Crazy Horse

(Tashunkewitko)

Oglala

“A very great vision is needed and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky.”

He was born on the Republican River in 1845. When he was about five years old his band of Sioux were snowed in and his tribe couldn’t find the buffalo. His father, a skilled hunter, brought home two antelope for his family. Crazy Horse hopped onto his pony and told all the elders to come and feast. The elders ate the food, leaving only enough for his family to dine on for two days, and went home singing songs of praise in his name. When he was twelve, he and his brother went out to look for ponies. A grizzly arrived at the scene. He shoved his brother into a tree, hopped on a horse, and swung his lariat while yelling. The bear ran off from Crazy Horse.

At the age of sixteen he was in a war party when they came upon enemy Indians. An older more famous warrior named Hump, fell off his horse, Crazy Horse jumped off his own through enemy fire and put Hump on his horse and carried him off to safety. Hump pronounced Crazy Horse as the coming warrior of the Teton Sioux. Hump and Crazy Horse became close friends despite the age difference. They were often called “the grizzly and his cub.”

One winter when he was under twenty years of age, he killed ten buffalo in one hunt. He gave all of it to the less fortunate Indians that didn’t have any. He knew his father was an excellent hunter with an excellent horse, so he could get food from him.

He was always known to pursue the enemy in the stronghold and hit them with a switch to show he had no fear of them or their weapons and that he didn’t want to waste his on them. He never did a massacre in his life saying, “Only cowards are murderers.” He died at Fort Robinson at the age of 33.