Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life (book review)

Been out since '06, won a Spur Award when it came out.

http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Horse-Lakota-Civilization-American/dp/0806139862

The author Kingsley Bray is apparently one of them Brit eccentrics that in this case after 25 years knows about every source pertaining to the Lakotas. He ain't a professional historian.

Like the best history books he throws in a bewildering amount of material to the point that it can be tedious unless you're really into details (in contrast books like "Comanche Empire", skip and gloss over much, but are entertaining and readable).

Critics too have pointed out that Kingsley often presumes much when presenting ol' Horse's thoughts and motivations.

All that said, if you're REALLY into Western Frontier history you need to read this book. First off, it strives for objectivity and gives us a human Crazy Horse as opposed to a sort of Lakota Lone Ranger of popular history. Some of the stuff he does ain't pleasant, noble or pretty. Nothing noble about his death scene either on either side, just a sort of chaotic mob situation.

The big thing is tho' the book fleshes out the OTHER side of the Sioux wars. We tend to recall it as a series of disjunct events; Fetterman Massacre, Wagon Box Fight, Little Big Horn etc... etc.....

It the book you get all these events embedded in a continuum of complex and sometimes violent tribal and band politics. More in the direction the Indian's themselves likely experienced it.

Fer example, early on (1850's) American negotiators are pushing for the Sioux to name a Head Chief to negotiate for all the Lakotas. One candidate points out that anyone presuming to be "Head Chief" would likely turn up dead out on the prairie, at the hands of his own constituents.

From the American side, not an attractive part of our history, but really, by 1870's, no way were maybe 15,000 Indians going to remain in sole possession of whole state-sized chunks of real estate.

Quixotic that they would even try. In the book you have what amounts to a hero culture, sorta like the Irish clans of old where individual warriors attracted followings, going up against the impersonal might of a modern industrial nation.

Like I said, a must-read for everyone truly committed, just be prepared to wade through endless tribal politics on the way.

Birdwatcher

Birdy, will say from living my life on a Sioux and Assiniboine Rez......chit aint any different now.....hell oil companies choose not to deal with tribal politics by a large part even though the east end of the rez is sitting on as much oil as pretty well anywhere else on the Bakken.....

The oil companies know their business will wind up "dead out on the prairies".

And a cautionary tale, one with which the late Libertarian Russel Means would have doubtless endorsed:

It is stunning how quickly Government negotiations became Government ultimatums as circumstance and the balance of power changed.

Birdwatcher