Saturday Fort Laramie ceremony honors Indian woman
JOHN MORGAN Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Friday, June 24, 2005 12:00 am
FORT LARAMIE - One hundred thirty-nine years ago, an Indian warrior and an Army colonel met here for a funeral and forged such a strong bond that the two men became champions for peace.
The funeral was for Mni Akuwin, the 17-year-old daughter of Sinte Gleska (Spotted Tail), who was the leader of the Burnt Thigh Lakota tribe. Mni Akuwin (pronounced min-NEE ah-KOO-ee) was fascinated by the ways of white people, especially the military life, and enjoyed living at Fort Laramie - despite her father's frustrations with the Army.
She often pleaded with her father to make peace with the whites, but it wasn't until her untimely death that he decided to honor her wish to be buried at the fort among non-Indians.
On Saturday, ancestors of Spotted Tail and Col. Henry A. Maynadier will meet at the Fort Laramie National Historic Site to unveil a new wayside exhibit celebrating the lives of those three people - and hold a combined Christian/Indian burial ceremony to reinter remains thought to belong to Mni Akuwin.
The fort will also celebrate the 156th anniversary of the founding of the military post.
Long overdue
Victor Douville, a professor at the Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, has done extensive research on Mni Akuwin, Spotted Tail and Col. Maynadier.
"This wayside exhibit is long overdue," Douville said. "As we look at (the history of Indian/U.S. government relations), this is one of the moments that had great impacts."
Despite witnessing a massacre of her people at a young age, Mni Akuwin enjoyed the ceremonial glitter of military parades and was known for watching the business traffic at the fort's store for hours from a nearby bench.
"Mni Akuwin was a loafer, one of the tribal members who hung around the fort and integrated with the whites," Douville said. "She was hooked into materialism and technology."
Born in 1848 and described as tall, beautiful and strong-willed, Mni Akuwin was a young woman caught between two cultures. It is rumored by many that she refused to marry Indian suitors and that she even told her father she wanted to marry an Army captain, probably because of her frequent visits to the fort.
Douville calls these rumors far-fetched, saying that a secret affair between two people with different ethnic backgrounds would be next to impossible to hide.
Nevertheless, Mni Akuwin had always enjoyed spending time at the fort and told her father and others that she wanted to be buried there.
On Feb. 22, 1866, she died from complications of tuberculosis. The harsh winter, rigors of war activities and close escapes from the U.S. Cavalry took their toll. Spotted Tail, who was contemplating signing a peace treaty with the United States, found that his daughter's death played an important part in his decision.
"His daughter had a tremendous impact on him," Douville said. She had tried to persuade him to consider peaceful relationships, but many of his own tribal council members were reluctant to trust the United States again.
An open-minded colonel
Shortly after her death, Col. Maynadier received word that Mni Akuwin had died and that her father was coming to the fort. Maynadier, an 1851 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., had known Mni Akuwin at the fort and had been commander of Fort Laramie up until a month before her death.
At the time of her death, Maynadier had been promoted to overall commander of the 5th United States Volunteers and was charged with establishing peace with the "hostile" tribes in his region.
"Wishing to do him honor as being one of the principal chiefs of the nation, and on account of the peculiar circumstances of his visit, I rode out with several soldiers and met him halfway between the fort and the Platte (River)," Maynadier wrote in his report.
"I sympathized deeply in his affliction, and felt honored by his confidence in committing to my care the remains of a child whom I knew he loved much," he wrote.
Maynadier told Spotted Tail that "everything should be prepared to have her funeral at sunset, and as the sun went down, it might remind him of the darkness left in his lodge when his beloved daughter was taken away, but as the sun would surely rise again, so she would rise, and someday we would all meet in the land of the Great Spirit."
For some time, Spotted Tail was overcome with emotion and could not speak. Tears fell from his eyes, which was rare for an Indian, Maynadier thought. After taking Maynadier's hand, Spotted Tail spoke in an "eloquent oration."
"This must be a dream for me to be in such a fine room and surrounded by such as you," Spotted Tail said. "Have I been asleep during the last four years of hardship and trial and dreaming that all is well again, or is this real? Yes, I see that it is, the beautiful day, the sky blue, without a cloud, the wind calm and still to suit the errand I come on and remind me that you have offered me peace."
Honoring the past
The combined Christian/Indian burial ceremony was "unheard of at the time," said Charles Stehle, 71, of Philadelphia. Stehle, who is the great-great nephew of Col. Maynadier, visited Fort Laramie in 2001 and thought of having a wayside exhibit.
"When I saw the fort, I was interested in reacquainting my family with the Spotted Tail family," he said.
Stehle helped prove to the National Park Service that Mni Akuwin's funeral was a historically significant event because of the relationship it created between the two leaders. The 12 local tribes were notified, and no one had any objections to the wayside exhibit.
"After the funeral, both men became less warrior-like and more peaceful," Stehle said. "Both men were criticized by their people for being too soft on the enemy."
But their interactions at the funeral deeply affected both men, strongly contributing to a trust that led to the signing of the 1868 peace treaty.
When relatives of Spotted Tail's family heard about the wayside exhibit, they were excited.
"Maynadier had incredible foresight and generosity to see that he could help a grieving man and his family begin the conciliatory process," said Trudell Guerue, an ancestor of Spotted Tail. "It was a courageous thing to do."
Guerue, who lives in a suburb of St. Paul, Minn., finds the history of the exhibit and its emotions to be beautiful.
Guerue and Stehle will both speak at Saturday's ceremonies, as well as a Lakota holy man and an Episcopal priest, in a combined Christian/Indian ceremony similar to the unusual service held for Mni Akuwin in 1866. There will also be a ceremonial rifle salute by the Lakota Honor Guard and a ceremonial cannon salute by the Fort Laramie Crew.
Mni Akuwin was originally buried in a pine coffin that was placed on top of a tall scaffold. Two of her horses were killed and their heads and tails were placed on the poles. The scaffold stood for about 10 years before falling to the elements, at which time Spotted Tail retrieved her remains and had them reburied in Nebraska.
The University of Wyoming Heritage Center found an ankle bone thought to belong to Mni Akuwin at the site of the original scaffold. The bone will be reburied in the same area during the ceremony, near the old fort hospital.
Saturday's events, which run all day, are free and open to the public.
Assistant State Editor John Morgan can be reached at (307) 266-0614 or john.morgan@casperstartribune.net.