New Boss at Little Bighorn Monument Draws Fire From Fans of Custer : Battlefield: Critics charge the American Indian named to the post is unqualified. Supporters say she will bring a fairer view of the fight.

CUSTER BATTLEFIELD NATIONAL MONUMENT, Mont. —  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 for the federal government in Alaska, first with the Federal Aviation Administration, then as the allotment coordinator with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Anchorage.

But in March, 1989, as an executive management trainee assigned to Lorraine Mintzmyer, park service regional director in the Rocky Mountain area, she so impressed her mentor that Mintzmyer, the highest-ranking woman in the park service, offered Booher the job at the Custer monument.

“I recognized that her (American Indian) heritage might be a plus for her in an area where many (American Indians) live and work, but I hired her because of the skills she demonstrated, not because of her heritage,” Mintzmyer said.

“I have been very pleased with her work at Custer, despite the fact there have been a few critics,” she said. “But I wouldn’t have become the first woman superintendent if someone hadn’t decided to ignore the critics and give me a chance.”

Born and reared on the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation in Utah, Booher’s father was of Cherokee descent, and her mother is northern Ute. She is a soft-spoken woman who suffers from glaucoma in both eyes, although she is a pilot and owns two airplanes back in Alaska.

“I was very proud to be selected, and I’m still proud, but I had no idea it would be like this, with such high visibility,” said Booher, 49. “I suppose I was a little naive. I was told it was a tough assignment, and now I know what that means. This is not a job, it’s a way of life.

“There is nothing neutral about the Custer battlefield. People say it is an enigma, that there’s an aura that draws people. This story is known all over the world. All I’d ever heard about it in school was from the Custer point of view, and when I came here on my own as a tourist in 1973 I thought: ‘Well, that’s all cavalry.’ This is the only place where all the monuments are to the losers.”

In her first year, Booher has doubled the hiring of Indians at the monument and tangled with critics over whether the book “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” should be sold in the gift shop, which is run by a historical association that considers it slanted in favor of Indians.

The new superintendent aims to create a more historically accurate presentation of what really happened when about 225 cavalry soldiers died with Custer on June 25, 1876.

In 1988, Indian activists staged angry demonstrations on horseback to protest the park service’s museum exhibits, which they say reflect the worshipful myths that have grown up around the Custer story in the last century. Sixteen displays revolve around the cavalry, while only eight depict Indian activities.

The battle occurred soon after gold was discovered in the Black Hills of the Dakotas and an influx of whites surged into lands considered sacred by the Indians. The invasion of settlers and miners followed on the heels of many broken treaties.

In the spring of 1876, three Army columns numbering about 2,500 soldiers were dispatched into the territory to drive hostile Sioux and Cheyenne bands onto reservations. Custer and his men were part of that force, which ultimately succeeded in breaking the back of Indian resistance in the West.

“My goal is to help convey the reasons for the battle and its real significance,” Booher said. “I would like to update and expand the exhibits, and the park brochure is going to be revised.”

But she is quick to point out that she cannot take unilateral action.

“It’s not as easy to accomplish that as people think. We have to follow the guidelines and policies that govern all changes in parks, and those are already in place. I am merely an administrator.”

A top priority is establishment of a monument to the Indians who died at the battlefield. Marble headstones and two tall marble markers authorized by Congress honor fallen white soldiers. Only a painted board notes the death of Indians.

Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (D-Colo.), the only Indian serving in Congress and the proud possessor of a knife used by his great-grandfather in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and Rep. Ron Marlenee (R-Mont.) are co-sponsors of legislation to authorize both the Indian monument and a national design competition.

Jim Court, a former superintendent who believes he was forced out in 1986 because of “philosophical differences” with the park service, lives in nearby Hardin, Mont., and now raises money to buy land around the battlefield. He believes the current Indian owners might turn the acreage into tourist attractions, and the nonprofit organization he founded seeks to acquire the property and then deed it to the park.

Court, an avid devotee of the battlefield site, is highly critical of Booher’s management.

“I’ve been writing letters to congressmen to get things changed,” Court said. “They (the park service) seem to have lost sight of what they should be doing over there.”

Booher’s office, which formerly was Court’s, offers a sweeping view of the battlefield where so much blood was spilled so long ago. But today, on a table beside the superintendent’s desk, there is an imposing statue of an Indian on horseback, his arm raised, his lance ready. The bronze is titled “The Warrior.”

But there also is a framed poster quoting the legendary Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe: “Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired; my heart is sick and sad, from where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”

Booher, the only Indian woman superintendent in the park service, has surrounded herself with meaningful symbols of a complex heritage.

“All of life is a test, and I suppose this is part of that test,” she said. “I feel like I was supposed to come here. . . . I am responsible for seeing that these resources are taken care of for future generations of all people.

“And that is what I’m going to do.”