Sitting Bull Was Converted

[add]

the man had two wives before the conversion, he did accept the faith, he could not get rid of one wife.
the famous picture of sitting bull is cropped, big time

here is the unedited copy [img]http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d160/wisper3/300_En-chief-sitting-bull.jpg[/img]

note; the Catholic cross here wares ( often left out of the history books)

[AccountDeleted]

Wow - never knew this!

[Byzantine]

Very interesting...

[add]

His conversion into possibly becoming a Catholic makes a small headline in the [i]New York Times [/i]from a story on September 27, 1883, “An unforeseen obstacle to his (Sitting Bull’s) reception has been met in the shape of two wives, neither of whom Sitting Bull can make up his mind to part with.” The article concludes, “Until the red man brings himself to put aside one or the other of his marital companions he will be debarred entrance.”
Thus, he still wasn’t a Catholic in late 1883 according to the [i]NY Times [/i]article, which references Bishop Marty’s efforts to convert him as well: “[T]he famous warrior’s reception into the church, will be delayed for a time, it ever takes place. Sitting Bull is at Fort Yates where he has been under the instruction of Bishop Marty for a long time.”

[CatherineM]

Maybe he was waiting until one of them died. The Canadian government is letting in refugees with more than one wife. They don't want someone to have to choose to stay in a war zone or leave a wife behind.

[MithLuin]

Thank you, [b]add[/b]. If anyone would like to read more, go here: [url="http://catholiclane.com/was-chief-sitting-bull-a-catholic/"]Was Chief Sitting Bull a Catholic?[/url]

Also, as for the 'cropping' business: There are a lot of pictures of Sitting Bull, apparently. Recall that he spent about 4 months with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. And so....in some pictures he wears a crucifix, and in some he does not. It is true that [i]this[/i] picture is not the one most commonly shown in history textbooks! But that doesn't mean the ones that [i]are[/i] shown have been doctored in any way to avoid portraying Sitting Bull wearing a crucifix.

[b]Catherine[/b], that very well may be the case, but Sitting Bull and (most of his family) died in a shoot out with the authorities, so that never came to pass. It is possible he was baptized and there is simply no record of it, but...there is no record of it.

Edited January 1, 2012 by MithLuin

[AccountDeleted]

I wonder why he didn't choose to live with one as wife and another as a Josephite marriage? He hadn't married either of them in the Church so he could have just regularised one of them, but still allowed the other to be part of the household. Or is this too naive?

[MithLuin]

It probably wasn't an option he was willing to consider, nor would the missionaries have been willing to accept that. Later in his life, it was [i]illegal[/i] to have two wives, and he lost his position on the reservation on account of it. If the Church had allowed him to enter without putting aside one of the wives (ie, keeping her in the household)...I could see that being an issue. He had (over the course of his life) 5 different wives, apparently, so the others either died or were put aside.

But then....I honestly have no idea what sorts of conversations he had with the Jesuit priest and Benedictine bishop as to how one would go about entering the Church. I wouldn't trust the NYT reporter to have the most accurate story, either!

[mysisterisalittlesister]

razzle dazzle!

[i<3franciscans]

That is so razzle dazzle! Thanks for the picture!

[Ash Wednesday]

From a typesetter and graphic designer's point of view, any cropping of the crucifix in that picture may not have always been done deliberately with the purpose of obscuring the crucifix, but rather to just have his head and shoulders visible and save space for layout purposes.

Being a graphic designer myself, I just thought of some old chap back in the day scratching his head in front of the printing press and trying to figure out how he was going to fit everything given to him on a page.

[Clare~Therese]

I didn't know that.
Razzle dazzle.

[add]

[quote name='Ash Wednesday' timestamp='1325451110' post='2361300']
From a typesetter and graphic designer's point of view, any cropping of the crucifix in that picture may not have always been done deliberately with the purpose of obscuring the crucifix, but rather to just have his head and shoulders visible and save space for layout purposes.

Being a graphic designer myself, I just thought of some old chap back in the day scratching his head in front of the printing press and trying to figure out how he was going to fit everything given to him on a page.
[/quote]

i don't think your correct, native people at the time of the photo where portrayed as savages , thereby justifying there extermination.

[Ash Wednesday]

[quote name='add' timestamp='1325454741' post='2361332']
i don't think your correct, native people at the time of the photo where portrayed as savages , thereby justifying there extermination.
[/quote]

I wasn't trying to offer one "go-to" answer on that, but okay.

Edited January 1, 2012 by Ash Wednesday

[MithLuin]

Regardless of how native people in general were viewed at the time, Chief Sitting Bull was a celebrity whose name was known around the country. His picture was desirable, and people paid him for his signature.

The people who design elementary and high school textbooks came along much later. They probably didn't view Native Americans as savages, and were rather interested in teaching kids to see more to the story than that. [I'm picking textbooks that were written recently enough for any of us to have seen.]

Soooooo....there's a few options.

[list]1) The picture used didn't have Sitting Bull wearing a cross or crucifix, so the discussion is moot.
2) The picture did originally include a plain cross (no corpus) or crucifix, but was cropped so students could see the expression on his face rather than his feather.
3) The picture did include the crucifix, but this was cropped to avoid portraying Sitting Bull as a Catholic (or Catholic sympathizer).
3a. This was done because the nefarious textbook people hate Catholics.
3b. This was done because the textbook people didn't want to get into the complicated relationship between the Catholic missionaries and the native people at the level of elementary/middle/high school (They probably didn't tell the kiddies he had more than one wife, either). [/list]


Basically, there's only one option that makes this something to get upset over, and lots of explanations that make the absence of this photo from your kids' history book an innocent enough occurrence and the introduction of it into this thread a neat sidenote rather than a conspiracy unmasked.