page_title: Flying Hawk
section_title: Wild Westing
hierarchical_section_title: Flying Hawk / Wild Westing
caption_attribution_description: English: Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and Congress of Rough Riders of the World - Circus poster showing cowboys rounding up cattle and portrait of Col. W.F. Cody on horseback.
context_page_description: Flying Hawk was an Oglala Lakota warrior, historian, educator and philosopher. Flying Hawk's life chronicles the history of the Oglala Lakota people through the 19th and early 20th centuries, as he fought to deflect the worst effects of white rule; educate his people and preserve sacred Oglala Lakota land and heritage. Chief Flying Hawk was a combatant in Red Cloud's War and in nearly all of the fights with the U.S. Army during the Great Sioux War of 1876. He fought alongside his first cousin Crazy Horse and his brothers Kicking Bear and Black Fox II in the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876, and was present at the death of Crazy Horse in 1877 and the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. Chief Flying Hawk was one of the five warrior cousins who sacrificed blood and flesh for Crazy Horse at the Last Sun Dance of 1877. Chief Flying Hawk was the author of his commentaries and accounts of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse and the Wounded Knee Massacre, and of Native American warriors and statesmen from who fought to protect their families, defend the invasion of their lands and preserve their culture.
context_section_description: In the late 1890s, Flying Hawk went Wild Westing with Buffalo Bill Cody. Wild Westing was very popular with the Lakota people and beneficial to their families and communities, and offered a path of opportunity and hope during time when people believed Native Americans were a vanishing race whose only hope for survival was rapid cultural transformation. Between 1887 and World War I, over 1,000 Native Americans went "Wild Westing" with Buffalo Bill's Wild West. Most Wild Westers were Oglala Lakota "Oskate Wicasa" from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the first Lakota people to go Wild Westing. During a time when the Bureau of Indian Affairs was intent on promoting Native assimilation, Col. Buffalo Bill Cody used his influence with U.S. government officials to secure Native American performers for his Wild West.
  
  Chief Flying Hawk was used to royal receptions in Europe and in America had been entertained by most of the dignitaries of the country." After Chief Iron Tail’s death on May 28, 1916, Chief Flying Hawk was chosen as successor by all of the braves of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and led the gala processions as the head Chief of the Indians. 
  "In the spectacular street parades of the great Wild West Shows of old days, Buffalo Bill mounted a beautiful white horse to lead the procession.  Alongside of him, mounted on a pinto pony, rode Flying Hawk in full regal style, carrying his feathered guidon erect and fluttering in the breeze, while his eagle-quill bonnet not only made a fitting crown but dangled below the stirrups of his saddle.  Scalp locks decorated his buckskin war-shirt, and beaded moccasins adorned his feet, for this was the becoming dress for, and carried out the dignity of his high office of Chief on gala day affairs."
  Only six months after Chief Iron Tail's death, Buffalo Bill died on January 10, 1917.  In a ceremony at Buffalo Bill's grave on Lookout Mountain, west of Denver, Colorado, Chief Flying Hawk laid his war staff of eagle feathers on the grave. Each of the veteran Wild Westers placed a Buffalo nickel on the imposing stone as a symbol of the Indian, the buffalo, and the scout, figures since the 1880s that were symbolic of the early history of the American West.
  Later, Flying Hawk traveled as a lead performer with Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Show and the Sells Floto Circus.  Chief Flying Hawk was probably the longest standing Wild Wester, traveling for over 30 years throughout the United States and Europe from about 1898 to about 1930.
caption: Most Wild Westers were Oglala Lakota "Oskate Wicasa" from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the first Lakota people to go Wild Westing.
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