Excerpts

Introduction to a Hero Story The winter of 1866-67 was bitterly cold and snows were deep along the foothills of the Shining (Big Horn) Mountains in the region the Lakota called the Powder River country, in what is now north-central Wyoming. Buffalo were scarce and hunters had great difficulty finding elk and deer. Crazy Horse, then in his mid-twenties, and his younger brother Little Hawk did their share of hunting, risking their lives in the frigid temperatures as they searched for whatever game they could find. One day a sudden blizzard forced them to seek shelter, but in the midst of it they happened to see several elk that were also hiding out of the wind. After the storm abated somewhat the two hunters brought down several elk with their bows and arrows, not easy to do in extreme subzero weather. They transported the meat home and saved their relatives and friends from starvation. Only weeks before, on another unbelievably cold winter day, Crazy Horse had led nine other fighting men in luring eighty soldiers into an ambush by several hundred Lakota and Cheyenne warriors and into a battle known in the annals of Western history as the Fetterman Battle or Fetterman Massacre. It was a hard-fought battle and a decisive victory for the Lakota and their Cheyenne allies. During the decoy action Crazy Horse stopped well within enemy rifle range and calmly scraped ice from his horse's hooves just to infuriate the pursuing soldiers. He didn't know, and wouldn't have cared if he did, that he was laying the foundation for the myths and legends that surround his legacy. Say the name Crazy Horse and immediately events such as the Fetterman Battle, the Battle of the Rosebud, and, of course, the Battle of the Little Bighorn come to mind for those who have some inkling of Western American history. They think in terms of the legendary Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse was the Lakota battlefield leader who, in the span of eight days, got the best of two of the United States Army's field commanders: Brigadier General George Crook and Lieutenant General George Custer. His exploits off the battlefield are less well known, however. Deeds such as finding meat in the middle of a blizzard endeared him to those who knew him as an ordinary man. He became a hero to them long before he became a legend in other peoples' minds after Little Bighorn and the defeat of the Seventh United States Cavalry. Crazy Horse has been my hero since I was a boy. He was arguably the best-known Lakota leader in the latter half of the nineteenth century, a turbulent time on the northern Plains. His name floats in the consciousness of most Americans, along with the names of indigenous leaders and heroes from other tribes, such as Geronimo of the Chiracahua Apache, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, Washakie of the Eastern Shoshoni, and Quannah Parker of the Comanche, to name a few. He is certainly no less known than Sitting Bull, the Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and political leader who was his friend and ally, or Red Cloud, his fellow Oglala, who was not among his friends. At first I knew Crazy Horse only as a fighting man, the warrior. I didn't know or care what he felt, what he thought; I cared only that he was Lakota and that he was brave and performed deeds that fired my imagination. But as time went on there were more stories. I now know Crazy Horse as a man first and a legend second, a very distant second. In fact, he is much like my father and my uncles and all my grandfathers. He walks straight, he is polite, and he speaks softly. But there is also an aura of mystery about him, as though sometimes I am seeing him in a mist that blends legend and reality. It's that aura that seems to appeal most to people and I'm convinced that many want to connect with the mystery more than they want to identify with the man. I can consciously remember hearing his name for the first time the summer I was six years old. My grandfather Albert and a man I knew as Grandpa Isaac and I had just crossed the Little White River and stopped to rest. As they both fashioned their roll-your- own cigarettes, one of them compared the slow-moving Little White to the Greasy Grass River. I learned later that the Greasy Grass was in south-central Montana and was also known as the Little Bighorn. In the shade of a thick grove of sandbar willow, the two old men spoke about a battle, and names that I had never heard before-or at least that I couldn't remember hearing before-rolled off their tongues that day along the river. Pizi, Tatanka Iyotake, Inkpa Duta , and Tasunke Witko and Pehin Hanska . Of course, they were talking about Gall, Sitting Bull, Red Butte, and Crazy Horse and Custer. Pehin Hanska meant Long Hair, the name many Lakota had for George Custer. The battle they spoke of was fought seventy-five years prior, ten or so years before either of them was born. They talked, however, as if it had happened only the day before. They could because they had heard of the battle from their fathers and uncles and from a generation who had been alive in 1876, and from some who had been there in the great encampment along the Greasy Grass. Long Hair and his soldiers had been decisively defeated, as far as I could tell. The Sahiyela , the Northern Cheyenne, were there with the Lakota. The soldiers had attacked the south end of the encampment along the Greasy Grass River, then the north end. Those from the south were stopped and routed completely, chased across the river to the top of a hill where they dug shallow pits in the earth to hide. Those who tried to attack from the north were stopped at the river and chased up a long slope. They were forced to fight a running battle, falling and dying as they fled until only a small knot of them were cut off at the end of a long ridge and were killed. One name was repeated more often than others in the story of that battle: Tasunke Witko , or "His Crazy Horse." He was a leader of fighting men and his mere appearance on the battlefield was apparently enough to inspire others to fight. Tasunke Witko had led a charge of warriors against the soldiers in the second engagement of that battle. A Sahiyela leader commented on that particular action when recounting the battle years later by saying, "I have never seen anything so brave." By the age of six I had already listened to many stories from these two grandfathers. I was well aware that being a fighting man was one way of being a man in the Lakota ways of old. I knew that men were often injured or wounded in battle and sometimes killed. And I knew that in battle a man could prove himself. For one man to obviously evoke such reverence and respect from the two grandfathers who told the story of the 1876 Greasy Grass Fight-the Battle of the Little Big Horn-was of some consequence. In my six-year-old world I could think of only two or three other old men in the same category as these two grandfathers, so when they respected someone it was no small thing. That day by the Little White River, Tasunke Witko became part of my life. Like any Lakota boy that heard of Crazy Horse's exploits on the battlefield, I was awestruck, and immediately made him larger than life, thus setting him apart from reality. I can't recall the exact moment I realized that the essence of Crazy Horse had something to do with more than his physical appearance and attributes or his accomplishments as a fighting man and a leader of fighting men. But the realization came because the stories from my grandfather and other elders took on a more realistic tone as they added details to correlate with my intellectual and emotional growth. Crazy Horse became more defined and I began to paint him with the brush of reality rather than the distortion of legend. In that reality every Lakota boy of the time grew up on a horse and Crazy Horse was no exception. As an adult he was described as a skilled horseman. Many who rode with him into battle remembered that he used two horses for a combat, a bay and a sorrel. He favored the bay, a gelding. Later he had a favorite riding horse, a yellow paint. He preferred geldings because they had more endurance than mares and stallions. The bay was not only fast but had unusual endurance. It was the horse he rode in many encounters with both native and white enemies. Crazy Horse liked to rest and refresh his horse by riding him to the top of a hill to catch a breeze or stand in the wind. Like every Lakota male, he was probably highly skilled with his bow because of the type of instruction and training he was given. In his day it was not unusual for teenage boys to hit grasshoppers on the fly with an arrow. Surprisingly, my boyhood image of him as a warrior was not too far from the truth. As a full-fledged fighting man he did prefer a stone-headed war club for close combat, and it was said he was highly skilled with it, especially mounted and in a running fight. Out of necessity, however, he did a acquire a single-shot muzzle loader and later a repeating rifle. Crazy Horse was certainly not the tallest or the strongest among the Lakota fighting men of his day. He was probably somewhere between five feet six inches and five feet ten inches tall. But courage and daring are not dependent on size or ability. In another way, however, he was not the prototypical Lakota fighting man in that he didn't participate in a ritual called the waktoglakapi or "to tell of one's victories." It was a simple ritual in which fighting men were expected to recount their exploits on the battlefield. As a matter of fact, Crazy Horse barely talked about his exploits to his immediate family. Sometimes, however, Crazy Horse does seem to tower over me. He is intense and his eyes flash. These moments happen, I suspect, to remind me that there is a legacy that is larger than life, an aspect to Crazy Horse that sets him apart from others who have gone before us. In a real sense it has to do with something beyond his exploits, something that traditional Lakota know and understand, something often misunderstood by the non-Lakota world. My grandfather liked to watch the clouds building to the west on late summer afternoons, the kind of clouds that are folded and gray-blue, with quiet thunder rolling in their bowels uttering a promise of lightning and rain. One summer evening as we watched storm clouds approaching and listened to that distant, quiet thunder, he made a soft comment. Wakinyan ihanble ske . They say he dreamed of the Thunders. He was speaking of Crazy Horse. So among other things he was a Thunder Dreamer. Anyone who dreamed of the Thunder Beings, the Wakinyan , was called upon to walk the path of the Heyoka (heh-yo'-kah), also known as wakan witkotkoka , which is roughly translated as "crazy in a sacred way." A Heyoka was a walking contradiction, acting silly or even crazy sometimes, but generally expected to live and act contrary to accepted rules of behavior. In doing so a Thunder Dreamer sacrificed reputation and ego for the sake of the people. Throughout his adult life and with his last breath, this is exactly what Crazy Horse did. He has left us a legacy that is both a trail to follow and a challenge to follow it. Much later, when I was an adult, I realized that my research into the life of Crazy Horse had begun that day by the Little White River in the summer of 1951, nearly seventy-four years after his death at Camp Robinson, Nebraska. That research happened in the most natural way possible for me as a Lakota child. Home for me is the northern Plains because I was born there and shaped by the influence of the land as much as the people who were closest to it. I was privileged to grow up in and around the communities of Horse Creek and Swift Bear on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation, where I had access to the friends and relatives of my maternal grandparents, Albert and Annie (Good Voice Eagle) Two Hawk. I also spent a few years in the Lakota community in and around Kyle, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where my paternal grandfather, Charles J. Marshall, served as an Episcopal deacon. There, too, were many elderly Lakota who were friends and relatives. All of these elders were born in the 1890-1910 era. Their parents were born in the 1860-1890 era. All of the Lakota elders I had contact with were unselfish in sharing their knowledge, opinions, and stories. To a child, of course, stories are simply stories. But as I grew older I began to gradually realize that I was hearing essential historical and cultural information. Those elders were the best of authorities regarding the cultural values, traditions, customs, and historical events-well known and not so well known-that existed in the time of Crazy Horse. As a matter of fact, it was intriguing to listen to discussions and debates about what he might have felt and thought at a particular moment. Those elders not only provided my first glimpses into the life of Crazy Horse, but they were an almost never-ending source of information about him and about Lakota life of the past. I was related to most of them from Horse Creek and Swift Bear (see list on pages 295-98) through both of my maternal grandparents. Those from the Pine Ridge Reservation were acquaintances of my paternal grandparents. They were all great storytellers and never passed up an opportunity to tell stories to an eager youngster. On many occasions it was simply a matter of mood meeting opportunity and someone would launch into a story. On just as many occasions, especially as I grew older, I sought them out with questions to seek clarification or to revisit a story. Of course, the one most accessible to me was my maternal grandfather, Albert Two Hawk. He was a man of many talents. To me he was the best possible example of a hardworking, humble, unselfish, and deeply spiritual person. He exemplified all the things he told about in his stories, as did my grandmother Annie. A grandfather, Isaac Knife, was cut in the same mold. A big man with a gentle manner, he worked for many years for the railroad. His sister Eunice was a strong woman. She married a man named Black Wolf and was widowed young. One of her sons was killed in a shooting. Another from her second husband, named Running Horse, was killed in an accident while in the army. She had to be strong to survive that kind of tragedy and hardship. But she was always quick to smile and pat my face with her strong hands. Wilson Janis from Kyle, South Dakota, was blind with snow-white hair. His wife Alice was a small, slender woman, also with strong hands. It seemed somehow a contradiction that many of my aunts and grandmothers with gentle souls and eyes to match had such strong hands. The last of them to finish their earthly journey was one of my paternal grandmothers, Katie Roubideaux Blue Thunder, my father's aunt. She, too, was small. She was born in June of 1890 (thirteen years after the death of Crazy Horse) and died in 1991, a month short of her one hundred and first birthday. She liked to watch the dances and tell stories of them and of how midwives were considered special people in the old days. The list goes on and so do the memories. All of them, each of them, gave me information and insight I likely would never have gained on my own without them. This is more their work than mine. None of the elders who told me stories of Crazy Horse had ever claimed to have seen him, of course, because they had been born too late. But they were the children and grandchildren of people who lived in the time of Crazy Horse, some who had managed to at least catch glimpses of him or hear firsthand accounts from those who had actually seen him. So their stories and descriptions were always preceded by the Lakota word ske, meaning "it was said." So it was said that Crazy Horse was slender and had wavy, dark brown hair, and his complexion was not as dark as that of most Lakota. His eyes were dark, however, and he had a narrow face with a typically long, straight Lakota nose, and a wide mouth. This manner of passing on information was, of course, part of the process and mechanism of the Lakota oral tradition that had existed for hundreds of generations. We Lakota did not invent the oral tradition, however. It has been an integral part of human societies for longer than anyone can remember or document. Simply defined, it is the passing down of information from one generation to the next solely or primarily with the spoken word. Within the parameters of "information" is family, community, tribal, and national history, as well as practical knowledge that insures physical survival, provides for philosophical development, teaches societal roles, social behavior, norms, and values, and insures preservation of spiritual beliefs. Though the written word has supplanted the spoken word as the primary conveyance of information, every human culture and society has used oral tradition at some point in their societal evolution. We Lakota today are a culture that still uses the oral tradition and our sole use of it is only three generations past. It is still a viable mechanism for us. Although the non-Lakota world has created myths and legends around and about Crazy Horse, he is a genuine hero to Lakota people who have a sense of what he was really about. Documentation does exist on the non-Indian side of history regarding Crazy Horse, but the thought that such documentation is the only credible source limits our access and view of that history. There are many sides to any story, history especially, and all sides can provide depth and substance when we incorporate them all as part of the story. A wealth of cultural information and historical knowledge has not been made available to non-Indians because of a basic suspicion on the part of many Lakota (and other indigenous peoples). The suspicion exists because too many non-Indian noses are turned up at the thought that oral tradition should be considered credible. I suspect that this is a political and ethnocentric debate that will continue indefinitely, and as long as it is not resolved we all lose. At least for the parameters of this work, I have chosen to listen to both sides. In my opinion, history is something owned collectively by all of us, although there has been a monopoly on the reporting and interpretation of it on the part of those who perceive themselves to be the "winners" or "conquerors of the West" or "tamers of the land." In spite of the self-serving labels and posturing, we are entitled to hear all viewpoints on our history and all the voices that have something to tell. Indeed, we must insist on it. It is highly likely that another Lakota writer would approach the topic of Crazy Horse differently than I have. Nonetheless, a Lakota viewpoint about Crazy Horse needs to be put in front of those who have only a narrow view. Crazy Horse is much too important to the Lakota for us to be indifferent to the misconceptions about him. My Crazy Horse long ago ceased to be a one-dimensional hero impervious to the foibles of being human. I have done my best to make him real. I accept him for what he was as a man-as a Lakota person shaped by his environment, the times he lived in, and the culture that nurtured him. I am inspired by his legacy as an ordinary man, as much as by his legacy as an extraordinary leader. I feel connected to him when I speak my native language, when I handcraft an ash-wood bow or willow arrows, and when I do what I can to address the issues and challenges facing my tribe in these times. The customs he practiced, the traditions he followed, the values he lived by are still viable today because he did what he could to preserve them. He defended them by living them and fighting for them. For all those reasons he will always be my hero. For all those reasons he will always be as real to me as my mother and father are, as real as my grandmothers and grandfathers are. To me, Crazy Horse will always be the irrepressible warrior and leader of warriors. He wasn't fearless, but he did act in spite of fear. He was a man who looked realistically at this environment and the circumstances within it. He understood the awesome responsibility and high honor of leading men into combat, as well as the daunting responsibility of living his life as a positive example for everyone to see. I think of him as wica or "complete man" (not to be confused with wicasa or "man," which is primarily the gender designation). Wica is what every Lakota man strove to be. A wica was the kind of a man who demonstrated the highest Lakota virtues of generosity, courage, fortitude, and wisdom. Crazy Horse wasn't perfect but he was generous with his material goods and his efforts on behalf of others. He demonstrated courage time and again on and off the battlefield. His fortitude enabled him to hang on to his values, beliefs, and principles during a time of traumatic change for the Lakota, and he worked to acquire wisdom, realizing that it comes from failure as well as success. He was much the same as other Lakota men of his day, indeed the same as most Lakota men of the nineteenth century. Like them, Crazy Horse was many things and fulfilled many roles. He was a son, husband, brother, father, and teacher. He was a crafter of weapons and tools, a hunter and tracker, horseman, scout, and fighting man, to list a few. He was also a deep thinker, a shy loner, a fierce defender of all that he held dear, a keen observer, a rejected suitor, a moral person, a family man, and a patriot. In short he lived his life, he made decisions, he took action, he reacted, he made mistakes, and he enjoyed or suffered the consequences of who and what he was and what he did or didn't do. That is his legacy. A word about names. In English, Crazy Horse is how the world knows him. In Lakota, as I mentioned earlier, his name is Tasunke Witko or "His Crazy Horse" or "His Horse Is Crazy." According to many of the elders who told stories of him, his childhood name was Jiji , or "Light Hair," and that is the name I chose to use in reference to him as a boy. The format for this book was the cause of long inner turmoil and a certain amount of discussion with my editor because I was torn between writing an in-depth discussion of the life and times of Crazy Horse and a straight biography. The result is both, but it is also something more, though not new. The biographic narrative is an attempt to unfold the life of Crazy Horse as a storyteller would. In the old days there were hero stories, stories that were told to boys and young men to make them aware of the long-standing tradition of the wica , the "complete man." Part of that was to be a warrior, of course, and many of the stories were about warriors. But these were not made-up stories; they were about real men and their actual exploits and accomplishments. There was no better way to inspire the young. One of the old people would say, Hiyu wo, takoja, wica wawoptetusni wan tawoecun ociciyakin ktelo . Literally, it meant "Come, grandson, I want to tell you of the deeds of a hero." Colloquially, it meant "Come, grandson, I want to tell you a hero story." The word wawoptetusni has several meanings. It could mean "beyond reproach," "accomplished," or even "bigger than life." That was the kind of men the hero stories were about. The narrative is augmented with essays-entitled Reflections-that add some dimension from the contemporary viewpoint on the life and times of Crazy Horse and his Lakota world. Any shortcomings here are mine and certainly not due to the subject of this work or the elderly storytellers who gave their words and their hearts, and thus gave us a meaningful glimpse of the past. So here is a hero story, the way I know it to be. -Joseph Marshall III One His mother brought him forth in the place that symbolized the Lakota world, the place called the heart of all things , the Black Hills. Not new to the pain of giving birth, she silently endured it with the gentle help of She Who Takes the Babies, the midwife, an old woman whose hands were the first guidance, the first welcome felt by many newborns. Other women were in attendance in the tipi pitched slightly apart from the small encampment, a circle of knowledge and support watching the tiny head with coal black hair emerge into a Lakota world. Later they clucked and cooed and exchanged smiles of satisfaction as he opened his eyes, so deep brown they appeared black. The circle of women worked quietly, laying the mother down and cleaning off the new life. One of them poked her head out the tipi door to announce to waiting girls that it was a boy, a future provider and protector of his people. So the word was carried to his father waiting nervously in his family's home, as all expectant fathers do. As he heard the news he loaded the bowl of his pipe with tobacco and offered it to Mother Earth, Father Sky, to the Powers of the West, North, East, and South, and finally to the Grandfather, and then quietly smoked his thanksgiving for this new life, this new Lakota come into the world. The new life suckled his mother's breasts eagerly, anxious to begin his journey. The women in attendance were pleased. One of them sang a soft lullaby, a soft rhythmic chant like a slow heartbeat. Soon his mother helped with the chant, her soft voice joining in, her eyes filled with love as she held her new son close, feeling his moist skin against her bare breasts even as one of the women wrapped a large warm robe around them both, binding mother and son together. By 1840 much of the northern Plains of North America was unmistakably a Lakota world. From the Muddy River (Missouri) on the east, the Running Water (Niobrara) and the Shell (North Platte) rivers on the south, the Shining Mountains (Big Horns) to the west, and the northern border stretching from the Elk River (Yellowstone) east to the Knife flowing into the Muddy, the size of this far-flung world was in keeping with the population of the nation and the determination to protect it. Within this world the people lived by hunting. The people moved camp several times each year to flow with the change of seasons and the movement of the animals they depended on for food and clothing. The tatanka, the bison, was the main source of livelihood. The horse had arrived several generations before and was by then a very important part of Lakota life. It was the other reason the territory was so large. In this Lakota world the life path for sons flowed in two directions that were closely tied to each other, like twin trunks of the same tree. Every boy grew up to be a hunter and a warrior, a provider and a protector. Every boy born was a promise that the nation would remain strong. Families prayed that each boy would grow up strong of body and mind, that he would heed the lessons of his fathers and grandfathers and honor the path already laid out for him. This was the way. So this new life come into the Lakota world, into the small community encamped in the place known as the heart of all things , was welcomed as new hope, and the people prayed that he would grow straight and strong. The next morning the circle of women who had attended the birth escorted the mother and her new son from the woman's tipi into the main encampment, to the door of her own lodge, singing songs as they went. People watched and some joined the procession and gifts of welcome were laid next to the door. Among the gifts was a tiny bow with its own tiny arrow, an unmistakable sign of the journey that lay ahead for the new life. Bison robes covered the floor of the lodge and painted rawhide containers-some square and some rectangular-were neatly arranged against the interior wall. A small girl, no more than three, waited anxiously, as did the man of the lodge. The woman entered and walked around the center fire pit and then lowered herself and her bundle carefully into a willow chair set next to the stone altar at the back of the room. Rattling Blanket Woman opened the bundle to show her daughter the thatch of wavy black hair atop her new brother's head, and then lifted the baby into his father's arms. He was a modest man, a healer. Crazy Horse was his name, the same as his father's and which was passed down to him. They were a humble family, part of the Hunkpatila band1 of the Oglala Lakota. She was Mniconju Lakota. Their children thus carried the blood of the Oglala and Mniconju Lakota people. The little one, this new life, this new hope for the people, squirmed in his arms and Crazy Horse felt the promise of goodness and strength within the tiny bundle he held. So the father sang a welcoming song for his new son. Thus the journey began. Excerpted from The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History by Joseph M. Marshall All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.