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gunny wrote:Did not learn of the reinforcements until the morning after the battle. The suicides were related by several tribes in different areas of the battle. Some could not speak the same language. Should have brought the Gatling Gun, or a few F4s.

So they did not know "reinforcements were on the way"!

Actually, I don’t have a dog in this fight.
Either side could be correct.
Or partially correct.
Or all wrong.

I am just saying we have to take all the accounts with a grain of salt.

Both sides had huge egos.
And a sense of the history they were making.

However, I do find it hard to believe the Indians did not know the reinforcements were on the way.
A group that size would have scouts out in all directions.
They were not dumb fighters and had learned the way the white men fought.
They would have been on the look out.

kbs2244 wrote:I do find it hard to believe the Indians did not know the reinforcements were on the way.
A group that size would have scouts out in all directions.
They were not dumb fighters and had learned the way the white men fought.
They would have been on the look out.

So if they 'were not dumb fighters' and would have either known, but at the very least suspected that 'big einforcements were on the way', it doesn't make sense that they would have killed every last man.
So, afaic, either the one is true, or the other is, but it's highly unlikely that they would both be true.

The Indians were not the only warriors to leave no survivors, the Zulu didn't leave any either, and like the Indians they mutilated the dead.

Roy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6t4iAiro48

Digit wrote:The Indians were not the only warriors to leave no survivors, the Zulu didn't leave any either, and like the Indians they mutilated the dead.

Because they don't fight back...?
Typical 'courageous warrior' attitude! NOT!

And if they knew "overwhelming reinforcements" (of the opposition) were on the way that was a very dumb thing to do.

It is many years since I read The Washing of the Spears but there was some discussion about the Zulu "desecration" at Isandlwana. As with almost everything else, as I recall, it was a religious ritual designed to prevent the bodies from being occupied by demons or some such nonsense.

Probably they noted what happens to a body when the gasses build up in the African heat.

Indians, and many others mutilated enemies bodies so they would be at a disadvantage in future combat in the "hereafter" It was a ritual normally done by the women. Victorian age poet has a line when the English were fighting in A'Stan --something like "when wounded and lying in the field, bring up your musket to your head before the women arrive and darkness falls" Damn, can not think of his name. ====MIN ?

I can't remember where I read it Min but as I understand it the gases moving in the intestines led them to believe that it was the victim's spirit attempting to escape the body.
Thus their disemboweling was not in their view an act of desecration but a release of the man's spirit.

Roy.

Gunny, it's by Kipling.

It runs...

When you're lying wounded on the Afghanistan plains,
and the women are coming to pick over your remains,
then roll over your rifle and blow out your brains!

AFAIR it's titled 'Advice to a young soldier!'

Roy.

Kipling---Knew that, but the memory goes at my advanced age. His son, I think, killed in WW1

Interesting side-note to WW1--Companies were made up from all males in each English village--Hundreds of these English villages lost ALL their young males. In WW!!, the allies were ready to invade France early in 1943--Churchhill remembered the slaughter in Europe and allies went to North Africa, Sicily, Italy, any place but Europe. Similiar groups of young men formed companies in Texas during the Civil War. Researched a small village of less than 200, Montgomery, Texas, which sent 21 men. NONE came back.

Both comments are correct Gunny.
The Uk units were known as 'Pal's Battalions,' as groups of friends signed up together. It was actively encouraged by the War Office in the belief that men would fight harder to protect friends.
The toll was terrible!

Roy.

gunny wrote:Churchhill remembered the slaughter in Europe and allies went to North Africa, Sicily, Italy, any place but Europe.

Sicily and Italy are in Europe, gunny.

Should have said---Frogland