This exquisitely researched book by the novelist Evan S. Connell punctures many enduring myths about General Custer, the Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse and the other Indians who fought there. Buried in its pages are bits of Western lore and historical detail. It is an amazing piece of reportage.
Indians knew it as the valley of greasy grass.
Greasy Grass is the usual translation, although there has been some quarreling about whether it ought not to be Rich Grass or perhaps Lodge Grass, these two expressions being very similar in the Crow language. However the name should be translated, Indians liked this valley and often camped there. Cottonwood trees beside the river provided not only firewood but a sort of ice cream —a frothy gelatin which accumulated when the bark was stripped off and the exposed trunk scraped.