"The Battle of the Little Bighorn (also known as the Battle of Greasy Grass) took place in June 1876. In 1879, the Little Bighorn Battlefield was designated a national cemetery administered by the War Department.

Unlike Custer's command, the fallen Lakota and Cheyenne warriors were removed by their families, and "buried" in the Native American tradition, in teepees or tree-scaffolds nearby in the Little Bighorn Valley.

Until recently, no memorial had honored the Native Americans who struggled to preserve and defend their homeland and traditional way of life. Their heroic sacrifice was never formally recognized - until now.

In 1991 the U. S. Congress changed the name of the battlefield and ordered the construction of an Indian Memorial. In 1996, the National Park Service - guided by the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument Advisory Committee, made up of members from the Indian nations involved in the battle, historians, artists and landscape architects - conducted a national design competition. In 1997, a winning design was selected."

The pano shown below represents the last nine living survivors of the battle that returned to the battlefield in 1948. They are etched in stone at the memorial site.

The real photos of the warriors illustrated here were photographed by Bill Groethe of South Dakota. He lined up Little Warrior, Pemmican, Little Soldier, Dewey Beard, John Sitting Bull, High Eagle, Iron Hawk and Comes Again for the group shot. Black Elk, who was blind, did not participate in the group photo but he did pose for an individual shot. Black Elk is on the far left end of my pano image.