Crazy Horse Read Online Free PDF Page A

group of these now ran down the hill toward the reedy pool. On the far bank a party of Wittaia danced and called. The enemies shouted insults at each other and brandished spears, but no arrows flew and shortly both sides retired to their rear positions.
    The sun had climbed over the valley and its light shone on breastplates of white sheels, on white headdresses, on ivory boar’s tusks inserted through nostrils, on wands of white egret feathers twirled like batons. The shouting was increasing in ferocity, and several men from each side would dance out and feign attacks, whirling and prancing to display their splendor. They were jeered and admired by both sides and were not shot at, for display and panoply were a part of war, which was less war than ceremonial sport, a wild fierce festival. Territorial conquest was unknown to the akuni; there was land enough for all, and at the end of the day the warriors would go home across the fields to supper. Should rain come to chill them or spoil their feathers, both sides would retire. A day of war was dangerous and splendid, regardless of its outcome; it was a war of individuals and gallantry, quite innocent of tactics andcold slaughter. A single death on either side would mean victory or defeat.
    Toward mid-morning a flurry of arrows was exchanged . . . soon a great shout rose up out of the distance, and the Kurelu answered it exultantly, hoo-ah, hoo-ah-h, hua hua, hua. . . .
    Add horses and you get something not very unlike what the Sioux did when they went out on a day’s raiding. Once the two sides faced off, there would be lots of shouting, taunting, feints, dashes, with now and then an injury and now and then a death, after which, tribal honor having been defended and acts of individual bravery performed and witnessed, everyone yelled a few more times and went home. (There were some serious battles and even a few massacres, but these were the exceptions, not the norm.)
    Crazy Horse fought in many raids of this sort; seldom would more than a man or two be killed in such forays. A desire to steal horses was usually the nominal aim of Plains warfare, but the need for the warriors—young warriors, particularly—to display their bravery was usually the real motive.
    Not long after the Grattan massacre, Crazy Horse, who was then living with his mother’s people, the Brulés, rode off alone to seek a vision, ignoring the rituals and procedures of purification that would normally precede a vision quest. He felt that he needed a vision and simplyrode off to seek it, across the prairies of what is now western Nebraska. To have done this right he would have had to fast, be purified in a sweat lodge, and perhaps be given a lecture or two by a holy man—his father, for example. But orthodoxy was not his way, would never be his way. When Crazy Horse felt like doing something, he just did it.
    Perhaps because he didn’t fully prepare himself for this vision quest, he only achieved what to him at the time seemed a rather mediocre vision. Such a vision was supposed to put a young man in touch with the eternal, with the sacred powers; properly interpreted, the vision would help him find what we now call identity, and thus show him what was to be his way in life. His vision, correctly understood, would be determinative, give him direction, show him what he must do and how he must behave.
    The vision Crazy Horse (then still called Curly) achieved, after fasting alone for two days, has been variously reported. It seems he dreamed of a horseman, floating above the ground. The horseman was dressed plainly, was not painted, was in no way grand; the horse may have been dancing, or in some way magical. The horseman told Crazy Horse not to adorn himself, not to wear a war bonnet; he was permitted a single feather at most. He was instructed to throw a little dust over his horse before going into battle, and to wear a small stone behind his ear. There may have