CRAZY HORSE

by Kingsley M Bray

  Consensus would be a major theme of the talks. Lakota society and politics were habitually volatile, and the most far-sighted leaders understood that the fraught issue of the American alliance held potential for unprecedented factionalism. Increasing dissension had illustrated vividly the threat of generational polarization. Warrior society meetings were still dominated by talk of war. Hearts were made strong, and war leaders declared that in future wars, they would not yield as easily. Warriors questioned General Harney’s credentials as a peacemaker, observing that since leaving the Lakota country, the general had gone to war again. Contrasting their own few flintlocks with the weapons of the “great armies” of Harney, Sumner, and the Mormon campaign, war leaders recommended hit-and-run raids by small war parties, running off army horses and beef herds. Here direct input from Curly Hair and his comrades may have been welcomed, as Lakotas concluded that the Cheyenne debacle ruled out pitched battles with the Americans.9

  On the contentious issue of treaty annuities, chiefs and elders were prepared to give ground, hedging acceptance with qualifications of American intent, as militant Strong Hearts Society spokesmen argued that the goods “scarcely paid for going after them.” Debate threw up yet another misunderstanding. Oglalas and Upper Brules understood from Agent Twiss that the 1851 annuities were predicated on Lakota acceptance of the Overland Trail running through their lands; Hunkpapas and other northern Lakotas—their lands still unaffected by the settler routes—understood them to be dependent on preserving peace with the Crows. Bear Ribs won grudging concessions from Hunkpapa warriors that, although they would prefer no annuities and no American interference, as long as they were not committed to ending all intertribal warfare, their people could accept treaty goods.10

  As the council progressed, speakers identified a central unifying concept—the sanctity of a clearly defined Lakota domain. The Black Hills lay at its heart. As a key wintering ground for the Lakotas and their buffalo, an invaluable resource of timber, water, and small game, a region potent with the elemental energies of Rock and Thunder, and the sacred associations of the vision quest, the Black Hills were defined as the symbolic heart of the Lakota country. “[T]hese Black Hills must be left wholly to themselves,” speakers declared. Boundaries would be aggressively maintained against intruders. The Overland Trail and the steamboat route up the Missouri, defining the perimeter, would remain uncontested. Within the interior, only the Traders’ Trail linking forts Pierre and Laramie could remain open—a concession clearly pressed by Oglala and Brule moderates. Trade was always a central concern of the elders. They won consensus about the security of the major trading posts but had to concede to hardliners that interior branch posts should be closed. All Americans in the interior could be “whipped out.”11

  Even in these hardline resolutions, however, Lakotas invoked the authority of their treaties through a creative reinterpretation of the Harney accord. Stressing certain aspects of Harney’s council agreements and off-the-record remarks, and distinctly downplaying others, moderate leaders could argue that treaty provisions were consistent with militants’ aspirations. The point on closing branch posts actually echoed one of Harney’s recommendations, that trade be conducted solely at military posts. Speakers ignored the fact that the treaty expressly permitted military parties to cross the Lakota domain. Basing their observations on Harney’s informal request that Lakotas cooperate in arresting army deserters, they even declared that persistent intruders could be killed once the ritual four warnings had been served.12 Wasicu were not the only defined intruders. Yankton visitors from across the Missouri, coming under American pressure to sell their lands, were warned not to seek refuge on Lakota hunting grounds.13

  Distinctly against the spirit of their treaties, the council turned to consider intertribal relations. Since their brief truce with the Crows had broken down in 1853, Hunkpapa and Sihasapa war parties had infested the lower Yellowstone valley, waging open war on the River Crows, which they categorically refused to give up. Faced with the move to conciliation, hardline Hunkpapa Strong Hearts leaders had formed a feasting club, known as the Midnight Strong Hearts from its late-night meetings, to try to formulate a concerted set of policies. Sitting Bull, eight years Curly Hair’s senior, and unlike him an articulate, intensely political man, was recognized as their leader. Such was his renown that he had recently been made a Strong Hearts warbonnet wearer, pledged never to retreat, and invested as a Hunkpapa tribal war leader.14

  For the first time Curly Hair and Sitting Bull’s paths crossed. The Oglala youth could sit only in the outermost arc of the crowded council shade, but as he heard Sitting Bull and other Midnight Strong Hearts argue that on no account would the Crow war be given up, he could recognize a kindred spirit. Proposals to extend hunts into the Crow country, carefully squared with Harney’s recommendation that the Lakotas seek hunting grounds remote from the settler trails, met with general approval. Lakota raiders could rationalize westward expansion by citing Crow rejection of joint land-use accords. With key differences adroitly mediated, the great council wound to a close. In summing up the council resolutions, Bear Ribs would tersely state “they had agreed together to hereafter let no one come.” For now, chiefs and warriors spoke with one powerful voice.15

  The Bear Butte resolutions placed the Americans on trial. If they respected the Lakota domain, keeping soldiers and settlers off the hunting grounds, peace might be maintained. If Americans continued to intrude, mechanisms were in place to downgrade diplomatic relations progressively through akicita punishments and rejection of treaty goods to open warfare. In reality, once the tribal divisions moved away for fall hunting operations, each tribe and band was free to interpret the Bear Butte resolutions in light of local conditions. But their spirit would continue to animate Curly Hair’s adult life, shaping his responses and strategies to American activity as he grew into manhood. For him the unformed instincts of youth were forged into principles, attitudes, and convictions at the great council of 1857.

  Prominent among the Miniconjou warriors at Bear Butte was High Backbone. Curly Hair had made a joyous reunion with his kola, exchanging ponies and, for the first time, being consulted as an equal. Now High Backbone, already a leader of war parties, proposed a raid northward. Soon after the close of the council—if Charles Eastman’s account drawn from Oglala contemporaries of Crazy Horse is to be trusted, in the late summer weeks before Curly Hair’s seventeenth birthday—he prepared again for war.16

  High Backbone opened proceedings by sending out invitations to trusted comrades and relatives to eat with him. After he canvassed opinion, they set a date for departure. A day or so before leaving, the war party was formally organized when a handful of the most experienced members of the party were installed as blotahunka, the committee of war leaders that would coordinate the expedition under High Backbone’s direction. A feast was served, the food being ladled out by the messengers into a single dish with two spoons standing in it. Then the dish was passed around the circle. Each pair of men held the dish as they ate, a practice meant to instill the spirit of implicit trust and comradeship warriors must share. The feast closed with the singing of war songs deep into the night.17

  The following morning, the party sat shoulder to shoulder on the campground, facing the direction of the enemy’s land. As a Thunder dreamer, Curly Hair did not dress in his best regalia but wore only moccasins and a short breechclout. His unbound hair streamed out behind him, the front hair stiffened into a high pompadour symbolizing the strike of lightning. Sprigs of a plant associated with the Thunder were thrust through the pompadour and tied into his horse’s bobbed tail. Around his forehead he painted a wavy red line, forked at either end. He dabbed his face and chest with white spots representing hail, then repeated the pattern over the chest and hindquarters of his pony. Then High Backbone led the party north.18

  As the war party neared enemy country, its progress slowed, and scouts crisscrossed the terrain. After locating the enemy, the party held a night
feast at which the blotahunka presided. Around a blazing fire to defy the enemy, officers selected young men, balancing novices and tried warriors, to strike coups in the coming battle. To judge by his conduct, Curly Hair may well have been one of the chosen.19

  As the party crossed a wide valley, the enemy was sighted—a party of Atsinas, northern kin of the Arapahos, gathered on “a high hill covered with big rocks and near a river.”20The Atsinas rode tentatively forward, but High Backbone led a fierce charge, and the enemy grouped in a defensive knot on the prairie. High Backbone whipped forward his pony and charged the Atsinas alone, his war gear distinctive—a red cloth turban and matching cape.21 Such gear identified the “big braves,” men whom the enemy recognized and feared, and to whom comrades rallied. Now the line of warriors reined in to observe their leader perform his brave run and empty the enemy guns. Sure enough, a rattle of musketry greeted High Backbone as his charge swung around the Atsina position. Bullets and arrows whistled close to the pipe owner. Suddenly, from the row of Lakotas, a slight figure quirted forward his own pony: Curly Hair had decided to follow his comrade’s run.

  It was not a moment too soon, for a well-placed shot struck High Backbone’s mount, and the pony plunged forward and fell. Its rider, injured and momentarily stunned, lay in the dust. Whoops signaled an Atsina rush to kill the fallen giant, but as the yelling enemy closed on High Backbone, Curly Hair reined back his horse and leapt from the saddle. Arrows struck the earth all around him as he raced to his comrade’s side and lifted him up. The superbly trained war pony waited quietly amidst a hail of fire as its owner assisted High Backbone into the saddle, then sprang up behind him. Enemies streamed after the pair, but Curly Hair skillfully effected the escape to rejoin their comrades.

  The Lakotas drove the enemy back up the rocky hill, with Curly Hair charging the Atsinas “several times alone.”22 The body of a fallen enemy lay in an exposed spot: none of the Lakotas dared approach to strike coup. To some spectators, Curly Hair’s pony “became unmanageable,” just as it had in the Pawnee fight. In truth, the pony’s mettle was evidence of the months of training it had shared with its rider in his preparation for battle. Now it carried Curly Hair “wildly about” toward the body. Leaning out of the saddle as he careered past, the youth struck first coup.23

  As the fight turned to rout, Curly Hair laced into the enemy rearguard. Urging his pony to greater efforts, he “rammed his horse into the enemies’ horses, knocking the riders off. He did this repeatedly.”24 When the Lakotas disengaged to regroup, Curly Hair rode back bearing two scalps. Although he had also sustained a flesh wound in the arm, Curly Hair’s first major fight was another stunning personal victory. As the war party turned for home, High Backbone singled out his protege for praise. The rescue only confirmed the close relationship between the pair. Warrior and youth were now pledged as lifelong comrades, sharing property, food, and booty. In the hunt and warfare, they would assist each other—as Curly Hair had just demonstrated—into the teeth of death.25

  Several Oglala and Miniconjou bands had established winter camps near one another in the upper Belle Fourche valley.26 The night before Curly Hair and his comrades returned, they blackened their faces in token of victory. At dawn the leader took his war pipe, wrapped in a wolf-skin cover, and secured it by a cord over the shoulders of the youth who had distinguished himself in the battle. Curly Hair started across the prairie toward the village, the warriors who had won honors striding in line abreast of him, chanting a war song. Other warriors galloped ahead and circled the village, musket shots announcing a victorious return.

  As they neared the camp entrance, the line of warriors stopped and sat on the earth. Assistants lit a small fire of buffalo chips, and High Backbone ceremoniously unwrapped the war pipe. Each warrior touched the pipe stem to his lips. At the camp entrance, a crowd of relatives began a song of welcome.

  All the warriors mounted to ride into camp, holding aloft their trophies. “I bring a human scalp!” Curly Hair could cry, rearing his pony. Women tremoloed their praise and led the parade of warriors riding abreast in kola pairs, led by High Backbone and Curly Hair. Girls ran up to receive the scalp trophies from triumphant brothers. Youths snatched at the warriors’ clothing, carrying away ornaments and weapons for good luck. “Haye, haye,” old men chanted their praise as High Backbone trotted over to the council tipi and dismounted, tossing the rein to one of the press of people.

  For up to four days, feasting continued. On the final night, as bonfires burned, a tall pole was erected. Painted with a black spiral stripe, scalps and severed hands and feet were fastened to the top. Victorious warriors and their women relatives gathered in a circle around the pole. On the right, the men, handsomely dressed and painted, led the victory dance in song, each beating a hand drum, while the women on the left, carrying brothers’ society banners or wearing their warbonnets, shook the scalps and shrilled a high harmony.

  Curly Hair, chronically shy, is unlikely to have joined the circle of dancers. On the campground outside the family tipi, however, his father was hosting a feast in his honor. This was the climax of the long years during which Crazy Horse had tried to instill in his son the values of a Lakota warrior: today Curly Hair’s triumphant return had more than fulfilled all expectations, matching superb courage with careful judgment and dauntless concern for his comrades. Thirteen years after the Male Crow disaster, Curly Hair had resoundingly reclaimed his family’s name. In a single battle, he had counted at least five coups, enough for many men’s lifetimes.

  Crazy Horse would have sought to secure the presence at the feast of respected elders, prominent warriors, and great chiefs like Man Afraid of His Horse and Lone Horn. At the place of honor with the chiefs sat Curly Hair, his face blackened. A red ring of paint circled his arm wound. Other insignia displayed his deeds: a double cross painted on a legging symbolized his rescue of High Backbone; each of the coups he had struck entitled him to wear a golden eagle plume at the back of his head, one painted red for his wound. As a special token of honor for the conspicuously brave, an elder removed Curly Hair’s moccasins and painted his feet red. After the feast and the passing of the pipe, relatives drove up horses fitted with packsaddles, to which Curly Hair’s stepmothers fastened stacks of presents and parfleches filled with clothing or dried meat. Curly Hair’s father led out a war pony. The chiefs pressed around to assist the youth in mounting, then followed as his father, singing a praise song, led the pony toward the dance circle.

  As they neared the victory pole, the crowd opened to allow the family into the circle. The singers fell silent, and a herald announced in a loud high voice that Curly Hair’s father and mothers wished to give away presents in honor of their son. Crazy Horse stepped forward and recounted the momentous vision he had received the summer before his son’s birth, when the grizzly guardian of the butte “gave to me powers to conquer all earthly beings, including the white men who are coming into our land.” He declared that he now transferred his spiritual bear power, and his own name, to his son. The herald picked up the theme, proclaiming that the youth’s boyhood names were now thrown away. From this day forward, he would be called by the name of his father and grandfather—Tasunke Witko, Crazy Horse. The career of the Lakota people’s greatest warrior had begun.27

  7

  FIGHTING THE CROW PEOPLE

  Through the winter of 1857–58, Crazy Horse waited impatiently for the new raiding season. As spring drew on, he and his father—who had assumed the nickname Worm after passing on the family’s formal name to his son—repeatedly underwent the sweat-lodge ceremony. Crazy Horse was told to kill a red-tailed hawk, the bird of his first vision quest, and to assemble other materials. Then Worm convened a select gathering of holy men and Thunder dreamers to validate the transfer of sacred power, in what one tradition calls “a ceremony of purification [declaring Crazy Horse] to the deity of the brave.”1

  After the annus mirabilis of 1857, Worm believed implicitly in the unique powers of leadershi
p invested in his son. Like minds assembled, warriors and dreamers from across the northern Oglala and Miniconjou bands, including High Backbone, who declared that Crazy Horse would be the greatest warrior of the coming generation. Red Hawk, an old family friend who had broken with the American alliance five years earlier (see chapter 3), may have been present, bringing holy men from the Wakan family of the Oyuhpe band—a camp that Crazy Horse would come to regard as a second home. The holy men prepared a sacred bundle containing the stuffed skin of the hawk, adding other charms between layers of skin and cloth. Prayer and song imparted the contents with the sacred power of the hawk and other protectors. The bundle would henceforth constitute Crazy Horse’s wotawe, or protective war charm. At times of crisis, Crazy Horse reverently opened the bundle, singing prescribed songs and praying to the powers that inhered in the sacred items.2

  The spirit of the hawk controlled swiftness and endurance, two of the warrior’s key attributes. Henceforth he would regard the bird as his spiritual patron, intermediary between him and the greater wakan powers. He was told to “remember” his guardian spirit—a mental and spiritual discipline involving the acute focusing of mind to achieve clarity of thought in which hawk and dreamer became one. Sometimes Crazy Horse would ride into battle wearing the whole body of the hawk tied in his hair; as the years passed and other visionary powers were granted him, he more usually made do with two or three of its feathers fastened at his crown.3

  The young warrior took seriously the responsibilities such a gift laid on him. The holy men advised him to make himself worthy by studying attentively the ways of hawks. Crazy Horse dutifully observed, noting patterns of behavior, internalizing the hawk’s unhurried but focused scanning of opportunity, assessing the movement of its prey in a split-second calculation before descending to strike in its staggering, vertiginous stoop. “He wanted to be sure that he hit what he aimed at,” recalled He Dog of his friend’s unusual attention to marksmanship, in a striking testimony to Crazy Horse’s diligent observation. Throughout his life Crazy Horse would invoke the aid of the hawk, and the evidence indicates that even into the last months of his life, the bird aided him in securing new sicun power.4