Born in the Dakota Territory near the forks of the Cheyenne River about 1835, Rain-in-the-Face was from the Hunkpapa band within the Lakota nation.

Late in his life, the chief related that the name was reinforced by an incident when he was a young man where he was in a battle in a heavy rainstorm with a band of Gros Ventres.

[1] According to the dubious legend, Rain-in-the-Face was fulfilling a vow of vengeance because he thought Captain Thomas Custer had unjustly imprisoned him in 1874.

In a census of the Lakota taken at Standing Rock in September 1881, Rain in the Face's band is recorded as numbering 39 families or 180 people.

On his deathbed he reputedly confessed to a missionary that he thought that he might have killed Custer, shooting him from so close as to leave powder marks upon his face.