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The Battle of the Little Bighorn has resumed 114 years after Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer made his last stand and Indians won their last major victory of the Plains wars.
This time, Barbara Booher is under attack.
Booher, female and Indian, is the National Park Service's superintendent at the most famous battlefield in the American West, the place where Custer lost to Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, but became a legend of machismo and bravery.
Her appointment has triggered letters of protest to Washington from Custer fans who claim she is unfit for the job.
Supporters counter that her tenure already has meant more jobs at the battlefield for qualified Indians, and will result in a much more balanced view of the controversial battle.
"I think Barbara was selected for all the wrong reasons, because she is a woman and an Indian," said Bill Wells of Malibu, who serves on the board of both the nonprofit Custer Battlefield Historical and Museum Assn. and the Little Big Horn Associates, a group dedicated to preserving Custer's memory.
"I don't think she was qualified, and she was ill-prepared. I think she is way in over her head," Wells said.
But Booher's arrival is hailed as a miracle by local Indian leaders, long angry at what they believe is a slanted emphasis at the park toward Custer and the 7th Cavalry at the expense of proper recognition for the Sioux and Cheyenne warriors who won the battle.
"It's been a coming of age for a monument that has been in the dark ages," said Janine Pease-Windy Boy, president of nearby Little Big Horn College at Crow Agency, Mont.
"Barbara's a breath of fresh air. Superintendents prior to her were consistently more interested in military history from the Custer point of view. There's nothing more symbolic than an Indian and a woman to upset these so-called historians who are mostly white and male," she said.
The debate over Booher's appointment began even before she arrived here in June, 1989. She had never worked for the park service before she was named superintendent. For the last 17 years, she worked...