Crazy Horse, the strange man of the Oglalas: a biography (1942)

An Indian's love for a horse.

Crazy Horse, the great warrior chief of the Hunkpatila Oglalas, has always seemed quite a mystery to me. There is so little information about him for he was a modest man, but Sandoz fleshes him out very well. This biography, first published in 1942, is the story, not just of Crazy Horse, but also of the Lakotas –chiefs, warriors and ordinary people - from the 1840s through the time of Crazy Horse’s death in 1877. I now see Red Cloud in a completely different way than I did formerly. Sandoz’s Red Cloud is a despicable man – an ambitious man – a man who is more than willing to sell all of the Lakota down the river in order to serve that ambition. In that, he had a lot of company; very few of the Lakota in this time had a concern for others not of their own family or band. Crazy Horse was different in so many ways – the Oglalas’ Strange Man.

Mari Sandoz grew up on the very edge of Indian country, listening to the stories of many of the old-timers from that period – mountain men, Indians, traders and trappers. She knew the country and all of the people of that place. The voice of the story that she wrote is an Indian voice – true, sad and heart breaking. She writes about Crazy Horse as a young boy (he was known as Curly at that time), about the girl he loves, but cannot have, the loss of his child, his life as a warrior and a protector to his people as well as his battles*, his struggle to keep his people in their own country after their capitulation to the Army and, of course, his murder. His story was a tragedy, but not just a tragedy inflicted upon him by the US government. In the end, his own people – some of them people who had been his friends and allies - betrayed him and killed him.

This is a good book. I loved it. Read it.

*In particular the Battle of the Blue Water in 1855 when Crazy Horse was about 13. This was, for me, a very powerful portion of the book and I was left feeling angry and saddened by the things Sandoz wrote about his experience at the Blue Water. ( )

Mari knew many of the characters in this story when she was a small child. In her narrative she has captured the cadence and style of a Native American storyteller. Beautifully written, and absorbing. Highly recommended. ( )

DEN