The Battle of Wounded KneeOn December 15, 1890, authorities feared that the Sioux's new religion GhostDance³ might inspire a revolt. Sitting Bull allowed the people of Grand River to join the anti-white Ghost Dance cult and was then arrested by troops. In the brawl that followed, he was shot twice in the head. Sitting Bull's followers were captured and taken to the U.S. Army camp at Wounded Knee Creek in southwestern South Dakota. Moving between the tipis, the soldiers lifted the women's clothes and touched their private parts, snatching essential cooking and sewing utensils from them. The men sitting in the council heard the angry cries of their wives, mothers and daughters. Several Lakota, offended by the cavalry's abusive actions, stubbornly waited for their weapons to be taken away. It was a display of honor before their elders, for few of them were old enough to have fought in the "Indian Wars" fifteen years earlier. That night, everyone was tired from the hard journey. James Asay, Pine Ridge merchant and whiskey runner, brought a ten-gallon barrel of whiskey to the officers of the Seventh Cavalry. Many of the Indian men were kept awake all night by the drunken cavalry where the soldiers kept asking them how old they were. The soldiers hoped to find out which of the men had been at the Battle of the Little Bighorn where Custer was killed. On the cold morning of December 29, 1890, Alice GhostHorse, a thirteen-year-old Lakota girl, rode her horse through the U.S. Army. he camped in search of his father, one of the Indian men who had been rounded up that day. Less than fifty yards away he could see his father sitting on the ground with other unarmed men from Chief Big Foot's band, surrounded by more than 500 heavily armed soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry. He looked north, up the hill where four "wheeled guns" were mounted. Soldiers watched silently on each side of Battery Hotchkiss. Off to one side Alice noticed a familiar figure standing with its hands raised above its head, arms pointing upwards in prayer. It was the sorcerer named Yellow Bird. He stood facing east, right next to the fire pit which was now covered in dirt. He was praying and crying. He was telling the spotted eagles that he wanted to die in place of his people. He must have had a feeling that something was about to happen. He picked up some dirt from the fireplace and threw it in the air and said, "This is the way I want to go, back to the dust"..