Kicking Bear (1853-1904)

edited by
Black, Jason Edward

2007

Voices of Democracy: The U. S. Oratory Project

Department of Communication,
2130 Skinner Building,
University of Maryland,
College Park, MD 21774
USA

Brief notes on the text are included in the editorial
declaration of this header.

Kicking Bear. Address at the Council Meeting of the Hunkpapa Sioux, Great Sioux Reservation. In My Friend the Indian. Ed., James McLaughlin (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1910): 185-189. [=A]
Kicking Bear. “I Bring You Word From Your Fathers the Ghosts.” In Indian Oratory: Famous Speeches by Noted Indian Chieftains. Ed., W.C. Vanderwerth. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971: 244-248. [=B]

The copy-text is from James McLaughlin 1910 book entitled, My Friend the Indian. Within this book, McLaughlin anthologizes Kicking Bear’s October 9, 1890, address along with several other Native speeches given in the late nineteenth century. He also provides an explanation of his involvement in the transcription process: “I set the matter down at the time in the words of Kicking Bear, as repeated by Short Bull, and here it is” (185). This selection was based on the plausible efficacy of the delivered speech, as it is the oldest-known iteration of the speech. McLaughlin’s 1910 book is out of print. No known archival record exists prior to McLaughlin 1910. See Kicking Bear. Address at the Council Meeting of the Hunkpapa Sioux, Great Sioux Reservation. In My Friend the Indian. Ed., James McLaughlin (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1910): 185-189.

Nineteenth-century Native speeches were recorded by either American Indian translators or by agents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. When recorded by an American Indian translator, speeches tended to be published in popular presses by European Americans associated with the speaker’s nation. Short Bull, a Sioux translator, recorded Kicking Bear’s speech and provided his translation to James McLaughlin, a U.S. agent assigned to the Sioux Nation who was familiar with Kicking Bear. When recorded directly by European American agents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, speeches were typically stored in the Department of Interior, Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1793-1989 at the National Archives. A search of the Department of Interior, Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1793-1989 at the National Archives, as well as a similar search in the on-line Archival Research Catalog (ARC) of the National Archives, yielded no copy of Kicking Bear’s speech.

The text of this edition has been thoroughly checked and proofread. All double quotations are rendered with “, all single quotations with an apostrophe ‘. This copy-text is not subject to end-of-line hyphenation. Paragraph numbers have been added in square brackets.

The text contained in this unit reflects the version of the speech as published by James McLaughlin. No alterations were made to the speech text.

Standard date values are given in ISO form: yyyy-mm-dd.

Characteristics of interpretation of this edition are as follows:

Proper names are not marked.
Dates are not marked.
Emphasis is marked without interpretation.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Library of Congress Classification

09 October 1890
Council Meeting of the Hunkpapa Sioux
Great Sioux Reservation

English

Indians of North America, United States

E75-99

2006-04-25

VOD Associate Editor
Gaines, Robert N.

Created TEI header and xml conformant file. Validated on 25 March 2006 in XMetal 3.1.3 against teixlite.dtd (version 2004-07-16)

2007-07-31

editor
Black, Jason Edward

data entry and proof-reading of electronic copy-text

2007-07-31

editor
Black, Jason Edward

collation of electronic copy-text with other versions

2007-07-31

editor
Black, Jason Edward

editing of electronic text

2007-07-31

editor
Black, Jason Edward

proof-reading of edited electronic text