Arnold Short Bull

Arnold Short Bull (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Ptéčela; c. 1845 – 1915) was a member of the Sičháŋǧu (Brulé) Lakota tribe of Native Americans, instrumental in bringing the Ghost Dance movement to the Rosebud Reservation.

Early life Short Bull was born near the Niobrara River in present-day Nebraska in the mid-1840s. In 1876, he fought at the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Ghost Dance, 1890-91 In 1889, Short Bull, his brother-in-law Kicking Bear, and eight other Lakota traveled to Nevada to visit the Paiute medicine man, Wovoka. They returned to the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1890 with news of the Ghost Dance, a dance that would restore Lakota culture to the land. The two became ranking apostles of the movement to the Brulé at Rosebud Reservation.

While delivering a sermon to a large crowd of Brulé, Short Bull said that they must perform the dance at Pass Creek in November during the full moon, in order to bring about the promised land earlier than expected. Stressing the importance of this dance, Short Bull instructed them not to stop, and that supernatural forces would protect them even if soldiers tried to stop the ritual, saying: "There may be soldiers surround you, but pay no attention to them, continue the dance. If the soldiers surround you four deep, three of you on whom I have put holy shirts will sing a song, which I have taught you, around them, when some of them will drop dead, then the rest will start to run, but their horses will sink into the earth; the riders will jump from their horses, but they will sink into the earth also; then you can do as you desire with them. Now you must know this, that all the soldiers and that race will be dead; there will be only five thousand [Indians] left living on earth. My friends and relations, this is straight and true." He returned to Pine Ridge on December 27 after a council with five hundred Sioux.

Short Bull and the remaining Ghost Dancers surrendered to General Nelson A. Miles on January 15, 1891, at Pine Ridge.

Later life Upon his release in 1891, Short Bull joined Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, and made several trips to Europe with the show.

Short Bull died in 1915 on the Rosebud Reservation.

Portraits of Short Bull Denver Public Library or by George Spencer, Minnesota Historical Society. By George Heyn, Minnesota Historical Society.