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Bruce Brown's 100 Voices... Frank Grouard recalls Crazy Horse, #1
SHORTLY after we got back from this Custer fight [this was on the Stanley expedition that surveyed the Yellowstone in the fall of 1873], all the Indians in the four tribes found out about my trouble with Sitting Bull. There was an Indian in the Oglala camp by the name of Little Hawk, an uncle to Crazy Horse, the latter one of the bravest of all the Sioux Indians. He sent for me and asked me how the trouble started, what I intended to do, and told me I had better come and stop in the Oglala camp, which I did. I never went back to Sitting Bull's camp. I had never met Crazy Horse until this time. He was in the camp when I went in. There were several young bucks there, and he was among them. Crazy Horse had somewhat peculiar features. He had sandy hair and was of a very light complexion. He didn't have the high cheekbones that the Indians generally have and didn't talk much. He was a young looking Indian -- appeared much younger than his age. There were a few powder marks on one side of his face. I stopped at the Oglala village from that time on. The headmen of the Oglala village were Big Road, Little Hawk, He Dog, and Crazy Horse, but the latter did not consider himself the chief. He generally attended the council or anything of that sort. The Black Twins were the most prominent Oglalas. They were actually twins - were the most prominent among the older men in the village. I was there the rest of the time until 1875, when I went to him from Red Cloud to try to induce him to make a treaty with the whites about the Black Hills country. I had not left the Indians at that time but had made up my mind to leave them. I was continually planning some scheme to get away after I had found out everything I wanted to know, and I was studying all spring how to get away without causing any trouble. I was with the northern Indians, called the hostile Indians, and they never went into the agency, but the agency Indians would come to us. They were a kind of go-between. All our ammunition was supplied by these go-betweens. Life and Adventures of Frank Grouard by Joe DeBarthe, University of Oklahoma Press 1958 p 53 - 54
Frank Grouard, also spelled Frank Gruard among other variants, was called Yugata by the Sioux. He was the half Tahitian son of a Mormon missionary who became a personal friend -- and ultimately mercinary betrayer -- of both Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. He should not be confused with Fred Gerard, another U.S. Cavalry scout during the summer of 1876. Frank Huston said Grouard was married to one of Sitting Bull's daughters. -- Brown Bruce
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