Crazy as Crazy Horse

Fifteen miles from Rushmore is a curious monument-in-progress to the great Sioux warrior Crazy Horse. Who is he? Feel free to ask, but don't do it there. You'll be hard pressed to discover an answer. As with many tributes to the Indian Wars, it's short on detail.

The Crazy Horse Memorial is something of a folly, but a massively interesting one. Its subject was a noted Sioux military leader, who took part in many memorable battles and showed extraordinary courage, cunning, leadership, and the rest. In the West, we often put up monuments to such people. But Crazy Horse was a true Sioux. He eschewed fame, didn't like to have his picture taken, and considered the Black Hills so sacred that it's entirely doubtful he would have liked to see them defaced by his image.

Nonetheless, in 1948, the Sioux chief Sitting Bear became depressed by the fame of Mt. Rushmore, which was located in his peoples' sacred Black Hills. He invited sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, who had labored on the other mountain, to create an even larger sculpture of Crazy Horse to let the world know that "the red man had his heroes too."

A few notes about Ziolkowski as an artist: he is much better than Borglum, the man who created Rushmore. His sculptures, of which there are many examples at Crazy Horse, show an ability to both understand the spirit of a person and render it in physical form. His model for Crazy Horse is not perfect, but it shows a young man, superbly shaped, driving forward in an unmistakably martial gesture. It's darn good. By comparison, Borglum's model for Mt. Rushmore looks like an elderly barbershop quartet. The only thing that saved it was that the project ran out of money before Borglum could get started on the cravats.

Still, the Crazy Horse project is mad. In the first place, it's godawful huge. The entirety of Mt. Rushmore, which took 13 years and government backing to carve, would fit inside the noble warrior's head. What's more, Crazy Horse will be carved in three dimensions, and when finished it will be, by far, the largest sculpture the world has ever known. Nothing even remotely compares.

Worst of all, and perhaps most noble, is Ziolkowski's vision. He conceived the project, and began working on it alone. For the first seven years, he labored each day, by himself, walking up the hill to drill holes and place dynamite. He hated the government and would not accept its money (or interference). It was only over time that private support came.

The project, naturally, outlived him. But his wife and seven of his ten children have carried on. They raise millions every year by charging entrance fees, selling trinkets, and trying to raise donations by funneling visitors to see a dreadful bore of a movie. Whenever they get money, they work, but they have no idea when they'll be finished. Today, nearly 60 years after Ziolkowski drilled his first hole, only the head is carved.

Above all, Crazy Horse is not about the Sioux, who are deeply divided about the monument. Instead, it's about an artist, whose stubborn perseverance and refusal to compromise have inspired generations of his family and others to do the same. One wonders whether to root for them, or call in Dr. Phil.