This detail from pictograph by Amos Bad Heart Bull depicts Crazy Horse at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Although he was present at the battle, Amos Bad Heart Bull was only seven years old at the time and did not actually witness Crazy Horse in action. This drawing was done decades later from stories by tribal elders, like his uncle He Dog, and it is inaccurate in some respects. For instance, Flying Hawk recalled how Crazy Horse personally rode among the American soldiers and "killed a lot of them with his war-club" -- not his rifle. And He Dog said that Crazy Horse was the only Indian he ever knew who almost always dismounted to shoot. So the depiction of Crazy Horse shooting at full charge is doubtful. Many of the features of Crazy Horse's personal appearance appear correct -- one feather, long loose hair, breechclout, and hail stones painted on his naked, otherwise unadorned body -- but Crazy Horse did not paint his body yellow and there is no lightning flash painted on Crazy Horse's face. Nonetheless, Amos Bad Heart Bull masterfully evokes the collapse of the Seventh Cavalry -- when the Sioux and Cheyenne rode among the fleeing Americans, and Little Hawk said it was like shooting buffalo -- and he accurately places Crazy Horse at the center of it, for Crazy Horse's warriors smashed both Reno and Custer that day, and the Arapahoe warrior Waterman said Crazy Horse was the bravest man he ever saw. -- B.B. Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, drawings by Amos Bad Heart Bull and text by Helen H. Blish, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NB 1967
© Copyright 1973 - 2008 by Bruce Brown and BF Communications Inc. Astonisher, Astonisher.com, Conversations With Crazy Horse and 100 Voices BF Communications Inc. Website by Running Dog |
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