CRAZY HORSE

by Kingsley M Bray

  In the center of the campground stood a large council tipi. For days the people had awaited a significant spectacle here. Ceremonial shirts were being made ahead of an investiture of a new generation of leaders. Fashioned from two whole mountain sheepskins, the shirts were painted in the sacred colors of the primary manifestations of Wakan Tanka: blue and yellow for the powers of Sky and Rock; red and green for Sun and Earth. Each was trimmed with quill-worked bands and fringed with locks of human hair donated for the purpose or taken from preserved enemy scalps. Some of an individual’s spiritual essence, or nagila, was believed to inhere in the hair, so that to own another’s hair was to exert a measure of control over him. Now the senior generation of Shirt Wearers was ready to step down and nominate successors. In investing leaders with the honor shirts, the council recognized them as Owners of the Tribe, able to bind the tribe to those decisions entrusted to them. By characteristic Lakota balance, that power was discretionary and might be withheld by the council. The shirts were “owned by the tribe,” and, like their wearers’ authority, might be recalled for due cause.2

  For days holy men had prepared the shirts to the accompaniment of sacred chants and the reverent burning of sweetgrass incense. Now speculation was turning on the council’s choice for the four Shirt Wearers who would replace the outgoing generation. With the elevation of Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and High Backbone, the war years had seen a concentration of authority and status in the hands of new tribal-level war chiefs, as Lakota divisions sought to streamline their capacity for decisive leadership.

  By contrast, the ceremony being so carefully stage managed asserted significant continuities with the prewar Oglala world. Leadership would be vested not in a single chief, but in the traditional four equals. Moreover, the ceremony affirmed and validated the new treaty. On the Missouri, northern Lakotas had confirmed the agreement—even Sitting Bull had indicated qualified approval by nominating a delegation to attend the Fort Rice talks. August would see the final closure of the three Bozeman Trail posts, a triumphant vindication of Man Afraid of His Horse’s pursuit of a negotiated solution to the crisis on the hunting grounds.

  The ceremony would celebrate the restoration of stability in American relations even as it honored the new generation of leaders who emerged in the war years. The candidates, chosen from the village’s akicita leaders, were expected to retain their positions in the warrior societies, a bid to minimize the friction between chiefs and fighting men. The chosen four were men whose bravery and fortitude had won the war for the Oglalas. Now, to complete the Lakota virtues, the nominees must exercise generosity within the circle and acquire wisdom to lead the people.3

  On the day of the ceremony, akicita opened the front of the tipi and rolled up the covers for the people to see the performance. A herald called the council members, and chiefs and headmen made their way across the circle to take their seats.

  The loud proclamations drew people from work and play. Women laid aside craftwork, grandmothers gladly unbending from scraping hides or the laborious task of tanning. Youths ran in from the pasture, and gangs of boys gradually ceased their noisy games. The four honor shirts hung on racks before band chiefs and principal men. Akicita took command of proceedings. They spread four fine buffalo robes near the center of the floor space and led up painted ponies, their tails bobbed as if for war. Over the campground a group of women approached, carrying kettles. The akicita servants had kindled a fire near the entrance and took charge of the food. One kettle contained buffalo meat, symbolic of the people’s staff of life; another, cuts of dog, a dish for honoring. A third kettle contained beef, issued at Fort Laramie, carefully chosen to symbolize the new relationship with the wasicu.4

  From his seat with the chiefs, a herald rose to issue orders to the akicita. Several of the officers marched to the entrance and leapt astride their ponies. People were now agog, pushing toward the center and straining to see. Spectators fell aside as the akicita rode in pairs, scanning the crowd as if for game or enemies. Simultaneously they drew rein at the four semicardinal points of the circle and dismounted, hefting their whips as they marched into the crowd. Each pair seized the arm of a chosen young man and led him forward, as one might a captive. Then they firmly helped the warrior to mount, and seizing the bridle, led the pony toward the council tipi. Strings of whooping boys and youths tracked their progress, but the press was such that few could make out the riders until the horses drew up outside the entrance.

  Throngs of women and children parted to see the four mounted men, stripped to breechclout and moccasins, their hands held aloft in supplication to Wakan Tanka. The akicita helped them dismount, then led them singly to sit on the robes facing the row of chiefs. First was American Horse, whose True Oglala band was the nominal parent band of the tribe. Twenty-eight years old, his courage as a war leader had been more than matched by his oratorical and negotiating skills in winning concessions from the peace commission. His father, Sitting Bear, sat in the arc of chiefs, one of the four Shirt Wearers of the previous generation. American Horse’s selection was confidently expected. Women trilled the tremolo cry of praise.

  Now a second candidate was led forward. Thirty-two-year-old Young Man Afraid of His Horse was the favored son of the head chief. A courageous fighter in the early stages of the war, he was already a trusted envoy for his father. Modest, unassuming, kind, and generous, to many he would remain the very model of the Lakota virtues. As he sat next to American Horse, eyes turned to the two remaining candidates. Seated on the rear pony, Sword Owner was another unsurprising candidate. His father was Brave Bear, another former Shirt Wearer. The chiefs and elders were plainly driving home an ideology of continuity in leadership.

  As Sword Owner awaited his own cue, the third candidate dismounted. Officers led him onto the floor space, and people craned to make out his identity. If the pattern of other candidatures held, this should be one of the sons of the last of the old Shirt Wearers, the late chief Smoke. Such sons there were in plenty—here, visiting with the Loafers, and more up north in Red Cloud’s village. According to one oral tradition, another mooted candidate was No Water, formerly a Harney treaty akicita and related by marriage to Smoke. But the slim figure being seated was none of these: to cries of recognition and acclaim, Crazy Horse sat in the row of candidates and modestly bowed his head.5

  The crowd hushed as a sacred pipe was lighted and passed around the circle of elders. Each of the candidates drew a whiff, then the oldest of the chiefs stood and lectured them in their duties. As elders slipped the ceremonial shirts over the candidates’ heads, he began, “Though you now wear the shirt, be a big-hearted man.” His arm took in the arc of elders, then the steaming kettles, as he continued. “Do not think ill of other members. The food they eat is the vital element [that gives life to the people].”6 Now his words stressed their responsibilities within the tribe. The Oglala people were given into their care, he explained. To the Shirt Wearers fell the ultimate responsibility of selecting campsites and hunting grounds. The tribe might call on them to decide any issue, resolve feuds, and conduct diplomacy. No longer could they be satisfied with the life of a simple warrior: each must shoulder the responsibilities of a chief. Generosity must be extended to the poor especially, he observed, gesturing to the widows and orphans of the post-ward camp. In a telling reference to the territorial concessions they had won from the peace commission, the old man enjoined the four to “look after the land.”7

  Turning to issues of tribal solidarity, he exhorted strength, forbearance, and harmony. “[T]here are many kinds of timber in this territory, some are weak, others stronger, only one is firm, sound, and stronger than all others[;] you are like this one” —he gestured toward the ashwood wand each councillor owned, the ash clubs and quirt handles of the akicita—. “firm, sound, strong. Keep so, and do not get weak, the trail you are to lead your people [on] is narrow and full of thorns and cactus.”8 Intratribal feuding, sexual jealousy—these must be put aside. “[E]ven when your o
wn brother falls at your feet mortally wounded,” the candidate must remain calm. Should men seduce his wives, he must pay no more attention than if a dog urinated against his tipi. Never forget you are now a big heart, the orator concluded. To underline their role as mediators, pipes with quilled bags tied at their stems were placed in the candidates’ hands: “Always remember your sacred Pipe,” instructed the speaker.9

  “These rules are hard to comply with, but we have given you this shirt. If you are to meet enemies, go right up to them; it is better to lie naked in death than to be wrapped up to harbor corruption.”10 To enshrine the candidates’ warrior status, an eagle feather was tied at each man’s crown, positioned to hang horizontally. Finally, akicita lighted the new Shirt Wearers’ pipes, and each man smoked meditatively. Society headmen dished out portions of meat and offered a spoonful to each of the four, before bowls were filled for the whole assembly and the public ceremony closed with a grand feast. Crazy Horse and his comrades had been consecrated to the tribal good.

  “Look after the land,” Crazy Horse and his fellow Shirt Wearers had been enjoined. Within weeks of their appointments, events tested their commitment. Throughout the treaty proceedings, commissioner General W. T. Sherman had fretted at the concessions made to the Indians. As the commission wound down its operations, the hawkish commander of the Military Division of the Missouri was determined to secure control of Indian affairs from the Interior Department. On August 10 Sherman issued an order making the Great Sioux Reservation into a separate military district under command of General Harney. The army would control the reservation, while Indians remaining in the unceded territory would fall under the jurisdiction of local commanders. In instructions to Fort Laramie’s General A.J. Slemmer, Sherman outlined a minimalist role for these de facto agents, whose main function would be to urge removal to the reservation. The arrival of a new peace commission special agent at the fort put these new undertakings to the test. Slemmer refused to cooperate with him, stating that Sherman’s order left him in charge of local Indian affairs.11

  On August 26 messengers from Red Leaf’s camp arrived to ask permission to visit and trade. Slemmer was curt, telling the messengers that their people could only trade on the reservation. Provisions were not available for them, and Indians were not welcome at the fort. Messengers apprised the Man Afraid of His Horse village, moving down Powder River, of the startling shift in army attitudes. Sherman and his subordinates had abrogated explicit verbal agreements reached with the commissioners. Military intransigence called into question the status of the unceded territory, threatening to unravel the whole accord.12

  The Lakota world, 1868–1877

  Crazy Horse and the other Shirt Wearers focused the debate in the council tipi. They came to a rapid decision to match Sherman’s upping of the stakes. Hitherto, the Oglalas had evinced a relaxed attitude toward tribespeople going on the reservation. Besides the Loafers, Spotted Tail had led some two hundred lodges of peace party Brules and southern Oglalas from the Republican River hunting grounds onto the reservation. Grass had already detached his tiyospaye from the northern Oglala village, ready to start for the Missouri. In an edict soon matched by Red Leaf’s village, the Oglala Shirt Wearers announced that the reservation was off-limits. If necessary, they declared, they would prevent further removal to the Missouri.13

  A clamor by war leaders to mount raiding parties was sympathetically heard. Village composure had already been shaken by news of new hostilities breaking on the central plains, after southern Cheyenne warriors attacked settlements in western Kansas. The Shirt Wearers approved a limited number of war parties, doubling as fact finders, to target the zone south of the Platte. One, led by High Wolf, seized fifteen mules from an American party trespassing in the southern Bighorns, then, slicing southeast, lifted ten more at the military sawmill on Laramie Peak. Other raiders targeted herders and stragglers near Fort Halleck and the Union Pacific line. All served notice that the Lakotas could as readily abandon goodwill concessions as the army had.14

  The cycle of raids was well disciplined, winding down quickly by mid-September. The village had swung north to Bear Lodge Butte and finally reopened dialogue with Red Cloud on the Yellowstone. An October rendezvous was arranged to discuss the latest developments. After three months of being in the public eye, Crazy Horse was keen to return to the relative anonymity of the warpath. The restoration of relations with the Red Cloud village offered an opportunity for adventure. Having discharged his functions as envoy, he visited with his old friend He Dog and quickly formed a war party to cross the Bighorns and raid the Crows or Shoshones. Rapid preparations notwithstanding, Crazy Horse had time to observe political developments in the village. Earlier in the summer, He Dog and the Oyuhpe Big Road had been named by the White Horse Owners as Shirt Wearers; after the withdrawal of the Bozeman garrisons, both Red Cloud and Black Twin were similarly honored for their strategic contributions. As the senior Shirt Wearer, Red Cloud was now pipe owner for a major expedition being planned against the Crows once the villages were reunited.15

  Early in October the Man Afraid of His Horse, Red Cloud, and Red Leaf villages gathered to complete their fall hunts high up the Belle Fourche and Powder rivers. Visiting Sans Arcs, Sihasapas, and Hunkpapas came to weigh the diplomatic dividends of the season. It was decided that Red Cloud would travel to Fort Laramie and sign the treaty. The winter trade had to be finalized, and the Oglalas were determined to have their full share of the powder and ball that had been made available to their Crow foes. Moreover, Red Cloud could use the talks to express dissatisfaction with events. Late in the month, he led a deputation of some 130 headmen and arrived at the fort on the morning of November 4.16

  Apprised of Red Cloud’s approach, Slemmer’s successor Major William M. Dye had requested instructions from headquarters in Omaha. Department of the Platte senior commander Christopher C. Augur acted on new guidelines from Sherman. On November 4, even as Red Cloud opened dialogue with Dye at Fort Laramie, General Augur readied a wire that reflected a further hardening of army resolve, ordering Dye to forbid any trade with Red Cloud’s people, to instruct the Oglalas they could trade only at approved sites on the reservation, and to issue provisions expressly to expedite their journey to the Missouri.17

  Had Augur’s wire been read to Red Cloud, the Bad Face chief probably would not have signed the treaty. As luck would have it, however, the telegraph line along the North Platte was down, and Dye opened talks armed only with a copy of the treaty. In three days of debate, Red Cloud was by turns forceful, lordly, and blasé. He advised Dye that his mark on the treaty signified peace alone, and he blandly enumerated a string of provisos.18

  Red Cloud pressed his own agenda. Where were the powder and lead? How extensive was the unceded territory? What were the exact provisions excluding Americans from it? Warily satisfied with those safeguards, convinced by his off-the-record talks that trade would be restored, Red Cloud “with a show of reluctance and tremulousness washed his hands with the dust of the floor” and placed his mark on the treaty on November 6.

  Presents of powder and lead were not forthcoming, but overall, the Lakotas were satisfied with their reception. Perhaps the summer’s setbacks had been but the whim of an ill-tempered soldier chief. With the American menace removed, successful winter hunts were predicted, and warriors readied horses, gear, and weapons for the renewed conflict with the Crows. Red Cloud moved easily from his role as diplomat to chairing the tribal war council, consulting war leaders, and strategizing. The Oglala Shirt Wearers yielded seniority to him, but as the Moon of Falling Leaves deepened, eyes turned west over the Bighorn passes to await the return of their greatest warrior.

  12

  STAYING SINGLE

  The wide plain between the forks of Piney Creek lay fall brown. Barely three months before, the hated walls of Fort Phil Kearny had stood beside the wheel-rutted trail; now five hundred Lakota tipis rose from the flat. The pine stockades were blackened stumps, buildings charred s
hells that thrifty matrons looted for firewood. Here, Crazy Horse and He Dog returned from their fall warpath over the Bighorns. The pair had timed their arrival well. On the campground, hundreds of warriors were milling as the blotahunka made its final dispositions for the Crow campaign. When outriders announced Crazy Horse’s return, an ecstatic crowd surged from the circle to welcome their hero.

  It was a sight to make a warrior’s heart swell. As many as three thousand people chanted acclaim, the crowd breaking apart to let the riders pass through the entrance onto the campground. Before a fire of dried buffalo dung, an arc of war leaders centered on Red Cloud rose to offer the pipe and welcome the returning warriors. As the day drew on, it was plain that a strain had been placed on tribal solidarity by the latest round of treaty talks. Wartime distrust between the Hunkpatila and Bad Face bands was rekindled, so responsible men looked with favor on the comradeship of Crazy Horse and He Dog.

  That night, as bonfires blazed, blotahunka officers presented regalia—rattles, banners, and lances—to warriors selected to count coup in the coming battle. Two staffs bent like shepherd’s crooks and wrapped in ancient wolf skin were the prime weapons of honor. Said to be three or four hundred years old, these tribal war lances dated from a time when the Oglalas and other Lakotas still lived in the lake country of Minnesota: the lances carried the aura of generations of Lakota victories. Now, proclaimed a herald, they were “the gift of the whole tribe. . . given by the older generation to those in the younger generation who had best lived the life of a warrior.” To renewed acclaim, Crazy Horse and He Dog were led forward to accept the lances, each charged to kill an enemy in the battle ahead. Scarcely less important, their friendship was invoked to promote tribal solidarity in a time of fragile accord.1