Memorializing Crazy Horse

The treatment of Native Americans by European-Americans is deplorable. There is little in the history of their relationship that is not embarrassing today for sensitive USAmericans with European roots. The construction of the Crazy Horse Memorial, though, is one small attempt to rectify the appalling past.  

Earlier this year after viewing Mount Rushmore for the first time, June and I visited the nearby memorial being built to honor one of the most famous Native Americans, Crazy Horse. Born around 1840 into the Lakota (Oglala) tribe, by about 1860 he had demonstrated great bravery in battle (against other Native Americans) and was on his way to becoming a great warrior. 

Crazy Horse became involved in raids against the white settlers after the November 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, led by the despicable John Chivington (1821-94). By 1868, or maybe earlier, “he reached the top of Lakota society. To many Lakota, he seemed to display the four virtues that the tribe most admired: courage, fortitude, generosity, and wisdom” (Jon Sterngass, Crazy Horse, 2010, p. 58).

Crazy Horse was heavily involved in the Great Sioux War of 1876-77. He was highly successful in the Battle of Little Bighorn in June 1876. The leader of the whites was General George A. Custer (1839-76). It turned out to be “Custer’s last stand,” a victory for the Native Americans—and their last.

Embarrassed by Custer’s defeat just at the time of their centennial celebration of the United States’ independence, white Americans began to fight in retaliation. After suffering through an extremely harsh winter, it gradually became clear to the Native Americans that they were no match for the whites. Thus, in May 1877 Crazy Horse and his people surrendered.

Later that year while a prisoner, Crazy Horse was stabbed in the back with a bayonet. That was on September 5, 1877; he died the next day.

Exactly 31 years later, on September 6, 1908, Korczak Ziolkowski was born to Polish parents in Boston. In 1939 he worked briefly as an assistant to Gutzon Borglum, who was carving Mount Rushmore. Later that same year Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota educator, invited the young sculptor to carve a Native American memorial.

Standing Bear explained, “My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know the red man has great heroes, also.”

Several years later, in May 1947, Ziolkowski set up camp near the mountain he would carve into a giant sculpture. With the first blast on June 3, 1948, the Crazy Horse Memorial was dedicated. At that time Ziolkowski pledged that his project will be “a nonprofit educational and cultural humanitarian project financed by the interested public and not with government tax money.”

Photo by June Seat, May 2012

Ziolkowski worked for the rest of his life on the memorial, “the largest sculptural undertaking the world has ever known—563 feet high and 641 feet long.” (By comparison, the Washington Monument is 555 feet tall.) He died unexpectedly at the age of 74 in 1982, but his wife and some of his ten children kept the project going. Now some of his grandchildren have joined the effort.

Finally, in 1998 the face of Crazy Horse was completed. The work has continued on since then—and still goes on. To be frank, though, I don’t think it will ever be finished; certainly not in my lifetime.

While I have some qualms about memorializing a man who was primarily a warrior, fighting not only whites but also other Native Americans, it is very appropriate for a memorial to be carved “as a symbol for the spirit of all Native American Indians.” 

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The above quotes, and some of the information, come from Robb DeWall, Carving a Dream (1992, 2012).

Greetings from the Dakotas!

Last Friday, June and I left our home in Liberty, MO, and set out on a car trip to the Dakotas. This trip is in celebration of our 55^th wedding anniversary, which was last Saturday. We decided to take the trip to the Dakotas, for they were the only two of the fifty States I had never visited.

We spent Friday night in a motel in Yankton, SD, which was the original capital of the Dakota Territory. Yankton is sometimes called “River City,” due to its proximity to the Missouri River and the importance that the river played in the city’s settlement in 1859 and subsequent development. As part of the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark visited the area long before that, in 1804.

We spent part of Saturday visiting some Hutterite colonies near Freeman, SD. Norman and Darlene Hofer, new friends who live on a farm near Freeman, helped us learn about the Hutterites, a communal branch of Anabaptist Christians who trace their history back to the 1520s. They have continued faithful to the teachings of Jacob Hutter (born c.1500), who was executed for his beliefs in 1536. That was in Tyrol, now in northern Italy.

From the beginning until the present, with a few exceptions, the Hutterites have practiced living completely in community (with a common “purse” for each colony) and have been strict pacifists. They also have the reputation of being excellent farmers, although now many engage in various manufacturing projects in their various colonies, which now number more than 450 in the U.S. and Canada.

On Sunday we drove through the spectacular Badlands on the way to Rapid City where we spent the night in the historic Alex Johnson Hotel, built in 1928. Designed partly as a tribute to the Sioux Indian Nation, the hotel has played host to numerous dignitaries, celebrities, and Presidents, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan.

Next was a visit to nearby Mount Rushmore, which is the main reason we drove to southwestern South Dakota. As you probably know, Mount Rushmore features 60-foot sculptures of the heads of four U.S. Presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. The sculpting on Rushmore began in October 1927, and it was not finished until the end of October 1941.

We also visited Crazy Horse Memorial, the huge mountain carving that has been under construction since 1948 and is not nearly finished. Crazy Horse (born c.1840) was the famous Native American leader of the Lakota people. He was killed at the close of the Great Sioux War (1876-77). The head of Crazy Horse in his monument is nearly 50% larger than the heads of the Presidents on Mt. Rushmore.

Yesterday we drove up into North Dakota, and now, I am happy to say, I have visited all fifty states. We enjoyed visiting the Capitol, which is quite different from most capitols.

This has been a very enjoyable trip with very impressive sights. But for me the highlight has been visiting Mike and Kathy Wipf and other Hutterites in the Oak Lane colony. Their successful persistence in maintaining a unique Christian tradition and lifestyle is impressive, indeed. Their way of life is also a challenge to the compromised lifestyle of most of us Christians in the modern world.