CRAZY HORSE by Mari Sandoz

Crazy Horse by Mari Sandoz

I asked my 9 year old daughter to pick me up a book at the library, and she brought home Crazy Horse by Mari Sandoz. You’ll note the accompanying picture above is a scan of the book covering. I made it halfway thru the first chapter and had the “I think I’ve read this before” déjà vu. Maybe it’s the “beginning of the end” feeling that is the common theme in books about Native Americans. I wish I had been doing some type of a reading journal all along, that way I might be able to look back and cross-reference thoughts and feelings about different books. Well, I’m glad I’m doing it now.

This book is a biography of Crazy Horse with an initial copyright date of 1942. The edition I read was printed in 1961 by the University of Nebraska Press. It has that 1960’s library smell that all dedicated bookophiles love, and that you cannot get from an e-reader. Maybe they’ll make an “app for that”?

As usual, here are a few excerpts that I found particularly poignant:

Perhaps the old-time white men like Le Beau and Bridger who knew the Lakotas before the days of the whisky wagons and the Holy Road spoke true when they said the Indian got lazy, dirty, and lousy from the whites. It was strange that the lazier, lousier ones were given presents and that those who would hunt for their living were chased by the wagon guns. (pg. 110)

-Social programs vs. self employment?

But the old man had words for the other things, too, the old, old things that make a good Lakota woman—diligence, modesty, virtue, and the mother heart for the people. “Follow Mother Earth in all things,” he counseled. See how she feeds her children, clothes and shelters them, comforts them with her good silence when their hearts have fallen down. Be like Mother Earth in all things and so be a good woman of the Lakota!” (pg. 115)

-Beautiful

With this blanket about him, his braids long and fur-wrapped on his breast, the father walked slowly through the village, making a song as he went, singing it so all might hear: (pg. 118)

My son has been against the people of unknown tongue.

He has done a brave thing;

For this I give him a new name, the name of his father,

and of many fathers before him—

I give him a great name

I call him Crazy Horse.

-I miss my Father. I hope to honor his [last] name in a way he would be proud of. Crazy Horse gave his son his name after his son earned the right to be a warrior in the tribe. What a powerful way to recognize a young man’s transition into manhood. Lessons all around, and one of humility as well. Crazy Horse’s father was then known simply as “Worm”.

–Reading this passage (pg. 140) made me contemplate what constitutes as weak and strong medicine. Crazy Horse recognizes that his medicine is weak and what caused it to be so.

-Racing into camp.. (pg. 328)

It was a great thing and Crazy Horse whipped his tiring pinto faster to where Black Shawl, indeed a warrior’s wife, had another horse waiting.

Behind every great man…

When he came closer those who had not known him made surprised words to one another. He was a small man for a fighter, less than six of the white mans feet, and slim as a young warrior. But they knew it was Crazy Horse, for he wore no paint and nothing to show his greatness. One feather stood alone at the back of his buckskin shirt, his Winchester in a scabbard at his knee… warriors and then the people, reaching clear back to the bluffs and out upon the highland… At the little army post everybody was out to see this wild war leader who had scared the whites so many years, who whipped two of their big soldier chiefs, Crook and Custer, in eight days…

And as the warriors neared the little fort, with all its blue-coated soldiers out, they began to sing, the women and children behind them taking it up, carrying it back through the line, until all the broad valley of the White Earth and the bluffs that stood against the northern sky were filled with the chanting of the peace song of the Lakotas.” (pg. 361)

Now that I’m jotting this down, I’m realized (and reminded by my wife) that the familiarity I was feeling was that I’ve read a few books on Sitting Bull. So I think that’s part of the connection I was making.

A great book, about a great man, and a great people. Obviously, I could digress the conversation into other areas of injustice, but I won’t. Beautifully written, and well worth the time. Thank you Mari Sandoz & family for the work and effort that went into this biographical sketch of Crazy Horse and the Oglala people.

Pete Skenandore