The Crazy Horse Memorial
Will Maharry
Instructor’s Introduction
Will Maharry’s podcast about the Crazy Horse Memorial is brilliantly organized and wonderfully effective. It develops logically, yet manages to surprise the listener at every turn—especially in the middle section, when after telling the story of the Memorial’s conception and construction, he reveals that, far from honoring Crazy Horse’s memory, the monument may well be desecrating it. Developed for WR 120: Indigenous Resistance, the podcast interrogates what counts as Indigenous resurgence and reminds us all that things that look like they are “celebrating” Indigenous cultures might in fact be self-serving distortions on the part of settlers.
Will’s thematic considerations about audience—who is this monument for?—matches his concern for his audience of listeners. His podcast is beautifully produced, with a smoothly integrated interview clip and background music, which Will composed himself, that augments his storytelling. More importantly, he strikes a perfect balance between fact-based reporting (which required extensive research) and argumentation, consciously modulating his tone and using the first person to signal his move into commentary. Will is tremendously attentive to the aural cues listeners need; especially in his deployment of acknowledgement and response, he explains arguments succinctly and signposts transitions clearly. I can imagine using this podcast not only to teach podcasting, but also to teach the rhetorical moves of argumentation. It’s a stunning piece of work, in which every ingredient is perfectly calibrated to add up to a whole bigger than its parts.
Marie McDonough
From the Writer
The Crazy Horse Memorial, when complete, will be the largest mountain carving in history. Even bigger than the monument, however, is the controversy that surrounds it. The statue is often seen as a pointed foil to nearby Mt. Rushmore, which honors Native Americans instead of settler colonists, contrasting American “manifest destiny” with the reality of Native American sovereignty. On the other hand, many criticize the statue and surrounding memorial as being overly devoted to the statue’s first sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, and counter to what Crazy Horse actually stood for.
The Crazy Horse Memorial
Transcript
If you drive North down US highway 385 in South Dakota, about 5 miles outside of Custer you’ll see a barren hunk of scarred rock soaring up over the surrounding forested hills. At first glance, it might seem like an ordinary mountain, but there’s something unnatural about it: An enormous face carved into its side. This face belongs to the famous Oglala Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, and is the only finished section of a sculpture which, when complete, will be the largest monument ever created. But whether or not Crazy Horse and the Oglala Lakota people he led are being honored by the monument is a subject of contention among members of the Indigenous community.
Way back before there was the Crazy Horse Memorial, there was Crazy Horse the person. Born around 1840 in the Black Hills, Ta-Sunko-Witko, which translates as ‘His Horse is Wild,’ was known from a young age for both having a strong sense of honor and being skilled in combat. Crazy Horse quickly became a military leader in the ever expanding conflict between the United States and the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota nations, leading his forces to victory over many American Generals. Famously, Crazy Horse played a major role in the Lakota victory over General Custer’s forces at Little Bighorn. A particular harsh winter and constant pursuit by American soldiers eventually forced Crazy Horse to surrender and move his followers onto a reservation in 1877. Accounts of Crazy Horse’s death vary widely. In some he is arrested by the American Military and taken to Fort Robinson, in others he goes with them under a flag of truce. Maybe he was killed by an American soldier trying to imprison him, or maybe by a group of soldiers, or even by a fellow Lakota warrior.
Regardless of how he died, during life Crazy Horse never conceded any aspect of his culture or land to the invading Americans. This defiance made him a hero to the members of the dwindling Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota nations, and he has retained that hero status to this day.
In 1939, a Lakota man named Henry Standing Bear decided that Crazy Horse’s legacy should be memorialized by a monument. Standing Bear had spent his whole life attempting to bridge the cultural gap between Native Americans and the descendants of European colonists, and he thought that a monument to the famous Crazy Horse would help accomplish such a herculean task. To create the monument, Standing Bear recruited the help of a little known Polish-American sculptor named Korczak Ziolkowski.
“How can I ask you to believe that I can carve that mountain if I don’t believe in myself first? Of course I’m egotistical! I believe I can do it! I know I can do it!” (Audio from 60 minutes interview). That’s Korczak giving an interview to 60 minutes in 1977, 28 years after construction on the Crazy Horse Memorial began. He’s wearing a tan leather coat, a wide brimmed hat, and sports a bushy gray and black beard. He looks like he just finished panning for gold in some California creek. Born in Boston in 1908, Korczak worked odd jobs and developed a proficiency in woodworking and sculpture from a young age. After honing his sculpting abilities by producing commissioned artworks, he was invited to help with the carving of Mt. Rushmore. This and his victory in a sculpture contest at the 1939 New York World’s fair brought him to the attention of Henry Standing Bear. The two toured prospective sites for the Crazy Horse monument for several years before settling on Thunderhead Mountain, located a mere 17 miles away from the, let’s be honest, disappointingly small heads of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. Korczak drilled the first dynamite holes on June 3, 1948, pledging to a group of surviving warriors from the Battle of Little Bighorn that the memorial would be a nonprofit organization dedicated to education and humanitarian action supporting the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota. Construction on the sculpture progressed slowly, with Crazy Horse’s face finally being completed in 1998, exactly 50 years after work began. Korczak didn’t live to see it. He died unexpectedly in 1982, and was laid to rest in a tomb beneath the mountain. The memorial’s carving has continued on in his absence, and though nothing but the statue’s face has been fully completed, major progress has been made on Crazy Horse’s arm and hand. There is no estimated completion date for the monument as a whole.
At first glance, the majestic figure of Crazy Horse emerging from a mountain to stare out at his homeland may seem like a textbook case of indigenous resurgence. After all, the monument does feature a great hero of the Lakota people who lived and died fighting to protect his way of life. It’s all very romantic, isn’t it? But, in reality, the ethics and meaning of the statue aren’t so clear cut. In my view, at least, the Crazy Horse statue and the Memorial Foundation that runs it are merely continuations of the settler colonial system that destroyed everything Crazy Horse cared for, and serve absolutely no benefit to the Lakota community.
For one, the monument is misrepresentative of who Crazy Horse actually was, both in terms of his appearance and in terms of his values. Crazy Horse’s mission was to protect his traditional way of life in the Black Hills, which are considered highly sacred in Lakota culture. In addition, Crazy Horse was a very humble person, to the extent that he refused to be photographed and requested to be buried in an unmarked grave. So, creating the largest carving ever in honor of someone who didn’t want to be honored by blowing up the land he considered sacred seems just a liiiiiitle contradictory dontya think? But the real cherry on top is what the statue of Crazy Horse is doing: pointing towards the South East. This gesture is in response to a question allegedly posed to Crazy Horse by an American Soldier: “Where are your lands now?” the soldier asks, to which Crazy Horse responds “My lands are where my dead lie buried”. But the very act of pointing is considered rude in Lakota culture! This reveals a key truth about the monument: Its creation was never the will of the Lakota people as a whole, but rather the exclusive project of Henry Standing Bear and Korczak. Crazy Horse is not being carved for the benefit of a Lakota audience, but for a White one.
While Korczak insisted that the memorial was meant to be run by and for Native Americans, to the extent that he refused millions of dollars of government funding to keep the project in private hands, Native Americans have seen little benefit from the monument’s construction. While Korczak constructed models for a university and medical training center to be built around the statue, the Indian University of North America is currently a summer program involving working at the Foundation’s gift shop, and the medical training center doesn’t exist. This lack of follow through on promised projects is not, however, due to limited money. From September of 2020 to September of 2021, the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation brought in 13.1 million dollars, exactly none of which goes to help the Oglala Lakota people, many of whom currently live in desperate poverty on reservations, in and around the Black Hills. Former South Dakota state senator and Native American Jim Bradford put it best when he said that the monument, quote: “kind of felt like it started out as a dedication to the Native American people … But I think now it’s a business first. All of a sudden, one non-Indian family has become millionaires off our people.”
That said, there is much that can be done to turn the Crazy Horse statue and surrounding establishments into catalysts for true indigenous resurgence. The Memorial Foundation does a pretty good job of educating tourists about Crazy Horse and the history and culture of the Lakota people, mainly through the Indian Museum of North America, which features a collection of over 11,000 Native American artifacts, and through routine exhibitions of traditional song and dance by Lakota performers. If these efforts were expanded, and the Memorial Foundation toned down its focus on Korczak and his greatness, the monument could help eliminate stereotypes about all Native Americans. However, in order for this to be done right, Lakota voices need to be both included in and heard by the Memorial Foundation’s Leadership. There is, of course, the issue of whether or not the statue should even be completed, given so many Lakota consider it blasphemous. I personally think it would be best if this issue was put to a vote among modern members of the Oglala Lakota and descendants of Crazy Horse, but I don’t control the world, do I? Most importantly, the Memorial Foundation needs to give back to the culture it profits from, through substantial monetary contributions to the Lakota Reservations in and around the Black Hills region, which would frankly do far more for the Lakota people than any monument ever could.
I may have seemed pretty negative towards the Crazy Horse monument, and, rightly so, but I do think that the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation has much to contribute to helping modern Native Americans. I mean, for starters, the statue is just plain impressive. I’ve actually seen it twice from the road, and even in its unfinished state its scale is unbelievable. And for all its failings, I really think that the Memorial Foundation’s heart is in the right place. It just needs to stop thinking about its own profits, and start thinking about indigenous resurgence.
Thanks for listening.
Works Cited
ABCNews. “Inside Life on the Lakota Sioux Reservation | Hidden America (2011).” YouTube, YouTube, 28 June 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSeXSDw29S4&ab_channel=ABCNews.
Allan, Bill. “Crazy Horse: Pointing to the Future.” Crazy Horse: Pointing Toward the Future, South Dakota Magazine, https://www.southdakotamagazine.com/crazy-horse-1987.
Cook-Lynn, Elizabeth. “The Crazy Horse Monument.” Anti-Indianism in Modern America: A Voice from Tatekeya’s Earth, Univ. of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL, Illinois, 2007, pp. 24–33.
Dorminey, Bruce. “The Crazy Horse Memorial – What Would Crazy Horse Think?” Pacific Standard, 7 Jan. 2011, https://psmag.com/social-justice/making-sense-of-the-crazy-horse-memorial-26689.
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. “Crazy Horse.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1 Sept. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Crazy-Horse.
“Home of the Crazy Horse Memorial : Crazy Horse Memorial®.” Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, https://crazyhorsememorial.org/.
Jarvis, Brooke. “Who Speaks for Crazy Horse?” The New Yorker, Condé Nast, 16 Sept. 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/23/who-speaks-for-crazy-horse.
“Korczak Ziolkowski Interview on Crazy Horse (1977).” Edited by Joseph Wershba, YouTube, 60 Minutes, 24 Aug. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxMZg5cWyWM&ab_channel=ManufacturingIntellect.
Suozzo, Andrea, et al. “Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, Full Filing – Nonprofit Explorer.” ProPublica, Pro Publica Inc., 9 May 2013, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460220678/202210279349300176/full.
Will Maharry is a current Freshman in the college of Engineering and juggling enthusiast. Born and raised in the Chicago metro area, Will enjoys few things more than careening down Comm Ave at full speed on his bike. He would like to thank Professor McDonough for her excellently planned Indigenous Resistance course, as well as for her mentorship throughout the podcasting process.