Song of Dewey Beard: Last Survivor of the Little Bighorn

by Philip Burnham

The resistance of great Native American warriors to the U.S. government in the war against the Plains Indians is a well-known chapter in the story of the American West. In the aftermath of the great resistance, as the Indian nations recovered from war, many figures loomed heroic, yet their stories are mostly unknown. This long-overdue biography of Dewey Beard (ca. 1862–1955), a Lakota who witnessed the Battle of Little Bighorn and survived the Wounded Knee Massacre, chronicles a remarkable life that can be traced through major historical events from the late nineteenth into the mid-twentieth century.

Beard was not only a witness to two major events involving the Lakota; he also traveled with William “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Wild West show, worked as a Hollywood Indian, and witnessed the grand transformation of the Black Hills into a tourism mecca. Beard spent most of his later life fighting to reclaim his homeland and acting as an advocate for his family and his people. With a keen eye for detail and a true storyteller’s talent, Philip Burnham presents the man behind the legend of Dewey Beard and shows how the life of the last survivor of Little Bighorn provides a glimpse into the survival of indigenous America.


 

Genres: Biography, Indigenous

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I probably expected too much from this book. I had hoped for some insight from yet another Little Big Horn combatant, since it seems that I have a limitless hunger for information on the topic. Sadly, I found that this book fell short of my expectations.

Full points to Philip Burnham for writing the book; he is a very good writer who was limited by the scarcity of good first-hand information. He has an obvious passion for the subject but I think he was frustrated by a paucity of documentary information and also by oral sources that might be termed shaky, at best.

Dewey Beard certainly merits the scrutiny of a good biographer. As a teenager he claims to have fought Custer's troops at Little Big Horn, although some have questioned this. The Sioux, it seems, did not keep birth certificates or pay stubs and were prone to changing their names seemingly on a whim. Beard was previously known as Iron Hail and Many Wounded Holes and a couple of other aliases so this understandably can be the source of confusion for anyone trying to piece together the story of a warrior's life. What is certain is that Beard was a survivor of Wounded Knee, albeit a well-ventilated survivor as witnessed by his subsequent name Many Wounded Holes.

After Wounded Knee he attempted to settle down and live a strife-free life. He had his land confiscated for little or no compensation a couple of times, preventing him from getting a decent start as a rancher. He worked for Bill Cody's Wild West show, playing the part of an Indian. He also had some bit parts in early movies playing...you guessed it....an Indian. Beard went on to live and die in relative obscurity. He had some minor celebrity as the last man standing from Little Big Horn and a couple of times a year he would get the call to don his regalia and be put on display.

What caused me to smoulder during this book was that no one before Burnham seems to have cared enough to put this man's life into print, and now Burnham was conducting interviews with many "relatives" with few or no blood ties to Beard and who were relying on memory. One contributor last saw Beard at the age of 4 years but claims perfect memory of him; another (or possibly the same) contributor claimed to have more grandfathers than you could count on one hand! Either the person wasn't familiar with the definition of "grandfather" or that must have been one wild night for Grandma!

The book is nicely illustrated with photographs of Beard and his family, and one of Beard at a very old age dressed in spotless regalia with his headdress is particularly striking. A portrait of a man who just wanted to mind his own business, but if you want to start something...hey, he wouldn't mind kicking your ass.

Dewey Beard, warrior, showman, statesman....deserved better than this. Someone should have started writing this book 75 years ago.

[Paul Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philip Burnham, now of George Mason University and a former reporter for Indian Country Today, made several years of summer trips to South Dakota, where he met, established relationships, and gathered stories from descendants of the Lakota warrior Dewey Beard. Burnham also draws on an interview conducted with the old Lakota shortly before he died. Dewey died in 1955, a man in his 90s who survived both Little Big Horn in 1876 and the massacre of his village, including much of his own family, at Wounded Knee in 1890. Like other natives, among them Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, and Geronimo, he performed in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Shows around the turn of the 20th century. As late as the early 1950s, when Dewey was very old, he took bit parts in Western movies.

One of the most striking things about the life of this man who was born into the twilight of his people's freedom on the Great Plains is the sheer range of his experience, the stunning array of circumstances he was forced to adapt to over the course of his life. In the early 20th century, he lived on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He and his wife were forced from their allotment when the U. S. Army seized a large portion of Pine Ridge for bombing practice. In the 1930s he sometimes went to tourist areas and allowed those passing through to have themselves photographed with him. He never learned English, never learned to read or write.

As an expression of who he was as a Lakota warrior, the tragic, hellish day at Wounded Knee stands out. Burnham writes, in part trying to make sense of conflicting accounts, including Dewey Beard's own account (Lakota warriors were expected to relate tales of battle):

One can only guess at the guilt he carried as a survivor--and how that shaped his memory. Did the death of loved ones lead him to inflate his own valor, if only as a defense against a crushing loss? The irony of Beard's heroism at Wounded Knee is that recalling it couldn't have given him much satisfaction; it yielded only the most bitter of memories, which one wouldn't expect from a show of extraordinary courage. If we believe his account, and we have good reason to, his finest hour as a warrior was his darkest one as a husband, son, and brother. [A reference to members of his family killed that day.] On that worst of all possible days, he did what a warrior is trained to do and what his father had asked of him.

[Steven Howes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books that, while I enjoyed it a great deal, I wouldn't recommend to just anyone or to casual readers in general. It is a scholarly work that is most likely intended for those interested in the history of the American West.

Dewey Beard (Putinhin or Wazu Maza) was a unique individual. He was a Lakota Indian born around 1858 during the last years of the Buchanan administration and died in 1955 as Disneyland was just being opened. During his life, he participated in buffalo hunts, was present at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, was exiled in Canada with Sitting Bull, was shot five times at the Wounded Knee Massacre, and rode with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. While this may seem like an exciting and interesting life, Dewey lost his wife, child, parents and two brothers at Wounded Knee, buried all of his children before he himself passed away, had his allotment on the Pine Ridge Reservation seized by the War Department in 1942, and tried to win compensation for his losses from a resistant federal bureaucracy. He lived out the remainder of his life in poverty trying to eke out a living posing for photographs with tourists.

The Song of Dewey Beard seemed more like a funeral dirge to me; not only for Dewey but also for the Lakota People in general who continue to survive even though they have been robbed of their culture and possessions by a seeming uncaring federal government.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my case I was watching him program on “Custer’s Last Stand and decided to read a book about it. When I was looking at books read, “Song of Dewey Beard: Last Survivor of the Little Bighorn” is the book that came up. Dewey Beard was at the Little Bighorn and also at Wounded Knee. One would expect the book to be about Indian battles, but it was more about an Indian’s survival over a long life. Dewey Beard is a unique individual who has seen much and also had to deal with the harshness of being an Indian. The book tells us much more about how the Indians were treated the US Government and their lifestyle since Custer’s last stand. The story is very interesting, but sad.

[Gail Siqueiros · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book. It often quotes Leonard Little Finger. My first job out of college was working as an RN on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation at the Indian Health Service Hospital. Leonard was the hospital administrator at the time. I actually moved into the apartment he used to live in. He was a quiet, kind person. I never knew of his family lineage before reading the book. This is something, that at the time, he never spoke about. I enjoyed the description of Wounded Knee sacred site and the reservation in general. It took me back in time to a very happy place in my life . Prior to reading this book, I knew nothing about Dewey Beard. It was well written and held my interest.

[Jessica McMahon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't a book about Little Bighorn or the Wounded Knee Massacre, it is the story of a man. He was at both, but really they were just two days in his life. This book shows in great detail the process of taking Lakota people's culture away from them as they tried to force integration. It details the many ways our government broke treaties and took land and support away form the Lakota. In the end, Putinhin was jobless, landless and without any way to support himself. A fascinating read.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book. The treatment of the Lakota's by the government is very sad. If your looking for a story about Custer and the Little Bighorn you will be very disappointed as that is a very tiny piece of the book.

[Claudia Mundell · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I wondered how another book about the Little Big Horn would play...but this is a great book. Dewey survived much more than just the Little Big Horn. He was also at Wounded Knee and that account alone will bread a reader's heart.

[James G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story should be required knowledge for every American, whether this book or any other source.