Crazy Horse Memorial

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Foreground: 1:34 scale model of Crazy Horse Memorial. Background: Partly-carved largest sculpture in the world, honoring the great Oglala leader. (Photo taken July 2004.)

The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota, in the form of Crazy Horse, an Oglala Lakota warrior, riding a horse and pointing into the distance.

The monument has been in progress for over fifty years and is still far from completion; when finished, it will be the world's largest sculpture.

1 History
2 Controversy
3 Completed vision
4 References
5 External links

The memorial consists of the mountain carving, the Indian Museum of North America, and the Native American Cultural Center.

The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain on land considered sacred by some Native Americans, between Custer and Hill City, roughly 8 miles (13 km) away from Mount Rushmore. The sculpture's final dimensions will be 641 feet (195 m) wide and 563 feet (172 m) high. By comparison, the heads of Mt. Rushmore are 60 feet (18 m) high; the head of Crazy Horse will be 87 feet (27 m) high.

It was begun in 1948 by sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, who had worked on Mt. Rushmore under Gutzon Borglum. In 1939, Mr. Ziolkowski received a letter from Chief Henry Standing Bear, which stated in part "My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes, too."^[1] The sculpture portrays the warrior Crazy Horse, who led the Lakota at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.

As a non-profit undertaking, the memorial receives no federal or state funding. Ziolkowski was offered $10 million from the federal government on two occasions, but he turned the offers down. Mr. Ziolkowski felt the project was more than just a mountain carving, and he feared that his plans for the broader educational and cultural goals for the memorial would be left behind with federal involvement.^[2]

The Foundation sponsors Native-American cultural events and educational programs. Annually in June, the Memorial hosts a Volksmarch, which is the only time that the public is permitted onto the mountain. Attendance has grown to as many as 15,000.

The Memorial began its first national fund drive in October 2006.^[3]

Crazy Horse resisted being photographed, and was deliberately buried where his grave would not be found. Ziolkowski, however, envisioned the monument as a metaphoric tribute to the spirit of Crazy Horse and Native Americans. "My lands are where my dead lie buried," supposedly said by Crazy Horse, is the intended interpretation of the monument's expansive gesture.

While Ziolkowski's motives may have been sincere, many traditional Lakota and Native Americans oppose this memorial. In a 2001 interview, the activist and actor Russell Means stated his objections to the memorial: "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." In a 1972 autobiography, Lame Deer, a Lakota Medicine Man remarked: "The whole idea of making a beautiful wild mountain into a statue of him is a pollution of the landscape. It is against the spirit of Crazy Horse." To this day, the memorial remains controversial within the Native American community.

The memorial is to be the icon of a huge educational and cultural center that will include the University and Medical Training Center for the North American Indian and the Indian Museum of North America. The current visitor complex will anchor the center. The entire complex is owned by the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, and Ziolkowski's wife and several children remain closely involved with the work, which has no fixed completion date.^[4] The face of Crazy Horse was completed and dedicated in 1998, with a view to aiding fundraising. The monument is being built with no public money and is primarily supported by visitor fees (more than one million people visit annually, bringing in millions of dollars).[1] Much of the earth-moving equipment used is donated by corporations.