Exploring Questions of Identity:
The Battle of Little Big Horn

Discussion Questions and Activities: Multiple Perspectives

• Compare Kicking Bear's map of the Battle of Little Big Horn with a scene of the same battle by an unnamed Lakota artist. How is the action depicted differently? the same? What would account for these alternate points of view?
• After reading the Native American Indian and non-Indian accounts of the battle, identify the different viewpoints. For example, does it make a difference if the speaker speaks from a victorious standpoint? What is outstanding about each story? How are they similar? How are they different? How might a person's frame of reference influence what is remembered about a highly emotional event several years later? Speculate about other reasons for the differing versions.
• As a class, choose a specific exciting event to attend (concert, sports event, rodeo, etc.). Determine before attending which class members will record the events by writing or drawing. Designate two people to take photographs from different angles. After a week passes, each person visualizes his or her memory of the experience and records it as a drawing or written reaction. What have you included? What meaning and emotional ties are brought out for you by your specific presentation? Search for reasons in your life you have chosen a specific portion of the event to record. How does it relate to your personal experiences, your values or beliefs, a specific message you want others to understand? Compare drawings and written reactions to the two sets of photographs. Do photographs give purely objective information? Plan a display of visual, written, and photographic reactions, making connections and observing differences. Consider how these compare with Kicking Bear's painting as well as a photograph of the Little Big Horn battle site (note: under "Enter Keywords" type "little big horn bones", then click on "Display Results").
• The Santa Fe Trail (1940), a movie made by Michael Curtiz, the director of Casablanca, depicts a young George Armstrong Custer as played by Ronald Reagan. Other films and TV movies, such as Little Big Man, Son of the Morning Star, Thunderheart, and Dances with Wolves give other perspectives of the Lakota and Custer. View two or more of these movies and discuss ways in which the treatments of Custer are similar or different. How do these portrayals add to or detract from the American myth of Custer as a hero? How are they similar or different in their depictions of the Lakota?