About seventy miles south of Deadwood, deep in the Black Hills, is the Crazy Horse Memorial. This is the largest mountain carving project still in process in the world. It was started by one man, Korczak Ziolkowski in 1948. He worked on this project until he died in 1982. The one thing that impressed me about him is that he never took any money from the Federal Government for this monumental mountain sculpture, even though millions were offered. He said he didn’t want any of the corrupting influences that always come with Federal money.
After Korczak’s death his family stepped in and has continued to work on his project. The completed sculpture will have Crazy Horse on horseback with his left hand pointing to the east. Korczak explained what it all means, something about Indians and their attachment to the land, etc., etc. But to me it looks like Crazy Horse is telling the white men, “Go back to where you came from…”
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