morning shone.
Everyone silent, moving. . . . Take my hand. Speak to me.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)
“My mother, who hates thunderstorms,
Holds up each summer day and shakes
It out suspiciously, lest swarms
Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)