Bloody Knife

Hi fellas,

know, I will official present my finished figure kit of Bloody Knife, an native American Scout of the US 7th Cavalry Regiment in the 1870s.
Bloody Knife was born in ca. 1840 in the Dakota Territory in a Hunkpapa Village. His father was an Hunkpapa Sioux and his mother an Arikara or Ree Indian. In 1856, as a teenager, he left the village with his mother, because his mother want to join her own tribe. In 1862 he returned to his fathers village to visit him. During this visit, he was beaten and stabbed from a few Hunkpapa warriors and was left in the Prairie. At this time, the hatered against his fathers people started.
Later, he served as a courier till he entered the US Military as a Scout. In 1873 he met the famous Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. They both became friends, and Bloody Knife served as his favourite Scout in the 7th Cavalry Regiment.
On 25th June 1876, with this Regiment, Bloody Knife met his faith on the banks of the Little Big Horn River. In the famous fight he lost his life next his Company Commander Major Reno on Reno´s Hill, while his friend Custer was send to death a few Kilometres farther. Later Major Reno recorded, that Bloody Knife was struck in the head and died instantly.
After the battle, a young Hunkpapa Squaw decapitated the head of Bloody Knife and brought it in her village. There, the mother of the Squaw identified it as the head of her brother. Later that day, she left the head in her tent, as the villagers moved away.
At last, a few datas to the kit:
The figure is from Andrea Miniatures in Scale 54mm. Some source said, that Bloody Knife was an Arikara Indian, and some said, he was an Crow Indian, but I believe, the difference are not so big, so I have to build the Crow Scout as an Arikara. It was made of tin. I paint it with Acrylics from Andrea Miniatures and Life Color.

Bloody Knife wears the “standard” clothes of his tribe. The only “white” things on him where the Springfield Carbine and the “blue coat” Jacket of the US Army. I guess it is an Officers Jacket, maybe a present of his friend Custer, because of the brass buttons.