Living History: The Battle of Little Bighorn
At the Little Bighorn battlefield in southeastern Montana, the anniversary of the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn carries a meaning far more complicated than the familiar American story of General George Armstrong Custer’s defeat. Known to many Indigenous communities as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, the confrontation involved Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors defending their homelands against an expanding United States military. For the Crow Nation, the history is particularly complex: Crow scouts, including members of a nation increasingly threatened by Sioux territorial expansion, served alongside the American cavalry. Contemporary commemorations therefore provide an opportunity for Indigenous descendants to recognize their ancestors, share family histories, and explain the different loyalties and circumstances that shaped the battle. For Lakota and Cheyenne descendants, the gathering also represents an opportunity to honor those who resisted dispossession and defended their communities.
The 2026 reenactment provided an opportunity to bring this complicated history before another generation through the dramatic recreation of the battle itself and the cultural festivities surrounding the commemoration. Beyond the battlefield performances, such gatherings offer opportunities for Indigenous families and visitors to experience traditional dancing, music, storytelling, community gatherings, and opportunities to learn about Native American heritage. However, specific details of the 2026 programme and its participants cannot be independently verified here, and should not be confused with established annual traditions.
For Indigenous participants, historical reenactment can reclaim narratives that popular entertainment has frequently presented from a European-American perspective. Rather than portraying Native Americans as anonymous antagonists in somebody else's heroic adventure, Indigenous storytelling restores their identities, political motivations, families, and historical experiences.
Indeed, reenactment should not simply reproduce the romanticized past that European-descended audiences sometimes celebrate through medieval festivals, colonial pageants, and military spectacles. It should also make room for enslaved peoples, colonized communities, women, and marginalized cultures. History belongs to everyone, and its reenactment should allow those previously excluded from its grand narratives to tell their own stories.
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