Aging & Wisdom Quote by Buffalo Bill

Buffalo Bill crowns Sitting Bull with a superlative and then slyly keeps the crown in his own hands. Calling him "the greatest of all the Sioux" sounds like pure admiration, but the phrasing is also the language of a showman who understands that greatness sells. Sitting Bull becomes a legend twice over: once as a political and military leader, and again as a figure circulating through white American imagination, where "wonderful old fighting man" reads like both compliment and commodification. "Old" and "wonderful" soften the edge of a man who terrified U.S. officials; "fighting man" slots him neatly into a frontier genre Buffalo Bill helped invent.

The key move is the deferral: "some day...written by a historian who can really give him his due". That line performs moral sensitivity while dodging responsibility. Cody is the guy who staged the West for mass audiences, including Indigenous performers; he’s also the guy insisting the real story still hasn’t been told. It’s a neat absolution: if Sitting Bull hasn’t been properly honored, blame the future’s inadequate scribes, not the present’s profitable mythmaking.

The context matters: by the late 19th century, the so-called Indian Wars were being repackaged into entertainment as Indigenous nations were being crushed, confined, and policed. Praising Sitting Bull functions as a kind of retroactive respect that costs little politically but pays dividends culturally. It reassures audiences they can celebrate a conquered enemy without questioning the conquest, converting unfinished grief and violence into a manageable, marketable “great man” narrative.