Crazy Horse Memorial

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Crazy Horse Memorial
2019
2019
Crazy Horse Memorial (USA)
Paris plan pointer b jms.svg
Coordinates: 43 ° 50 ′ 12 "  N , 103 ° 37 ′ 27.3"  W.
Location: South Dakota , United States
Next city: Custer
Founding: June 3, 1948
Visitors: around 1 million (annually)
In the foreground the model and in the background the implementation (2016)
In the foreground the model and in the background the implementation (2016)
2018
2018
2016
2016
2010
2010
i4 i6

The Crazy Horse Memorial is a monumental sculpture in honor of the Oglala - Lakota - Indian Crazy Horse , which is similar to the Mount Rushmore National Memorial is carved into a mountain, but greater by far. It is located approximately 14 km southwest of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills , South Dakota . The Crazy Horse Memorial is not financed with government funds, but by the non-profit Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation , which operates an Indian museum near the monument. The sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski , who had also worked on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, was invited in 1939 by the then chief of the Sioux, Henry Standing Bear , to design an Indian memorial. Construction began in 1948, and 10 million tons of granite have been blasted from the rock face since then. Nevertheless, only the face has been completed since 1998. A date for completion is not yet in sight, but around another 100 years are estimated. Ziolkowski died in 1982. His work is continued by seven of his ten children, and his wife Ruth was also involved in it until their death in May 2014.

Many Indians are critical of the project. They lament the desecration of their sacred Black Hills and point out that Crazy Horse never had himself photographed because he did not want to be shown.

In its finished form, the sculpture will show Crazy Horse sitting on a horse and pointing to the east with an outstretched arm. All the presidential heads on Mount Rushmore combined are roughly the size of the horse's head. After completion of the sculpture, it will be 195 m long and 172 m high.

Crazy Horse

Crazy Horse was a leader of the Oglala - Indians . He raised his weapon against the US government, as there had previously been attacks on the territory and its tribal members of the Lakota . His best known battles against the US military were the Battle of the Hundred on December 21, 1866 and the Battle of Little Bighorn from June 25 to 26, 1876. On May 8, 1877, Crazy Horse surrendered to the army under General George Crook in Fort Robinson, Nebraska . He had realized that his people were weakened by cold and hunger and could no longer fight. Fort Robinson he was during an argument on 5 September 1877 by soldiers William Gentile with a bayonet stuck into the lungs and into the left kidney. The chief died that night despite immediate help from Army doctor Valentine McGillycuddy . He is one of the most famous members of the tribe Native American and was the US Postal Service in 1982 with a 13- cent - stamp as part of its stamp series Great Americans honored.

history

In October 1931, Luther Standing Bear , Henry's older brother, wrote a letter to the sculptor John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum , who was working on Mount Rushmore at the time. Luther suggested Crazy Horse as a suitable portrait head because he was a real patriot of the Sioux tribe. In addition, he is the only worthy person on the side of Washington and Lincoln . Borglum never replied. Then Henry Standing Bear started a campaign that Borglum - similar to the four presidents - should make a portrait of Crazy Horse on Mount Rushmore. In the summer of 1935, Standing Bear was frustrated with the stalled Crazy Horse project and wrote to James H. Cook, a longtime friend of Red Cloud : “I'm in a hopeless battle because I have no resources, none I get work and no support from Indians or whites. "

In 1939 the Polish-American sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski came to the Black Hills to help with the work on Mount Rushmore. In the same year Ziolkowski received during the World's Fair in New York the first prize for the Carrara marble - bust " Paderewski , Study of an Immortal." Henry Standing Bear read the news about Ziolkowski's work and invited him. The invitation said: "My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes, too." Standing Bear also wrote a letter to Assistant Secretary of the Interior Oscar L. Chapman , offering 900 acres of their own fertile land in exchange for the Black Hills mountain. The government responded positively and the United States Forest Service approved the use of the site. Standing Bear turned down government funding and instead relied on influential Americans who care about the well-being of the Indians and provide financial support for the project.

Ziolkowski met with the leaders shortly afterwards. In the spring of 1940 he traveled to Pine Ridge, South Dakota for three weeks and met Standing Bear there . There he got to know the biography Crazy Horses, discussed land ownership and the Lakota way of life. According to Tsiolkovsky, Standing Bear became very angry when he spoke of the breach of the Fort Laramie Treaty . Standing Bear is said to have tears in his eyes, shook his head and then remained silent for a long time. Over the next few years he researched and started designing. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the USA entered the war , he put the project on hold. He decided to volunteer in the US Army and later participated in the Normandy Landing on the Omaha Beach stretch of coast . In 1947 he moved back to the Black Hills and focused again on the project. On June 3, 1948, work began on the Crazy Horse Memorial. In order to honor the Indians of North America, Korczak Ziolkowski swore that a non-profit educational and cultural project with exclusively private funding and without government funds would operate the monument.

Carrier Foundation

The Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation is a non-profit organization that does not receive any federal or state funding. The Memorial Foundation generates its income from the gift shop and ticket sales. The foundation sponsors cultural events and educational programs for Native Americans.

After Ziolkowski died in 1982, his widow Ruth Ziolkowski took over the work until her death in 2014. Ruth Ziolkowski decided to focus on Crazy Horse's face first instead of the horse, as her husband had originally planned. She hoped that this would make it more attractive for tourists and higher donations.

In 1998 Crazy Horse's face was completed and inaugurated. Ruth's daughter Monique Ziolkowski, a sculptor herself, modified some of her father's plans to ensure that the weight of the outstretched arm was adequately supported. In 2009 the foundation commissioned two engineering firms to secure the project. After two years of careful planning and measurements, work on the horse began. The work is continued by seven of Ziolkowski's ten children.

Events and fundraising

For several years now, the foundation has been organizing a people's march in summer and autumn . The Crazy Horse Volksmarch is, according to the organizers, up to 15,000 walkers, the most popular organized hike in the United States.

Most of the construction machines are donated by companies. Work on the memorial is funded primarily through ticket receipts, with over a million people annually. The visitor center contains many rocks from the blasted mountain. Visitors can purchase these rocks as souvenirs.

The foundation began its first national fundraiser in October 2006 with a goal of raising $ 16.5 million in donations by 2011 . The first planned project was a $ 1.4 million dormitory room. It will accommodate up to 40 Indian students who will work as interns at the memorial.

Controversy

The questionable photograph from 1877

There's a lot of discussion about whether the one photo Crazy Horse is supposed to show really depicts him. Valentine McGillycuddy stated that Crazy Horse was not in the photo and he doubted there was even a photo of him. Crazy Horse didn't want to be photographed. Possibly the person in the photo is Crazy Horse's brother, who was known to be very similar to him and who also had himself photographed. Many therefore wonder whether Ziolkowski even knew what Crazy Horse actually looked like. Contemporaries such as John Gregory Bourke , who met Crazy Horse in person, also reported a very large scar on his face from being shot by No Water in an argument over his wife. This scar cannot be seen in either the photo or the sculpture. Ziolkowski presented the memorial as a homage to Crazy Horse and American natives. Crazy Horse is said to have said: "My lands are where my dead lie buried". The outstretched arm should symbolize this statement.

Many Indians are critical of the project. Lakota medicine man John Lame Deer noted in his autobiography, published in 1972, that the idea of ​​"turning a beautiful wild mountain into a statue" was pollution of the landscape and contrary to the spirit of the crazy horse. In an interview in 2001, activist and actor Russell Means said: “Imagine you travel to the holy land of Israel , whether you are Christian or Jewish or Muslim , and begin to cut up Mount Zion . It's an insult to all of us. ”The problem, according to Elaine Quive - a descendant of Crazy Horse - in an interview in 2003, is that Henry Standing Bear has no right to ask Ziolkowski for a rock art from the outset. According to Lakota culture, large projects require a common consensus among all family members. Quive added that until the first blast in 1948, no one had bothered to ask Crazy Horse's descendants if they were benevolent of the project. To this day, the memorial is still a controversial issue among the Indian population.

Web links

Commons : Crazy Horse Memorial  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Executive Proclamation. State of South Dakota. Office of the Governor. (No longer available online.) Crazy Horse Memorial, archived from the original on April 13, 2015 ; accessed on December 10, 2015 .
  2. ^ A b Crazy Horse Memorial Quick Facts. Crazy Horse Memorial, accessed December 10, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Great Americans Issue (1980-1999) : 13-cent Crazy Horse. Smithsonian National Postal Museum , accessed December 10, 2015 .
  4. ↑ Joseph Agonito: Lakota portraits: Lives of the Legendary Plains People . 1st edition. TwoDot, Guilford 2011, ISBN 978-0-7627-7212-4 , pp. 251 .
  5. ^ John Taliaferro: Great White Fathers: The Story of the Obsessive Quest to Create Mount Rushmore . 1st edition. PublicAffairs, New York 2002, ISBN 1-891620-98-3 , pp. 328 .
  6. ^ A b John Swanson: Henry Standing Bear (Mato Najen), Lakota Sioux Intancan. In: aaanativearts.com. Retrieved December 10, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Mighty Memorial for Crazy Horse . In: Nevada State Journal . November 23, 1947, p. 19 (American English).
  8. ↑ Expressing the sense of the Senate that a commemorative postage stamp should be issued to honor sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski. 106th Congress of the United States , September 22, 2000, accessed December 10, 2015 .
  9. ↑ a b c d Brian Unwin: Ruth Ziolkowski obituary. In: The Guardian . May 27, 2014, accessed December 12, 2015 .
  10. ↑ Barbara Soderlin: Progress Quiets Crazy Horse doubts. In: rapidcityjournal.com. November 29, 2009, accessed December 12, 2015 .
  11. ↑ Volksmarch. Crazy Horse Memorial, accessed December 12, 2015 .
  12. ^ The Associated Press : Crazy Horse Memorial fund drive to begin . In: The Southeast Missourian . August 27, 2006, p. 12 (American English, archive ).
  13. ^ Frequently asked questions about Crazy Horse Memorial. (No longer available online.) Crazy Horse Memorial, archived from the original on December 22, 2008 ; accessed on December 12, 2015 .
  14. ↑ John Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes: Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions . 1st edition. Simon and Schuster, New York 1972, ISBN 0-671-21197-8 .
  15. ↑ Chris Roberts: Russell Means, in Memoriam. In: The Progressive . October 24, 2012, accessed on December 12, 2015 (English): “Imagine going to the holy land in Israel, whether you're a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim, and start carving up the mountain of Zion. It's an insult to our entire being. "
  16. ↑ Crazy Horse Memorial Generates Mixed Feelings. In: voanews.com. September 13, 2003, accessed December 12, 2015 .