Day 82

Custer's Last Stand

Jul 27, 2013, 12:14 PM

We went to the Little Big Horn Battlefield and took a bus tour given by the Native Americans. It was very good! There was a very nice girl giving the tour and she did a wonderful job. I find it so hard to believe this girl can give this tour and not become enraged at the atrocities suffered by the Indians. I become angry hearing how white Europeans thought everything they saw they had a God given right to posses, then the government comes along and creates and treaties only to break them time after time. To think the order was given to slaughter women and children, I saw Custer and his gang got what they deserved, and this tour guide eluded to the fact that because this battle was such a resounding defeat of the government forces, it was ultimately the Native American's undoing. 

The scenery is so pretty and we are driving to Pompey's Pillar now so I'll be sure to tell you all about it. 

Pompey's Pillar was really pretty cool. This is where William Clark carved his name and the date into a large sandstone outcropping that the Indians used to use as a landmark. This is the only remaining physical evidence of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. It is so humbling to stand where history was made. Good history too, nothing horrible. So we watched a movie, and climbed the stairs to see for ourselves where Captain William Clark with his own hand wrote his name while on the expedition decreed by Thomas Jefferson. Pompey's Pillar was named such for Sacajawea's baby who came along with her on the expedition. In the movie we saw at the Visitor's Center, they said that Pomp was the nickname the expedition gave the baby and it meant "dances around", in the pamphlet we got at the gate it said they nicknamed the baby Pomp which means "little chief", then in research I did on the Internet to see which was right it said they nicknamed the baby Pomp which means "first born". It seems the more I read the more the questions I had. So what the Native American Indians used to call "where the mountain lion lies" was renamed by Clark Pompey's Tower, after Sacajawea's son, Jean Baptiste, then later renamed Pompey's Pillar as it is known today. 

It was wonderful and after that we made a trek to a Walmart in Billings. There is nothing and I mean nothing where we are. So we made a Walmart trip, my husband bought a steak, and we came home and he made me dinner. I have a wonderful life and a wonderful husband. Tomorrow we are off to the Wolf Mountains for a look see. Don't you worry, I'll let you know how that goes.