Sitting Bull's Pictographs - in Michigan?

[augusta]

I stumbled across information last spring that told of there being 12 pictographs of Sitting Bull's in the Fort St. Joseph museum in Niles, Michigan (extreme southwest Michigan). What in the world were they doing there, I wondered.

I went out there (I was chasing lighthouses on the western coast of Michigan) and, sure enough, they were there. They told the story of Sitting Bull's life. In the late 1800's a family from Niles, MI lived out at the fort he then lived close to. He made them for the little girl of the family, and when the family moved back to Niles, they brought them with them.

They are on like 8 1/2 x 11" pieces of paper and in great condition. Apparently every so often they alternate two of the real ones with two copies. I don't know why. They have signs by each one, and I spent two hours copying down what each one said. I was thinking this might make a good article. I was thinking it was probably a well-kept secret kind of thing.

Plus next to the exhibit there was this huge paper or hide (or canvas) where Rain-in-the-Face did a huge pictograph. (Rain-in-the-Face was the one that hated Tom Custer. He was wanted by the US Army, and Tom Custer saw him in a trading post or general store and threw a coat over him and caught him and turned him over. Rain-in-the-Face escaped from the jail and really hated Tom Custer. They say he swore to some day cut out his heart. At the Battle of the Little Bighorn, they say his heart wasn't cut out. He was mutilated (everyone except - was it Captain Keogh? - because he wore a Christian medal on his neck and the Indians thought it was too powerful a medicine to mess with). Even Custer was mutilated, though for years after the battle no one told about it because they didn't want to hurt Mrs. Custer. Anyway, Tom Custer was mutilated especially badly. His face could not be recognized, and he was identified by a tattoo on his arm of his initials.

Anyway, you weren't allowed to take photos of Sitting Bull's pictographs. But they would make you a copy of one of the copies and you could use it one time for $60.

I went around online to see if these pictographs were well-known or not, and it turns out that they have been in a great many articles. Sitting Bull's great grandson (or great, great) name is Ernie LaPointe, and he has written a biography of Sitting Bull (that of course I can't find now that I wanna cite the name of the book). I guess they wouldn't even let him take photos of them. So he had a Lakota friend repaint them to look like Sitting Bull's.

He goes to Niles every so often and gives talks about Sitting Bull. He goes all over the world, I guess, talking about the native Americans' rights and plight, and talks about Sitting Bull's true story that was handed down from generation to generation. If you google his name, a lot comes up.

You can see some of Sitting Bull's pictographs by going to the Library of Congress website.