Crazy Horse

Editor's note: A vision quest clarifies one boy's destiny. Crazy Horse, they say, was always different. Many children cry when they are born, but not Crazy Horse. He studied the world with serious eyes. "Look at our son," his mother said. "How brave he is!" "See how curly his hair is," said his father, Tashunka Witco. "We will call him Curly," said his mother. Seasons passed. The boy named Curly grew strong and wiry, but would never be tall. Though small, Curly was a leader. When others spoke, he was quiet.

BLACK HILLS, S.D. -- Borglum or Ziolkowski? Within a day of arrival in the Black Hills of South Dakota, you'll run into this question, probably somewhere along U.S. 16 as you roll between two of the largest sculpted mountains on Earth. Gutzon Borglum's Mount Rushmore, of course, is your old friend from elementary school, and you think you know it well. Begun in 1927. Completed in 1941. Scrambled upon by Cary Grant in 1959's North by Northwest and, more recently, Nicolas Cage in National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

If Neil Young has confounded his audience over the years by switching styles the way other people change hairstyles, think of what he has done to his on-and-off band Crazy Horse.They were called the Rockets in 1969 when Mr. Young first hooked up with them to record his second album "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere."From then on, the band, which originally included Danny Whitten, Ralph Molina and Billy Talbot, became known as Crazy Horse. It collaborated with Mr. Young on such triumphs as "After the Goldrush," "Zuma," "Rust Never Sleeps," "Live Rust" and the underrated "re-ac-tor."

If you take a right turn on the way out of Mount Rushmore National Memorial and head west on Route 244, the two-lane road will take you winding through a gorgeous Black Hills medley of pines, slopes and jutting boulders. Eventually, you reach U.S. 16, and turn south toward the town of Custer, S.D. But before you get there, you'll see Custer's nemesis on your left. Crazy Horse's face was completed in 1998. Despite sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski's death in 1982, the family's cause has grown into a $6 million-a-year tourist complex that employs 135 workers in peak summer months, using revenue and donations to bankroll work on the mountain.

CRAZY HORSE, S.D. -- A few dozen feet overhead, a workman sits on scaffolding underneath a massive granite nose, faintly complaining that the stone below the left nostril is harder than he'd expected."

"Crazy Horse" is history from an American Indian point of view, the fifth film in an ambitious Turner Network Television project that has included docudramas such as "Geronimo," "Tecumseh: The Last Warrior" and "Lakota Woman: Siege of Wounded Knee.""Crazy Horse," which airs tonight on TNT from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. and repeats at 10 p.m. and again at midnight, explores the life of the Oglala Sioux warrior and chief who led the Sioux and Cheyenne in their historic defeat of Custer and his men at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.

There is an ugly blot on the image of shining purity projected by the United States. Our story of ourselves as a land of freedom and liberty and democracy and opportunity that respects the rights of all individuals rings far from true when you consider the treatment of the American Indian.We have tried to mythologize that bit of history we don't want to face with the Western movie and cowboy-and-Indian serials. We have tried to trivialize it by making the Native Americans silly symbols of the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians and other sports teams.

Even from his secret grave, Crazy Horse continues to bedevil the establishment, this time a small Eastern Shore college and a prestigious New York auction house.His war shirt -- or one purported to be his -- was sold in May by Washington College for $211,000. That action has raised the ire of the Sioux Indian Nation and the interest of the FBI.Tribal leaders say the college and Sotheby's auction house violated federal laws that protect American Indian artifacts. They recently filed a complaint with the National Park Service, which turned it over to the Justice Department and the FBI.The tattered buckskin shirt, beaded and decorated with buffalo strips and quill-wrapped human hair, was part of the Albee Collection.

WASHINGTON -- Surgeon General Antonia C. Novello and representatives of American Indian groups yesterday blasted a new Baltimore-brewed malt liquor called "Crazy Horse," charging that it was specifically aimed at Indians and underage drinkers.Testifying before the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, Dr. Novello said she was concerned that Crazy Horse, named after a revered 19th century Sioux warrior, would appeal to young American Indians "who would understandably want to identify with such a noble leader and such heroic heritage."

If you take a right turn on the way out of Mount Rushmore National Memorial and head west on Route 244, the two-lane road will take you winding through a gorgeous Black Hills medley of pines, slopes and jutting boulders. Eventually, you reach U.S. 16, and turn south toward the town of Custer, S.D. But before you get there, you'll see Custer's nemesis on your left. Crazy Horse's face was completed in 1998. Despite sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski's death in 1982, the family's cause has grown into a $6 million-a-year tourist complex that employs 135 workers in peak summer months, using revenue and donations to bankroll work on the mountain.

At his extraordinary June 22 concert at Detroit's DTE Energy Music Theatre, Neil Young spent the first hour-and-a-half performing his new concept album in its entirety instead of trotting out his old hits. In addition, a couple of dozen enthusiastic cast members acted out the narrative of Young's self-described musical novel amid homey sets while lip-synching to the songs that Young himself was singing. The staging and choreography were more along the lines of a high school drama class than anything done by Twyla Tharp or Jerome Robbins, but the presentation could not have been more charming, heartfelt and true to Young's unique vision, which prefers Leave It to Beaver to anything high-tech.

Dixie Chicks / MCI Center They're gorgeous, they're talented, and they can flat-out sing. The Dixie Chicks, whose album Home was one of the most artistically consistent releases last year, headline Washington's MCI Center next Wednesday and Thursday . Each show starts at 7:30 p.m., and tickets are $35-$65. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster by calling 410-481-SEAT or visiting www.ticketmaster.com. Neil Young and Crazy Horse / Merriweather Neil Young is one of pop-rock's most celebrated singer-songwriters.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - For seven years, the estate of revered Lakota warrior Crazy Horse tried to stop a company from using his name to promote and sell a malt liquor. After past attempts at litigation failed, the Crazy Horse estate, headed by Seth Big Crow of Rosebud, filed a complaint in federal court that asks for injunctive and compensatory relief. A previous attempt to stop the sale of the malt liquor failed after the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Rosebud Tribal Court had no standing because the malt liquor was neither sold nor bottled on the reservation.

A MEMORABLE PLACE Last stand for Crazy Horse By Amanda Newell SPECIAL TO THE SUN It was nearly dusk when we reached Fort Robinson, Neb. We had traveled several hours from Mission, S.D., and were tired from the monotonous drive across the northern plains. Fort Robinson sat unassuming in the maze of rolling hills and cragged buttes. Except for the historical marker, there was nothing to suggest that an important chapter in American history ended here -- certainly nothing to suggest that this was the place where the Lakota Sioux warrior Tasunke Witko -- Crazy Horse -- spent his final moments more than 100 years ago. My own connection to Crazy Horse began hundreds of miles away, at Washington College in Chestertown.

Editor's note: A vision quest clarifies one boy's destiny. Crazy Horse, they say, was always different. Many children cry when they are born, but not Crazy Horse. He studied the world with serious eyes. "Look at our son," his mother said. "How brave he is!" "See how curly his hair is," said his father, Tashunka Witco. "We will call him Curly," said his mother. Seasons passed. The boy named Curly grew strong and wiry, but would never be tall. Though small, Curly was a leader. When others spoke, he was quiet.

BLACK HILLS, S.D. -- The difference between the Crazy Horse monument and Mount Rushmore is the difference between the quick and the dead. I can't prove it, no more than Einstein could prove that imagination is more important than knowledge. But it's true. Some patriots may disagree, violently perhaps, yet the red man is alive and the four white guys are dead. I am no noodle-brained new-ager, but a good Catholic boy, grateful to be a second-generation American. And I am here in South Dakota to tell you that something is present at Crazy Horse and absent at Rushmore.

BLACK HILLS, S.D. -- Borglum or Ziolkowski? Within a day of arrival in the Black Hills of South Dakota, you'll run into this question, probably somewhere along U.S. 16 as you roll between two of the largest sculpted mountains on Earth. Gutzon Borglum's Mount Rushmore, of course, is your old friend from elementary school, and you think you know it well. Begun in 1927. Completed in 1941. Scrambled upon by Cary Grant in 1959's North by Northwest and, more recently, Nicolas Cage in National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

The buckskin shirt has been owned by a Medal of Honor winner and an Eastern Shore college. Now the FBI is trying to determine if it first belonged to the legendary Sioux warrior Crazy Horse and if it is decorated with human scalps.Agents in New York have halted completion of the sale by Sotheby's Auction House until experts and tribal leaders can examine the tattered, beaded garment.Washington College and Sotheby's, which sold the shirt May 21 for $211,000, deny it was the Indian leader's -- though it was displayed for decades in the college library in Chestertown with a sign saying it was "believed to have been owned and worn by Crazy Horse."

"American By Blood," by Andrew Huebner. Simon and Schuster. 245 pages. $23. The sun is already turning hot on the morning of July 26, 1876, when three U.S. Army scouts come in view of a hill overlooking the Little Big Horn River in Dakota Territory and discover the sickening, bloody remains of Lt. Col. George Custer, his 7th Cavalry troopers and their horses as wild dogs feed on the bodies and black crows hover overhead. With that grim scene Andrew Huebner begins his first novel. It unfolds with a moving, detailed, descriptive account of the Army's reaction to Custer's defeat, its pursuit of the Sioux, led by their now legendary chiefs, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and the Army's vengeful attacks as well on other tribes -- the Cheyennes and the Nez Perce.

He has been dead for more than 121 years now, stabbed in the back by a U.S. soldier during what he thought was a meeting called to halt killing on the American frontier. For the descendants of the famed Sioux warrior Crazy Horse, some degree of peace has arrived since then.Trust is another matter.In a case that underscores the generations-old struggle of American Indians trying to reclaim their heritage -- from moccasins to the bones of their ancestors -- Crazy Horse's family has filed a federal lawsuit against tiny Washington College on Maryland's Eastern Shore.