Crow tribal members portraying Sioux and Cheyenne warriors cross the Little Bighorn River with the American and 7th Cavalry flags after defeating Gen. Custer in the Real Bird Battle of the Little Bighorn Reenactment Friday. (Casey Riffe/Billings Gazette)

The Battle of the Little Bighorn is known around the world.

On Friday afternoon, about 500 people from as far away as England came to the Real Bird Ranch, adjacent to the Little Bighorn Battle Monument, north of Garryowen, to see the battle for themselves. The Real Birds, members of the Crow Tribe, have put on the re-enactment for about 17 years.

Visitors sat in bleachers overlooking the Medicine Trail Coulee, near where Lt. Col. George Custer and the 7th Cavalry met decisive defeat on June 25, 1876. The brown Bighorn River drifted along lazily in the background.http://buffalopost.net/wp-admin/post-new.php

Authenticity is critical to the success of the re-enactment of the battle, said Ken Real Bird. Members of the cavalry wear uniforms and use firearms similar to the ones fired in the battle.

Those who portray the Cheyenne and Sioux warriors are only permitted to wear breechcloths and moccasins. Most paint themselves and their horses with symbols of red, white, yellow and black.

Between 70 and 80 people re-enact the roles of the soldiers, the warriors and tribal members. Friday’s presentatoin of the battle was choreographed by retired Lt. Col. Bobby Jolley, from Fort Lewis, Wash.

Steve Alexander, from Monroe, Mich., portrayed Custer. Frank Knows His Gun, a member of the Ogallala Sioux Tribe, portrayed Crazy Horse.

Want more? There’s a whole photo array, a schedule of events, and of course the rest of this most excellent story. Click here.

Gwen Florio

Mike Gates, a member of the Seneca Nation and former Big Island resident, returns to Hawaii in the role of Head Dancer for this year's Hilo Inter-Tribal PowWow on Memorial Day weekend. (Courtesy photo to Big Island Weekly)

People on Hawaii’s big island can mark Memorial Day weekend by going to the Hilo Inter-Tribal PowWow, now in its fifth year.

Terrie Henderson of the Big Island Weekly writes here that the event is organized by Liz and Troy De Roche, and emphasizes connections between Native American and Hawaiian peoples and cultures.

Troy De Roche will be cooking up the wildly popular fry bread and pleasing the crowd with his traditional flute playing. Troy, whose been known to play the flute with flour on his shirt from baking the bread, told Big Island Weekly last year that the recipe he uses for the fry bread is handed down from his grandmother. The Indian tacos are also always a big hit, according to the De Roche family.

This year’s event also will feature the return of Seneca Nation member and former Big Island resident Mike Gates. Gates will be the head dance and Fredricka “Freddie” Hunter, who is Blackfeet from Montana, is head woman dancer.

The host drum for the powwow will be The Wildhorse Singers from Torrance, Calif., cormprising drummers and singers from the Navajo, Apache, Tohono O’Odham and Cherokee nations.

Gwen Florio

Erich Lochridge of the Rapid City, S.D., Journal has this story launching the festival, whose theme is “Location, Location, Location.”

Given the location, the emphasis on Native-themed films is a natural. Among those will be “From the Badlands to Alcatraz,” a film about empowering Lakota people from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota by training them to swim from the infamous Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. Watch the trailer, above.

Today’s lineup includes a presentation by Cheyenne and Arapaho filmmaker Chris Eyre, noted for, among others, “Smoke Signals.”

The whole idea behind the festival, says Lochridge, is to re-create the feel of the Sundance Film Festival in the early days. We hope that’s exactly what happens.

Gwen Florio

Lodge Grass High students, from left, Ashton Old Elk, Ferlin Blacksmith and Deallen Little Light stop with their horses on the top of small rim at the Grapevine Creek battlefield this week. (David Grubbs/Billings Gazette)

The first interpretive project ever to take place at the Fort C.F. Smith site in southern Montana took place this week as part of a collaboration between the Crow Tribe and the National Park Service.

The site — now deonated only with a stone and metal marker — was built by the U.S. Army on the Bozeman Trail along the Bighorn River to protect people traveling to Virginia City’s gold camps, Brett French of the Billings Gazette writes here.

“Anywhere else in America, this would be a really big site,” says Col. Berris Samples, leader of the Lodge Grass Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, who brought Crow students there this week. He also took the students to the site of the Grapevine Creek battle between the Crow and the Blackfeet.

The sites, on the Crow reservation, are typically closed to anyone other than Crow tribal members, but because of a collaboration with the Junior ROTC group, Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area staff was able to accompany the group and give presentations to the students. (Watch a video of the day’s events, here.)

“This is the first interpretive program ever given at the site of Fort C.F. Smith,” Chris Wilkinson, chief of interpretation for the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, tells French.

Wilkinson told the group that the fort — the most isolated along the Bozeman Trail — was built in 1864 to protect white emigrants from raids by the Sioux and Cheyenne:

Chris Wilkinson, chief of interpretation for the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, speaks to Lodge Grass students about Fort C.F. Smith on Tuesday near the site where the flagpole once stood. (David Grubbs/Billings Gazette)

“Your ancestors, the Crow Nation, were stuck in the middle of this,” Wilkinson told the JROTC students.

Without the help of Crow Indians acting as scouts, mail carriers and providing food to starving soldiers in the winter of 1867, Fort C.F. Smith might not have lasted two years.

“I do not believe there is any greater example of hospitality to the U.S. Army,” Wilkinson said.

“Why do I tell you this today?” he asked rhetorically. “By celebrating your legacy, you are following in your ancestors’ footsteps and extending hospitality. We thank you for allowing us to visit your sites.”

At the site of the Grapevine Creek battle, where the Crow defeated a Blackfeet band, students raised a tepee.

Theo Hugs, who retired last year from the Bighorn Canyon NRA, tells French that the interaction between the tribe and the National Park Service is long overdue.

“I think the kids need to know their heritage,” she says.

Gwen Florio

The University of Nevada-Reno women’s basketball team goes up against New Mexico State tonight in a game expected to be well-attended because of the extra festivities.

As Jim Krajewski of the Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal reports here, local tribes got flyers that allow each person with one to bring four other people to the game for free. And, he writes:

Tahnee Robinson

Also, the Pyramid Lake Junior/Senior High School dance group will hold a pregame honor ceremony for Pack guard Tahnee Robinson. The drum group Red Hoop will sing and the Pyramid Lake High dance group and Numu Tookwaus color guard will join Robinson for the honor song and dance.

“The idea is to honor Native Americans and do a Native American Awareness day. It was their idea to honor Tahnee,” [coach Jane] Albright said. “They feel like, for their culture, she’s kind of raised the bar on awareness.”

Robinson is a Native American (Eastern Shoshone, Pawnee, Cheyenne and Sioux) from Lander, Wyo., on the edge of the Wind River reservation. She’s the Pack’s leading scorer at 15.4 points per game.

See Tetona Dunlap’s blog post about Robinson, here.

Gwen Florio