Yes, that was their version of hell. They had another version of it too...they thought that if a man was hanged then his spirit would not be able to escape the body through his last breath, but would be trapped in the corpse for all eternity.

This gave the Indians a tremendous fear of being executed in that particular fashion...and they regarded it as a truly terrible practice on the part of the Whites.

The Indian chiefs reputedly ordered their people not to mutilate the fallen body of George Custer. This may have been because of their considerable respect for his courage in battle. As it was, some of the women simply pushed their knitting needles into his ears to open them up a bit so that he could "hear better" in the next life, and not make the same mistake of again attacking the Lakota and Cheyenne.