The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History

 (55 customer reviews)

This is the first book I have read authored by Joseph M. Marshall, a Lakota Sioux. Based on this effort on Crazy Horse, I plan on reading others as well. Stereotypes are cast aside regarding the Lakota Sioux who were fighting an enemy that threatened their cultural way of life. It was the Fetterman Fight in December of 1866 in which Crazy Horse demonstrated his leadership by luring William Fetterman and his eighty men from Fort Phil Kearny into a trap that led to the demise of his entire group while young warriors, fighting impatience, waited until all of Fetterman's men were within the trap before attacking the soldiers. Much has been written about The Battle at the Little Bighorn in Montana in which Crazy Horse was instrumental in the defeat of General George Custer, but little is written about The Battle of the Rosebud near Buffalo, Wyoming, in which Crazy Horse and his men fought General George "Three Stars" Crook eight days prior to Little Bighorn. This battle is important...Read more

Of all of the great Native American leaders of the Old West, none is more elusive than Tasunke Witko, Crazy Horse. While we have photographs of Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, Gall, Rain in the Face, Chief Joseph and Geronimo, no image of Crazy Horse, the legendary field general of the Lakota, exists or has survived.

Past efforts at providing a credible literary portrayal of the man have reeked of the mythology that pervaded Western History. All through those accounts the stereotype of supposed ruthless savagery lingered in the background, like a vile stench. Even those authors who tried to be fair couldn't, somehow, rise above the temptation to sensationalize Crazy Horse.

Why is it that we tolerate such fiction? Why is it that we succumb to the temptation to paint all of our enemies, past and present, as demons and devils without honestly trying to understand where they were coming from? Sadly, this continues to be the major problem when whites (of whom I am one)...Read more

This is my third Joseph Marshall book (after "Soldiers Falling into Camp" and "The Lakota Way"). Reading Joe Marshall is like having a "story teller" right in front of you, talking, teaching, engaging, looking you in the eye and speaking to you. Mr. Marshall cares about what he writes about, and cares that his readers take something with them. This clearly comes through in his writing. In this book he speaks of the "conflict" between the oral and written traditions -- I think Mr. Marshall is a master at synthesizing the two.

The Lakota history and experience he imparts are as genuine as it gets - and a treasure he has given us non-Lakota people a chance to see. The book describes, through synthesis of oral history and the experiences/culture of the Lakota people, the man of Tashunka Witko (His Crazy Horse). Marshall shows how the life of a very heroic yet very human man transcends linear time and remains part of living culture through faithful oral tradition and living into...Read more