Many Horses was a holy man of the Oglala Lakota tribe. He was a friend of Sitting Bull and a believer in the Ghost Dance. In the spring of 1890, he organized a Ghost Dance ritual at Standing Rock Reservation to drive away the white soldiers camped nearby, but was distressed to see that they were still there at dawn the next day. He then said to the assembled people: "I will follow the white man's trail. I will make him my friend, but I will not bend my back to his burdens. I will be cunning as a coyote. I will ask him to help me understand his ways, then I will prepare the way for my children, and their children. The Great Spirit has shown me - a day will come when they will outrun the white man in his own shoes." Many Horses should not be confused with the daughter of Sitting Bull, who has the same name.
