Big Foot / Johnny Cash

JOHNNY CASH - BIG FOOT 
~ Laura Deplanque

Johnny Cash (1932-2003) is generally recognized as a legend of country music, as well as an alternative icon. Throughout his career, Cash wrote many songs full of empathy for the people suffering from injustice and inequality (prisoners, farmers, etc.), including several songs about Native Americans. He associated the rebellious side of folk/country music with his Christian views, sung with a deep baritone voice, and as such created his own genre, far from the usual music icons.

 On the album America (1972), partly sung, partly spoken, Johnny Cash tells the story of the Conquest of the West and the Independence of the USA, without forgetting the Indians: 

But the land was already claimed by a People when the Cowboy came and when the Soldiers came. The story of the American Indian is in a lot of ways a Story of Tragedy, like that day at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

This is the introduction to the song titled Big Foot.

 Spotted Elk, aka Big Foot or Sit?á?ka (1826-1890), was Chief of the Minneconjou band of the Lakota Indians.  He was known for being a great hunter and skilled at negotiations, often settling quarrels between other tribes. After the Great Sioux War (1876-77), in which his tribe suffered greatly, and after the death of his half-brother Sitting Bull, he left for the Pine Ridge Reservation with hundreds of Indians from both tribes, carrying a white flag. They were intercepted  on December 28th by the 7^th Cavalry and surrendered peacefully. Big Foot was ill with pneumonia. They were led to Wounded Knee Creek where they camped. On the 29^th of December took place what is now known as the Wounded Knee Massacre: 25 soldiers and 146 Lakota men, women and children were killed, including Big Foot.

 Johnny Cash composed this song after meeting a medicine man and visiting Wounded Knee.

When performing in front of Lakota tribe members on the Rosebud Reservation (South Dakota), Cash declared:

I've got very little Indian blood in me myself, except in my heart I've got a 100 percent for you tonight. It's good to be here.

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Lyrics to  Big Foot
by Johnny Cash

Big Foot was an Indian chief of the Minneconjou Band
A band of Minneconjou Sioux from South Dakota land
Big Foot said to Custer stay away from Crazy Horse
But Custer crossed into Sioux land and he never came back across
Then Big Foot led his people to a place called Wounded Knee
And they found themselves surrounded by the 7th Calvary

Big Chief Big Foot rise up from your bed
Minneconjou babies cry for their mothers lying dead

Big Foot was down with the fever when he reached Wounded Knee
And his people all were prisoners of the 7th Calvary
Two hundred women and children and another hundred men
Raised up a white flag of peace but peace did not begin
An accidental gunshot and Big Foot was first to die
And over the noise of the rifles you could hear the babies cry

Big Chief Big Foot it's good that you can't see
Revenge is being robbed by Custer's 7th Calvary

Then smoke hung over the canyon on that cold December day
All was dead and dying around where Big Foot lay
Farther on up in the canyon some had tried to run and hide
But death showed no favors women men and children died
One side called it a massacre, the other a victory
But the white flag is still waving today at Wounded Knee

Big Chief Big Foot your Minneconjou band
Is mourned and remembered here in South Dakota land
Big Chief Big Foot your Minneconjou band
Is mourned and remembered here in South Dakota land