Nelson Clay’s in-depth study of the renowned Oglala Sioux warrior chief, Crazy Horse, began with a verification of his birth year. Historians had placed it as late as 1845, but Nelson learned that it was actually five years earlier in 1840. That was proved by an Oglala warrior named Encouraging Bear, who in an interview years after Crazy Horse’s death related that both of them had been born in the fall of the year in which the Oglala bands to which both their fathers had belonged had stolen one hundred horses, at that time a tribal record. That year, according to Sioux elders Cloud Shield, American Horse, and Red Horse, was 1840. Even more compelling was the comment by Crazy Horse’s father, who said, when he came to claim the body of his son after a soldier had killed him in 1877, “My son would have been thirty-seven years old in another moon,” or month.
At birth, he had been named Cha-O-Ha, which in Sioux dialect meant Among-the-Trees. His father bore the name Crazy Horse at that time, and his mother was called Blanket Woman. She had a sister named Lone Horn, who gave birth to a son who as an adult was given the name Touch-the-Clouds because he grew to be seven feet tall. When Crazy Horse reached manhood and took his father’s name, he and his cousin, Touch-the-Clouds, became inseparable friends.
In 1860, when Crazy Horse was twenty, and was called Tasunke Witko, the Oglala translation of his name, he led a small band of young warriors on a buffalo hunt. They came upon a Minneconjou village being raided by a Crow band. The Crow were traditional Sioux enemies, so Crazy Horse led his men against them and overwhelmed them. The Minneconjou elder who was the head of the village was called Com. In gratitude for Crazy Horse’s help, he gave the young warrior three of his daughters: Between Horns, who was eighteen; Kills Enemy, seventeen; and Red Leggings, fifteen. When Crazy Horse proudly rode home with the three girls in tow, his mother, Blanket Woman, hit him smartly in the head with a spoon made from a mule’s leg, and turned the girls over to the Oglala elders, who allowed them to go among the young men of the village and select their own husbands. To Crazy Horse’s chagrin, none of them chose him. Touch-the-Clouds thought it was all very funny.
As was the Oglala custom, each young warrior was required to go alone into the wilderness for three moons to live by himself with no help from anyone. It was called a spiritual journey. Crazy Horse made his in the summer of 1865. While out on the great plains and up in the mountains of the badlands, Crazy Horse claimed that a red-tailed hawk had led him to a resting place where he experienced a vision that showed him riding his horse in a great battle in which many other warriors were killed by the enemy, but through which he rode unharmed. In that battle, he had three white circles painted on his forehead, representing three hailstones, and a red lightning bolt painted down the left side of his face. When he returned home from his spiritual journey, he proclaimed that no enemy would ever kill him in battle.
In Sioux society, it was permitted, even expected, for pretty young women to openly torment the young men with shy smiles, tantalizing poses, giggling, and whatever other mischief they could conjure up. One such young woman was Black Buffalo Woman, niece of Red Cloud, one of the Oglala’s greatest chiefs. Crazy Horse fell in love with Black Buffalo Woman and began courting her. But he had several rivals, among whom was No Water, whose brother, Black Twin, was a high member of the council headed by Red Cloud. Sioux maidens were required to remain chaste until marriage, and while it was clear that Black Buffalo Woman felt a strong physical attraction to Crazy Horse, who was handsome and muscular, compared to No Water, who was short and bowlegged, she knew that No Water came from a more prominent family, so to please her uncle, the great Red Cloud, she chose No Water as her husband. Devastated, Crazy Horse vowed to marry no other.
Over the years, Crazy Horse’s reputation grew as a great warrior and a great hunter. Before he was thirty, he had led bands in more than four dozen successful battles against traditional enemies of the Sioux: the Crow, whom they despised, and the arrogant Shoshone, as well as white settlers who ventured onto Sioux lands deeded to the tribe by treaty. Before long, he was selected by the chiefs of the council to become a Shirt Wearer. These were considered to be the bravest of the young warriors, and as a symbol of their authority they wore shirts made of two bighorn sheepskins, each one beautifully quilled with feathers and fringed with small locks of the wearer’s hair, each lock representing a brave deed accomplished in battle. Legend has it that before his death, Crazy Horse had two hundred and forty locks on his shirt.
Gradual, but continuous, encroachment of white settlers on their treaty lands eventually caused the Oglalas to move northward to the Yellowstone River area of Montana Territory, where they joined other tribes forced to relocate: the Minneconjous, Sans Arcs, and Hunkpapas, led by a revered medicine man named Sitting Bull. Soon there were more than two hundred lodges spread along the Yellowstone. Among them was the lodge of No Water and Black Buffalo Woman, who by now was the mother of three children.
In 1872, when Crazy Horse was thirty-two, returning from a raid against the Crows, he stopped his band near No Water’s lodge to rest. No Water was away on a hunting trip. When Black Buffalo Woman saw Crazy Horse again, her desire for him overcame her better judgment, and she took her three children to their grandparents and declared her intention to go with Crazy Horse. It was law among the Sioux, where women historically had many rights that even white women did not have, that a married woman could leave her husband at any time, for any reason, or no reason, and the husband had no recourse but to let her go. He could, however, demand compensation in horses or other property from any man with whom his wife subsequently cohabited.
When No Water returned and learned that his wife had ridden off with Crazy Horse, he loaded his pistol and went after them, feeling that it was his right since Crazy Horse had not paid him for Black Buffalo Woman. The lovers were soon overtaken in a tipi next to the Powder River. They were lying together beside a small campfire. No Water rushed in, his pistol at the ready. Crazy Horse reached for his knife and No Water shot him, the bullet striking him next to his left nostril, breaking his jaw, causing him to fall forward onto the campfire. Black Buffalo Woman fled, No Water close behind her. Others from nearby lodges rushed in to give aid to Crazy Horse.
The Oglala council now had before it a perplexing problem. Crazy Horse had taken another man’s wife without offering the man compensation of any kind. The man had physically attacked a Shirt Wearer charged with enforcing tribal laws. It was serious business, since word of it had spread throughout the Oglalas. Ironically, no blame was attached to Black Buffalo Woman, who had initiated the incident; under Oglala law, which enforced exceptionally permissive rights for women, she was permitted to live with any man she pleased, without regard to consequences.