| Who is Crazy Horse? |
[Jan. 5th, 2007|12:45 pm] |
When I talk to readers about my book, Journey of the Spirit, I tell them it is about Crazy Horse. About ninety-five percent of them get a “who” expression.
Over the last few months, I have come to realize that people have heard of Native Americans Indian chief’s like Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Tecumseh, Pocahontas, Chief Joseph, Red Cloud, Cochise, and Washakie.
Some have heard Crazy Horse’s name, but know nothing about him. Most don’t even know he was a Lakota, or Sioux, because most don’t know the name Lakota, either.
I talked to a history teacher a couple of years ago and she thought he was a Cheyenne. Others are the same—they have heard of him, but know little about the actual person.
So, why did I choose to write about someone people know nothing about, and why is he so special?
The only thing I can say to that question, it is time people learn about this extraordinary person.
Few people realize that over the history of the U.S. military and battles with Native Americans, the soldiers suffered two total defeats. When I saw total defeats, I mean with entire units wiped out.
The first, the Fetterman massacre, Crazy Horse was the person most responsible for this defeat. The second, the Battle of the Little Bighorn where Indians wiped out Custer’s entire command, Crazy Horse led the Indians in this battle.
For some reason, people associate Sitting Bull as the leader of the Sioux who defeated Custer. That is a wrong assumption. Although at the Little Big Horn, Sitting bull did not lead or even participate in the fighting. In English, Sitting Bull was a medicine man who dealt with matters of the spirit, not fighting.
People know that at Mount Rushmore, Americans have four great leaders’ busts carved into the mountain. What few people do not realize, that not far from Mount Rushmore, a huge mountain carving is underway. This one, when finished will have one of the greatest leaders in the history of the Unites States—Crazy Horse.
The Crazy Horse monument when finished will be the only one in the world of a Native American. No other Indian has this distinction.
Crazy Horse was different from other Indians. His boyhood name was Curly. Stories differ why he had this name. Some say it is because his hair was soft and curly, and others mention the color of his hair. Who is right, they all are. Most people have an image in their minds what an Indian should look like. That image is not Crazy Horse. He had light brown hair, and light skin.
In fact, when he was a boy the whites referred to him as captive because he resembled a white person.
In battle, he unlike the others wore his hair long and flowing, not tied up. He wore only a single hawk feather, breach-cloth and moccasins.
He had a small lighting bolt on his right cheek and a few hail spots on his body, no war paint or anything else.
Crazy Horse was not hard to find in a fight. He was the first one in and the last one out.
He also thought different from his people. He refused to boast about his deeds, he was adamant that the Lakota needed to fight the whites different from their customs.
Everything about him differed. As a young man, Crazy Horse had a vision. In that vision, he believed the Great Spirit told him how to dress and act and he could never be killed in battle. Over his lifetime, he did just that. Now, it doesn’t matter if you believe in this kind of thing or not, and even his own people who did believe in visions, doubted him at first.
That doubt ended. Over his lifetime, the warrior known as Crazy Horse displayed his ability and courage in battle, and the fact that he couldn’t be killed hundreds and hundreds of times.
Soldiers, enemy Indians, and the Sioux shook their heads in wonder at him charging into the bores of hundreds of guns shooting at him, but no matter how many bullets shot at him, he remained uninjured.
Even today, when talking to Lakota, some get misty-eyed thinking about him—for the most part, his people worshipped him then, and they still do.
Over the last few months, I have looked long and hard at the reasons people do not know who he is, or anything about him. I believe I know the answer.
People like Red Cloud, Sitting Bull and others met with soldiers and Indian agents before they fought, and the ones I named all lived a great amount of time on reservations.
Again, Crazy Horse differs. He never signed a peace treaty, talked to soldiers or Indian agents about peace, and he did not live for years among the whites on a reservation or anywhere else.
Crazy Horse surrendered his people in May of 1877. In September of 1877 he was murdered on the reservation at the age of thirty-seven.
He never visited Washington like Red Cloud and Sitting Bull and he sure didn’t participate in a Wild West show like Sitting bull did.
He also never had his picture taken, and there are no paintings of him. If you hit up the right person with the right price, they will sell you an authentic, one of a kind, picture of Crazy Horse.
If you buy one of these, and they are out there, please look me up. I have some swampland in Arizona I loved to sell you, too.
Please don’t get the impression that I think I know more than anyone about this great man. I know more than most because I have studied him most of my life, but there are some good books about Crazy Horse. Now, you might ask, is yours different? The answer, like Crazy Horse himself, is yes mine is different.
Books about him fall into one or two categories. They are non-fiction, and I have nothing against this type of book. I have found them to be dry and boring. Relating facts, dates, and blow by blow accounts. This is a good way to research, but most readers don’t pick up books like this to research. They want to enjoy their reading.
The other way, is what I call the looking in approach. Writers use white people to look in at Crazy Horse and try to tell about him, but not how he thought, felt, and believed, and most important, how he lived.
I didn’t do that. My story takes place on the inside and is looking out. Readers will see how this man lived, thought, and what he believed in. They will also see the lengths he went to to protect his people.
I’ve mentioned this before—I wrote this novel as a historical fiction. Many years ago as I trudged my way through college as a history major, I looked down on people who would put history and fiction into the same sentence. It sounded like an oxymoron to me. History is fact, and fiction isn’t. They didn’t go together.
However, they can. I now feel this is the best way of learning about history. To me, learning does not need to be boring, dates, times, and accounts. Learning can and should be enjoyable.
Journey of the Spirit is all of that. A fictional character tells this story—a captured white boy, but the attitudes, events, and desires in the novel are true.
When you read this novel and trust me when I saw this, many people will, you will cry, laugh, have fun, want to go out and join Crazy Horse yourself, but most of all, you will want to read it again. You will also learn about the Sioux customs, beliefs, religions, and the way they lived.
You may think I am bragging, and I guess I am, but books like this don’t come along every day. When you read it, I believe you will agree with me. |
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