Who is Touch the Clouds?
Al Schaller
Shasta Lake, California
Touch The Clouds (real name Mahpia Icahtagya) was a chief of the Minneconjou Teton Sioux (Lakota). He was a cousin to Chief Crazy Horse and a brother to Chief Big Foot, who was photographed in that famous picture lying dead in the snow following the massacre at Wounded Knee.
Touch The Clouds was born in present-day South Dakota in 1836. A great warrior and skilled military leader, he and Crazy Horse fought together during the Indian Wars and remained close right up to Crazy Horse’s death in 1877.
Following that, he moved to the Cheyenne River Agency in 1884 and became a teacher of Lakota history and folklore. He died there in 1905 at the age of 69.
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