Category: History

Crazy Horse: The Last Warrior Standing, Defending the Old Way of Life

On September 5, 1877, Crazy Horse (Tashunca-uitco) was killed while resisting his captivity in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska. During a struggle, a U.S. soldier stabbed Crazy Horse with a bayonet. Many things are still debated about that day, including the name of the soldier and how Crazy Horse resisted.  But it was the end of the great military leader of the Oglala Lakota.

Crazy Horse was one of the Sioux leaders who defeated George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana Territory in 1876. After the infamous battle, U.S. soldiers had pursued Crazy Horse and his followers until the Native Americans, suffering cold and starvation, surrendered in May 1877.

Crazy Horse Photo
Disputed photo that some claim is of Crazy Horse.

In 2005, singer-songwriter Marty Stuart released Badlands: Ballads Of The Lakota. The concept album recounts Native American history and struggle. Stuart brought his outstanding musical and storytelling skills to the music.  He has created other wonderful concept albums too, including his excellent The Pilgrim (1999).

On the epic song “Three Chiefs” on Badlands, Stuart sings from the point of view of Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse. He recounts what they might have said after their deaths when they went to another world.

In the segment in the song about Crazy Horse, the song recounts his death: “In a jailhouse in Nebraska, it was on September 5,/ Crazy Horse was fighting hard to keep himself alive.” After his death, he meets God, who asks what Crazy Horse has to say. Crazy Horse responds:

“Upon suffering. Beyond suffering. The Red Nation shall rise again.
And it shall be a blessing for a sick world.
A world filled with broken promises. Selfishness and separations.
A world longing for light again.”

Crazy Horse foretells that the Native Americans will bring healing to the land of suffering.

“I see a time of seven generations when all of the colors of mankind
Will gather under the sacred tree of life.
And the whole earth will become one circle again.
And that day, there will be those among The Lakota,
Who will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things.
And the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom.”

After Crazy Horse’s death, his body was placed on a burial scaffold, and later his parents took his remains to an undisclosed location. Experts suspect the remains are in an area around Wounded Knee, South Dakota, but no one is sure of the exact location.

As Stuart sings, “Touch the Clouds took his body, back home to his family,/ Nobody knows where they laid him down, to set his spirit free.” In the video below, two of Crazy Horse’s great grandsons talk about Crazy horse’s death and burial.

Photo via public domain. Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    A Humbug Pill, a Dose of Dope, And a Great Big Bill

    How Can a Poor Man On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast near New Orleans, Louisiana. The hurricane and its after effects devastated the city and surrounding areas along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

    The following year, Bruce Springsteen visited New Orleans and performed his version of the song “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live.” He used the first verse from the original by Blind Alfred Reed. But then he added three new verses that focused on the situation in New Orleans.

    Springsteen’s lyrics criticize the federal response to the emergency, invoking President George W. Bush‘s trip to the area: “He took a look around, gave a little pep talk, said ‘I’m with you’ then he took a little walk.” At his performance in New Orleans, he introduced the song with a reference to the “Bystander-in-Chief.”

    Springsteen released his version of “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live” on We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (American Land Edition) (2006). Below is the original version of the song by Blind Alfred Reed, who wrote “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live” in response to the Great Depression: “When we pay our grocery bill,/ We just feel like making our will.”

    Reed, who lived from 1880 to 1956, recorded his version in New York City on December 4, 1929, less than two months after the stock market crash. Check it out.

    Ry Cooder also recorded a variation on Reed’s original version, releasing it on his self-titled album in 1970. Musically, one can hear how Cooder’s version apparently influenced Springsteen’s version.

    Check out this video of Cooder’s 1987 performance of “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live” at The Catalyst, Santa Cruz, California.

    Unfortunately, it seems like we will always need songs like these. Fortunately, we have artists like Reed, Cooder, and Springsteen to keep challenging us.

    Photo of Hurricane Katrina via NASA (Public Domain). Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    And Rosetta Stoned Me

    British Museum On July 19, 1799 near the town of Rosetta, Egypt, a French officer named Pierre-François Bouchard found a large black basalt stone with writing on it. The stone included three languages that said the same thing in Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Egyptian demotic. Scholars thus discovered that the “Rosetta Stone” was the key to interpreting the long-dead written language of hieroglyphics. The stone would eventually become important for interpreting and understanding ancient Egyptian culture.

    What Happened to the Rosetta Stone

    Napoleon Bonaparte’s armies during the Egyptian campaign took control of the stone.  But the British soon took it from the French when they defeated Napoleon in 1801.

    The next year, the British placed the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum, where it has remained through today (except for a brief period during World War I), including earlier this year when I visited the British Museum in London and took the photo above.

    “And It Stoned Me”

    I do not know what Pierre-François Bouchard thought when he first saw the Rosetta Stone. But because of Napoleon’s orders to look for artifacts, Bouchard knew he had found something. I do wonder if he had any idea of the impact the rock would have on the world.

    If Bouchard knew how important it was, the discovery surely must have “stoned him,” an expression used by Van Morrison in “And It Stoned Me” from his Moondance (1970) album. Below, Morrison performs the song on June 18, 1980 at Montreux.

    Van Morrison has explained that “And It Stoned Me” is about an experience he had as a twelve-year-old kid on a fishing trip.  During the trip, an old man gave him water from a spring, with everything seeming to stand still in the moment.

    In its original review of Moondance, Rolling Stone saw the water in “And It Stoned Me” as rain. The magazine recounted that the song is “a tale of boys out for a day’s freedom, standing in the rain with eyes and mouths open, heads bent back.” The review concluded, “The sensuality of this song is overpowering, communicated with a classical sort of grace.”

    The magazine described the song in the same way that Bouchard might have felt upon seeing the Rosetta Stone: “you feel the exhilaration almost with a sense of astonishment.” When I visited the Rosetta Stone in London, I felt some of that astonishment too.

    In honor of this date’s discovery of the Rosetta Stone, take a moment to feel a little exhilarated from both mystical experiences and for human beings’ ongoing quest for knowledge.

    Photo via Chimesfreedom. Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Gettysburg in Four Minutes

    Pickett's Charge

    During the Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg began on July 1, 1863, ending on July 3, the date of Pickett’s Charge. The three-day battle between Union and Confederate armies was the largest military fight in North American history. Additionally, it was an important turning point in the war and led to ten famous sentences by President Abraham Lincoln.

    In the video below, Historian Garry Adelman recounts the story of the battle on the fields of Pennsylvania, including how the conflict started by accident. And he does it all in less than five minutes. Check it out.

    For more about Gettysburg, check out this video about the soldiers who gathered for the 50th and 75th anniversaries of the battle.

    Painting: “Hancock at Gettysburg” by Thure de Thulstrup, showing Pickett’s Charge, restored by Adam Cuerden.

    Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    What a Beautiful Day!

    Song Gay Marriage
    Hearing Jim Obergefell on CNN today talking about the Supreme Court decision holding the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage could melt the hardest of hearts. The case had started out with Obergefell seeking to have his name on the death certificate of his partner of twenty years. His fight came out of his love, which made the victory all the more sweet.

    So, tonight even though up until President Obama we have never had a president say that they supported gay marriage, we have a White House lit up in rainbow colors. And it is hard not only to think of those who can now get married, but also to think of those through the years who did not live long enough to see this day. And one hopes that this decision will aid the ongoing progress, helping teenagers who have historically felt ostracized.

    I cannot think of a better song for the day than “What a Beautiful Day,” by Australian singer-songwriter Brett Every and featuring Belinda Crawford. The song and video recounts a beautiful day of two people proclaiming their love while supported by friends and family.

    “What a Beautiful Day” is from Brett Every’s album Tales of Ten Men (2012). The song won the Outmusic Awards 2012 Love Song Of The Year.

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