One of the most feared and respected Native American warriors of the late 19th century. A Hunkpapa Lakota, he was born in about 1835. His name is thought to have come from an incident when, as a young brave, he was fighting with another boy. The fight was fierce and his face became spattered with blood–so badly, it looked like rain on his face, or Itonagaju. He has often been linked to the death of General George Custer, the United States Cavalry hero, at his defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana in 1876. There is much argument about who actually killed Custer, known to the Lakota as the Long-Haired Chief. The general's wife believed that Rain in the Face dealt the death blow and the American poet Longfellow wrote about his deeds in ‘The Revenge of Rain in the Face.’ Original 4.25 x 6.5 half-length cabinet photo of Chief Rain In The Face in a jacket and tie, imprinted in the lower border "Geo. E. Spencer, U.S. Army Photo, 7420 Ellis Ave. Chicago,” and “Sitting Bull's Log Cabin now on Exhibition at World's Fair, Chicago, 1893, owned by Sitting Bull Log Cabin Co., Mandan, North Dakota,” printed along the top edge. Signed on the reverse in pencil, “Rain in the Face.” Reverse also bears two pencil notations in an unknown hand. “Worlds Fair July 1893,” along the top, and “Written by himself WGL,” under the Chief’s signature. In very good condition, with scattered surface marks and rubbing to image, scattered light soiling to borders, and scattered soiling to reverse.
Rain in the Face signed this rare cabinet photograph at the 1893 Columbian Exposition (World’s Fair) in Chicago, Illinois. The Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux chief was a participant in one of the cultural villages on exhibition at the fair meant to represent peoples from around the world. The Indian exhibit included ‘Sitting Bull’s Cabin,’ the actual cabin in which the Sioux chief died. A contemporary description of the Exposition said of the scene: “Sitting Bull’s Cabin was filled with a number of Indians, including Rain-in-the-Face. War dances were given daily.” Acknowledged as the grandest exhibition of the time, the 1893 World’s Fair was attended by 27 million people, nearly half of the U.S. population.
Rain in the Face and his band had surrendered in 1880, after which he lived on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. Shortly before his death, he allegedly stated, “When we were conquered I remained silent, as a warrior should. Rain-in-the-Face was killed when he put down his weapons before the Great Father. His spirit was gone, then; only this poor body lived on.” He died in 1905 on the reservation after a protracted illness. An extremely rare signed photograph, one of fewer than two dozen known examples. RR Auction COA.
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