Eske willerslev og sitting bull biography

Brave people who die in the fight against injustice and superior forces sometimes end up winning in the long run – in the history books.

That’s how it is with Tatanka-Iyotanka, better known as the Native American leader and military leader Sitting Bull (1831-1890), who led some 1,500 Lakota warriors at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 and wiped out US General Custer and five companies of soldiers.

A blood-soaked feat – also known as ‘the Battle of the Greasy Grass’ – that will forever symbolise the resistance of Native Americans to the white man’s insatiable appetite for empire-building.

Sitting Bull was assassinated in 1890 by the so-called Indian Police, who were acting on behalf of the US government – and presumably they assumed that by doing so they would prevent him ever again playing a leading role in identity politics.

But things went just the opposite way, because since 1890, popular fascination with the st