The Voice before the Void: Arcana, Story, Poetry

Love expressed.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”

William Shakespeare

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

(Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Warfare is inherently dramatic. In this case, the Arikara are abominably outnumbered as they ride into combat against their dread enemies the Lakota.

Must warfare exist? Can grave conflict be superintended without putting men through hell and into death?

Is hell an adventure sought by men?

⁓The Voice before the Void

Into Annihilation: The Arikara Story of Custer’s March to, and the Battle of, the Little Bighorn

from The Arikara Narrative of the Campaign against the Hostile Dakotas, June, 1876

compiled from interviews conducted by the North Dakota State Historical Society with the aged Arikara scouts in 1912 at Fort Berthold Reservation

edited by O.G. Libby and The Voice before the Void

part 4

The story of Young Hawk

The army was on the little knoll at the foot of the hill, they were met by Custer’s party from the high butte. Considerable excitement among the scouts was to be seen. They wondered what Custer would say when he heard that the Dakotas knew of his approach. The scouts from the hill had told them of the six Dakotas. When the scouts saw Custer coming down they began to group themselves according to tribes, Arikara, Crows, etc. The Arikara grouped themselves about the older men who spoke to the younger men as is the custom of the tribe. Stabbed spoke to the young men and Custer gave the instructions here to the scouts through Gerard. He said: “Boys, I want you to take the horses away from the Sioux camp.” Then Stabbed told the Arikara scouts to obey Custer’s instructions and to try and take away as many horses as possible. Custer continued: “Make up your minds to go straight to their camp and capture their horses. Boys, you are going to have a hard day, you must keep up your courage, you will get experience today.” On the top of the ridge the bugle sounded for the unfurling of the flag. This caused great excitement, all made ready, girths were tightened, loads were made light. Another bugle sounded and Custer ordered the scouts forward. They went down the dry coulee and when about half way to the high ridge at the right, Young Hawk saw a group of scouts at the lower end of the ridge peering over toward the lone tepee. The scouts he was with slowed up as the others came toward them. Then behind them they heard a call from Gerard. He said to them: “The Chief says for you to run.” At this Strikes Two gave the war-whoop and rode on. At this we all whooped and Strikes Two reached the lone tepee first and struck it with his whip. Then Young Hawk came. He got off on the north side of the tepee, took a knife from his belt, pierced the tent through and ran the knife down to the ground. Inside of the lone tepee he saw a scaffold, and upon it a dead body wrapped in a buffalo robe.

At the same moment he saw by him on horseback, Red Star. All of the scouts rode around to the north side of the tent at full speed and turned into the dry coulee just beyond the tepee. A little further down they overtook the white soldiers and all rode on mixed together. The best mounted scouts kept up with the hard riding soldiers, others straggled behind. They crossed at the mouth of a dry coulee through a prairie dog village, turned sharp to the right, and Young Hawk saw across the Little Big Horn on the west side, Red Star, Goose, Boy Chief, and Red Bear. Young Hawk had a bunch of loose eagle feathers, he unbraided his hair and brought it forward on his head and tied it in with the eagle feathers. He expected to be killed and scalped by the Dakotas. Turning sharp to the right the battle began at about the spot where the prairie dog village stands. The first fighting began as skirmishing in front of the line.

Scouting forward and encountering the portents of a momentous battle to come: giant deserted camps with sun dance circles and sweat lodges, drawings in sand of dead men, drawings on hills of fighting bison, rocks painted red.

⁓The Voice before the Void

Into Annihilation: The Arikara Story of Custer’s March to, and the Battle of, the Little Bighorn

from The Arikara Narrative of the Campaign against the Hostile Dakotas, June, 1876

compiled from interviews conducted by the North Dakota State Historical Society with the aged Arikara scouts in 1912 at Fort Berthold Reservation

edited by O.G. Libby and The Voice before the Void

part 3

An interview with Custer as told by the Arikara scout named Soldier

Soldier and Bob-tailed Bull met Custer at his camp on the river bank, in his own tent, F.F. Gerard was interpreter. Custer said: “The man before me, Bob-tailed Bull, is a man of good heart, of good character. I am pleased to have him here. I am glad he has enlisted. It will be a hard expedition but we will all share the same hardships. I am very well pleased to have him in my party, and I told it at Washington. We are to live and fight together, children of one father and one mother. The great-grandfather has a plan. The Sioux camps have united and you and I must work together for the Great Father and help each other. The Great Father is well pleased that it took few words to coax Son-of-the-Star to furnish me scouts for this work we have to do and he is pleased, too, at his behavior in helping on the plan of the Great Father. I, for one, am willing to help in this all I can, and you must help too. It is this way, my brothers. If I should happen to lose any of the men Son-of-the-Star has furnished, their reward will not be forgotten by the government. Their relations will be saddened by their death but there will be some comfort in the pay that the United States government will provide.”

Bob-tailed Bull replied: “It is a good thing you say, my brother, my children and other relatives will receive my pay and other rewards. I am glad you say this for I see there is some gain even though I lose my life.”

Custer then said: “No more words need be said. Bob-tailed Bull is to be leader and Soldier second in command of the scouts.”

Clothing was issued to the two leaders, on Bob-tailed Bull’s sleeve there were three stripes, and on Soldier’s sleeve there were two. Custer called on Bob-tailed Bull to speak, and he said through Gerard, that he was not a man to change tribes all the time, that he was always an Arikara and respected their chiefs and had served under them gladly. He said: ”Yes, Long Hair, I am a member of the police and also chief, with one hand I hold the position of police among my people and with the other I hold the position of chief of the scouts. My brother, I am going to address you so, for you said we were brothers, I have had experience fighting the Sioux, and when we meet them we shall see each other’s bravery.”

The march from Fort Lincoln to Powder River as told by Red Star

There was no Indian ceremony at Fort Lincoln before the march, but on the way to Fort Lincoln they sang their war songs at every camp. We were all waiting six days, Custer had gone east to Washington. Red Star heard of his return. Bob-tailed Bull, Bloody Knife, Tall Bear, Stabbed, Black Fox, and Crooked Horn went to meet Custer at Fort Lincoln, the regular headquarters. Red Star heard that Custer was well pleased with the appearance of the scouts. Custer was happy to see Bloody Knife, he presented him with a handkerchief and a medal, which were given to him for Bloody Knife at Washington. Then he recognized one of his old scouts, Black Fox.

The small society of the Arikara, in facing their age-old enemies the mighty Lakota nation, prehend a powerful ally: the United States.

⁓The Voice before the Void

Into Annihilation: The Arikara Story of Custer’s March to, and the Battle of, the Little Bighorn

from The Arikara Narrative of the Campaign against the Hostile Dakotas, June, 1876

compiled from interviews conducted by the North Dakota State Historical Society with the aged Arikara scouts in 1912 at Fort Berthold Reservation

edited by O.G. Libby and The Voice before the Void

part 2

Preface to the Arikara Narrative of the Campaign against the Hostile Dakotas

The purpose in publishing this material on the Dakota campaign of 1876 is twofold. Merely as a matter of justice to the Arikara scouts, their version of the campaign in which they played an important part should have long ago been given to the public. Nearly every other conceivable angle of this memorable campaign has received attention and study. But during the past generation, the Arikara scouts, true to their oath of fealty to the government as they understood it, have remained silent as to their own part in those eventful days. The present narrative is designed to make public the real story of the Arikara scouts who served with General Terry and under the immediate command of Colonel Custer.

In August, 1912, the nine survivors of some forty of these scouts met at the home of Bear’s Belly on the Fort Berthold Reservation, and there they related to Judge A. McG. Beede and to the secretary of the North Dakota State Historical Society, O.G. Libby, the various portions of the narrative that follow. The narrators were very scrupulous to confine themselves to just that portion of the common experience to which they were eye witnesses; for the most part what is set down in this account is the testimony of those who were actual participants. The narratives were carefully taken down as interpreted by Peter Beauchamp, a graduate of Hampton Institute, Virginia. After the whole story was put in form it was submitted to the scouts to be read and corrected through their interpreters by all those who had taken part. Thus there has been assembled a complete account of these important events given from the standpoint of an Indian scout. While it is true that these scouts knew nothing of the general plan of the campaign nor of the larger features of the movements in which they took part, nevertheless they have supplied an astonishing number of clear cut facts and observations that have all the definiteness and accuracy of an instantaneous photograph.

In the second place the narratives of individual scouts give us an insight into the lives of a few individuals and families. The true Indian is extremely reticent concerning matters of ritual, family tradition, and tribal observance. Not as much of such details was obtained as was asked for, still the narrative affords, in many instances, a flashlight picture of Indian life.

We were privileged to hear, also, a large number of rare and remarkable ceremonial chants and songs.

At the close, the occasion was celebrated by the organization of a society known as the U. S. Volunteer Indian Scouts. Two local posts are already in existence, to which belong most of the veteran scouts of the Fort Berthold Reservation.

An impartial examination of the evidence offered in the narrative of these scouts will completely clear them from the old charge of cowardice which has so long been voiced against them. These scouts were charged with being to blame for the defeat of Reno’s men in their first encounter with the Dakotas at the upper village on the Little Big Horn.

Battle of the Little Bighorn Anniversary Special:

One of the most mesmeric and seismic battles in world history: when the Lakota defeated utterly the United States.

⁓The Voice before the Void

Into Annihilation: The Arikara Story of Custer’s March to, and the Battle of, the Little Bighorn

from The Arikara Narrative of the Campaign against the Hostile Dakotas, June, 1876

compiled from interviews conducted by the North Dakota State Historical Society with the aged Arikara scouts in 1912 at Fort Berthold Reservation

edited by O.G. Libby and The Voice before the Void

part 1

Historical Introduction to the Battle of the Little Big Horn

In the year 1867, the United States Congress provided for a commission to treat with all the Indian tribes of the Great Plains and arrange a treaty which would grant to them definite lands. This, it was thought, would cause them to settle down and cease their war on the white man. Parts of two years were spent in visiting the scattered bands and finally, in April, 1868, an agreement was concluded which defined clearly the boundaries of the territory set apart for the Dakotas [Treaty of Fort Laramie]. This area was not large when compared with the fields over which the Dakotas had been accustomed to roam at will, but it included the Black Hills and adjacent lands which the Dakotas had cherished for a long time as a hunting ground and asylum. Consequently when gold was discovered in these hills and when the expedition commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was sent “to reconnoiter the route from Fort Abraham Lincoln to Bear Butte,” a well known point north of the Black Hills, and “to explore the country south, southeast, and southwest of that point,” the Dakotas were much disturbed.

The evidence gathered on Custer’s expedition with regard to a large amount of precious metal in the Black Hills was on the whole discouraging. However, other expeditions followed, and soon there began a rush of white men into this territory. It was at this point that the Dakotas were aroused and made a desperate attempt to defend their lands and their rights in the treaty.

From the time of the treaty of 1868 there had remained outside of the reservation a number of Dakotas, known as hostiles. To these were constantly being added outlaws who left the reservations, until the number which could be called hostile was probably about three thousand. Most of these were under the leadership of Sitting Bull. In late 1875, the Indian inspector E.C. Watkins, after investigation, advised that troops be sent against these hostile Indians “that winter; the sooner the better.”

In early 1876, General George Crook and Colonel J.J. Reynolds were sent on an expedition against the hostiles. Colonel Reynolds followed a trail and struck the camp of Crazy Horse. The Dakotas fled and the soldiers destroyed the camp, while being shot at from rocks, bushes, and gullies [Battle of Powder River]. General Crook was driven back by the Indians.

The results of this expedition were considered neither conclusive nor satisfactory, and a systematic campaign was devised, consisting of three distinct divisions – General Crook from the south, General Alfred H. Terry from the east, and Colonel John Gibbon from the west – to march and converge upon the Big Horn River, a tributary of the Yellowstone River.

The military authorities assumed that any one of these three divisions could defeat the enemy, the only difficulty being to catch him, for it was believed that no one of the commanders would encounter more than five to eight hundred hostile warriors. But the failure of Crook’s expedition in March, and the delay of Custer’s command at Fort Linco...

Folk verse.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Canned Milk”

anonymous

Canned milk is the best in the land

Here I sit with a can in my hand

No tits to pull, no hay to pitch

You just punch a hole in the son of a bitch

Discovery of the Baltic Sea Anomaly Anniversary Special:

Love the weird.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Baltic Sea anomaly”

Wikipedia

The Baltic Sea anomaly is a 60-meter circular rock-like formation on the floor of the Baltic Sea, discovered by Peter Lindberg, Dennis Åsberg, and their Swedish “Ocean X” diving team in June 2011. The team reported that the formation rests on a pillar and includes a structure similar in appearance to a staircase, leading to a dark hole.

Commentators have suggested that the structure could be a World War II anti-submarine device, a battleship gun turret, sediment dropped by a fishing trawler, or a flying saucer. Several experts have stated that it is most likely a natural geological formation.

1. Discovery

The discovery was made on June 19, 2011 by the Swedish based “Ocean X Team” during a dive in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland while searching for an old shipwreck. The group describes themselves as treasure hunters and salvage operators who specialize in underwater searches for sunken “antique high-end alcoholic beverages and historic artefacts.” In March 2012, Ocean X formalized a partnership with entertainment producers Titan TV to produce a TV documentary series and documentary film.

2. Description

According to Ocean X, the formation has an appearance of “rough granite,” is round, 3 to 4 meters thick and approximately 60 meters in diameter, stands on an 8-meter tall pillar-like feature, and is located at a depth of 85 to 90 meters. There is also another smaller object not far away. The object is at the end of what resembles a 300-meter “runway.”

The Ocean X team has published one additional close-up sonar scan on their website and nine additional close-up sonar scans on their YouTube page that appear to show a 90-degree angle and other features of the object.

On their second expedition, they reported that they found something that looks like a staircase and a round black hole that goes directly into the structure.

3. Chemical composition

Infrared spectroscopy analysis made by Steve Weiner, director of the Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science at the Weizmann Institute, indicates that a piece which was recovered by divers from the circle anomaly is made of limonite and goethite. Dr. Weiner’s opinion is that it is strange to find these materials in a structure like this, and thinks these materials would be most likely found in a modern construction. However, two other geologists – Fredrik Klingberg at Geological Survey of Sweden and Martin Jakobsson, marine geologist at Stockholm University – claim that the chemical composition of the sample resembles that of nodules that are not uncommon in sea beds, and that the materials found, including limonite and goethite, can indeed be formed by nature itself.

Stone samples have also been analyzed by Volker Brüchert, an associate professor of geology at Stockholm University. According to Brüchert, most of the samples that were brought up from the sea bottom are granites, gneisses and sandstones. Among the samples was also a single loose piece of basaltic (volcanic) rock, which is out of place on the seafloor, but not unusual. “Because the whole northern Baltic region is so heavily influenced by glacial thawing processes, both the feature and the rock samples are likely to have formed in connection with glacial and postglacial processes. […] Possibly these rocks were transported there by glaciers,” explained Brüchert.

4. Reaction

While a former Swedish naval officer speculated that the sonar image could show the remains of a World War II German anti-submarine device, and Discovery.com contributor Benjamin Radford considered that it could be a damaged gun turret from an old battleship,

Summer Vacation Special:

Odd old North Dakota poetry, humorous, weird, haunting.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“A Pause”

Frances Vejtasa

I leaned against an age-hewn stump,

While pausing on my way;

A child sat on the green-grown slope,

To rest her feet from play.

“The day, it too will fade,” said I,

Who am old and slow and gray;

She caught the thought and voiced my mood:

“And the leaves, they’ll blow away.”

“And youth and love, they flicker out,”

My mind had a tragic sway;

The child looked up with woeful eyes,

“Santa, too, has passed away.”

Walt Whitman’s Birthday Special:

Nation-creating glorious smut.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“A Woman Waits for Me”

Walt Whitman

A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking,

Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking.

Sex contains all, bodies, souls,

Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,

Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk,

All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth,

All the governments, judges, gods, follow’d persons of the earth,

These are contain’d in sex as parts of itself and justifications of itself.

Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex,

Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.

Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women,

I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that are warm-blooded and sufficient for me,

I see that they understand me and do not deny me,

I see that they are worthy of me, I will be the robust husband of those women.

They are not one jot less than I am,

They are tann’d in the face by shining suns and blowing winds,

Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,

They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike, retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves,

They are ultimate in their own right—they are calm, clear, well-possess’d of themselves.

I draw you close to me, you women,

I cannot let you go, I would do you good,

I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, but for others’ sakes,

Envelop’d in you sleep greater heroes and bards,

They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.

It is I, you women, I make my way,

I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable, but I love you,

I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you,

I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for these States, I press with slow rude muscle,

I brace myself effectually, I listen to no entreaties,

I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated within me.

Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself,

In you I wrap a thousand onward years,

On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America,

The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic girls, new artists, musicians, and singers,

The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn,

I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings,

I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you inter-penetrate now,

I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now,

I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality, I plant so lovingly now.

Gorgeous, death. An astounding piece, a great piece. A brilliant rejoinder to the fundamental horror that we each must die alone: No: when you die, you will join the host of all the people who have died before you; and after you die, you will be joined by all the people who will die after you.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Thanatopsis”

William Cullen Bryant

To him who in the love of nature holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language; for his gayer hours

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile

And eloquence of beauty; and she glides

Into his darker musings, with a mild

And healing sympathy that steals away

Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight

Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,

Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;–

Go forth, under the open sky, and list

To Nature’s teachings, while from all around–

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air–

Comes a still voice. Yet a few days, and thee

The all-beholding sun shall see no more

In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,

Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up

Thine individual being, shalt thou go

To mix forever with the elements,

To be a brother to the insensible rock

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain

Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place

Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish

Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down

With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings,

The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good,

Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,

All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales

Stretching in pensive quietness between;

The venerable woods — rivers that move

In majesty, and the complaining brooks

That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,

Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,–

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,

Are shining on the sad abodes of death

Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread

The globe are but a handful to the tribes

That slumber in its bosom. — Take the wings

Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods

Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,

Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there:

And millions in those solitudes, since first

The flight of years began, have laid them down

In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone.

So shalt thou rest — and what if thou withdraw

In silence from the living, and no friend

Take note of thy departure? All that breathe

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh

When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care

Plod on, and each one as before will chase