Working The Trapline — Montana Mayhem; Scottish Slaughter

February is bringing the mayhem. Sunday night marks the return of Season 1 of 1923, and we can expect the conflict at the Yellowstone to reach a crescendo.

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“‘You are hereby ordered to fall upon the Rebells, the McDonalds of Glenco,
and putt all to the sword under Seventy.’”

The YouTube Channel The Munros: A Personal Voyage, will drop a new video this month on the notorious Glencoe Massacre of 1692. This nasty piece of business in the Scottish Highlands is much mythologized (and served as a partial template for the infamous Red Wedding in Game of Thrones). I have been eagerly awaiting this. I’ll post the video as soon as it drops.

On February 13th, eschew the mythology and banish the misconceptions with this detailed investigation into precisely how the Glen Coe Massacre came to pass. In the new film “Knives in the Dark,” it’s time to unmask the true butchers of Glen Coe.

This is the story of the few who tried to avert the atrocity – and of a bloodthirsty Scottish establishment hellbent on engineering it.

Coming on February 13th 2023 – the 331st anniversary of the Massacre.

The Glen Coe Massacre (we’ll go with The Munros usage) is usually depicted as fallout of a Campbell/MacDonald feud, but the truth is far more complicated than that, which I expect will be elucidated in Knives.

In the meantime, start here:

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This Nathan Chasing Horse case is BAD. The Lakota “spiritual leader” was arrested this week on a raft of charges. Hopefully, he goes down hard.

From The Daily Beast:

For years, members of the Native American community say they were deeply suspicious of Nathan Chasing Horse.

“It was, ‘Make sure you never leave a young woman alone with this person,’” Frances Danger, who is Muskogee and Seminole, told The Daily Beast. “It was never an exact allegation of specific things, but we knew. We knew.”

A 50-page search warrant, obtained by the Associated Press, outlined wild allegations against Chasing Horse. It alleged he was the leader of a cult called The Circle, and took on underage wives and abused teenage girls and women throughout the country and in Las Vegas. An arrest report released Wednesday unveiled more shocking details: Chasing Horse allegedly armed and trained his young wives to protect him and “shoot it out” with cops if they ever came looking for him. The women were also allegedly given suicide pills to take if officers stormed their home.

There was no indication that a shootout occurred when Las Vegas cops eventually came knocking this week. An arrest report said cops seized guns, over 40 pounds of weed and psilocybin mushrooms, and memory cards rife with proof of sexual assaults carried out by Chasing Horse, the AP reported. Police said one of Chasing Horse’s wives was just 15 when she was given to him as a “gift,” and he took on another wife shortly after she turned 16. Wilfong, Chasing Horse’s lawyer, did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment on Thursday.

“His proclivities were known to us but also were not taken seriously outside of our circles,” Danger told The Daily Beast.

Danger expressed distress and dismay that this horrible story is so big, while other newsworthy events involving native people are less known.

“We struggle so hard for representation, Nathan Chasing Horse is not who we should be known for,” she told The Daily Beast. “It’s unfortunate that it’s this that is making headlines.”

Fair enough.

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Let’s celebrate this, from CBS News:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —The first Native American woman in space ventured out on a spacewalk Friday to prep the International Space Station for more solar panels.

NASA astronaut Nicole Mann emerged alongside Japan’s Koichi Wakata, lugging an equipment bag. Their job was to install support struts and brackets for new solar panels launching this summer, part of a continuing effort by NASA to expand the space station’s power grid.

Mann, a Marine colonel and test pilot, rocketed into orbit last fall with SpaceX, becoming the first Native American woman in space. She is a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in Northern California.