Caption: Figure 3 (right): An 1868 Alexander Gardner (1821-1882) photo of the
Oglalas Fire Thunder and Old Man Afraid at Ft.
And then, when he was at Pine Ridge and Rosebud, he learned stories from the Western people, the
Oglalas and Brules.
MARSHALL, III, THE JOURNEY OF CRAZY HORSE: A LAKOTA History (New York, Viking 2004); LARRY MCMURTRY, CRAZY HORSE (NEW YORK, VIKING 1999); THOMAS POWERS, THE KILLING OF CRAZY Horse (New York, Knnpf 2010); MARI SANDOZ, CRAZY HORSE, THE STRANGE MAN OF THE
OGLALAS, A BIOGRAPHY (University of Nebraska Press, 1961).
Organized into bands, political bodies reinforced by kinship ties (i.e.,
Oglalas, Hunkpapas, etc.), and further divided into smaller groups that rarely united with one another, Lakota Sioux peoples reached the Missouri River Valley by the late 1730s and were soon followed by their Yankton and Yanktonai kin.
Mari Sandoz (1896-1966) was a Nebraska-born writer perhaps best known for her 1942 biography Crazy Horse: the Strange Man of the
Oglalas. She was a prolific letter writer and this volume collects some of her later life correspondence, focusing on the letters that "illustrate and address her interest in and advocacy for historical accuracy in American Indian matters, political and social justice for Native peoples, and her active campaign to dismantle negative Native American stereotypes."
The
Oglalas were right behind him followed by other bands of Tetons and Cheyennes.
Each of these has added a layer of mystique to Crazy Horse's life starting with Mari Sandoz's classic 1942 biography Crazy Horse the Strange Man of the
Oglalas which this author maintains "helped shift the paradigm in Indian studies away from the racist stereotyping of the previous century toward a more empathetic reading of the Lakota world."
Whether intentionally or not, Frazier's story is inscribed with the values of the dominant culture but missing the essential values of the
Oglalas he writes about, creating an insurmountable rift between good intention and result.
Each time he went into the Black Hills to seek visions, he had asked Wakantaka to give him secret powers so that he would know how to lead the
Oglalas to victory if the white men ever came again to make war upon his people.
1985); see generally, DEE BROWN, BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE: AN INDIAN HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WEST (1970); PETER MATTHIESSEN, IN THE SPIRIT OF CRAZY HORSE: THE STORY OF LEONARD PELTIER AND THE FBI's WAR ON THE AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT (1980); MARI SANDOZ, CRAZY HORSE: THE STRANGE MAN OF THE
OGLALAS (1942).
Sandoz, Mari 1942 Crazy Horse: the strange man of the
Oglalas. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.