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| ONE OF the enduring mysteries of Crazy Horse is whether or not he ever allowed himself to be photographed. Most of the people who knew him personally -- such as Horn Chips, Billy Garnett and Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy -- agreed that "he never had his picture taken... He was very peculiar about that."
 Typical of the ever elusive Tasunka Witko, though, there is contradictory testimony. Short Bull, a fellow Oglala and a long-time associate of Crazy Horse, said he had personally seen three photographs of Crazy Horse, all showing him on horseback, once on the pinto he rode at the Little Bighorn and the Rosebud.
No acknowledged photograph of Crazy Horse -- on horseback or otherwise -- emerged during the lifetime of the people who knew him, but several nominees have been put forward since. Here are the main candidates, and the reasons why none of them is, in fact, a photo of Crazy Horse.
Still, the dream persists that Short Bull was correct, and somewhere in some musty archive there is a picture of an unknown Indian on a pinto war pony. This is the El Dorado of Crazy Horse studies.
But at present, all that remains of Crazy Horse in this world are a few eye-witness descriptions and a few physical artifacts, the most significant of which is his Eagle Horn -- or eagle bone war whistle -- which he used to command his troops, and which Eagle Elk said he carried with him "at all times."
For more info on Crazy Horse, see The Complete Crazy Horse Surrender Ledger, The Wintercount of Crazy Horse's Life, Crazy Horse at the Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse at the Rosebud, and the May 7, 1877 Chicago Times story.
-- Bruce Brown
April 21, 2007
(Updated May 18, 2010)
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#1
The "Little Bat" /
Carroll Friswold Photo
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| The most frequently seen bogus portrait of Crazy Horse is the "Little Bat" photo. Supposedly taken in 1877 at Fort Robinson, NE, and supposedly originally owned by Baptiste "Little Bat" Garnier, this image was first published in 1956 in J.W. Vaughn's With Crook at the Rosebud, and endorsed by Custerania author Carroll Friswold, who conveniently owned the small 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch tintype at the time.
On the face of it, it's hard to see why the "Little Bat" photo has been so widely accepted. As this fair copy of the photo from the first edition of Vaughn's book clearly shows, this unknown Indian had neither a bullet scar nor a gunpowder tattoo just below the left nostril, where Crazy Horse had been shot point blank in the face, and survived.
Even if you set aside the tangled story of the "Little Bat" Photo's supposed origin, this is clearly not Crazy Horse. Next!
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#2 --
The S.J. Morrow Photo
Another commonly seen bogus portrait of Crazy Horse is this photo by Stanley J. Morrow. Even if you don't know that this photo was identified by Morrow himself as Sioux chief Crazy In The Lodge, "head warrior under Spotted Tail," this is clearly not Crazy Horse for the same reason as Bogus Crazy Horse Photo #1: no gunpowder tattoo or gunshot wound below the left nostril. Next!
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#3 --
The Race Horse /
Ft. Robinson Photo
This bogus portrait of Crazy Horse purports to show the Oglala war chief at Ft. Robinson in 1876. Even if you don't know that Crazy Horse wasn't at Ft. Robinson in 1876 (he didn't surrender until May 1877), this is clearly not Crazy Horse either. There are two giveaways here. The first is his head gear: a rare point of agreement among people who knew Crazy Horse is that he never wore an eagle feather war bonnet. The second is the age of this unknown Indian, who is at least middle aged, while Crazy Horse was by most accounts a young-looking 36 or 37 at the time of his death. This Indian is sometimes identified as Race Horse, a purported cousin of Crazy Horse.
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#5 --
The Hawk Wing Photo
This unknown Sioux has a scar under his left eye -- not his left nostril -- so he is not Crazy Horse.
Interestingly, though, he appears to be holding the wing of a hawk, which was Crazy Horse's Wasicunpi (or guardian spirit). His hair also appears lighter than most Indians (e.g., the Indian in the "Little Bat" photo above) -- which was true of Crazy Horse -- and he has a "long straight nose," as Little Killer described Crazy Horse. |
#6 --
The Old Man Photo
The giveaway on this bogus Crazy Horse photo is the same as Bogus Crazy Horse Photo #3: Crazy Horse "never wore a warbonnet" and was a young-looking man in his thirties when he was murdered. This elderly Indian is not Crazy Horse.
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Crazy Horse's Wives,
Black Shawl Woman
and Nellie Lavarie? |
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| This Standing Bear family photo from Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life by Kingsley M. Bray purports to portray Crazy Horse's second wife, Black Shawl Woman.
Personally, I have doubts about the authenticity of this photo for a couple reasons. First, Black Shawl Woman died shortly after Crazy Horse in 1877, while the building behind this woman looks too substantial to have existed at Ft. Robinson in 1877. Secondly, the woman in this photo does not have the emaciated, sunken look of a consumptive near death.
The bottom photo, from The Death of Crazy Horse: A Tragic Episode in Lakota History edited by Richard G. Hardorff, purports to show Crazy Horse's third wife, Helen "Nellie" Lavarie.
Click here for more info on Crazy Horse's women.
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With Crook at the Rosebud by J W Vaughn, Stackpole Co., Harrisburg, PA, 1956
The Killing of Chief Crazy Horse: Three Eyewitness Views with commentary by Carroll Friswold, The Arthur H. Clark Co., Glendale, CA 1976 p 45 - 47
To Kill An Eagle: Indian Views of the Last Days of Crazy Horse by Edward and Mabel Kadlecec, Johnson Books, Boulder, CO 1981 p 72 - 74
The Death of Crazy Horse: A Tragic Episode in Lakota History edited by Richard G. Hardorff, Bison Books, Lincoln, NE, and London 2001 p 70 - 83
Life and Adventures of Frank Grouard by Joe DeBarthe, University of Oklahoma Press 1958 p 53 - 54
The Nebraska Indian Wars Reader edited by R. Eli Paul, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE 1998, p 185 - 188
Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life by Kingsley M. Bray, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 2006
For more information on Crazy Horse, please see Crazy Horse at the Little Bighorn and Crazy Horse at the Rosebud, the Winter Count of Crazy Horse's Life, the Crazy Horse Surrender Ledger, and the Chicago Times' coverage of Crazy Horse's surrender
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The History of the Corporation
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Table of Contents
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Astonisher.com is pleased to present a free advance sample of Bruce Brown's new novel, Conversations With Crazy Horse.
Here is the Table of Contents for the book, which is linked to all of chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4.
About the Author: Bruce Brown is the author of eight books, including Mountain in the Clouds, an environmental classic, and The Windows 95 Bug Collection, which was put on display in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
He has done investigative reporting for the New York Times (the Karen Silkwood story), foreign correspondence for Atlantic Monthly (baseball in Cuba), and book reviews for the Washington Post Book World, as well as script-writing for PBS-TV (The Miracle Planet).
He is also a successful businessman and CEO, having created BugNet and built it into the world's largest supplier of PC bug fixes before it was acquired by a Fortune 500 company at the height of the dot com boom.
 Bonus! Click here for 100 Voices, the world's largest collection of eyewitness accounts of the Battle of the Little Bighorn...
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