Crazy Horse and the Cosmos

June 24, 2008

Any telling of the life of Crazy Horse (1842-1877) must build up to the encounter with Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. This full biography by Kingsley Bray manages also to reconstruct his early life and the deep religious sensibility that made him a feared warrior.

His religion appears to consist of a concerted effort to harness the powers of the cosmos through carefully acquired associations. Crazy Horse rode into battle nearly naked:

...the new warrior chief was happy to ride as a Thunder dreamer: hair streaming loose, naked but for breechclout and moccasins, his body painted yellow, for the power of the Rock, and dotted with hailstone spots. [153]

This image makes sense of his appearance in the pictorial history of the Sioux by Amos Bad Heart Bull. We see Crazy Horse riding on a war pony and covered with spots. This is more than a weird decoration.. it is an attempt to draw upon the destructive power of hail.

This same associative way of thinking appears in other aspects of his preparation for war. Bray describes a charm bundle:

The holy men prepared a sacred bundle containing the stuffed skin of the hawk... Prayer and song imparted the contents with the sacred power of the hawk and other protectors...

The spirit of the hawk controlled swiftness and endurance, two of the warrior's key attributes. Henceforth he would regard the bird as his spiritual patron... Sometimes Crazy Horse would ride into battle wearing the whole body of the hawk tied in his hair; as the years passed and other visionary powers were granted him, he more usually made do with two or three of its feathers fastened at his crown. [60-1]

The pattern is again to locate in the natural world something that has a desired attribute (swiftness and endurance) and then to find a way to associate the bearer of those attributes with one's own self. The feathers of the hawk do just fine..

Bray makes the argument that not only was Crazy Horse connected to Thunder and the powers of the sky, but he also had an encounter with a Water Spirit, thus bringing him into contact with Lower World. His various preparations complete,

When he rode into battle, Crazy Horse was not simply a naked warrior with a curious paint design: his being crackled with the awesome destructive power of the total cosmos. [66]

That power was born of numerous associations acquired through rituals and visions.. and symbolized by some charm or design painted on the body.

I suspect that this building of power through association lies at the base of much of human culture. Perhaps a naked small human being just feels too puny all by himself.. and so the self must be connected by various mechanisms to something powerful. A culture like the Lakota Sioux would naturally pull their web of associations from the natural world. But what about us? Maybe the man who walks into a business meeting with an expensive watch and designer suit feels something similar to Crazy Horse: a feeling of power and rightness. For our culture—disconnected from the natural world—brands and logos become the bearers of associations of power. The vain business man might not be carrying the power of the cosmos.. but he feels as if he does!