Free Joseph M. Marshall III by The Journey of Crazy Horse a Lakota History Page A

He saw to his horse then curled up against the hunger and growing thirst. Sleep came again sometime in the night.
    Hands pulled at him and Light Hair jumped to wakefulness, instinctively moving away from the faces looking down at him.
    High Back Bone and Crazy Horse were kneeling over him. The sun was in the morning half of the sky, the land bright. They pulled him to his feet, their faces scowling as they scolded him for his carelessness. The Kiowa and the Pawnee and the Omaha were known to be around at times, they told him.
    Light Hair rode silently behind his father and High Back Bone as they returned to the camp.

Reflections:
    The Way We Came

    On my wall hangs a color copy of a photograph of a petroglyph.

    after Sweem
    If the story associated with the petroglyph is true, then the man who carved it was Crazy Horse. A Northern Cheyenne friend of his is believed to have been with him and witnessed the carving of it into a sandstone wall along Ash Creek a few miles southeast of the Little Bighorn River and the Little Bighorn battlefield. The photograph was taken by the late Glenn Sweem of Sheridan, Wyoming—a history buff and a fine, fine gentleman.
    The carving is said to have been done a few days before the Battle of the Little Bighorn. I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the petroglyph and that Crazy Horse was its creator, but then I may feel that way because I want it to be real. I have not seen it with my own eyes and never will if the last report I heard is true. The sandstone bluff, I was told, was washed away. Plaster replicas of the wall with the images on it have been made, however.
    Some who have seen the actual petroglyph or the photograph or the plaster replicas believe it to be Crazy Horse’s signature. It is, of course, open to interpretation. I think it was more of a statement than a signature.
    The snake, to some Lakota, symbolizes toka, or “enemy.” If the carver of this petroglyph was using the snake in this manner, then the horse—and whomever and whatever it represented—was being pursued or followed by an enemy or enemies.
    At that point in his life, in 1876, Crazy Horse was certainly well aware that he had detractors, men who were envious of his status among the Lakota. When I see the photograph on my wall, I feel as though Crazy Horse was saying Lehan wahihunni yelo, or “This is where I am in my life.”
    Or perhaps he was simply saying I was here.
    Whatever the message, it does reach across from then to now, at least for me.
    Crazy Horse came into the world at least four generations ahead of mine. He was born in the early 1840s, perhaps as late as 1845. I was born in 1945. As Lakota males, he and I have much in common. Enough of Lakota culture has survived through the changes during those four generations, fortunately, to allow my generation to identify strongly with his.
    My childhood was similar to his in several ways. I grew up in a household where Lakota was the primary language, as did he. I heard stories told by my grandparents and other elders who were part of an extended family, as did he. My maternal grandparents, who functioned as my parents, were very indulgent, as Light Hair’s parents and the adults in his extended family were. I recall vividly the solicitous attention from my grandmother and from all the mothers and grandmothers who were part of the extended family circle, not to mention the women in the community of families in the Horse Creek and Swift Bear communities in the northern part of the reservation. Given these experiences, I know how it was for him as a boy growing up. The society and community and the sense of family—all of which were operative factors in his upbringing—were much the same for me. My 1950s lifestyle was certainly different than his 1850s lifestyle as a consequence of interaction with Euro-Americans, but traditional Lakota values and practices of rearing and teaching children have remained basically intact in the more traditional