Bloody Knife
Native American scout with the US 7th Cavalry, killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (1840–1876)
Bloody Knife (Lakota: Tȟamila Wewe; Arikara: NeesiRAhpát; ca. 1840 – June 25, 1876) was an American Indian who served as a scout and guide for the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment. He was the favorite scout of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and has been called "perhaps the most famous Native American scout to serve the U.S. Army."
Bloody Knife was born to a Hunkpapa Lakota father and an Arikara mother around 1840. He was abused and discriminated against by the other Sioux in his village because of his background, in particular by Gall, a future chief. When Bloody Knife was a teenager, he left his village with his mother to live with the Arikara tribe. His brothers were killed during a Sioux raid led by Gall in 1862. Bloody Knife found employment as a courier and hunter for the American Fur Company and later served under Alfred Sully before scouting for George Custer on several military expeditions. He died from a bullet wound to the head on June 25, 1876, during the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Early life
While his exact date and place of birth are unknown, Bloody Knife was born between 1837 and 1840. His father was a Hunkpapa Lakota and his mother a member of the Arikara tribe, also known as the Ree.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4241481. VIAF identifies the subject as 56496576. The Library of Congress control number is nr94040035. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1840, 1876, 1862 and 1837.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bloody Knife” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.