Joseph M. Marshall III (3 page)

It is highly likely that another Lakota writer would approach the topic of Crazy Horse differently than I have. Nonetheless, a Lakota viewpoint about Crazy Horse needs to be put in front of those who have only a narrow view. Crazy Horse is much too important to the Lakota for us to be indifferent to the misconceptions about him. My Crazy Horse long ago ceased to be a one-dimensional hero impervious to the foibles of being human. I have done my best to make him real. I accept him for what he was as a man—as a Lakota person shaped by his environment, the times he lived in, and the culture that nurtured him. I am inspired by his legacy as an ordinary man, as much as by his legacy as an extraordinary leader. I feel connected to him when I speak my native language, when I handcraft an ash-wood bow or willow arrows, and when I do what I can to address the issues and challenges facing my tribe in these times. The customs he practiced, the traditions he followed, the values he lived by are still viable today because he did what he could to preserve them. He defended them by living them and fighting for them. For all those reasons he will always be my hero. For all those reasons he will always be as real to me as my mother and father are, as real as my grandmothers and grandfathers are.

To me, Crazy Horse will always be the irrepressible warrior and leader of warriors. He wasn’t fearless, but he did act in spite of fear. He was a man who looked realistically at this environment and the circumstances within it. He understood the awesome responsibility and high honor of leading men into combat, as well as the daunting responsibility of living his life as a positive example for everyone to see. I think of him as
wica
or “complete man” (not to be confused with
wicasa
or “man,” which is primarily the gender designation).
Wica
is what every Lakota man strove to be. A
wica
was the kind of a man who demonstrated the highest Lakota virtues of generosity, courage, fortitude, and wisdom.

Crazy Horse wasn’t perfect but he was generous with his material goods and his efforts on behalf of others. He demonstrated courage time and again on and off the battlefield. His fortitude enabled him to hang on to his values, beliefs, and principles during a time of traumatic change for the Lakota, and he worked to acquire wisdom, realizing that it comes from failure as well as success.

He was much the same as other Lakota men of his day, indeed the same as most Lakota men of the nineteenth century. Like them, Crazy Horse was many things and fulfilled many roles. He was a son, husband, brother, father, and teacher. He was a crafter of weapons and tools, a hunter and tracker, horseman, scout, and fighting man, to list a few. He was also a deep thinker, a shy loner, a fierce defender of all that he held dear, a keen observer, a rejected suitor, a moral person, a family man, and a patriot. In short he lived his life, he made decisions, he took action, he reacted, he made mistakes, and he enjoyed or suffered the consequences of who and what he was and what he did or didn’t do. That is his legacy.

A word about names. In English, Crazy Horse is how the world knows him. In Lakota, as I mentioned earlier, his name is
Tasunke Witko
or “His Crazy Horse” or “His Horse Is Crazy.” According to many of the elders who told stories of him, his childhood name was
Jiji,
or “Light Hair,” and that is the name I chose to use in reference to him as a boy.

The format for this book was the cause of long inner turmoil and a certain amount of discussion with my editor because I was torn between writing an in-depth discussion of the life and times of Crazy Horse and a straight biography. The result is both, but it is also something more, though not new.

The biographic narrative is an attempt to unfold the life of Crazy Horse as a storyteller would. In the old days there were hero stories, stories that were told to boys and young men to make them aware of the long-standing tradition of the
wica,
the “complete man.” Part of that was to be a warrior, of course, and many of the stories were about warriors. But these were not made-up stories; they were about real men and their actual exploits and accomplishments. There was no better way to inspire the young.

One of the old people would say,
Hiyu wo, takoja, wica wawoptetusni wan tawoecun ociciyakin ktelo.
Literally, it meant “Come, grandson, I want to tell you of the deeds of a hero.” Colloquially, it meant “Come, grandson, I want to tell you a hero story.” The word
wawoptetusni
has several meanings. It could mean “beyond reproach,” “accomplished,” or even “bigger than life.” That was the kind of men the hero stories were about.

The narrative is augmented with essays—entitled Reflections—that add some dimension from the contemporary viewpoint on the life and times of Crazy Horse and his Lakota world.

Any shortcomings here are mine and certainly not due to the subject of this work or the elderly storytellers who gave their words and their hearts, and thus gave us a meaningful glimpse of the past.

So here is a hero story, the way I know it to be.

 

—Joseph Marshall III

Oyate Kin (The People)

The nation is comprised of three groups, two eastern and one western. The names of the groups mean “an alliance of friends” and represent a dialectical as well as a geographic distinction. All three groups understand one another’s dialects. Each has subgroups or divisions.

The Dakota are also known as the
Isanti.
The name comes from the Dakota words
isan
or
knife
and
ti,
meaning “to live or dwell.” Long ago the Isanti encamped in areas where they gathered stone for making knives, primarily across the Missouri River to the northeast. Isanti eventually became Santee, and their subgroups are:

The Nakota are also known as
Ihanktun,
loosely meaning “village at the end” because their villages were far to the southeast across the Missouri River. Ihanktun was anglicized into Yankton, and their subgroups are:

The Lakota were also known as
Titunwan,
meaning “to live where they can see” and also “people of the prairie.”
Titunwan
was anglicized into
Teton.
The Lakota lived west of the Missouri River, and their subgroups are also known as
Oceti Sakowin
or “Seven Fires,” popularly referred to as the Seven Council Fires:

The Lakota Calendar

The annual calendar used by the Lakota was based on the thirteen lunar cycles, so there were thirteen months. Names for months were based on natural events, though different Lakota groups often used different names for the same months. The Middle Moon was so named because it had six months preceding it and six months following it. Because of the twenty-seven- and twenty-eight-day lunar cycle, the Lakota months did not coincide exactly with the modern calendar; in fact, they overlapped, so comparisons are approximate.

Part I

The Early Years

One

His mother brought him forth in the place that symbolized the Lakota world, the place called
the heart of all things,
the Black Hills. Not new to the pain of giving birth, she silently endured it with the gentle help of She Who Takes the Babies, the midwife, an old woman whose hands were the first guidance, the first welcome felt by many newborns. Other women were in attendance in the tipi pitched slightly apart from the small encampment, a circle of knowledge and support watching the tiny head with coal black hair emerge into a Lakota world. Later they clucked and cooed and exchanged smiles of satisfaction as he opened his eyes, so deep brown they appeared black.

The circle of women worked quietly, laying the mother down and cleaning off the new life. One of them poked her head out the tipi door to announce to waiting girls that it was a boy, a future provider and protector of his people. So the word was carried to his father waiting nervously in his family’s home, as all expectant fathers do.

As he heard the news he loaded the bowl of his pipe with tobacco and offered it to Mother Earth, Father Sky, to the Powers of the West, North, East, and South, and finally to the Grandfather, and then quietly smoked his thanksgiving for this new life, this new Lakota come into the world.

The new life suckled his mother’s breasts eagerly, anxious to begin his journey. The women in attendance were pleased. One of them sang a soft lullaby, a soft rhythmic chant like a slow heartbeat. Soon his mother helped with the chant, her soft voice joining in, her eyes filled with love as she held her new son close, feeling his moist skin against her bare breasts even as one of the women wrapped a large warm robe around them both, binding mother and son together.

By 1840 much of the northern Plains of North America was unmistakably a Lakota world. From the Muddy River (Missouri) on the east, the Running Water (Niobrara) and the Shell (North Platte) rivers on the south, the Shining Mountains (Big Horns) to the west, and the northern border stretching from the Elk River (Yellowstone) east to the Knife flowing into the Muddy, the size of this far-flung world was in keeping with the population of the nation and the determination to protect it. Within this world the people lived by hunting. The people moved camp several times each year to flow with the change of seasons and the movement of the animals they depended on for food and clothing. The
tatanka,
the bison, was the main source of livelihood. The horse had arrived several generations before and was by then a very important part of Lakota life. It was the other reason the territory was so large.

In this Lakota world the life path for sons flowed in two directions that were closely tied to each other, like twin trunks of the same tree. Every boy grew up to be a hunter and a warrior, a provider and a protector. Every boy born was a promise that the nation would remain strong. Families prayed that each boy would grow up strong of body and mind, that he would heed the lessons of his fathers and grandfathers and honor the path already laid out for him. This was the way. So this new life come into the Lakota world, into the small community encamped in the place known as
the heart of all things,
was welcomed as new hope, and the people prayed that he would grow straight and strong.