#jackson sundown

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Buffalo Sundown

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Jackson Sundown (1863 – December 18, 1923), born Waaya-Tonah-Toesits-Kahn (meaning Blanket of the Sun), was a Native American rodeo rider who has become a folk-hero for his mythic performance in the 1916 Pendleton Round-Up, largely popularised by Ken Kesey's novel The Last Go 'Round.

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Sundown was born in 1863, probably in Montana, into the visiting Wallowa Band of the Nez Perce, later led by Chief Joseph. The Nez Perce were renowned for their mastery of horses and Sundown learned how to breed and raise horses at an early age. By the age of 14 he was active in the Nez Perce War of 1877, but unlike Joseph and many of his tribesmen, Sundown escaped the U.S. Army cavalry during the Nez Perce Retreat and fled to Canada with a small group of wounded warriors. Legend holds that Sundown stayed for two years with a group of Sioux, including the iconic Sitting Bull. He was considered to be a war criminal and lived in hiding with Sitting Bull and those that defeated General George Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn.

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In 1915 at age 52, he took third place in the all-around at the Pendleton Roundup and decided to retire from rodeo, which had wrecked his body. The following year, an artist who was doing a sculpture of Sundown convinced him to enter the Roundup one last time, an offer that Sundown only accepted after the artist agreed to pay the entry fee. Sundown was twice the age of the other semi-finalists but advanced after high scores in the saddle bronc and bareback horse riding competitions. His final ride is an event of great mythology to this day among American Indians and rodeo aficionados. It is told that Sundown drew a very fierce horse named Angel and that the horse bucked so furiously that Sundown removed his cowboy hat and fanned the horse to get it to cool off, at which time he and the horse merged into one being. Sundown won the all-around event and became immortalised as a hero of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla, which includes the Nez Perce. 

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