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Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for

Winter 1981

Two Authors And A Hero: Neihardt, Sandoz, And Crazy Horse

Helen Stauffer Kearney State College

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Stauffer, Helen, "Two Authors And A Hero: Neihardt, Sandoz, And Crazy Horse" (1981). Great Plains Quarterly. 1918. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1918

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. TWO AUTHORS AND A HERO: NEIHARDT, SANDOZ, AND CRAZY HORSE

HELEN STAUFFER

The western writers John G. Neihardt and exemplary classical hero. As Neihardt more Mari Sandoz had much in common, not the than once remarked, he had qualities a Virgilian least of which was their admiration for Crazy hero would aspire to: daring and brave, he was Horse, the famous Oglala Sioux chief during also selfless, humble, pious, and generous. the Indian wars of the last century, whom both Like many another tragic hero, he was doomed considered the "last great Sioux." The chief to be a scapegoat, killed through the treachery was a fine tactician and warrior, fighting of both friends and enemies, at Fort Robinson, successfully against General Crook at the Nebraska, in 1877. Battle of the Rosebud and General Custer at With such a heroic career, personality, and the Little Bighorn in 1876, but the authors fate a man might easily attract interest, but the found much more to admire in his personal aspect that seems to have appealed most to life. Born on the Great Plains around 1841, both Neihardt and Sandoz was his spiritual he remained a "hostile savage" all his life; quality, his mysticism, for he was a "god­ nevertheless, he encompassed the virtues of the intoxicated man" who lived his life according to mystical power-visions and experiences. He Helen Stauffer is a professor of English at won for himself a unique place of reverence Kearney State College. Currently president of and awe among his own people. Although he the Western Literature Association, she is the lived, as Neihardt states, in "the deepening author of Mari Sandoz: Story Catcher of the gloom of his disintegrating world" as the whites Plains (1981). increasingly trespassed into his land, his had 54 TWO AUTHORS AND A HERO 55

John C. Neihardt and Mari Sandoz in the home of Dr. and Mrs. Winkelman, Lincoln, Nebras­ ka, in July, 1962. Source: Lincoln Journal.

been "a rich life, nobly lived." It is this aspect Sandoz received national recogmUon upon of the man, his spiritual life, that both writers publication of her old Jules in 1935, while stress, Neihardt in Black Elk Speaks (1932) and Neihardt's popularity as an author and poet Sandoz in her biography, Crazy Horse: The had waned. She helped whenever she could to Strange Man of the Oglalas (1942), both writ­ gain the recognition she thought due him and ten from the Indian point of view. Because was particularly consistent in praising Black the authors shared similar backgrounds and Elk Speaks to anyone who would listen. 2 concepts, Neihardt's works were of major sig­ The literary treatment of Crazy Horse by nificance to Sandoz's Crazy Horse, although the two authors differs according to their their approaches were different and her work is purpose in writing about him. He is an impor­ in no sense a duplication of his.! tant fIgure in Black Elk Speaks as a tribal war Sandoz and Neihardt knew and admired leader and the revered older cousin of Black each other. It is not clear just when they fIrst Elk, but he is not the protagonist. Sandoz, as became acquainted, but they met on various his biographer, makes him the central fIgure of occasions at the homes of mutual friends when her book, presenting his life from childhood Sandoz lived in Lincoln during the 1930s. until his death. In Black Elk Speaks, Neihardt 56 QREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 1981 serves as an amanuensis for the holy man; his (primarily the Black Hills in this case) and to primary function is to help the old man explain point out that America had irretrievably lost his great power-vision for all men. Sandoz acts part of its greatness by its treatment of the as a historian for a warrior. But though their Indians. She also wanted to depict something of books are quite different, Neihardt and Sandoz the life of the people and to suggest the In­ shared a deep respect for Crazy Horse and his dian's "innate nature, something of his relation­ culture, an attitude much rarer then than it is ship to the earth and the sky and all that is today. American interest in Indian literature between. ,,6 was practically nonexistent in the 1930s and With regard to their writing methods and '40s. Nevertheless, both writers persisted in procedures, the two authors had little in com­ telling the story they thought America needed mon. Neihardt was a romantic, and he took a to know. romantic's approach to his work. Secluding Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks, which is actual­ himself for a certain number of hours each ly Black Elk's autobiography, came about after morning, usually in a separate room or a little the writer's meeting with the holy man in 1930. building detached from his house, he followed As Neihardt points out in the preface to the a rigid but limited writing schedule. He relied, 1961 edition, he came to the Pine Ridge Reser­ according to his own account, on an assisting vation searching for someone who could give power, an "otherness" or "daemon," to help "deeper spiritual significance" to the facts he him. He believed this heightened awareness, already had concerning the Ghost Dance about which had first manifested itself in his child­ which he was writing in his Song of the Mes­ hood, was available to anyone willing to be­ siah, the fifth and final poem in his Cycle of come receptive to it. Beginning each day 'by the West. 3 He already had the facts; what he rereading his previously written lines in deep sought was "something to be experienced concentration, immersing himself in the atmo­ through intimate contact, rather than to be sphere until he reached a near-trance state, he received through telling.,,4 This meeting with would wait for the next lines to form in his Black Elk became the single most significant mind. The line formed, he polished it in his influence upon the writer's life and thought. mind, perfecting it before he moved on to the From his meetings with Black Elk he felt he next line. He seldom revised once the lines had become the instrument to preserve the were on paper. Although some days were more wisdom and culture of the Sioux; he could give productive than others, he refused to be hur­ a sense of the "Indian psyche and condition ried, nor did he continue working beyond his within which all the dreadful battles and allotted time, even when he felt inspired.7 deprivations were experienced.,,5 Sandoz believed as firmly as Neihardt in Although primarily concerned with Black mythic truths and the mystical and at times had Elk's power-vision and his attempts to under­ precognition, although she was not able to con­ stand and implement it, the book also details sistently tap that higher awareness for her own the history of the end of the Indian Wars and writing. The importance of intuition was a the fate of Crazy Horse, Black Elk's second major concept in her world view. She also cousin. Neihardt gives us glimpses of Crazy accepted the psychologist CarlJung's theory of Horse from the time he is about nineteen until the collective unconscious, that all mankind his death around the age of thirty-three, as shares a common, inborn, unconscious life Black Elk, his younger relative, remembers him. inherited from the distant past, expressed in Sandoz, on the other hand, presents the life archetypal (universal) images and symbols.8 of the man she felt had the qualities of the Nevertheless, her writing method was based on ancient classical hero. In addition, she intended research, organization, and revision. All her to show what happened to a small group of historical source material was recorded on people owning something the majority wanted 3 x 5 cards, her notes and cards mling me TWO AUTHORS AND A HERO 57 cabinet after flle cabinet. Any given statement droppings." Neihardt's book also reflects how in any of her historical books could be traced vital the land was to the Indians' physical instantly to source records in her own flles. survival. Black Elk says, "We went back deep Once her long and arduous research was com­ into our country, and most of the land was pleted, ~he would pull the cards and arrange black from the fire, and the bison had gone them, usually in chronological order. From away . . . a hard winter came on early. It these would come the first, incomplete version snowed much: game was hard to find, and it of the work. Once she hammered out the form was a hungry time for us. Ponies died, and we for the book, she would begin to reshape it. ate them. They died because the snow froze A painstaking worker, she would sometimes hard and they could not find the grass that was revise a page twenty or more times, honing left in the valleys and there was not enough it down to the style she wanted. Whereas Nei­ cottonwood to feed them all."lO hardt, writing only a few hours every day, Sandoz was even more intimately associated would inscribe his lines only once, seldom with the land, for she required an actual physi­ crossing out so much as a word, Sandoz, work­ cal relationship to the regions she wrote about. ing sixteen to twenty hours a day, made almost She did not complete Crazy Horse until she had innumerable revisions before she was satisfied. visited the reservations and lands where the This was particularly true of Crazy Horse, chief's tribe had roamed. Even more important for she wanted this book especially to be to her was the realization that as a youngster good.9 he had actually lived in the area of her Niobrara The two writers shared, on the other hand, a River home: "I knew that if this was not the similar frontier heritage. Both grew up on the exact spot, it could not have been far from Nebraska prairie frontier, Neihardt in the 1880s there .... Certain it was that the young Oglala and 1890s, Sandoz fifteen years later, in the had often walked this favorite camping ground 1890s and early 1900s. Both lived near Indian of his people." This tie to the land seems essen­ reservations and knew Indians from their tial to her artistic vision. When she describes youth, Neihardt at Bancroft, near the Omaha the hill on which the young Crazy Horse tried tribe in northeastern Nebraska, Sandoz near for his power-vision, she is probably describing the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations forty the spot called Indian Hill on their own farm­ miles north of her Niobrara River homestead stead: "Then he hunted out a high point back in northwestern Nebraska. They shared a great from the river . . . then he stretched himself respect for the culture of the Indians, partic­ ... on the gravel and looked into the deep blue ularly their sense of the religious, their mysti­ of the sky."ll cism, and their reverence for nature. Both The historical accuracy of Neihardt's works placed the physical world in the foreground of were of vital concern to Sandoz. Although their work. As Kenneth S. Rothwell observes, Neihardt regarded himself primarily as a poet, Neihardt is a regionalist, essentially a pastor­ and, as such sought material to furnish subjects alist: "The size of the land, the sky, the heat of for great poetry (his work with Black Elk came the winds, the ferocity of the sun, the snatl rather late in his career and was, to some ex­ of thunderheads, the smoke of prairie fIres­ tent, an extemporaneous work), he neverthe­ these are the elements he knows fIrst-hand, less did a good deal of research before he at­ loves, and respects." This is readily apparent tempted his writing. He knew many of the in Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks, as the Indian people in his Indian songs: campaigners, Indian recalls his sense of defllement of the land when fighters, and Indians. He traveled much of the the Indians, returning to an area sacred to their country about which he wrote, interviewed sun dance, find "the soldiers had come through many participants, and sought such details of that way, and the holy place was all cut up authenticity as the color of Indian and cavalry with shod hoofs and made dirty with horse horses, the kinds of guns used in battle, and the 58 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 1981 height and build of individual men. Lucille F. the early apprenticeship served him well years AIy, Neihardt's biographer, says that for each later when he wrote Black Elk Speaks. 13 of his Indian songs, Neihardt carried on re­ Sandoz's years of working with Indian ma­ search so thorough he gained the respect of terial were not as extensive, but she too spent a historians. Certainly by the time he came to long time perfecting her style for Crazy Horse. interview Black Elk in 1930 he had gathered a Her early stories, written in the 1920s, were great deal of historical background material. primarily of settlers and other white protagon­ Sandoz cO)lsidered herself a historian and ists in the sandhill country. In 1930 she made a almost always judged or discussed a work three-thousand-mile trip with a friend, Eleanor according to its historical accuracy rather than Hinman, through the South Dakota Sioux its literary style. She seldom recorded her ap­ reservations, the Rosebud and the Pine Ridge, proval of Neihardt's literary merits in her and the area of the northern plains Indian wars, correspondence, but she consistently recom­ locating Indian sites and interviewing the an­ mended Black Elk Speaks as one of the three cient friends and relatives of Crazy Horse.14 best sources she knew for Plains Indian history. After that trip Sandoz began to tie together Her own research, which sometimes included her own experiences with the Indians she had the same sources as Neihardt's, led her to recog­ known as a child, her recollections of her nize that his historical information was the father's Indian knowledge and experiences-for kind she could trust. Had this accuracy been the Indians of the nearby reservations often questionable, his style, no matter how excel­ camped at the Sandoz homestead and visited lent; would not have influenced her. She with old Jules, her father-the great number of did not agree with him on all points, most manuscripts she had read while researching and noticeably in the details of Crazy Horse's death, working for the Nebraska State Historical but overall the two authors present similar Society during the 1920s and 1930s in Lincoln, pictures of the hero and of his life, his place, and her recent reservation interviews; from and his time as well. Sandoz trusted Black all this she began to write articles, essays, and Elk's integrity and she trusted Neihardt as his stories about Indians for publication. By interpreter. 1931 she was attempting Indian locution and Both writers came to their major Indian the Indian point of view. 15 She started experi­ works relatively late in their lives and found the menting with this narrative style by writing style they wanted to use after years of writing down bits of material or dialogue and stuffIng experience. Neihardt wrote many short stories them into shopping bags from which she would and tales using Indian themes in the late 1890s later retrieve them. and early 1900s for such publications as Over­ In 1932 she sent the fIrst manuscript in land Monthly, drawing his material from his which she attempted Indian phraseology to the knowledge of the Indians on the Omaha reser­ Saturday Evening Post; it was an account of vation, where he was for some years assistant events surrounding the Sioux-United States to the Indian agent. Some of the early stories Government treaty meeting of 1875, known as were slight, but he worked at them for several the Lone Tree Council. This version was one of years and received high praise from Indian several she eventually wrote of this affair, friends who felt he had evoked their culture. none of them published during her lifetime. One told him he was the fIrst white to write At that time she advised the Post she was about Indians who did not offend her, and that beginning a novel with an Oglala Sioux subject included James Fenimore Cooper and Frederick (almost certainly the protagonist was Young Remington.12 When he began to write his Man Afraid of His Horses, a fellow tribesman books about fur traders and mountain men and and friend of Crazy Horse) and listed a series the series of fIve songs that make up his epic of articles she planned to write relating to the Cycle of the West, he dropped these stories, but Indians: a treaty of 1876; the killing of the TWO AUTHORS AND A HERO 59

Brule Sioux chief Conquering Bear in 1854 by carefully integrated with the story material. "the drunken Grattan over a foot-sore Mormon Her previously published books are all con­ cow"; the Indians' killing of the white man cerned with whites; suddenly she developed an Frank Appleton at the Red Cloud Agency; the entirely new language form, different from that killing of Crazy Horse at Fort Robinson, and for the white-man books and much superior many others. Although her letters do not speci­ to her earlier Indian attempts. It seems that fically say so, she must have intended these to Neihardt's works, particularly his Black Elk be from the Indian point of view. Most of the Speaks, must have played a major part in this incidents later appear in Crazy Horse. development. The important point is that Sandoz was Her style was not influenced by most of trying to tell her stories from the Indian view­ her source material, although she knew it point, experimenting with her material, and thoroughly, including books dictated by or using various perspectives. She not only used actually written by Indians; there is no notice­ historical research for her material, she also able correspondence between their literary studied the personalities involved, particularly style and hers. For example, Wooden Leg, by of the Indians, in attempting the Indian idiom. Thomas B. Marquis, and Plenty-coups, Chief Surviving remnants of these early writings, of the Crows, by Frank B. Linderman, were like the following example, show that her books she usually recommended as valuable: efforts to approximate Indian phrases and refer­ both are autobiographies drawn from inter­ ences are often awkward and abrupt: "After views of Indians by white writers, but the much saying of no, Young Man Afraid did what amanuensis in each case was interested pri­ he did not like." Sometimes she uses terms that marily in the historical information and was not do not sound Indian. In describing an Indian's a skilled writer.16 She saw scholarly disserta­ attempt to spear a buffalo, she says, "Inexpert­ tions, treatises, reminiscences, and texts, rang­ ly he overbalanced and went down.... " Such ing from poor to excellent, dealing with in­ words as inexpertly and overbalanced do not timate details of Indian life, written by such fit Indian cadences. experts as Luther Standing Bear, a Sioux edu­ In 1935 Sandoz made the last attempt for cated in white schools; George Bent, part some time to publish her Indian writings. Ex­ Cheyenne and a student of his tribe's history; cept for long Sunday feature articles written Charles Eastman, a Santee Sioux who became a for the Omaha and Lincoln papers, she found medical doctor; and anthropologists such as that newspaper and magazine editors were no Clark Wissler, George Bird Grinnell, Stanley more interested in her Indian work than in her Vestal, and others. These works provided infor­ other short stories and novels at that time. On mation she often used, but their various styles February 10, 1935, the Omaha Sunday World­ did not influence hers. In some cases the Herald published "The Birdman," a short story material is valuable historically or sociologically, about a prehistoric Indian boy who diverts but the literary quality is not high. Even when part of a buffalo herd over a cliff to secure the work has literary merit, the author usually food for his village, told from the young hero's employs the white man's metaphor, syntax, point of view. Other than that, none of her and point of view. Indian material sold. Then her first book, Nor was her style influenced by the Ricker old Jules, was accepted for publication and she interviews, which she read at the Nebraska turned to other writing. State Historical Society. These were personal Apparently she wrote no more about Indians interviews with Indians and settlers made by until Crazy Horse, seven years later. Now her Judge Eli Ricker of Chadron, Nebraska, in the style was beautifully controlled; the words and late 1800s and early 1900s.17 Although they images had authenticity. In Crazy Horse, were a major source of information for her, and Sandoz produced a tone and language that is in a few cases she could actually take the 60 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 1981 dialogue verbatim for her book, the judge did Neihardt's art, then, is to phrase the story in not always transcribe his notes literally and her language appropriate to the speaker, using own notes were often only resumes. Thus her imagery and figures of speech identified with Ricker Interview notes seldom include any him, in a style that is graceful and artistic­ personal idiosyncrasies or noticeable char­ to preserve the spirit rather than the letter of acteristic language styles of the speakers. Her the text. other major sources of information were all Neihardt had a mystic rapport with Black written by whites and seldom affected the Elk that sometimes negated the problems of language of her book.18 language differences. Sandoz had to rely on With few exceptions, it is Neihardt's works sources less intimate, for despite her great that seem to have impressed her most strongly. sympathy for and knowledge of Indians, both When Sandoz was preparing herself psycho­ collectively and as individuals, she gives no logically to write she would often read Nei­ indication that she ever had the singularly close hardt's work for inspiration and mood.19 relationship with any Indian that Neihardt Undoubtedly many lines in his Twilight of the had with Black Elk. Her intent was different Sioux are reflected in her writing, but it was also. Crazy Horse is a biography, not an auto­ primarily Black Elk Speaks that inspired both biography. On rare occasions she assumes content and style. In contrast to most of her knowledge of his mind or emotions, but most sources, it is a consciously conceived literary of the story is told from "over the shoulder." work. It is true that Neihardt functions as the We see events from almost the same perspective "voice" of Black Elk, who narrates his own as the hero; sometimes we are as close as his experiences as a plains Indian during the last shadow, but this solitary man who would not half of the nineteenth century; but Neihardt allow photographers to take his picture because is also a creative artist, and while he remains they might also "take away his soul" would not faithful to the spirit and meaning of Black Elk's want his soul captured in autobiography; story, he does not make any pretense of trans­ Sandoz respected this. literating Black Elk's speech. Sandoz undoubtedly found many Indian The Sioux language, because of the differ­ phrases, terms, and speech patterns in Nei­ ences in structure, is almost unintelligible to hardt's book. Black Elk speaks of Wasichus the English-speaking reader in the exact trans­ (whites) who "have made little islands for us literation that appears in scholarly papers. and other little islands for the four-Ieggeds, Careful translations will produce something and always these islands are becoming smaller." more understandable, but again because of dif­ Sandoz uses this concept of the Indians as "an ferences in point of reference, in culture, and island in the great sea of whites" repeatedly. in language form, the tone and individuality One chapter in Black Elk Speaks, detailing the of the original speaker is usually lost. Neihardt, disasters forcing the hostiles into the agencies, in discussing problems of translating Sioux into is called "Walking the Black Road," the road of English with fidelity, points out that he at­ sorrow for the Indians. Sandoz speaks of Crazy tempted to recreate in English the mood and Horse having to learn a new way of life when he manner of the old man's narration rather than comes into Fort Robinson, needing "wisdom to make a precise interpretation. He also states to walk on this new road." Later, Crazy Horse that in Black Elk Speaks the use of the first­ knows he must "walk this road of darkness" person singular is a literary device: Black Elk as he attempts to help his people in their did not give Neihardt his story in chronological captivity. Black Elk says of the Indians' anger order and at times considerable editing was at their agent's treatment of them, "their necessary. Neihardt calls his work a transfor­ hearts were bad." Black Elk hears the rumor mation of what has been given him, expressed that Crazy Horse is planning to go to war, that so it could be understood by the white world. 20 he is "getting ready to tie up his horse's tail TWO AUTHORS AND A HERO 61

cards: "An old Indian woman said this, 'He walked as always, straight and tireless, but she knew his heart was on the ground.''' Neverthe­ less, Neihardt and Sandoz, perhaps because both could relate sympathetically to this oral language, share many language similarities. Neihardt's influence can also be seen in other, more substantial ways. Several incidents appear in both books: Crazy Horse teasing his young relativ~, who is a little afraid of him; Black Elk coming to visit Crazy Horse and find­ ing his tepee empty and his cousin gone. Sandoz makes good use of Neihardt's book for such details. Black Elk Speaks also describes the moods of the Plains Indians and Sandoz's work shares those feelings. Several times, for instance, Black Elk wonders why the wicked get fat and the poor stay lean. He mentions specifically the Brule Sioux Chief, Spotted Tail, sent to Leavenworth prison for two years, who returns convinced that the Indians cannot fight the whites. Although he has gone to prison in fighting trim, he returns fat from prison food. Black Elk says of Spotted Tail, "I did not like him. He was fat with Wasichu food and we were lean with famine .... How Black Elk at the Duhamel Sioux Indian Pageant could men get fat by being bad, and starve by in the Black Hills. Source: South Dakota State being good?" Sandoz makes a similar reference Historical Society. to the chief: "[ Crazy Horse heard] his own uncle [Spotted Tail] talking of the many, many again"; Sandoz notes Crazy Horse's denial of whites on the earth. 'It is useless to fight; they the idea, saying that "his people had untied are too many,' he said. Perhaps Spotted Tail their horses' tails." In addition to such phrases, must sweat off all the fat of the soldier food her naming of months, place names, and some­ before his heart was his own again. But it was times events from which time was counted, are hard to see a good man so," and later, "Now similar to those of Neihardt's work.21 that [Spotted Tail's] white-man fat was really Certainly Neihardt did not invent these gone the warriors once more followed upon terms in Black Elk Speaks, and Sandoz was un­ the heel fringe of his moccasin." doubtedly familiar with them from other Another idea that Black Elk expresses again sources. In Wooden Leg, by Marquis, for and again is that the whites are trespassing on instance, the Indian speaks of his great sorrow, the Indian lands: "We were in our own country saying "my heart fell down to the ground"; all the time and we only wanted to be let Standing Bear, in My People the Sioux, speaks alone." He displays great anger when Custer of a deserted camp as "the camp standing goes into the Black Hills to see if there is gold empty"; Wooden Leg says that when he and his there: "Afterward I learned that it was Pahuska warriors won a battle the enemy was "wiped [Custer] who had led his soldiers into the Black out." All these expressions appear in Sandoz's Hills that summer to see what he could find. book. She listed another source on her index He had no right to go in there, because all that 62 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 1981 country was ours." Sandoz gives Crazy Horse eyes looked through things and he always similar sentiments: "More soldiers marching seemed to be thinking hard about something." through their country! This was their country Sandoz's description of his appearance agrees and no one could tell them where to go or with Black Elk's: "He was a small man for a when," and again, "Curly [Crazy Horse] stood fighter, less than six of the white man's feet, . . . on ground that was all their own only a and slim as a young warrior. But they knew it few years ago, with no whites stirring up dust was Crazy Horse, for he wore no paint and on it or spilling Lakota blood." His attitude nothing to show his greatness. One feather toward Custer is as angry as his young cousin's: stood alone at the back of his head, and his "When Crazy Horse returned to his camp there brown, fur-wrapped braids hung long over a was bad word waiting. Long Hair, Custer, had plain buckskin shirt, his Winchester in a scab­ really gone into the Black Hills, into that bard at his knee." Sandoz had many authorities sacred place. He had come into their Black Hills for Crazy Horse's appearance, for although he and was going back without anybody shooting apparently never allowed his picture to be at him.,,22 taken, many of his contemporaries recalled how Sandoz follows Neihardt's description of he looked and acted. Almost all noted his small Crazy Horse's actions during the difficult size, his unusually light skin and hair, his "un­ winters before his surrender. Black Elk remarks Indian" eyes, and his quiet dignity. But the that Crazy Horse sought help from spiritual descriptions she uses throughout her book do sou.rces: "He was a queer man. Maybe he was not contradict Black Elk's.24 always part way into that world of his vision." There is a marked contrast between Black Sandoz notes that, during the winter of 1873, Elk Speaks and Crazy Horse in sentence struc­ "Crazy Horse was often away from the camp. ture. Neihardt's sentences tend to be short and Sometimes a hunter or a trapper told of seeing either simple or compound: "There was a man the lone Oglala in the timber or at a cave in the by the name of Bear Sings, and he was very old hills somewhere." At one point she quotes and wise. So Black Road asked him to help, Black Elk almost exactly. He says, "After that and he did. . . . Also they painted horses, the people noticed that Crazy Horse was queer­ elk, and bison. Then over the door of the sacred er than ever. He hardly ever stayed in the camp. tepee, they painted the flaming rainbow. It took People would find him out alone in the cold, them all day to do this, and it was beautiful." and they would ask him to come home with Sandoz prefers long sentepces, full of clauses them. He would not come. Once he said to my and phrases, cluster building on cluster. These, father: 'Uncle, do not worry; there are caves she felt, came close to the rhythm of Indian and holes for me to live in, and out here the life as she understood it-the rhythm of nature, spirits may help me.''' In Sandoz's version, of camp life, and the horses: when old Black Elk, his relative, found him, he So Black Elk's people went, looking back said, "Uncle, you notice the way I act, but do with uneasiness, and with uneasiness ahead not worry. There are caves and holes for me to too, for it was known that this had been a live in, and perhaps out here the powers will starving winter at the agency, with often help me.,,23 only horse meat to eat and the soldiers al­ Black Elk's description of his cousin's ap­ ways there, the sound of their wagon guns pearance is also followed in Crazy Horse. shooting the sun into the sky every morn­ Black Elk says, "All the Lakotas like to dance ing.25 and sing: but he never joined a dance, and they Despite the difference in sentence structure, say nobody ever heard him sing. But everyone the two books share a similarity of tone and liked him and they would do anything he convey the unique sense of the Indian world wanted. He was a small man among the Lakotas in a way more noticeable when compared with and he was slender and had a thin face and his others written about the same circumstances TWO AUTHORS AND A HERO 63 and period. The dream vision, for example, as a Leg did not experience any visions as such, but major religious phenomenon, is discussed by expressed satisfaction in accomplishing "the most authors writing about the Plains Indians. ordeal of fasting, thanksgiving, prayer, self­ The vision vigil appears in Plenty-coups, Chief denial-even of self-torture" as a devotional of the Crows, and in Wooden Leg, A Warrior exercise to subdue the passions of the flesh and Who Fought Custer, as well as in Black Elk to . improve the spiritual self. Wooden Leg Speaks and Crazy Horse. 26 Plenty-coups had communicates to Marquis through sign language, two dreams when he was nine, the age at which so the style of the book is Marquis's own. Black Elk had his vision. In contrast to Black Although he avoids interjections in first person, Elk, who felt he had not successfully lived out he seldom est'ablishes any particularly Indian­ his great vision, Plenty-coups believed he under­ like characteristics in Wooden Leg's recitation stood his. Furthermore, his Crow tribe followed either. His experiences are presented in the their leader's dreams, which they interpreted syntax and vocabulary of standard English, as to mean cooperating with the whites. Thus in this description of his second attempt at Plenty-coups's dream was considered a vital "making medicine." factor in his tribe's history. But it does not seize our emotions or imagination as Black My second medicine experience took place a month or so after the first one. Black White Elk's and Crazy Horse's do, because Linderman, Man, a medicine man, took me through it. the author, continually breaks into the narra­ I made the dome lodge according to the tive, reminding the reader that Plenty-coups same rules as had governed in making the and his friends are giving him the story through first one, which was the regular way of sign language and an interpreter, and inter­ making them. I had the same kind of harass­ sperses their comments with his ·own opinions: ing sensations while alone, but they covered Coyote-runs and Plain-bull began a conversa­ only two days instead of four. The resump­ tion between themselves when Plenty-coups tion of water and food was carried out in a left off talking. Both said that the dream of manner exactly like had been done in the chief was well known to all the tribe, previous proceedings. The sweat bath devo­ even the day after he had returned from his tions had a like preparatory programme and dreaming. "We traveled by that dream," followed a course like that of the other one said Coyote-runs. and of all such affairs entered upon among the Cheyennes.28 When Plenty-coups tells Linderman, "Every­ thing foretold by my great dream has come to In both cases the white authors give a con­ pass. All through my life I have seen signs that scientious portrayal of an Indian religious ex­ told me to go ahead, that all would be accord­ perience, but they do not draw the reader into ing to my dream," the author interjects his the scene. Neither makes much use of the poetic own response: imagery that is characteristic of Indian lan­ guage. Both authors have great respect for What a life he has seen, I thought, looking Indian beliefs but they do not convey the sense into his strong wide face, seamed and al­ most pale compared with Pale-bull's. I tried of reverence so evident in both Neihardt's and to turn him back to talk of his childhood, Sandoz's works. to get him started on some incident that . Black Elk's dream is a religious experience would show more of the life of an Indian similar to Plenty-coups's or Wooden Leg's, boy seventy-five years ago. But he laughed but in the Neihardt account there is no sug­ at my suggestions. "We played at being gestion of an intermediary to gather and share men," he said, as though I knew all about information, and he avoids the jarring practice 27 it. of putting standard English phraseology into Wooden Leg, a Cheyenne, discusses his the mouth of a non-English-speaking Indian. attempts at "making medicine" also. Wooden As he narrates his dream, Black Elk gives us the 64 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 1981 impression of a person speaking from within brown stone was tied behind his ear. Over his culture: him flew the small hawk with red on his back, making his killy-killy crying.30 I could see out through the opening [of the tepee] and there two men were coming Crazy Horse's father interprets the dream from the clouds, head-first like arrows (given here only in part), saying that It IS a slanting down, and I knew they were the great vision and that the man on the horse was same that I had seen before. Each now car­ Crazy Horse himself. Sandoz's presentation of ried a long, spear, and from the points of Crazy Horse's early failure and the references these jagged lightning flashed. Then they to his physical discomfort are reminiscent of turned and left the ground like arrows the experiences of Plenty-coups and Wooden slanting upward from the bow. When I got Leg rather than of Black Elk. But in language up to follow, my legs did not hurt me any and attitude her description of Crazy Horse's more and I was very light. I went outside the dream is closer to that of Neihardt's hero. tepee, and yonder where the men with The references are those of the Indian culture; flaming spears were going, a little cloud was the language does not seem incongruous. Al­ coming very fast. It came and stopped and took me and turned back to where it came though the details of the dream follow details from, flying fast. And when I looked down I given by those who knew Crazy Horse, includ­ could see my mother and my father yonder, ing the medicine man Chips who prescribed the , and I felt sorry to be leaving them. hero's sacred objects for him on the basis of the dream, one is also reminded of Black Elk's The reader hears of the dream from Black Elk, vision in the horse that changes from bay to not from an intermediary; Black Elk himself yellow-spotted and many other colors. And comes through in the narrative. 29 Black Elk too spoke of the real world behind Sandoz, in describing Cr~zy Horse's dreams, this one. uses similar language and a similar attitude of Black Elk Speaks actually makes only a belief and reverence for the mystical. As a small explicit contribution to Sandoz's book. youngster of twelve, Crazy Horse had attempted Some similarity could be expected because the to achieve a dream vision without the proper concepts of the two writers were permeated preparation. He failed, but after he gave up his with the Indian world view and they were exhausting vigil he fell asleep and had a dream. writing of the same time and the same people. Several years later, he revealed it to his father, But other writers could claim those character­ a holy man: istics; the affinity goes deeper than that. It seemed he must have slept because he had Sandoz knew and appreciated Neihardt. It a feeling of giving up and letting himself seems only reasonable that she would draw on go, and almost at once his horse that was the language, content, and tone of his works. hobbled out there eating started towards I once asked Neihardt what he thought the him, his neck high, his feet moving free. A difference was between his and Sandoz's work. man was on his back. It was not like the He replied that while she was a fine researcher world the boy knew but the real world and reporter, he was a mystic, and for that behind this one, the sky and the trees in it, reason they approached their work from the grass waving, but all in a strange and entirely different points of view. While it is sacred way. Then he saw that the horse the true that Sandoz excelled as a researcher, she man was riding changed to a bay and then yellow-spotted and many other colors too. was never a reporter in the journalistic sense. [The man] wore plain blue leggings and a But like Neihardt, she was also a mystic and a white buckskin shirt, with no paint and romantic, even though she worked with her only one feather in his long brown hair materials in a different way. Both were superb that hung loose below his waist. There were storytellers in the ancient, honored, oral tradi­ a few beads in his scalp lock and a small tion, and both were eminently able to use the TWO AUTHORS AND A HERO 65 magnificent materials they had gathered. In­ Oglala Sioux (Lincoln: University of Nebraska deed, Neihardt could have taken some personal Press, Bison Books, 1961), p. vii. All quotations credit when he wrote in his New York Times are from this edition. review of Crazy Horse, "Here is a glorious hero 5. Robert F. Sayre, "Vision and Experi­ tale told with beauty and power.,,31 ence in Black Elk Speaks," College English 32 (February 1971): 509-35. 6. Mari Sandoz, Crazy Horse: The Strange NOTES Man of the Oglalas (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942), p. x. All further quotations are 1. Sandoz was certainly familiar with the from this edition. songs in Neihardt's epic Cycle of the West, 7. Lucile F. Aly, John G. Neihardt, West­ including the "Song of the Indian Wars" ern Writers Series (Boise, Idaho: Boise State (1925), which recounts the war deeds and the University, 1976). For another explanation of heroic death of Crazy Horse, and some of her Neihardt's understanding of "otherness," see p. prose descriptions could well have been drawn 169. I have used Aly's material from this from Neihardt's poetry. While her copy of the pamphlet and her book extensively in this "Song of the "Indian Wars" has no marginalia article. in it, her Black Elk Speaks is heavily underlined 8. Carl J ung was one of the first to recog­ and annotated (occasionally with an emphatic nize the importance of Black Elk Speaks. "No!"). He saw it was an example of his theory of the 2. Sandoz continued to insist on the im­ collective unconscious-Black Elk's dream vi­ portance of this book. In 1960, when the sion expresses J ung's concept of the universal University of Nebraska Press was launching its aspect of dreams and visions in the individual's new Bison paperbacks, primarily books of his­ unconscious mind (Aly, Neihardt, p. 172). torical value, she urged them to publish Black 9. Helen Winter Stauffer, "Mari Sandoz: Elk Speaks, at that time out of print and very A Study of the Artist as Biographer" (Ph.D. hard to find. Her own copy she had bought for diss., University of Nebraska, 1974), pp. 199- $.49 after Neihardt's publisher had remaindered 202. his stock. Calling it one of the three best first­ 10. Kenneth S. Rothwell, "In Search of a hand accounts of American Indians, she also Western Epic: Neihardt, Sandburg, and Jaffe admired it because she felt Neihardt had used as Regionalists and 'Astoriadists,'" Kansas his "poet's hand" in allowing Black Elk to Quarterly 2 (Spring 1970): 52-53; Black Elk speak for himself, thus exposing the shallow­ Speaks, pp. 135-36, 138. ness of other researchers who, she felt, tried to 11. Crazy Horse, pp. viii, 41. interpret Black Elk's mysticism through their 12. Neihardt was speaking of Dr. Susan own preconceived ideas (letter from Sandoz LaFlesche Picotte, the first woman physician to Bruce Nicoll, June 12,1960). of the Omaha tribe (interview with Helen 3. Neihardt began his epic poem in 1912 Stauffer, January 30, 1972). and finished it in 1941. It consists of five songs, 13. This early experience was also useful all related to the exploration and winning of when he wrote the last two songs of his cvdp the West. The entire epic, containing more than "Song of the Indian Wars" and "Song of the 16,000 lines, on which Neihardt worked almost Messiah," later published separately as Twilight every day for thirty years, is the longest such of the Sioux. poem written by an American, as long as the 14. By coincidence it was the same summer niad and the Odyssey, according to Blair that Neihardt first met and talked with Black Whitney, John G. Neihardt (Boston: Twayne Elk. Publishers, 1976), p. 101. See also Lucile F. 15. By Indian phraseology I do not mean Aly, John G. Neihardt: A Critical Biography, actual Indian language or direct translation. Melville Studies in American Culture, vol. 7 Rather, the aim was to create for the reader a (Amsterdam: Rodopi N.V., 1977). sense of the Indian's world, his point of view, 4. John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks: through language that was compatible with Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Indian symbols and references. Both Sandoz 66 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 1981 and Neihardt remarked that the Indian language about Neihardt's poetry. is lacking in synonyms, adjectives, and descrip­ 20. Sally McClusky, "Black Elk Speaks: tive adverbs, so epithets, inflections, and And So Does John Neihardt," Western Ameri­ nuances of language must be used instead. The can Literature 6 (Winter 1972): 231-42. Sioux called the month of January "The Month 21. Black Elk Speaks, p. 9; Crazy Horse, of Frost in the Tepee" for example. One of pp. 388,406; Black Elk Speaks, p. 253; Crazy their games was "Throwing Them Off Their Horse, p. 66, passim; Black Elk Speaks, p. Horses." Neither Sandoz nor Neihardt spoke 145; Crazy Horse, p. 391. Sioux, to my knowledge, although both cer­ 22. Black Elk Speaks, p. 142; Crazy Horse, tainly heard it spoken and were sensitive to its pp. 91, 154; Black Elk Speaks, pp. 105, 79; particular cadences and rhythm. Crazy Horse, pp. 301, 83, 287-88. 16. Thomas B. Marquis, Wooden Leg, A 23. Black Elk Speaks, p. 87; Crazy Horse, Warrior Who Fought Custer (Lincoln: Univer­ p. 279; Black Elk Speaks, p. 140; Crazy Horse, sity of Nebraska Press, [1931] 1971); Frank B. p.359. Linderman, Plenty-coups, Chief of the Crows 24. Black Elk Speaks, p. 87; Crazy Horse, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [1930] p. 361. 1962). 25. Black Elk Speaks, p. 166; Crazy Horse, 17. The large Ricker Collection, acquired by p.302. the Nebraska State Historical Society in 1926, 26. I am limiting the comparison to these includes thirty boxes of manuscript material, two books because they have much in common most of it pertaining to Indians. Part of the with Black Elk and Crazy Horse. All four collec#on consists of the "Ricker Tablets," a protagonists are contemporaries: Crazy Horse series of more than two hundred pencll tablets was born around 1841, Plenty-coups around on which Judge Eli Ricker transcribed his 1848, Wooden Leg around 1858, and Black Elk interviews with those who had experienced the around 1863. Plenty-coups, Wooden Leg, and Indian wars, the Ghost Dance troubles, and Black Elk gave their stories to white narrators; early reservation adjustments. :rhe interviews, the three autobiographies were published with­ either typed or in longhand, often in pencll, in two years of each other in the early 1930s. provide invaluable personal insights into events All discuss the Battle of the Rosebud and the on the plains during the last quarter of the nine­ Battle of the Little Big Horn. teenth century and the early years of the twen­ 27. Plenty-coups, pp. 75, 82-83, 84. tieth. Sandoz worked with the material in the 28. Wooden Leg, pp. 138-39. early 1930s when she was doing research for 29. Black Elk Speaks, p. 22. Addison E. Sheldon, then director of the 30. Crazy Horse, p. 104. society, and later when working on Crazy 31. "Crazy Horse, who Led the Sioux at Horse. She said she could not have written the Custer's Last Fight," New York Times Book book without information from these interviews. Review, December 20, 1942, p. 4. 18. These sources included the December 1929 Nebraska History magazine, which was In addition to sources listed, information devoted entirely to Crazy Horse, books by and came from material in the Sandoz Corporation about army men who had fought on the plains, at the home of Caroline Sandoz Pifer, Gordon, and many army records. Nebraska, and the Sandoz Collection, Univer­ 19. Ron Hull, interview with Helen Stauf­ sity of Nebraska Archives, Love Library, Lin­ fer, June 7, 1972. He was speaking primarily coln, Nebraska.