Day Twelve - Crazy Horse Memorial

   Wow, what a day!  We had a beautiful day again.  The weather has been outstanding.  We headed over to see Crazy Horse Museum which is just a few miles from our campground.  It's is quite a museum and memorial.  It is not a state or government run organization, it is totally funded by private funds and entrance fees and sales at the museum.  Chief Henry Standing Bear asked sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski in 1939 by letter to come to the Black Hills and help him create a memorial to the great Lakota Leader Crazy Horse.  Korczak accepted and created the artwork that started the efforts to build the memorial.  It is quite a story.  Korczak worked by himself on the mountain building steps, scaffolding, etc. to drill and blast his sculpture out of the mountain.  You can read the story online, so I'm not going to regurgitate it here.

   We spent several hours viewing artifacts and learning about the foundation and the fate of the Lakota Sioux at the expense of the American government and all the broken promises.  Chief Standing Bear said "The white man made many promises, but he only kept one.  They said they would take our land away from us.  They did."  One white man asked Crazy Horse, "Where are your lands, now?" and Crazy Horse responded with, "My lands are where my people are buried."  They gave Korczak the inspiration for the pose of Crazy Horse on horseback pointing at the lands where his people are buried.

   We got to watch a presentation of native american dancing of "The Jingle Dance", which is supposed to be a healing dance based on the stories that it is based on.  We had a nice lunch at the "Laughing Waters" restaurant, which was on the grounds of the museum.  There were many of the original sculptures that Koczak had created which were additional testament to his incredible talent.  Below are just a few of the pictures we took.  More are on line, here.

The white marks on the rock are the outline of the head of the horse.  The ear is 40 ft. high!

The is the sculpture that Korczak created to show what the memorial would look like when finished.

This Lakota family were historical singers and teachers who have traveled the world teaching about the Lakota traditrions.
We were fortunate to see the mother and daughter, perform traditional dances and explain them.

This auto greeted us on our way back to the truck.  47/48 Caddy??!!  Beautiful machine.  Just for the car lover's reading this!

    We were exhausted when we returned to our campsite.  I hope all of you reading this are enjoying the pictures and small stories of our adventures.  LUV 2 ALL!  We'll be in touch.  Tomorrow we go to Mt. Rushmore!!

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