Crazy Horse: The Wild West for Kids (Legends of the Wild West)
exact moment when the old life ways of the Plains Indians also died By a strange twist of fate Crazy Horse and the way of life died together Unlike Geronimo or Red Cloud he did not live to face the great change and his reputation was never sullied by imprisonment or compromise So for the Lakota people and for many Americans Crazy Horse remains a compelling symbol of resistance Yet almost nothing remains of him besides the stories No existing artifact can definitely be said to belong to him There is no long record of profound pronouncements There is no grave to visit because his parents deliberately refused to tell anyone where he was bur ied There are no accurate images of him because he never sat for a portrait or allowed himself to be photographed When the doctor who treated his wife tried to take a picture Crazy Horse This picture shows a model of the planned sculpture Because Crazy Horse refused to be photographed the monument serves as a symbolic tribute to the spirit of the Lako ta warrior and leader (cid:21)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:100)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:30)(cid:45)(cid:28)(cid:53)(cid:52)(cid:1)(cid:35)(cid:42)(cid:45)(cid:46)(cid:32)
told him My friend why should you wish to shorten my life by taking from me my shadow The lack of an image was an obvious problem when Korczak Ziolkowski began creating his Crazy Horse Monument but Zi olkowski never thought of his sculpture as a realistic portrait Instead he meant it as a symbolic tribute to the spirit of Crazy Horse the Lakota and to all Native Americans My lands are where my dead lie buried Crazy Horse supposedly said In the sculpture Crazy Horse will point into the distance to the lands that he loved and fought to defend In a short lifetime Crazy Horse stamped his personality on the Great Plains and Amer ican history Black Elk a Lakota warrior and medicine man concluded It does not matter where his body lies for it is grass but where his spirit is it will be good (cid:47)(cid:35)(cid:32)(cid:1)(cid:40)(cid:52)(cid:46)(cid:47)(cid:32)(cid:45)(cid:36)(cid:42)(cid:48)(cid:46)(cid:1)(cid:50)(cid:28)(cid:45)(cid:45)(cid:36)(cid:42)(cid:45)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:100)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:22)
2 GroWinG up on the plains Crazy Horse was born sometime between 1838 and 1842 As far as can be determined his birthplace was by the Belle Fourche River near Bear Butte in what is now South Dakota When he was born his parents named him Curly for his hair As a teenager he was called His Horses Looking but when he became a man he was called Crazy Horse In Lakota society a warrior did not usually acquire his permanent name until he had done something to earn it Crazy Horse’s father was also called Crazy Horse When his son proved that he was courageous in battle the father transferred the name to his son After that time Crazy Horse’s father took the name of Worm In this book their final names are used throughout to avoid confusion Crazy Horse was not born into one of the great warrior fami lies of the Lakota Worm was a respected healer holy man and interpreter of dreams Little is known of Crazy Horse’s mother According to one story his biological mother Rattle Blanket Woman committed suicide in 1845 Shortly afterward Worm remarried Kills Enemy the daughter of a Minniconjou chief As time passed the family grew Worm took another wife Iron
Between Horns and Crazy Horse soon had at least two sisters and a brother Crazy Horse was close to his extended family but he especially loved his younger brother Young Little Hawk According to legend Crazy Horse was different right from birth He did not cry when he was born but instead looked at the world with serious eyes He was a shy boy and often walked or rode into the hills to think alone Yet even though he seemed different Crazy Horse had many friends as a child especially Lone Bear Horn Chips and his older mentor High Backbone also known as Hump Crazy Horse learned the spiritual beliefs of the Lakota from his parents and grandparents He learned that everything in the world contained a mysterious force that the Lakota called wakan Wakan Tanka or the Great Mystery was a vague om niscient sky-dwelling creator whose spirit was also present in all things The Lakota might gain power in several ways such as through the vision quest or through self-torture at the Sun Dance a religious ceremony practiced by the Plains Indians that represents life and rebirth From an early age Crazy Horse had a talent with horses When he grew up he was good at capturing and breaking wild horses and adept at stealing them from other tribes For this skill he acquired the name His Horses Looking but that name never caught on Horses and the Great Plains Crazy Horse spent his entire life on the Great Plains the area between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains ex tending from Canada to southern Texas Native American tribes of the Great Plains included the Lakota Comanche Kiowa Arapaho Blackfoot Cheyenne and Crow Crazy Horse lived on the northern Great Plains in present-day South Dakota and nearby parts of Wyoming Nebraska and North Dakota It was (cid:34)(cid:45)(cid:42)(cid:50)(cid:36)(cid:41)(cid:34)(cid:1)(cid:48)(cid:43)(cid:1)(cid:42)(cid:41)(cid:1)(cid:47)(cid:35)(cid:32)(cid:1)(cid:43)(cid:39)(cid:28)(cid:36)(cid:41)(cid:46)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:100)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:24)
