CRAZY HORSE

by Kingsley M Bray

  By the 1820s the Missouri River was dotted with American trading posts that asserted the vitality of the trade alliance between the peoples. In 1825 that alliance was enshrined in a set of treaties concluded between the United States and the Lakotas, pledging each side to peace and mutually profitable trade.

  The Lakota world in Crazy Horse’s youth

  Into Curly Hair’s boyhood, the treaty of 1825 held fast Lakota and American interests. Trade, grounded in ceremonial gift exchange, was the guarantee of peace. The trade in winter buffalo robes was maximized by the coming of steamboat traffic to the Missouri after 1832, diversifying the range of trade goods on offer. Intermarriage between traders and Lakota women produced a growing class of bilingual, bicultural children.

  Goodwill presents made on the annual visits of Indian Office agents validated American use of trails and waterways through the Lakota domain. In 1831 the value of those presents to all Lakotas just topped one thousand dollars, with exactly two hundred dollars earmarked for Oglala gifts—at best, a handful of guns and blankets, kettles, knives, and tobacco, but such was the solidity of joint interests that Lakotas did not quibble.2

  The spirit of unquestioning acceptance came under searching review as Curly Hair grew up. The Oglala and Brule advance to dominate the plains of the North Platte River placed those divisions across the path of Manifest Destiny. In the year of Curly Hair’s birth, settlers bound for the Oregon Territory followed the Platte west along the route that would become indelible in the national consciousness as the Oregon Trail.

  Within five years, the deepening ruts of the settler road had worn away significant reserves of Lakota goodwill. Settler numbers ballooned to one thousand in 1843, and three thousand in 1845. Two years later, the Mormon exodus to Utah swelled the traffic. Settler stock applied critical pressure to summer pasture and transmitted diseases to buffalo populations that environmental historians are only today beginning to understand. Compounded by the midcentury onset of near-drought conditions across the plains, buffalo herds along the Platte perceptibly thinned, pressing hunters into buffer zones contested with the Crows, Shoshones, and Pawnees.

  Settler-borne diseases added to the list of Lakota grievances. The 1849 emigration broke all records. Twenty thousand prospectors passed up the Platte valley. For weeks their trains strung across the Lakota domain, destroying pasture and infecting the Indians with the deadly microbes of Asiatic cholera. When the cholera receded, smallpox made its cyclical return. Oglala losses may have been counted in scores, but Curly Hair intimately experienced the horror. As many as four stepsisters, all younger than five years, died in these tragic years. Grief was readily converted to anger. At the reunions of warrior societies, many war leaders concluded that the Americans were malevolently sending diseases among the Lakotas “to cut them off,” an explanation readily accepted by an impressionable boy revering warrior idols.3

  Chiefs like Man Afraid of His Horse argued that only increased spending on Lakota necessities could compensate for depletion of their hunting grounds. Agents like Fitzpatrick knew that Indians must be compensated for resource loss lest their brittle sufferance for the settlers deteriorate into raid and reprisal.

  This was why Fitzpatrick’s message was so positively received. Curly Hair’s father was part of the Hunkpatila council that agreed to facilitate negotiations, and the boy was well positioned to observe the political organization of his people in action. At the Sun Dance, the Oglala tribal council nominated four chiefs to act as Deciders, empowered with coercive authority for the duration of the summer. In turn, the Deciders named four leading warriors to serve as head akicita, policing tribal hunts and removes, and serving as envoys to secure a representative gathering for the treaty talks.4 Man Afraid of His Horse traveled to the Missouri to secure mass Lakota attendance. In August he returned with camps and delegations of Miniconjous, Two Kettles, Sans Arcs, Sihasapas, and Yanktons. From the western mountains arrived a strong Shoshone deputation. Villages of Oglala and Brule Lakotas, Cheyennes, and Arapahos, filled out a massive gathering of about 1500 lodges.

  On September 5, the great council convened at the confluence of Horse Creek and the North Platte. After a weekend of Lakota grandstanding, parades, and intertribal councils, Fitzpatrick and David Mitchell, superintendent of Indian Affairs, opened talks on the eighth. Mitchell stressed that the flow of emigration across the plains was irreversible: Americans needed the right to traverse Indian lands, and the army wished to build posts to protect the settlers. Crucially, he acknowledged that the Great Father was aware of the sufferings of his Indian children and wished to compensate them for the loss of game and resources. Each year for a term of fifty years, fifty thousand dollars would be spent on annuity presents. Indian delegates were invited to accompany Agent Fitzpatrick to Washington. For their part, the Indian tribes were to define tribal territories, establish intertribal peace, and select a head chief in each tribe to control his people and be responsible for their conduct.5

  As the great expansionist power on the plains, the Lakotas were unhappy with the prospect of rigidly demarcated tribal lands. True to the spirit of the occasion, intertribal truces with the Shoshones and the newly arrived Crow delegation had been effected. The American agenda threatened such agreements, and Lakota speakers contended the proposed boundary between Lakota and Cheyenne and Arapaho lands.

  Mitchell conceded that as long as the tribes remained at peace, they might roam at will, regardless of boundaries, but he continued to insist that the tribes select a Lakota head chief. Already, Lakota spokesmen had objected to such an office. The Lakota nation was so large and scattered over so wide a territory, they argued, that “we can’t make one chief.” Mitchell reminded the restive headmen that, earlier in the summer, treaties had been concluded with the Santee Dakotas of Minnesota. Much closer to the frontier of settlement, the Santees had agreed to sell most of their lands in exchange for subsistence spending and training in agriculture. Lest dissatisfied Santees claim refuge in the Lakota country, Mitchell advised, the Lakota nation should unite behind a single leadership. A quorum of chiefs nominated Man Afraid of His Horse as their candidate for head chief, but the Hunkpatila chief demurred, rejecting the chieftainship as just too contentious.6

  That evening, two of the Lakota warrior societies staged a dance before the commissioners’ headquarters tent, reflecting the crucial support of the akicita. The explicitly political role assumed by the warrior societies sounded a theme that would affect much of Curly Hair’s future life. Barely more than temporary dance associations in his father’s youth, the societies had grown in influence with Lakota fortunes. Through the succeeding generation, several would assume attitudes toward the American presence that amounted to policies. Some would oppose wasicu encroachment; others would strengthen the American alliance. Although Curly Hair would grow into a classic individualist, instinctively mistrustful of group psychology, the politicization of the warriors was fundamental to his career. His personal response to the societies’ decisions to validate the treaty is unknowable, but by his midteens, he would have already acquired a cynicism toward the wasicu alliance that might have been rooted in the treaty and in the family tragedies that had preceded it.7

  When the talks convened again, speakers announced their failure to agree on a head chief, and Mitchell declared he would nominate candidates. Twenty-four Lakota representatives, chosen pro rata from the tribal divisions, were presented with tally sticks. From their circle, Mitchell led forth Scattering Bear, a headman in the Brule Wazhazha band, and cousin to Curly Hair’s stepmothers. Kinswomen loudly acclaimed the selection, but Scattering Bear ordered them silent. Forcefully he outlined his reluctance. “Father, I am not afraid to die, but to be chief of all the Dacotahs, I must be a Big Chief. . . or in a few moons I will be sleeping (dead) on the prairies.”

  Nevertheless, each of the voting quorum presented his tally stick to Scattering Bear. One elder arose to harangue the young men. He urged them to accept Scattering Bear, a
nd “to have their ears bored, that they might listen to his words, and do what he said.” Mitchell then gave a quantity of goods to Scattering Bear. Pointedly reserving nothing for himself or his relatives, the new head chief of the Lakota nation gave everything away.8

  By the end of the talks, Indians had approved the main points outlined by Mitchell, and Lakotas agreed to a definition of their territory framed by the Missouri, North Platte, and Heart rivers, the western boundary following the divide between the Powder and Cheyenne rivers. On September 17 the treaty was signed. No Oglalas joined the signatories, illustrating the jealousy identified by Scattering Bear. He and five other Brules and Missouri River chiefs were left to touch the pen for the Lakotas—a meaningless formality, once the pipe had been smoked to carry the “visible breath” of the peace to Wakan Tanka.9

  For three more days the villages awaited their treaty presents, on campgrounds littered with two weeks’ worth of domestic waste. Pasture was eaten off, and councils impatiently monitored scout reports of buffalo movements. At last, late on the twentieth, the wagon train pulled in, and on the following day, thousands of people eagerly gathered along Horse Creek. Mitchell and Fitzpatrick first presented military dress uniforms to the chiefs. Scattering Bear was attired in the pantaloons, dress coat, and hat of a major general. Man Afraid of His Horse and his peers were issued brigadiers’ uniforms, and so on down the scale. Uniformed akicita aided the chiefs in redistributing the twenty-seven wagonloads of goods. The commissioners had spent Congress’s one hundred thousand dollars with a knowing eye for Indian needs and tastes. Bales of blankets, stacks of kettles, cases of knives, tobacco twists, bright rolls of yard goods—unprecedented wealth was borne away by the crowds. So prodigal seemed the Great Father’s generosity that it took two days to unpack all the goods.

  Lakota winter count keepers would memorialize 1851–52 as Wakpamni Tanka—the Year of the Big Giveaway. Briefly, the sheer scale of the payout seemed to confirm the aspirations of the moderate chiefs who had agitated for redrawn treaty relations. Like the bigger picture of American and Lakota attitudes, however, the treaty of 1851 was riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies. Curly Hair was no preternaturally endowed prophet, but he was a child of his times. He and his peers knew no other life than the post–Oregon Trail Lakota world, with its inheritance of disease, game attrition, and resource loss. Unlike the generation of chiefs and elders celebrating the renewal of the American alliance, they had no idealized memory of a golden age of interethnic relations. A troubled and dissatisfied boy followed his family away from the treaty grounds. Some of his unease was likely grounded in a growing misgiving over the peacemaking on Horse Creek.

  3

  BECOMING HUNKA

  By dusk of September 23, the campgrounds were empty. Across the North Platte lay discarded cloth, windblown piles of baking soda and flour, and bright stacks of copper kettles—all abandoned as just too much of a good thing. Throughout the treaty sessions, village councils had continued monitoring the reports of scouts regarding the prospects for buffalo—the real mainstay of life. Wintering grounds were selected before the villages were struck, and bands departed for all points of the compass.1

  Through the winter, Curly Hair brooded. Family solidarity was strained by the deaths of his stepsisters, creating a tight focus for the boy’s unease about the treaty—an agreement legitimizing the settler traffic that brought disease and death to the Lakota people. New grief reopened old emotional wounds, and Curly Hair was again at odds with his stepmothers—. “unable to get along at home,” as one tradition has it. His five-year-old half-brother had emerged as the family’s darling: doted over as a fragile survivor of the epidemics, he was always dressed in the best clothing, a child beloved in whose name the family gave gifts and sponsored ceremonies. Rattle Blanket Woman’s people remained a haven to Curly Hair, where indulgent, protective relatives offered comfort and unconditional love. Now eleven years old, Curly Hair packed a few essentials and rode to the Miniconjou camp, one day’s ride east.2

  Also visiting with the Miniconjous was a fifteen-year-old Oglala youth, a distant cousin to Curly Hair. Horn Chips belonged to a small band of Kiyuksa Oglalas that had decided to winter in the district—disastrously, because buffalo had eluded them and they had survived by trapping badgers, an incident at once seized on to coin a new name: Badger Eaters. Like Curly Hair, Horn Chips had traveled from his band’s camp and had been invited to live in the tipi of one of Curly Hair’s uncles. As ever, Curly Hair was drawn to an older companion, and the two sensitive youths found each other congenial company.3

  As they exchanged confidences, Curly Hair appreciated that Horn Chips had an even sorrier tale to tell. Both his parents had died during the epidemics. Living with his grandmother at the edge of camp, Horn Chips had become the butt of his playmates’ jibes. At length he had decided to end his life, but in a secluded spot, he heard a voice telling him that Wakan Tanka spoke. He must not kill himself, for he was to grow into a great man. The voice instructed him to fast atop a high mountain in the Black Hills and seek a vision. There a snake appeared to him with instructions as to his future course in life. Horn Chips assured Curly Hair that his vision, promising him a lifetime of spiritual growth to be spent in the service of the people, had convinced him of the worth of his existence. Already he waited impatiently for adulthood and the opportunity to practice the visionary and healing arts.4

  Curly Hair was immediately affected by Horn Chips’ conviction. Still too young to seek his own vision, Curly Hair could identify with his new friend’s self-belief. A close and lifelong bond was established between the boys. The new friendship did not go unnoticed by their elders, who prepared to deepen a personal affinity into a profoundly public good. Curly Hair’s uncle proposed sponsoring the costly hunka ritual for Curly Hair and Horn Chips.

  The hunka was the Lakota version of a ceremony found across the plains that fostered peaceful relations and intertribal trade. Leading families adopted each other’s children in a ceremony combining elaborate pageantry with profound spiritual truths. The ritual would tightly integrate the participants’ families and bands. As visiting “fathers” in the hunka, the Miniconjous would be expected to sponsor massive gift giving to their Oglala hosts.

  As host “sons,” the Oglalas would have to stage a grand giveaway of ponies to the Miniconjous. Leaders like Man Afraid of His Horse would be at pains to feed presents of food, robes, craftwork, trade goods, and ponies into Curly Hair’s family wealth. Horn Chips’ poor camp was in an anomalous position, but Oglala leaders enthusiastically fitted them out with presents to ensure that their guests were not shamed in the impending celebrations.5

  On the morning of the ceremony, inside the preparation lodge, Curly Hair and Horn Chips dressed in shirts, breechclouts, leggings, and moccasins. Outside, singing and the measured beat of drums accompanied a growing procession that made four circuits of the circle. “Where,” sang the holy man, “is the tipi of the hunka?”6

  The voices neared the preparation lodge. Suddenly, a blow struck the tipi skin and a knife slashed open the door flap. The holy man’s party swarmed into the lodge, seizing Curly Hair and Horn Chips and dragging them outside like captives.

  Oglalas and Miniconjous cheered as the boys approached the open-fronted ceremonial lodge. Men and women ran across the open space with presents of clothing, parfleches stuffed with dried meat, and ponies. Curly Hair and Horn Chips watched the line of singers and drummers form behind two virgins bearing ears of corn, tipped with white down eagle plumes, and two men waving the hunka pipestems in graceful motion above their heads, imitating the easy glide of eagles.

  The crowd took up the burden of the victory song as the procession followed its two captives. Approaching the entrance of the ceremonial lodge, the holy man gave the wolf howl of a victorious war party and proclaimed, “We should kill this enemy, but if anyone will take him for Hunka, we will not kill him.” Curly Hair’s uncle stepped forward and announced that he woul
d adopt the two boys as hunka, then led them down an avenue of waist-high screens into the lodge, followed by the attendants, the virgins, and the line of musicians. Their captor seated the boys before an altar centered on a buffalo skull with a blue stripe circling its brow, asserting the hunka relationship between the Buffalo Spirit and the Lakota people.

  As the lodge filled and spectators crowded outside, an assistant filled and lighted one of the sacred pipes from a coal of dried buffalo dung. Braids of lighted sweet-grass incensed the lodge. Ceremonial pipes circulated, opening the hours of invocations of the powers and lectures admonishing the candidates of the responsibility placed on them. Each individual in the hunka relationship was bound to the other by ties of allegiance and solidarity stronger than those of blood. Each owed the other a lifetime of mutuality and support. They must assist one another in all undertakings, protect one another in battle, avenge each other’s death, and ensure the continued support of their families.

  Other speakers stressed the links of obligation that bound the hunka to society. The candidates’ names would be constantly before the people as living exemplars of generosity. They must never cease to give food and clothing to the poor. Visitors from other bands and tribes expected to be regaled with presents: as hunka, the candidates should always be first in giving.