Stone Song (60 page)

LAKOTA PLACE NAMES

The Lakota people naturally had and have their own terms (sometimes multiple terms) for everything modern Americans use proper nouns for—rivers, mountains, other geographic features of the land they lived in, and other tribal peoples. When the white people came, they sometimes adopted these designations and other times used those of other tribes or their own names. Here is a list of place names and the names of other tribes used in this book in which the modern English and a literal translation of the Lakota are different.

Arapaho tribe
—Mahpiyato, Blue Sky People.

Badlands of South Dakota
—the Maka Sica.

Bighorn Mountains
—Heska, Shining Mountains.

Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming
—Paha Sapa.

Cheyenne tribe
—Sahiyela.

Crow Tribe (the Absaroka)
—Psa (this word often occurred in the form
Psatoka
, Crow enemies).

Laramie River
—Waga Wakpa, Swimming Bird River.

Little Bighorn River
—Peji Sluta, Greasy Grass River.

Loup River
—Kasleca Wakpa, Split River.

Mississippi River
—Hahawokpa, River of Canoes.

Missouri River
—Mnisose, Muddy Water River.

Niobrara River
—Mnilusa, Running Water River.

Omaha tribe
—Oyatenupa, Two Circle People.

Oregon Trail
—Canku Wakan, Holy Road.

Pawnee tribe
—Pani.

Platte River (North Platte)
—Pankeska Wakpa, Shell River.

Powder River
—Maka Blu Wakpa, Shifting Sands River.

Rosebud Creek
—Onjinjintka Wakpa, Red Flower Creek.

Shoshone or Snake tribe
—Susuni.

Tongue River
—Tatonka Ceji Wakpa, Buffalo Tongue River.

White River of South Dakota
—Make Ska, White Earth (or Earth-Smoke) River.

Yellowstone River
—Hehaka Wakpa, Elk River.

FURTHER READING

I think that we are on the threshold of a great burgeoning of excellent writing about Lakota culture, much of it by Lakota people. Surely among those new books will be a splendid biography of His Crazy Horse, and I hope it will be the forthcoming one by my friend Joseph C. Porter. In the meantime these are the books I have used in writing
Stone Song
and those I suggest for those attracted to the Lakota people, His Crazy Horse, or the time of the Plains Indian wars:

The best beginning is surely Mari Sandoz’s biography
His Crazy Horse: Strange Man of the Oglalas
, published in 1942 and still in print more than half a century later, incomplete and outdated but poetic.

A grand introduction to the Lakota spirit is John G. Neihardt’s
Black Elk Speaks
. The edition by Raymond DeMallie,
The Sixth Grandfather
(University of Nebraska Press, 1984), is especially useful. Joseph Epes Brown’s
The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Sacred Rites of the Oglala Sioux
(University of Oklahoma Press, 1953) is a fine companion piece.

James C. Olson’s
Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem
(University of Nebraska Press, 1965) offers an understanding of the political and military dilemma of the Lakota in the 1860s and ’70s and shows a Lakota point of view more accommodating than His Crazy Horse’s.

Ruth Beebe Hill’s
Hanta Yo
pioneered truly ambitious fiction about the Lakota and captured their mind-set with great immediacy.

The interested reader will want to pursue more specialized works such as Royal Hassrick’s
The Sioux: Life and Customs of a Warrior Society
, Eleanor Hinman’s
Oglala Sources on the Life of His Crazy Horse
, Remi Nadeau’s
Fort Laramie and the Sioux, The Killing of Chief His Crazy Horse
, edited by Robert A. Clark,
Prayers of Smoke
by the Oglala Lakota Barbara Means Adams, William Powers’s
Lakota Religion
, and the editions by DeMallie and Elaine A. Jahner of James Walker’s seminal works
Lakota Belief and Ritual, Lakota Society
, and
Lakota Myth
.

These books should be read not only with the analytical mind but with the single eye of the heart.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Twenty years ago, thinking myself an iconoclastic rationalist, I had an intoxicating and wildly seductive attraction to a man named His Crazy Horse, who was a warrior and a mystic, a man who looked at the world through primal eyes. Without knowing why, I craved to understand him. So I started prowling through the literature.

Soon I wondered why more good books about his life were not available. The only excellent biography, for me, was the poetic one by Mari Sandoz. Though His Crazy Horse popped up everywhere as a fictional character, no serious biographical novel had been written. I wanted to write … something.

These many years later I know why libraries offer few good books on His Crazy Horse. The researching and writing have been a hard road, inspiring and tedious, revealing and painstaking, exhilarating and exhausting. To come to know this man of another time, another culture, another way of life, in the end I have had to become a different man myself.

I am surprised and overjoyed to be here at journey’s end, and extraordinarily grateful to my companions.

These people grandly gave me what I needed most, their encouragement and emotional support over the long years—Martha Stearn, Leeds Davis, Hooman Aprin, Larry Gneiting, my old novelist compadre Max Evans, Michael and Kathleen Gear, Richard S. Wheeler, Jenna Caplette, Lenore Carroll, and W. C. Jameson. You are people to ride the river with.

Martha Stearn, the mother of my younger son, and a novelist herself, was my first reader and made wonderful suggestions. Jane Candia Coleman read the first draft helpfully. Dale L. Walker, a man of big heart, worked and worked and supported and supported. Thanks.

Joseph C. Porter is now writing a biography of His Crazy Horse, one I expect to become the standard life. He has been generous in answering questions, kicking around ideas, and reading my manuscript. Ruth Beebe Hill, author of the pioneering
Hanta Yo
and the possessor of extraordinary knowledge, talked, supported, encouraged, and greatly refined my understanding of the Lakota lifeway.

Dozens, scores, probably hundreds of people indulged my obsession with His Crazy Horse with hour upon hour of fine talk. Lots of librarians and archivists went beyond their job descriptions for me. Sandra Porter helped me with the research in the first couple of years, giving not only time but understanding. In the last several years Ruth Valsing has chased down innumerable leads and skillfully found the answers to innumerable questions. Bert Raynes repeatedly gave me information on
the behavior of hawks and other birds. I thank all these people not only for their generosity with time and effort and ability, but for their generosity of the heart.

Some people I met along the way, Anglo and Indian, have become my teachers. I thank especially Frank Caplette of the Absaroka people, Jenna Caplette, and Murphy Fox. Ernie Bulow acted as my counselor. Richard Willow, Arapaho, helped me start on the new path by taking me into the sweat lodge for the first time. Bill Westbrook made a fine gesture. Victor Dourville of Sinte Gleska College read the manuscript and gave useful advice. Reginald and Gladys Laubin gave to me of their time, their knowledge, and their hearts.

Several descendents of His Crazy Horse have helped me—Seth Big Crow, Dolores Mills, and especially Barbara Means Adams. Herself the author of
Prayers of Smoke
, Barbara Adams labored greatly. Other Indian friends have contributed to this book in major ways. Many of them have answered questions, have tolerated my white-man impatience with smiles, have treated me to the wonderful humor of Indian peoples, and have let me see the spirit that vivifies them. The painter Itazipico (Louis Bowker) of the Mniconjou and Itazipico Lakota, the Cherokee Ardy Bowker, and Cherokee novelist Robert Conley have been my teachers. Thank you.

My greatest obligations for this book are to two Indian men who started out as resources for answering questions and ended as not only friends but guides.

Joseph C. Marshall, Sicangu Lakota, author of
Soldiers Falling into Camp
and
Winter of the Holy Iron
, himself in love with His Crazy Horse, has been my adviser on every page of this book. His vast knowledge of both the printed material about his people and their oral traditions and the presence of Spirit in his own life have been my sustenance and my light. When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

For some years the Honorable Clyde M. Hall of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe has been my teacher in matters of history and scholarship and understanding of Plains Indian peoples, and my spiritual mentor. Thank you, Clyde.

Thank you, all my friends. In helping me find His Crazy Horse, you have led me to myself.

The most personal thanks: During the writing of this book a man of great soul called His Crazy Horse became my most intimate friend, my partner in a dance of spirits. It is difficult for me to lay down the writing and surrender him to the world as a book. Though he will be with me forever, I miss doing our dance every day.

This week I came here to Bear Butte, the sacred place of the Lakota and Cheyenne for crying for a vision. After my own seeking for insight, I prayed and smoked the pipe on the Teaching Hill, where His Crazy Horse is said to have addressed the assembled tribes. I offered my heartfelt thanks, and talked with him awhile.

Pila maya
, Grandfather.
Ake wancinyankin ktelo
.

—Win Blevins

Bear Butte,

September 20, 1994

About the Author

Win Blevins is the author of thirty-one books. He has received the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Contributions to Western Literature, has twice been named Writer of the Year by Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers, has been selected for the Western Writers Hall of Fame, and has won two Spur Awards for Novel of the West. His novel about Crazy Horse,
Stone Song
, was a candidate for the Pulitzer Prize.

A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Blevins is of Cherokee and Welsh Irish descent. He received a master’s degree from Columbia University and attended the music conservatory of the University of Southern California. He started his writing career as a music and drama reviewer for the
Los Angeles Times
and then became the entertainment editor and principal theater and movie critic for the
Los Angeles Herald Examiner
. His first book was published in 1973, and since then he has made a living as a freelance writer, publishing essays, articles, and reviews. From 2010 to 2012, Blevins served as Gaylord Family Visiting Professor of Professional Writing at the University of Oklahoma.

Blevins has five children and a growing number of grandchildren. He lives with his wife, the novelist Meredith Blevins, among the Navajos in San Juan County, Utah. He has been a river runner and has climbed mountains on three continents. His greatest loves are his family, music, and the untamed places of the West.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Win Blevins

Cover design by Mimi Bark

978-1-5040-1254-6

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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