Four
Horns’ parents were the Hunkpapa Looks-For-Him-In-a-Tent
(abt. 1786 – 1869) and his wife Brulé Woman.
Returns Again or Jumping Bull (abt. 1799 – 1856)
and Winona (born abt. 1810) were his siblings.
In
the 1830s, Four Horns acted as a mentor to his older
brother’s son Sitting Bull (1831 – 1890), as was
usual in the Lakota society.
(See
Ernie Lapointe, Sitting Bull – His Life and
Legacy, p. 22)
According
to Stanley Vestal’s New Sources of Indian History,
1850-1891 (page 317), He Topa “was
a tall man of light complexion and serious mind,
who took his responsibilities as a head man much
to heart.”
Between
1834 and 1850, members of the Strong Hearts society
were usually chosen as police, and their spokesman
Little Bear was recognized as the Hunkpapa tribal
headman. In 1851, population growth and increasing
American demands for accountable leaders led the
Hunkpapas to select four tribal Shirt Wearers –
principal chiefs invested with ceremonial hair-fringed
shirts. The men picked – Red Horn, Four Horns, Loud-Voiced
Hawk, and Running Antelope – were chosen for their
ability to balance the agendas of elders and warriors.
(See
https://standingrock.org/about/history/)
In
different Winter Counts for the years 1853/1854
we find a glyph "Four Horns was Killed (Hetopa
Ktepi).” This glyph shows a man wearing a bonnet
with four horns attached. Some sources assumed that
the Hunkpapa leader Four Horns disappeared after
a battle with the Crows and was pronounced dead
but later he returned to his camp. Other sources
explained that this “Four Horns“ had nothing to
do with the Hunkpapa. These sources say that horned
headdresses were very popular among the Crows and
Sioux at this time. The ethnologist Densmore suggests
that a Crow enemy with a famous Four Horned headdress,
who was slain in a battle, bestowed a name to this
winter (year).
In
March 1856, Four Horns attended the Harney council
in Pierre – where Bear Ribs was made “head chief”
– as one of the Hunkpapa Shirt Wearers. In the same
year, he performed an alowanpi (adoption)
ceremony for the Mnikowozu war leader Elk-That-Bellows-Walking
who, in 1868, became known as Roman Nose during
the 1868 Fort Laramie treaty negotiations. Elk-That-Bellows-Walking
(1810 - ?), was probably a brother of the famous
Mnikowozu chief Lone Horn II (1814 – 1875).This
event was recorded in different Mnikowozu, Hunkpapa,
and Brule winter counts.
(See Kingsley M Bray, “Lone Horn’s Peace: A New
View of Sioux-Crow Relations, 1851-1858,” Nebraska
History 66 (1985): 28-47)
In
June 1868, Mrs. Mathilda “Eagle Woman” Galpin-Picotte,
(1820–1888) of Hunkpapa and Two Kettle origin, accompanied
Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet to Four Horns and Black
Moon’s Hunkpapa camp, which had been located south
of the Yellowstone River near the mouth of the Powder
River. The Jesuit missionary had been authorized
by the U.S. government to discuss the Fort Laramie
Treaty with the northern Lakotas. With Mrs. Galpin's
diplomatic support, DeSmet was well received by
the Hunkpapas. Under a large white banner of peace,
Father DeSmet was given a seat in a council tent
placed between the two head chiefs, Four Horns and
Black Moon.
DeSmet’s account to the government says:
The
council was opened with songs and dances, noisy,
joyful and very wild, in which the warriors alone
took part. Then Four Horns lighted his calumet
of peace; he presented it first solemnly to the
Great Spirit, imploring his light and favor, and
then offered it to the four cardinal points, to
the sun and the earth, as witnesses to the action
of the council. Then he himself passed the calumet
from mouth to mouth. I was the first to receive
it, with my interpreter, and every chief was placed
according to the rank that he held in the tribe.
Each one took a few puffs. When the ceremony of
the calumet was finished, the head chief addressed
me, saying, "Speak, Black-robe, my ears are
open to hear your words.
DeSmet finally succeeded in coaxing the Hunkpapa
to sign the treaty at Fort Rice in July 1868.
Four Horns was a very influential and respected
man in his days. Not a rash person – a trait he
handed down to his nephew Sitting Bull – he was
elected Shirt Wearer about 1851. He held this position
into the late 1860s, when he came up with a revolutionary
idea for Lakota standards. He proposed to elect
one supreme leader, who should represent all northern
(= non-treaty) Lakotas. In the end he succeeded
with his proposal and the man he had in mind, Sitting
Bull.
In
1876, Four Horn was present when General Custer
attacked the allied Lakota village at the Little
Bighorn River. The young Hunkpapa Deeds, supposedly
his grandchild, was the first casualty in this famous
battle. Some months later He Topa took
his people to Canada.
Returning
from Canada in 1881, he and his family went with
Sitting Bull to Fort Randall as prisoners of war.
At this time the family consisted of his wife Blue
Thunder Woman (Wakinyanto Win, age 60),
his son Four Horns Junior (about 26 years) and a
daughter Red White Buffalo Cow (20 years old). Blue
Thunder Woman died at Fort Randall on December 12,
1881.
When
Four Horns returned to Standing Rock in May 1883,
his immediate family was comprised of Red White
Buffalo Cow (now listed as Jenny Red Gray Cow, 24
years) and his (widowed?) older daughter Lean (Tamaheca,
age 45). According to the 1885 Standing Rock Ration
list, Four Horns had 12 lodges and 46 people under
his care and leadership.
Four
Horns died in 1887 on Standing Rock.
