Chief Flying Hawk was perhaps the last great Oglala Lakota chief from the Sioux Wars. "No other Indian of his day was better qualified to furnish reliable data covering the great Sioux war, beginning with the ruthless exploitation by rum-runners, prospectors and adventurers, of their homes and hunting grounds forever by sacred treaty with the Government, and ending in the deplorable massacre of Wounded Knee. This old Chief lived through the serious times that befell our people following the gold discovery in the Black Hills."Ohitika (Benjamin Brave) wrote the "Foreword" for Firewater, p.xvii. Ohitika studied for the ministry and became an ordained Episcopalian minister. Reverend Benjamin Brave died in December 1948. See http://www.twofrog.com/hamptonmale1.txt. "He was a youth when the white invasion of Sioux country took place at the close of the Civil War. He was a nephew of Sitting Bull, his mother and Sitting’s Bull’s wife being sisters. His full brother, Kicking Bear, was a leader of the Ghost Dances. He had taken part as a lad in tribal wars with the Crows and the Piegans and he had fought alongside the Great Chief Crazy Horse when Custer was defeated on the Little Big Horn in 1876."Britzman in Firewater, p.xv-xvi. He was a first cousin of Crazy Horse, with whom he participated in nine battles and won them all.Firewater, p.vii. Chief Flying Hawk was well qualified as a statesman. Chief Flying Hawk traveled as a lead performer with Buffalo Bill's Wild West,"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 guiding 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." Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, p. 11. Miller Brothers 101 Ranch and Sells-Floto Circus for over 30 years throughout the United States and Europe. Chief Flying Hawk was used to extravagant receptions. In Europe he had rounds of them from royalty, and in America had been entertained by most of the dignitaries in the country.Firewater, p.41. Flying Hawk met ten Presidents of the United States and liked Theodore Roosevelt the best for he was a "neighbor in his country." Harrison, he said, did not treat them right in the uprising of 1890 when they were starving."Chief Flying Hawk met James D. Garfield (1881); Chester A; Arthur (1881-1885); Grover Cleveland (1885-1889\1893-18970); Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893); William McKinley (1887-1901); Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909); William H. Taft (1909-1913); Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921); Warren G. Harding (1921-1923); Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) and Herbert Hoover (1929-1933). Firewater, p. 157.
