On June 25, 1876, Lt. Col. George Custer and his troops confronted the Northern Plains Indians, who were defending their right to their land, in the Battle of the Little Bighorn—known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass. Custer and more than 200 soldiers died in the conflict now known as Custer’s Last Stand. This beaded antelope hide illustrates the victory of Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors over U.S. federal troops, as told from a Lakota perspective. An unknown artist made it in the early 1990s in the style of 19th-century ledger art. At the time, it was uncommon for commercial work to depict the Indigenous point of view. In the lower right quadrant, there’s a figure in a maroon top with white dots (representing elk teeth/hunting prowess) believed to be a woman warrior, a respected individual within Plains tribes. Installed in the Alcoa Foundation Hall of American Indians in 2018, the hide was donated to the Museum of Natural History by Lester Becker in memory of his late wife, Joan Becker, a retired librarian and friend of the museum who volunteered in the anthropology department for 13 years.
Victory, from the Lakota’s Perspective
On June 25, 1876, Lt. Col. George Custer and his troops confronted the Northern Plains Indians, who were defending their right to their land, in the Battle of the Little
