Crazy Horse


Is this really Crazy Horse?




"American Indian Warrior Chiefs" - page 50

See more about this photograph here:






A rare photo of who is believed to be Crazy Horse
from "To Kill An Eagle" by Edward Kadlecek (1881)




"Agents of Repression" - page 110"





"I will be glad to tell you about Crazy Horse or any others of our old time chiefs about whom you may wish to know because I am an old man now and shall not live many years longer and it is time for me to tell these things. Whatever I tell you will be the exact truth, because I was in a position to know what I talk about. There are a lot of old Indians hanging about the reservation who like to talk to the white people and would just as soon tell you anything, whether it is true or not. They are men whom we would not have had as servants, those of us who were Chiefs in the old days. I and Crazy Horse were both born in the same year and at the same season of the year. We grew up together in the same band, played together, courted the girls together and fought together. I am now ninety-two years old, so you can figure out in what year he was born by your calendar. When we were 17 or 18 years old we separated. Crazy Horse went to the Rosebud Band (that is to the Brules, of whom Spotted Tail was Chief a little later) of Indians and stayed with them for about a year. Then he came home. After he had been back for a while, I made inquiries about why he had left the Rosebud band. I was told he had to come back because he had killed a Winnebago woman. (According to ancient Lakota custom, coup could be counted on an enemy woman if she was killed in the sight of the fighting men of her tribe. The theory was that the enemy would fight even harder to protect or avenge one of their women than one of their men. But the Brules were already agency Indians and the authorities took a different attitude about it. Apparently Crazy Horse himself changed his mind about the ethics of this custom if the speech of his reported by Captain Hans in "The Great Sioux Nation" is correct. Less than a year after Crazy Horse left camp, I joined in a trip against the Crow Indians. When I got home, the crier was announcing that Crazy Horse was back in camp. Only his name was not Crazy Horse at that time. He has three names at different times of his life. His name until he was about ten years old was Curly Hair. Later, from the time he was ten until the time he was about eighteen years of age, he was called His-Horse-On-Sight, but this name did not stick to him. When he was about eighteen years old there was a fight with the Arapahos who were up on a high hill covered with big rocks and near a river. Although he was just a boy, he charged them several times alone and came back wounded but with two Arapaho scalps. His father, whose name was Crazy Horse, made a feast and gave his son his own name. After that, the father was no longer called by the name he had given away, but was called by a nickname,Worm. Crazy Horse, the son, was one of three children. The oldest was a Sister, the next was Crazy Horse, and the third was a Brother. All are dead now. When we were young men, the Oglala band divided into two parts, one led by Red Cloud and one by Man-Afraid-of-His-Horse, the elder. I and Crazy Horse stayed with the part led by Man-Afraid-Of-His-Horse. Later this half subdivided again into two parts. I stayed with the more Northern half of which I and Big Road, and later Holy Bald Eagle and Red Cloud, were appointed joint Chiefs ("shirt wearers", so called from a particular kind of ceremonial shirt worn by this class of chieftain as insignia of office). Crazy Horse remained with the Southern quarter of the tribe. The council of this division awarded the chieftainship to Crazy Horse, American Horse, Young-Man-Afraid-Of-His-Horse, and Sword. It was many years after our first battles before we were made Chiefs. A man had to distinguish himself in many fights and in peace as well before he could be chosen as a Chief. (After consultation together, He Dog and the interpreter dated these appointments as having been made about 1865 by the white man's calendar.The name of Crazy Horse's band was the Hunkpatila (End of Circle) band because when the tribe was encamped together it occupied one end of the tribal crescent.At about the time these appointments were made Crazy Horse moved towards the White Mountains (Indian name of the Big Horn Mountains). Crazy Horse and I went together on a war trip to the other side of the mountains. When we came back, the people came out of the camp to meet us and escorted us back and at a big ceremony presented us with two spears, the gift of the whole tribe, which was met together. These spears were each three or four hundreds years old and were given by the older generation to those in the younger generation who had best lived the life of a warrior. Crazy Horse was still single when he was made a "shirt wearer". A few years after this he began to pay attention to the wife of a man named No Water. No Water did not want to let the woman go. In the Battle "When They Chased The Crows Back To Camp", (1870) He Dog and Crazy Horse were the lance bearers of the Kangi Yuhn (Crow Owner's Society). About ten days after that battle Crazy Horse started off on a smaller war expedition and No Water's wife went along with him. No Water followed them and came to the tipi of Bad Heart Bull and asked to borrow a certain good revolver (Bad Heart Bull was a brother of He Dog and is now dead) which Bad Heart Bull owned. He said he wanted to go hunting. Crazy Horse and the woman were sitting by the fire in a tipi belonging to some of their friends. No Water entered the tipi, walked up to Crazy Horse as near as I am to that stove (about four feet) and shot him through the face. The bullet entered just below the left nostril. That is how Crazy Horse got his scar. No Water took his wife back. Because of all this, Crazy Horse could not be a "shirt wearer" any longer. When we were made Chiefs, we were bound by very strict rules as to what we should do and what not do, which were very hard for us to follow. I have never spoken to nay but a very few persons of what they made us promise them. I have always kept the oaths I made then, but Crazy Horse did not. Later on the older, more responsible men of the tribe conferred another kind of Chieftainship on Crazy Horse. He was made War Chief of the whole Oglala tribe. A similar office was conferred on Sitting Bull by the Hunkpapa tribe. This was still early, a long, long time before the Custer fight. At this time the government did not know who we were. Crazy Horse always led his men himself, when they went into battle, and he kept well in front of them. He headed many charges and was many times wounded in battle, but never seriously. He never wore a war bonnet. A medicine man named Chips had given him power if he would wear in battle an eagle bone whistle and one feather and a certain round stone with a hole in it. He wore the stone under his left arm, suspended by a leather thong that went over his shoulder. The one central feather that is in the middle of the war eagle's tail, that was the feather he wore in his hair.(He Dog denied with a chuckle, various stories told about how Crazy Horse on certain occasions threw away his rifle and charged in with a war club or a riding quirt, a characteristic Indian mode of seeking death in battle) Crazy Horse always stuck close to his rifle. He always tried to kill as many as possible of the enemy without losing his own men. He never spoke in council and attended very few. There was no special reason for this, it was just his nature. He was a very quiet man except when there was fighting. Crazy Horse was married three times. The first time was to No Water's wife, but she only stayed with him a few days. Shortly after that he married Red Feather's sister. By her he had one child, a little girl who died when about two years old. A long while after, when he had surrendered at Ft. Robinson, he married a young half-breed girl. He did not have any children by her."

He Dog - Oglala Warrior
(Thomas White Cow Killer, Interpreter)