Crazy Horse (Tashunka-uitco), Oglala Sioux, ca. 1842-1877
Issued October 1995
15 1/2 inches tall (39.4 cm)
Classics Premier Edition
There are no archival photographs of Crazy Horse, who was in his prime at the height of the Indian wars in the late 1860s to 1870s. A Lakota artist of the time, Amos Bad Heart Bull, painted a scene of the Battle of the Little Bighorn (June 25, 1876) depicting Crazy Horse with yellow war paint over his entire body and a streak of lightning on his cheek. The red dots on his skin represented hail stones, as Crazy Horse believed a storm of bullets could not kill him. In battle, he always wore the feathered skin of a red-winged hawk pinned to his hair and carried a Winchester rifle and a stone club.
Crazy Horse was feared even after his surrender in May 1877. Later that year, soldiers on the reservation had orders to arrest and imprison Indian leaders who were thought of as potential troublemakers. Crazy Horse resisted and was stabbed in the stomach with a bayonet. He died a few hours later, at the age of thirty five.
