Hill City - Crazy Horse (16 - under 18)

When we were staying in a campground recently, a couple told us that if we had a chance we should see Crazy Horse as well as Mt Rushmore. As it turned out, the campground in which we were staying was closer to Crazy Horse than Mt Rushmore so we decided to go there first.

Crazy Horse was born on Rapid Creek in the Black Hills of South Dakota in about 1842. He became an Indian warrior who fought for what he believed and did not want to either conform to, or comply with what the invading white man was trying to enforce - understandably when you learn of what he experienced in his relatively short life.

It is necessary to comprehend what life was like for the Indians during the mid 1800s, and in particular why Crazy Horse developed this hate and distrust of white people.

• In 1868 the President of the USA signed a Treaty stating: “As long as rivers run and grass grows and trees bear leaves, Paha Sapa – the Black Hills of Dakota – will forever be the sacred land of the Sioux Indians” – BROKEN when the land was found to have gold deposits

• Crazy Horse’s leader, Conquering Bear was exterminated by treachery

• All Indians were being rounded up and taken away from their sacred lands, forced onto government decreed reservations

• He saw the failure of the government agents to bring required treaty guarantees such as meat, clothing, tents and necessities for existence which they were to receive for having given up their lands

• He saw his people’s lives and their way of life ravaged and destroyed

During the lead up to the Battle of Little Bighorn he offered (as did other Indian tribes) about half his tents, fighting men, horses and associated weaponry to assist in the combined effort against General Custer and his soldiers (I am going to write another blog for the Battle of Little Bighorn which we visited several days after seeing the Crazy Horse memorial).

Crazy Horse, under a flag of truce was invited to Fort Robinson for negotiations. Upon his arrival he saw wire fencing and steel bars and sensed he was being lured into a trap so tried to leave. A soldier stabbed him in the back with a bayoneted rifle and he died, still under the flag of truce on September the 6th, 1877.

He has never been known to have signed a treaty or touched a pen. Crazy Horse defended his people and their way of life in the only manner he knew.

In answer to a derisive question asked by a white man, “Where are your lands now?” – Crazy horse raised his left arm and pointed across the Black Hills to the plains beyond and replied, “My lands are where my dead lie buried”.

This is the basis for the design of the sculpture. Crazy Horse, as far as the scale model is concerned, is to be carved not so much as a lineal likeness, but more as a memorial to his spirit.

 The story of the sculptor is also one worth re-telling.

Korczak Ziolkowski was born in Boston on September the 6th, 1908, the same month and day as the day that Crazy Horse died, something the Indians ultimately saw as significant. He was orphaned at the age of one and grew up in foster homes. Our guide told us that at age fourteen, Korczak so despised his foster father who used to beat him, he left home rather than accept further abuse.

He had a natural talent for sculpting and was completely self taught, never taking a formal lesson in art, sculpture, architecture or engineering.

Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear learned of the sculptor when Korczak’s “Study of an Immortal” won first prize at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Standing Bear wrote Korczak a letter, a copy of which is framed and on public view in the visitor’s centre that reads in part: “My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know the red man has great heroes also…” and invited Korczak to the Black Hills to carve Crazy Horse.

Korczak arrived in the Black Hills on May the 3rd, 1947 to accept the Indian’s invitation. When he started work on the mountain in 1948 (the first blast was on June 3rd), he was almost 40 and had only $174 left to his name. Over the years he battled financial hardship, racial prejudice, injuries and advancing age. He purchased old, used, often unreliable equipment as he could afford it and tells a funny story on a DVD about his air compressor.

To start work on the sculpture he naturally needed to start at the top and built a series of wooden ladders, over 700 in all from the ground up, 563’ to the top. He used explosive charges to clear sections of the red granite but needed a jack hammer operated by compressed air to chisel away to shape the mountain.

He bought an old, diesel driven air compressor that he refers to as Kaput. In his own words, he started the compressor when at the ground level, loaded himself with explosives, cables, chisels, all sorts of necessary equipment and began the climb up the ladder. In the background, the compressor would chug away; kaput..kaput..kaput.

However, it was unreliable and he often heard the kaput sounds gradually slowing as he climbed, till the compressor stopped. He then had to unload all his gear at whatever level he was at, climb back down and re-start the compressor, often to hear Kaput slowly winding down to a stop again. Korczak said Kaput’s worst day was when he had to climb from the top to the bottom and back again, 8 times!

He was a strong believer in the free enterprise system and felt Cray Horse should be funded by the interested public, not by the taxpayer. Twice he turned down offers of federal funding which limited the speed at which the project would advance, and he understood that this would mean the project was larger than any one person’s lifetime. Accordingly, he left detailed plans to be used with his scale models to continue the project.

During his time there, he met and married Ruth, his wife and they had 10 children, 7 of whom still work in various roles at the mountain today. Korczak died in 1982 and Ruth, till today still oversees the project.

We spent quite a few hours there that day and tried to absorb as much as we could about the sculpture and what it represents. On an impulse, we decided to pay quite a lot of money and be taken, as a family on a private tour to the top of the mountain. We’re very glad we did because what we learnt from Tom was enlightening and seeing Crazy Horse’s carved face close up was fantastic.

The tour minimized the available time at Mt Rushmore, but we still had several hours before dusk for time there.

Later that evening we went back to the Crazy Horse monument to watch their 40 minute laser light spectacular. It was worthwhile as a family spectacle, complete with sound however, I would draw the line at being called “spectacular”.