The lot features a percussion side hammer musket rifle from circa 1850-1870’s with wonderful brass tack adornment and stamping of Lakota Sioux Chief Fast Thunder. Provenance: The piece is from the ex-collection of Jim Aplan of Piedmont, South Dakota, Aplan collected the rifle from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation from a Sioux family in the early 1970’s. Aplan sold the gun at the 2005 Cody Old West Show to Cyrus Eaton a well-known collector from London, England, according to his collecting logbook. He piece is also from the ex-collection of Jim Dresslar, Tommy Haas and others. The large caliber heavy musket rifle measures overall 55 inches long with the right receiving plate’s stamping not being visible or marked. The barrel appears to have a slight stamping but is indiscernible. What appears to be an original push rod is present going into the shortened original altered stock. The entire rifle is adorned with elaborate original old brass trade tack patterns including two seven spotted bar bands, cross pattern, triangles and various other patterns likely all attributing to tribal bands and societies. On the right side of the stock is heavily stamped “FAST THUNDER FORT ROBINSON” likely a later family addition. Fast Thunder (1840-1914 Wakinyan Luzahan) was born about 1840-1841 along the Cheyenne river into one of the bands of the Oyuhpe Oglala Sioux, according to interpreter William Garnett. His name first appears in the Red Cloud Agency records in 1874 under a band labeled, “Stabber No. 1” as part of the Wajaje band and later a part of the Wichiska (White Packstrap) society that supported Indian Agent J.J. Saville during the 1874-1875 period (traveling to Washington, D.C. to discuss the Black Hills issue). During the Sioux War of 1876-1877, Fast Thunder was at the Red Cloud Agency and later listed in Col. Merrit’s March of 1876. He was listed in a 2010’s book as being present at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, with him stated he was not present. In September 1877, Fast Thunder was among those who accompanied Crazy Horse back to Fort Robinson where Crazy Horse was fatally bayoneted that evening. Fast Thunder reenlisted in the Indian Scouts at Camp Sheridan Spotted Tail Agency in October 1877 and later appeared in several Pine Ridge Indian Agency census records in 1878, 1879, and 1880 period. He attended diplomatic trips to Washington, D.C. in 1888 and later 1889 for the Crook land negotiations being instrumental in settling the boundary between the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations. In 1895 his son Luke Plenty Birds killed an Oglala tribal Policeman named John Red Hose with both being arrested and later Fast Thunder cleared by his sone sentenced to five years in the Nebraska Penitentiary. In 1904 he was selected as a tribal judge and again went as a Chief delegation to Washington, D.C. He did at Manderson, South Dakota in 1914. Provenance: Ex-collection of Jim Aplan, Jim Dresslar, Cyrus Eaton, Tommy Haas. Fast Thunder attribution is contained in the stamping on the side of the rifle and Jim Aplan collecting the piece from the Pine Ridge Reservation, overall this is a nice early percussion rifle with original Indian tacking with later stamped attribution.