The Crazy Horse Memorial

By Earl Hunsinger

He never had his picture taken, yet a sculpture showing him on horseback is being carved into a mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota. When asked about this, the sculptor always said, "Crazy Horse is being carved not so much as a lineal likeness but more as a memorial to the spirit of Crazy Horse -- to his people."

The Crazy Horse Memorial project is the largest, most time-consuming sculpture ever undertaken. The sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, was born in Boston, Massachusetts on September 6, 1908. Although he never took a class in art or sculpture, his natural talent soon became evident. In 1939 he won first prize at the New York World's Fair for a sculpture of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, a Polish composer, pianist, politician, and diplomat. In this same year, he had the privilege of assisting Gutzon Borglum in his work on Mount Rushmore.

His fame and familiarity with the Black Hills soon prompted the hereditary Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear to write to Ziolkowski. The Black Hills were considered sacred by the Lakota, and by the Arikara, Cheyenne, Crow, Kiowa, and Pawnee that had lived there before them. The Mount Rushmore monument was carved into these hills to honor famous American presidents of the past. As Standing Bear said in his letter, "My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know the red man has great heroes, too."

Ziolkowski eventually met with these leaders and began planning a monument similar to Mount Rushmore, but on an even grander scale. While the famous presidential heads are 60 feet tall, the Crazy Horse memorial would be 641 feet long and 563 feet high when completed.

The sculptor arrived in the Black Hills on May 3, 1947. The first blast was made on June 3, 1948. Sixty-one years later, Crazy Horse's head is finished, but the rest is still a work in progress. At 87 feet 6 inches high, even the head is impressive. Currently the focus of work on the mountain is the carving, or blasting, of his horse's head. This will be 219 feet, or 22 stories, tall. Ziolkowski worked on the project until his death on October 20, 1982, at age 74. His parting words to his wife were, "You must work on the mountain-but go slowly so you do it right." Since then work has continued, with seven of his ten children, and several grandchildren, working with the non-profit organization in charge of the project.

While Crazy Horse has become famous as a great warrior, and one of those involved in the battle of the Little Big Horn, his people remember him differently, or at least they remember more about him than just his prowess at warfare. He is said to have been an uncommonly handsome man, an example of Indian refinement and grace. From a young age, he was also modest, generous, and courteous. Yet in moments of danger, he was courageous and a natural leader.

For these reasons, he is remembered with respect, not only by his own Sioux people, but by other tribes as well. What better place than the Black Hills for his memorial, since this is an area that was taken by force and is still in dispute. In a treaty signed at Fort Laramie in 1868, the United States recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation, an area that was to be set aside for the exclusive use of the Sioux people. Yet when gold was discovered there, the Sioux were forced out anyway. In 1980, the Sioux people were awarded a settlement of over 100 million dollars for this. To this day, they have refused to accept this settlement, even though most of the people are poor and the money, with the accumulated interest, and is now closer to a billion dollars. They simply want the land back.

Crazy Horse captured their view when he said, "One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk." Later Red Cloud summed up their relationship with the U.S. government with the words: "They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it."

The Crazy Horse monument will show Crazy Horse sitting on his horse, with his arm stretched out, as if pointing at the Black Hills. This is meant to depict his reply when asked the derisive question, "where are your lands now?" If you have the chance to visit the Crazy Horse Memorial, you may be able to picture him pointing at his sacred Black Hills, and hear his words: "My lands are where my dead lie buried."