A Tale of Two Monuments: Mt. Rushmore & Crazy Horse

quentinberoud
Jun 3
6 min read

The rocks of the Black Hills must spend their (long) lives in constant fear that they’re going to have an American icon chiselled into them. First there was Mt. Rushmore, a monument so iconic that it has carved itself into the language (this, for example, will be the Mount Rushmore of blogposts). Less well known but no less impressive, Crazy Horse, a monument honouring the Native American Warrior, is not half an hour away from those other austere stone leaders. It feels very typical of the history of the US that the whites were the first to carve their leaders into the land they colonised - a permanent planting of the flag. Europeans are definitely the most "finders-keepers" of races.

Visiting them both one day after the other, it’s difficult not to draw wider conclusions from the stark differences between them. I was excited to see Rushmore, and it is an awesome sight (/site), these four Goliaths gazing out and over you. It’s also hard not to notice that each gets gradually less detailed, as if the carvers gradually lost interest, from the perfect turn of Washington’s collar and the ruffles of his cravat, to Jefferson peeking out over his shoulder like he's egging him on to run into Woolworth's and nick some penny sweets. By the time they get to Roosevelt, the precise ridges of his magnificent moustache must've really taken it out of them, because then... Lincoln. Poor Lincoln. Just his face looms out of the rock, as though he’s soaking in vertical bath. Maybe widows' peaks and sideburns are a particular ball-ache for sculptors: “He wore what kind of hat?! Forget it mate, I didn’t say anything about the wig on the first fella… -”

***Putting in my candidacy to be the fifth leader.***

If it has a distinctly unfinished feeling, that’s because it is, in fact, unfinished. There was insufficient funding to complete the originally planned head-to-waist design, forcing the sculptor Gutzon Borglum (yes, really) and his son Lincoln to abandon the project before they could get to Abe’s signature stovepipe.

***I told you. Least sexy name in history??***

The other unexpected aspect of Mount Rushmore crept up on me slowly. It’s something in the solid blocks of granite that frame the walk up to the monument, the gilt lettering etched into it, and in the straightness of the walkway itself. The place that popped unbidden into my head was Franco’s tomb in Spain. Rushmore is much less baroque, much less ornate than that sinister cathedral, but there was still something vaguely fascistic about the solemn march towards these Great Men of History. The gift shop at Mt. Rushmore is bigger, though.

The vibe of Crazy Horse could not be more different. It feels more chaotic and more homespun, like the family from Cheaper by the Dozen decided to carve the Eiffel Tower into the side of the mountain. This was much closer to the truth than I initially realised. It was the brainchild of Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear, who approached one of the carvers of Mt. Rushmore, Korczak Ziolkowski, and asked him to create a monument to Crazy Horse, the famous Indian warrior, in the sacred Black Hills. The closeness to Mt. Rushmore – there are about 30 minutes apart – feels very deliberate, although the official literature is careful to call it a response rather than a rebuke. Korczak initially rejected the project, thinking it was too big, and that he wasn’t the right person. But his birthday was within hours of the death-day of Crazy Horse, and the Lakota chiefs who’s approached him took this as a sign, and kept trying. Korczak accepted, and how.

He began work literally alone; his first job was literally to build the house he would live in while he carved the mountain. In the early days he would climb the four hundred steps (that he’d carved himself) to his site at the top of the rockface, having started the ancient generator at the foot. If the generator choked itself out before he’d got to blow up any bits of mountain, he would have to go all the way back down, turn it back on, and start again. The photos from this time show him like a bronzed god (he would walk those steps topless), and perhaps not uncoincidentally, he was soon joined by his wife Ruth, and they had ten kids together (topless. Mountain. Explosions.) Ruth and the kids took on the project on his death in 1982 – at this point they hadn’t even started on any of the details of the face or horse. The fact that he never got the satisfaction of seeing the figure start to emerge from the rock was one of the many things I found very moving about Crazy Horse.

Even more emotional to me was the spirit of collaboration and the overwhelming power of the long-term project. A Lakota chief and Polish orphan from Boston coming together and launching a project that they both knew would outlast their lifetimes… there’s something in the power of that belief, stretching across historical, racial and cultural divides, that made me shed a tear. While it may not be perfect, it seems to offer some hope for a collaborative future built together. Part of this is the sheer scale of the project. The work stretches into the future, echoed by the pose of Crazy Horse himself, pointing out to what he can see coming. This was the intention, of course, the vision of Korczak and Henry Standing Bear; he’s pointing towards a brighter days ahead for his people. Even seeing him in profile feels important – looking up at him, the pose seems so much more inclusive and inspirational than, for instance, four presidents staring vacantly over your head. Crazy Horse is not stuck in his glorious past, he’s inviting you to follow him into better times to come.

The history that Crazy Horse memorialises – including in their excellent museums – is such a brutal one, but the statue itself promises hope and direction, and this conversation between past and future gives the whole site a dynamism that is impressive when you consider it’s literally set in stone. There’s a university on site for Native students – everything feels geared towards using the past to honour the future. I also loved learning that they repeatedly turned down government funding, for fear that what would happen at Rushmore would happen to them and they’d have their funding pulled once they’d finished the two heads (of Crazy Horse and his steed), for example. Korczak and Henry Standing Bear wanted to finish it on their terms, even if it meant they never got to see it themselves. They trusted that others would take on the mantle, and I also think they knew the value of an ongoing project; being there you don’t feel like a passive spectator, gazing vacantly up at eyes of stone. It’s so much more than a box on a tourist checklist – it really feels like you’re part of something, however small your part may be.

Honouring the past is such a present concern in the States, and I’m not sure it’s possible to fully understand the sheer brutality of that past until you’re here. You might understand the genocide of the Indians or the impact of slavery before you arrive in the country, but travelling to places where both things were happening simultaneously really lands the weight of that history in your body. It’s little details you read in scraps of Pioneer magazines on saloon walls, where the paper calls for Indians to be driven out in the name of white supremacy. It’s learning at the Legacy Museum that the reason Virginia voted to abolish the transatlantic slave trade is because they believed they would have a competitive advantage in the growing domestic slave trade.

Perhaps as a result of this concentrated misery and cruelty in such a short time, there seems to be a desperation to honour any building over fifty years old. It seems like every church you pass in the south has a plaque outside it. You might stop, get out of your car, and bound over to a bronze slab of such grandeur that in the UK it would be reserved for church that had survived the Norman conquest at least. It will read something like: “Established in 1982, St. Alloysius church was the first Manertian congregation in New Watford.” There is so much history here concentrated into such a brief period – The United States will be 250 next year, there are bar stools older than that in Deptford. To me, Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse point in two very different directions of how to grapple with this past. One is austere, imposed and imposing; the other no less awe-inspiring, but pointing us towards a brighter future of collective effort and collaboration.