Defending the People  by Chris Pardell

Crazy Horse (Tashunka-uitco) and Moving Robe Woman (Tashna-mani)
Issued October 1992
13" (w) x 11" (h)
33 cm (w) x 28 cm (h)
American West Premier Edition

This sculpture depicts Moving Robe Woman and Crazy Horse riding into battle on June 25, 1876. The Sioux and Cheyenne encampment at the Little Bighorn River was under attack by George Armstrong Custer's Seventh cavalry regiment. Moving Robe Woman is generally recognized as the only woman warrior in American Indian history. She is holding a spear belonging to her brother One Hawk, who was killed eight days earlier at the Battle of the Rosebud.

The Battle of Little Bighorn was the last major Indian victory, but it also marked the end of their way of life. The extermination of the buffalo by white hunters had begun a decade earlier, during construction of the transcontinental railroad. As the Plains Indians depended on the bison for their very existence, the great buffalo herds were intentionally and systematically wiped out from the American landscape.

Previous             Next

Pardell gallery