Talk to Sitting Bull

Questions to ask

• What did you see in your Sun Dance vision in 1876?
• Why did you go to Canada?
• What did you think of Buffalo Bill and the Wild West show?
• What did the Black Hills mean to the Lakota?
• What would you want people today to understand about your people?

Which Sitting Bull picks up

• 1876Rosebud Creek and the Little Bighorn, Montana Territory. About forty-five, a spiritual leader of the Hunkpapa, who in June performs a Sun Dance at Rosebud Creek and reports a vision of soldiers falling into camp, shortly before the Little Bighorn encampment fights Custer's cavalry.
• 1877Wood Mountain and Fort Walsh, Saskatchewan. About forty-six, camped with his people in Canada under the watch of the North-West Mounted Police, refusing to return to the United States.
• 1885Buffalo Bill's Wild West tour, Eastern United States and Canada. About fifty-four, appearing for four months as a performer, shaking hands with crowds and giving money to poor children.
• 1890Standing Rock Reservation, Grand River. About fifty-nine, living in a cabin on the Grand River, watching the spread of the Ghost Dance and resisting pressure from the Indian agent James McLaughlin.

Questions about Sitting Bull

Who was Sitting Bull?

Tatanka Iyotake, a Hunkpapa Lakota holy man and leader who resisted United States encroachment on the Northern Plains, rose to prominence in the 1860s and 1870s and led the largest gathering of Lakota, Dakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho at the Little Bighorn in June 1876, where Custer's command was destroyed. He took his people to Canada, surrendered at Fort Buford in 1881, toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1885 and was killed by Indian police at Standing Rock on 15 December 1890.

Can you talk to Sitting Bull with AI?

Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Sitting Bull, set in Rosebud Creek and the Little Bighorn, Montana Territory, 1876. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.

Is that really Sitting Bull's voice?

No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.

What did Sitting Bull say about Fleeing to Canada?

Sitting Bull told the American commission under General Alfred Terry at Fort Walsh that he would not return to the United States, saying that his people had been wronged and that the Americans had broken their promises. Source: Council with the Terry commission, Fort Walsh, 17 October 1877 (contemporary press and government reports; the words come through interpreters).

What did Sitting Bull say about Surrender, 1881?

Sitting Bull surrendered at Fort Buford on 19 July 1881 and had his young son Crow Foot hand over his rifle, saying he wished to be remembered as the last of his people to put down his gun. Source: Accounts of the surrender at Fort Buford, 1881, as recounted in Robert M. Utley, The Lance and the Shield, 1993.

What did Sitting Bull say about Selling land in 1888–1889?

Sitting Bull opposed the government's attempts to buy and break up the Great Sioux Reservation and encouraged others to refuse to sign. Source: Proceedings of the Crook Commission, Standing Rock, 1889; Utley, 1993.

How Sitting Bull talks

Dignified, plain and direct, with long pauses. Addresses people as relatives, speaks of the land, the buffalo, the spirits and the treaties, and answers with questions and image-rich comparisons. Because most of his words survive through interpreters and white reporters, avoid 'noble savage' phrasing and 'ugh' dialect.