The Custer Layer; War on the Plains

Fig. 1, 2. “Marguerite”

1.

“He knows for he's seen it in black and white through his eye- trompit trained upon jenny's and all that sort of thing which is dandymount to a clearobscure. Prettimaid tints may try their taunts: apple, bacchante, custard, dove, eskimo, feldgrau, hema- tite, isingglass, jet, kipper, lucile, mimosa, nut, oysterette, prune,”

(247.32-36)

Before Breaching the Subject In the above list of pretty maid’s taunts, “bacchante” and “custard” (247.35) can serve to draw attention to the themes of firearms and 19th century conflicts on the North American

plains. These themes, like many others, many of which are connected, rather than being a well defined layer, form a loosely intercalated, uneven, 3D weaves through Finnegans Wake. I’ll attempt to examine a corner of this particular tattered, deformed structure in all its discontinuity and mylonitization. A few examples of the themes, further afield in the book, will also be discussed. Before proceeding, several important aspects should be considered. These include: the interest in Western plains history and adventure stories2 in Europe and the Americas at the turn of the 20th

century as covered by paintings, novels3, biographies, newspapers, and

movies - eleven on Custer alone by 1936. In addition to these cultural products, we should consider the popularity of the Wild

1 Daisy tribe flower from Little Bighorn Battle ground. “Aujourd'hui comme aux temps le

Pline et de Columelle la jacinthe se plait dans les Gaules, la pervenche en llyrie, la marguerite sur les ruines de Numance et pendant qu'autour d'elles les villes ont changé de maîtres et de noms, que plusieurs sont entrées dans le néant, que les civilisations se sont choquées et brisées, leurs paisibles générations ont traversé les ages et sont arrivées jusqu'à nous, fraîches et riantes comme aux jours des batailles. ” ( 281.04-13) 2 Joyce, J.A. 1914. An Encounter in Dubliners. Riverside Press, Edin., 278p. 3 Parrish's syrup (432.1), in the context of reading to a sick child, could be a reference to Randall Parrish’s (1858-1923) Far West novels (or Maxfield Parrish’s illustrations) as well as to Parrish‘s Food (Iron suppliment syrop).

Fig. 3, S1. Wild West show poster, Paris, C.1900.

West shows (see S1) at the turn of the century. These shows often included participants of the conflicts described in this essay4. Many crossed the Atlantic for extensive tours of Europe and the British Iles. In 1887 for example Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show gave a command performance at Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee at Windsor Castle in 1887. Ellmann also writes that Joyce’s son “assured his father that he would never write anything so good as wild West stories.”5 Was Giorgio successful in dragging his dad to a show? These wars on the Western plains were a recent memory for Joyce’s generation. Furthermore, many of these conflicts involved the British Empire; in one case, several raids on Canada by Fenians, events with which Joyce must surely have been familiar. For example, the Fenians’ botched Pembina Raid on Manitoba in 1871 from Dakota and Minnesota6. Another consideration is that Joyce’s childhood friend, Eileen Vance, moved to Saskatchewan and taught on an Indian reserve7. Eileen figures in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake8. We can also suppose Joyce was familiar with the “Wild West” from his advice to his step-grandson, David Fleischman, to read the short stories and novels of Brett Harte. Harte was a crusader against the 19th century California sport of Indian killing9. Finally, the Little Bighorn Battle field has a fine Quinet ambiance. The goal of this piece is to explore these themes, to reinforce by example their existence, and prepare the ground for more rigorous analysis The Western Plains The taunt “bacchante” twice references George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876), “custard” (247.35) by at once calling up the

4 William Frederick Cody; Wild Bill Hickok; Gabriel Dumont; Chief Sitting Bull etc... 5 Ellmann, R. 1982. James Joyce. University Press, New York, p. 434. 6 “Louis Riel”. Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition) 1911. Encyclopædia

Britannica Inc., New York, vol. 23, p. 321. 7 Pollock, H. J. 1967. The Girl Joyce Did Not Marry. James Joyce Quarterly, 4(4), pp. 255-257. 8 Eileen (210.31), Vance (211.32), and Chinook (212.33). Chinook is a foehn wind blowing east over s. Alberta and s-w Saskatchewan. Farther west the Indian word Chinook applies to a species of salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha. 9 Ellmann, R. 1982. James Joyce. University Press, New York, p. 247.

Fig. 3, 4. General Custer 12.

image of Custer’s large Vercingetorix10, twain “mous-taches“ as well as the first line of Garryowen, refers to Bacchus who’s every step is reflected in “Kerry O” (247.16), which wild bacchantes (maenads) follow: “1. Let Bacohus' sons be not dis-mayed, But join with” 11 Garry Owen is an alternate name for the tune and is the official regimental air of Custer’s regiment, the 7th Calvary 9. It is also the closest town to the Little Bighorn Battle site. It is said to have been the last piece played at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Finnegans Wake contains a number of references to this military ballad and the Irish drinking song. As for the HMS Bacchante (1876), on which King George V served for three years as an officer, well, His subjects knew Him well... Custer’s horse, Dandy, is here, on the above line. Dandymount (147.32) becomes a dandy mount and a mount for a Dandy, which Custer definitely was. Dandy, Custer’s favorite, we are told by his wife, didn’t get to go to the inglorious finale at the Little Bighorn; Custer took his fastest horse (an ass and a palm frond might have been more appropriate12 ). The Guns Custer’s revolver is here, very close and elsewhere. The Peacemaker (Colt Single Action Army, Model P, the Colt .45):

“timekiller to his spacemaker, velos ambos” (247.01) “Es war itwas in his priesterrite. O He Must Suffer ! From this misbelieving feacemaker to his noncredible fancyflame. 1 1 And she had to seek a pond's apeace to salve her suiterkins.

Sued! (301.2-5)

In spacemaker we are shown a space-time machine for “ethnic

cleansing” or in other words, making space (for colonization), or in Latin/Italian apachefication(sic). The word pacification was in use in Joyce’s time. Custer13 used the word in what turned out to be the modern, Tonka sense of the term. The result being ambulant wheels “wouest” (153.27), i.e., goto west,

10 “that miching micher's bearded but insensible virility and its gaulish

mous-taches," (291.21-24). Is “miching micher” a Michilimackinacois? 11 Custer, E.B.1890. Following the Guidon. Harper & Brothers, N.Y., 341p. 12

Deloria, V. 1969. Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. University of Oklahoma Press, 292p. See also the Gospels. 13 Custer, G.A. 1876. My Life on the Plains. Sheldon & Co., N. Y., 286p.

Fig. 5. Poundmaker,

Pitikwahana-piwiyin.

loaded with ammo, settlers, the pyramid of state and a new order, both above and below. The second reference to the Colt 45 Peacemaker on p. 301 includes, more clearly, Poundmaker or Pitikwahana-piwiyin, an Assiniboine-Plains Cree∞Métis chief. Like the Lakota, the Assiniboine are part of the larger Sioux Group as in “suiterkins. Sued!” (301.05). Both he and Father Louis Cochin, O.M.I., made many efforts to make peace with the likes of William Dillon Otter, Frederick Middleton, and Garnet Wolseley14 in what was the Northwest and Red

River rebellions of the newly acquired Rupert’s Land. Canadian expansion, with the aid of “fancy flames” from 16 pounder cannons and Gatling guns (Battle of Cutknife Hill, 1885) shoved westward. It is

eerie to imagine Poundmaker, a striking man by all account, make the

following harangue, reminiscent of the situation of his Indian brethren to the South, before a court, constituted of white men, in Regina, Saskatchewan.

"Everything that is bad has been laid against me this summer, there is nothing of it true. Had I wanted war, I would not be here now. I should be on the prairie. You did not catch me. I gave myself up. You have got me because I wanted justice."15

The Colt peacemaker was also the side arm used by the 10th Cavalry, Custer’s resupply and backup regiment at Fort Arbuckle during the Washita Massacre. Buffalo soldiers of the 10th also fought at Ambos Nogales in Mexico in 1916 (velos ambos 247.01). Other arms include, the Gatling gun (246.21) on the previous page. Custer refused to bring one along as he believed it would slow him down. It was left on the Yellowstone River. The Gatling was one of the first machine gun and was capable of 1200 rpm by 1876. It was used extensively against the plains Indians and Métis by the U.S. and the Dominion of Canada as well as the British Empire who faced “unmanageable colonials” in the Arabs and the Zulus16. Another 19th century gun, the Hotchkiss 42 mm, appears next

to “Culthur’s” in the following passage:

14 "Wolseley, Garnet Joseph". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.) 1911, Cambridge University Press, N.Y, vol. 28, pp. 777-778. 15 Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 2000. Vol. XI, 1881-1890. University of Toronto/Université Laval. 16 Behan, D. Come out you Black and Tan.

Fig. 6, 7. Gatling gun, 1876 Model,

National Park Service, Fort Laramie,

Wyoming, © 2004 Matthew Trump.

"Hotchkiss Culthur's Everready, one brother to never-

reached, well over countless hands, sieur of many winners and

losers, groomed by S. Samson and son, bred by dilalahs, will

stand at Bay (Dublin) from nun till dan and vites inversion and

at Miss or Mrs's MacMannigan's Yard." (523.14)

Or is it Custer? Or is it culture or the Culture ever ready... for? Well certainly this passage is ripe for some deep drilling. I will stick to the dead HCE figures and the theme meshes under discussion. Custer’s revenge has been seen as the Wounded Knee massacre where four Hotchkiss guns killed Lokota women, children and infirm men. Custer and HCE are dead in their associated times. The long hair, the power, the fall, the counting-coups, the lords and sawyers (Sieurs-Lords and Scieurs-sawyers), and the clergy. And how does the Great Parnell fit in here?

Another arm, the Mills bomb or grenade, is refracted in “painapple” (246.29 and 167.15).

“For these are not on

terms, they twain, bartrossers, since their baffle of Whatalose

when Adam Leftus and the devil took our hindmost, gegifting

her with his painapple, nor will not be atoned at all in fight to

no finish,” (246.26-30).

On other plains, in other times, the classic grenade is to be

seen, along with references such as “Coulter” (247.36) (Colt,

manufacturer of the Peacemaker revolver and Gattling Gun),

“bartrossers” (Ross rifle) and “Whatalose” the Grand Mons

Injun battle (008.29) on the Flemish plain. World War One

singin’; and here Two too. And the beautiful beatitudes of hand

ordinance continues with a soldier who doesn’t know his arse

from a hole in the ground: “my gropesarch-

ing eyes, through the strongholes of my acropoll, as a boosted

blasted bleating blatant bloaten blasphorus blesphorous idiot

who kennot tail a bomb from a painapple” (167.12-15).

Custer shows up elsewhere in the Wake as part of the guns/plains/and soldiers theme mesh. For example:

Fig. 8. A quatrain of Hotchkiss gun, Wounded Knee, South Dakota, 1890.

“he first got rid of a few mitsmillers and

hurooshoos and levanted off with tubular jurbulance at a bull's

run over the assback bridge, spitting his teeths on rooths,with the

seven and four in danegeld and their humoral hurlbat or other

uncertain weapon of lignum vitae, but so evermore rhumanasant of

a toboggan poop, picked up to keep some crowplucking ap-

pointment with some rival rialtos anywheres between Pearidge

and the Littlehorn while this poor delaney, who they left along

with the confederate fender behind and who albeit ballsbluffed,

bore up wonderfully wunder all of it with a whole number of

plumsized contusiums, plus alasalah bruised coccyx, all over him,”

(80.01-11).

Many of the soldiers involved in the Plains War, including

Custer, the Boy General and hero of Appomattox, saw action

during the civil war at battles such as Pea Ridge. Freshly out of

West Point, Custer was at the First Battle of Bull Run (“bull’s

run”). “Little Horn”17 River is the site of an important battle

between Sitting Bull and Custer of the 7th Cavalry.

“Crowplucking” recalls feathers and The Crow’s Nest Ridge

from which Custer’s Crow tribe scouts

first saw the Cheyenne village

before, perishing in the Battle of the

Little Bighorn. And then there is the

toboggan analogy with its bruised tailbones and prunes (Fr.

bruises), Little Horn R. Bluffs. The arms theme is represented

by the somewhat pre iron age description of “their humoral

hurlbat or other uncertain weapon of lignum vitae” where

“humoral hurlbat” is meant to invoke an arm bone hatchet-like

weapon, one that would be humorous as it would not be

effective although one made of the world’s densest and hardest

wood, from the Vitex lignum-vitae tree, might be better at

extracting bodily fluids. However, the Lakota and their allies, at

this stage, were not equipped “with uncertain weapons” but

with the latest Winchester repeating rifles (check) as well as

steel pointed arrows (significantly effective) and trade axes. As

Joyce points out, Custer has seen the field in full black and

white, in clear patched obscurity through his eyetrumpeting

field-glass; tantamount to a horse’s... Custer, now secure in his

knowledge, faced them with single shot Springfield Model 1873

17 A variant name for the Little Bighorn. Board on Geographic Names Decision, 1917.

Fig. 9. French trade ax. Photo: Gränsfors Bruks AB.

trapdoor carbines. “plurielled18, cometh up as a trapadour

Tireton, cacheton, tire-ton,” (224.25). These, the Ross rifle of

their day, were very slow and of poor quality. Major Banteen on

the western flank, was reported to have yelled: “we’re jammin’”.

Anyway, the first half of the above passage (80.01-11) is the

beating of Custer. Only Joyce’s historical references are not

very good and he tends to pay little attention to describing one

battle at one place at one time: the matrix supported theme

words that form the airy structure I am examining. Are the

Crow Scouts getting plucked because they sold out in helping

slay the Great Black Kettle Parnell figure at the Battle of

Washita?

For expediency’s sake, here, following the citation, is a quick, freeform, interpretation of another Seventh Cavalry passage (153.26-34). Some may also see Papal undercurrents.

“whereopum with his unfallable encyclicling upom his alloilable, diupetriark of the wouest, and the athemyst- sprinkled pederect he always walked with, Deusdedit, cheek by jowel with his frisherman19's blague? Bellua Triumphanes, his everyway addedto wallat's collectium, for yea longer he lieved yea broader he betaught of it, the fetter20, the summe21 and the haul it cost22, he looked the first and last micah23 like laicness of Quartus the Fifth and Quintus the Sixth and Sixtus the Seventh giving allnight sitting24 to Lio the Faultyfindth.”

‘Twas wampum and opium (si non rice), what won the west

(stage two) for the great whide fodder, the Kirks and Po-lice

Depts., et l’Est? Mount Rushmore! Mount!25 Peterest after

the six. I say! Stop for Tango. The Purple cai rho eh. I did it

Gen. Sherman: make a joke. See my mule travois and my train

track them; next: see Ma Bell’s triumphones and all that

follows Fetterman’s salient last stand. Fetters! Cheyn me to

the end of washing tones love. Oh the holy cost. The Seventh!

Ars Patrisarc? Sod! on to Sitting Bull! Oil, beef hooked! Pump

Jack! Pump.

18 “Louis Riel”. Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 1911, vol. 23, p. 321. “How their duel makes their triel!” (238.31) 19

General Tecumseh Sherman was G.A. Custer and Fettermen’s C.O.

Also known for his wit (jokes, Fr. blagues). 20

William Fetterman (1833-1866), died at the Fetterman Fight fighting

Crazy Horse, near Fort Kearny Wyoming. Buried at Little Bighorn. 21

Ft. Sumner, Kit Carson’s Navaho Jail; Ft. Sumner, S.C.; and Schlacht

an der Somme, France. 22

The cost of transportation and holocaust. 23

Or Michael (Quis ut Deus) or who’s like muscovite, who’s like biotite. 24

The Seventh Cavalry (Garryowen) and Sitting Bull. 25 Woof woof!

Further Afield and Wider Ranging

“Such askors and their ruperts they are putting in for more osghirs is alse false liarnels. The frocken- halted victims! Whore affirm is agains sempry Lotta Karssens.” (241.31-33)

Once again, words such as “askors”, “ruperts”, “Karssens”, “liarnels”, and “osghirs” interspersed in the matrix of a phrase or two, like clasts in a diamicton, when associated, can be used to sketch out one of the many readings possible. For example: J.J. Astor26 (1763-1848), an immigrant from Waldorf, Germany dominated much of the fur trade, gold exploitation, and exploration in the American West and Rupert’s Land27 during the 19th century. Armenian gold (osghir=gold in Armenian) and liard coins mixed in with the Liard River (basin=277,100 km², Ireland= 84,421 km²), and the Jesuit St. Stanislaus Seminary of Marais des Liards, suburb of St. Louis, MO, Gateway to the West. Guides such as Kit Carson were loyal to this master and others such as Charles “free land, free men” Frémont, the Pathfinder”. Joyce’s spelling indicates other meanings such as The Waldorf-

Astoria, or Irish Unionist Sir Edward Carson, are likely also

intended. However even The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, “The

Hyphen”, the place where the N.Y. élite and distinguished

visitors from abroad met to put on the Ritz, takes us back to

the western plains, the Indians, the furs, the hardships... and

soldiers. What role did the cavalry play in Astor, or Chouteau’s28

exploits. Who is included in “askors” “askarigal” (201.24)? Is

North America’s richest man, John Jacob Astor, the regal fur

trader and western developer, included in askor/askar? Is the

Buffalo Soldier (askari: Swahili soldier29)?

“That homa fever's winning me wome. If a mahun of the horse but hard

me! We'd be bundukiboi meet askarigal.” (201.23-24)

Or, find here a storybook hero from the vagaries of American

Wild West history:

26 "John Jacob Astor". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 1911, vol. 2, Pp. 793-794. 27 The territory of Rupert's Land was founded in 1875 and consisted of much of north-central and western Canada. 28 Auguste Chouteau, fur trader and founder of St. Louis, Missouri 29 Reisman, K. 2008. “Darktongues”: Fufulde and Hausa in Finnegans Wake. Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 31, No. 2.

“looking still more like his purseyful

namesake as men of Gaul noted, but before of to sputabout, the

snowycrested curl amoist the leader's wild and moulting hair,

'Ductor' Hitchcock hoisted his fezzy fuzz at bludgeon's height

signum to his companions of the chalice for the Loud Fellow,

boys' and silentium in curia!.” (43.35-44.04)

“Ductor Hitchcock” includes, in its conflated proper name, Wild Bill Hickok whose protruding upper lip and odd nose earned him the derisive nick name “Duck Bill”. A problem pride resolved by growing a flowing strawberry blonde mane and bushy moustache as described above by Joyce. Garnet Wolseley’s military engineer Percival (“purseyful”) Girouard is probably here too.

Fig. 10. J.J. Astor, Wild “Duck Bill” Hicock, a “fezzy” Percival Girouard30, and Garnet Wolseley.

Joyce covers other plains conflicts of North America, in general as well as specifically. For example:

“general amnesia of misnomering one's own: next those ars, rrrr! those ars all bellical, the highpriest's hieroglyph of kettletom and oddsbones, wrasted redhandedly from our hallowed rubric prayer for truce with booty, O'Remus pro Romulo, and rudely from the fane's pinnacle tossed down by porter to within an aim's ace of their quatrain of rubyjets among Those Who arse without the Temple nor since Roe's Distillery burn'd have quaff'd Night's firefill'd Cup” (122.06-13).

I’ll examine only the scatterings of one small slice of Joyce’s Universal History. Starting with “ars”, of which there are three if not four to be “wrasted” (rested, wrestled, warsted) from the above lines, which may well be Father Albert Lacombe O.M.I. whose Indian name was Ars-Ouskitsi-parpi (man

with a good heart). Oblate missionary, lexicographer of the Cree language and friend

and negotiator to the Indians of the prairie Canada and U.S., Lacombe tried to minimize effects of the advance of Anglo settlement on the Métis and Indians - First Nations –

30 MacClaren, R. 1978. Canadians on the Nile, Being the Adventure of the Voyageurs on the Khartoum Relief Expedition. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 184 p.

Fig. 11. Père Albert Lacombe, O.M.I.

autochthones... the problems of “misnomering” or miss-naming in the face of general (and voluntary) amnesia. But who is “bellical”, what are the “highpriest’s” (is Lacombe?) “hieroglyph”? (hier glyph? French-Greek yesterday pictures). Must be farther back than that! Is this the priest’s Cree dictionary? Without a written language the Cree can’t see yesterday as other than a very dim “fadograph”. “rubric prayer” c pr occurs 5 times in Finnegans Wake. How convienient that it occurs here beside the names of men whose lives were deeply affected by the Canadian Pacific Railway. Kettledom could, in the context of the other scatterings, apply to Black Kettle as well as knob and kettle topography, one of the primary glaciogenic features southern southern Prairie provinces and adjacent states. The “odd bones” of buffalo is what the red hands salvaged from their introduction to Western civilization. Fruit of the hallowed... or hollowed prayer of the Church, here in the form of an Oblate. The newcomers have a “truce” and all the prized. O but let “Bisons” be Bygones, and take a wooden nickel for your troubles (016.31).

“Mutt.-- Has? Has at? Hasatency? Urp, Boohooru! Booru

Usurp! I trumple from rath in mine mines when I

rimimirim !

Jute.-- One eyegonblack. Bisons is bisons. Let me fore all

your hasitancy cross your qualm with trink gilt. Here

have sylvan coyne, a piece of oak. Ghinees hies good

for you.

Mutt.-- Louee, louee! How wooden I not know it, the intel-

lible greytcloak of Cedric Silkyshag! Cead mealy

faulty rices for one dabblin bar. Old grilsy growlsy31

!” (016.26-35)

Not happy with what we’ve reserved for you? Another quatrain of “rubyjets” sang out over the plain, blood, – a knee in the groin, another barrel of firewater was handed out – “Distillery burn'd have quaff'd Night's firefill'd Cup”. Guinness in your glass bottom tankard? Ah... one eye gone black on you? One pound please. “rubyjets” tracing their provenance to the only mouth that counts in war. "rubyjets erupt and paint the dead ground red. Opaljets: silenced; race: silenced; history: silenced. Busbys at the scaffold.

I believe that this exegesis of a passage, whose Universal

History level treats Father Lacombe and the Troubles on the

Plains of the 19th century would likely be seen as over-reading

had I not explained Joyce’s other references to the topic. Even

31

“Old grilsy growlsy” is an old, greasy, grisly, grey, growling Ursus arctos horribilis bear(bar) pawing a grilse (salmon, i.e., samlet, parr) on a river bar as observed by Chinese railway workers.

if I am wrong on all counts, I say that the exercise is worth the

cost.

Further work “Le moindre grain de sable battu des vents a en lui plus d'élémens de durée, que la fortune de Rome ou de Sparte. Dans tel réduit solitaire je connais tel petit ruisseau, dont le doux murmure, le cours sinueux et les vivantes harmonies sur- passent en antiquité les souvenirs de Nestor et les annales de Babylone.”32

As an earth scientist, I’m driven to explore how Joyce has incorporated the landscape into the human aspect of his universal history. The Battle of the Little Bighorn, was fought along a small, quiet, meandering brook underlain by a semi arid terrain from which it has acquired and trundled its bed of sand. Although the fragile flowers regenerate year after year, the sand grains, in their numbers and variety, resist through their toughness and have survived, some since the Precambrian, much rounded and etched, in this tranquil, far away refuge in Wyoming. Another interesting subject for further analysis are the many Custer contemporaries, both on the American Plains and in similar conflicts abroad, who are bobbing in Finnegans’ wake. For example: Louis Riel, William Dillon Otter, Garnet Wolseley, various Carons, and so on and so on.

Dominique June, 2013

32

Quinet, E. 1884. Introduction in: Herder, J.G. 1784. Idées sur la philosophie de l’histoire de l’humanité. Translation E. Quinet, Levrault, Paris, p. 34.

SUPPLIMENTARY MATERIAL

Fig. S1. "Dramatic portrayal of Native American man stabbing "Custer," with dead Native Americans lying on ground, in scene by Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show performers." 1900-1910. CARD #: 95505786 Library of Congress

Fig. S2. Post Card. Paris c. 1895.

SUP. MAT p. 2