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
Oyate Kin (The People)
The nation is comprised of three groups, two eastern and one western. The names of the groups mean “an alliance of friends” and represent a dialectical as well as a geographic distinction. All three groups understand one another’s dialects. Each has subgroups or divisions.
Dakota
The Dakota are also known as the Isanti. The name comes from the Dakota words isan or knife and ti, meaning “to live or dwell.” Long ago the Isanti encamped in areas where they gathered stone for making knives, primarily across the Missouri River to the northeast. Isanti eventually became Santee, and their subgroups are:
Mdewakantunwan—people of Spirit Lake;
Wahpekute—leaf shooters (or to shoot among the leaves);
Wahpetunwan—people living among the leaves, or people of Lake Traverse; and
Sissetunwan—people of the marsh.
Nakota
The Nakota are also known as Ihanktun, loosely meaning “village at the end” because their villages were far to the southeast across the Missouri River. Ihanktun was anglicized into Yankton, and their subgroups are:
Ihanktunwan—people of the end; and
Ihanktunwanna—little people of the end (meaning a smaller group).
Lakota
The Lakota were also known as Titunwan, meaning “to live where they can see” and also “people of the prairie.” Titunwan was anglicized into Teton. The Lakota lived west of the Missouri River, and their subgroups are also known as Oceti Sakowin or “Seven Fires,” popularly referred to as the Seven Council Fires:
Oglala—to scatter;
Sicangu—burnt leg or thigh;
Hunkpapa—those who camp at the end;
Mniconju—to plant by the water;
Oohenunpa—two boilings or two kettles;
Itazipacola—without bows; and
Sihasapa (sometimes Siksika)—black soles or black feet.
The Lakota Calendar
The annual calendar used by the Lakota was based on the thirteen lunar cycles, so there were thirteen months. Names for months were based on natural events, though different Lakota groups often used different names for the same months. The Middle Moon was so named because it had six months preceding it and six months following it. Because of the twenty-seven- and twenty-eight-day lunar cycle, the Lakota months did not coincide exactly with the modern calendar; in fact, they overlapped, so comparisons are approximate.
Part I
The Early Years
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 w
ould 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.
Joseph M. Marshall III Page 2