Crazy Horse Memorial

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The Gila Horse Memorial is a mountain monument under construction on private land in the Black Hills, in Custer County, South Dakota, USA. This will depict Oglala Lakota's warrior, Crazy Horse, riding a horse and pointing into the distance. The memorial was commissioned by Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota elder, to be carved by Korczak Ziolkowski. It is operated by the Gila Racecourse Foundation, a non-profit organization.

Master plan memorials include mountain carved monuments, North American Indian Museum, and Native American Cultural Center. This monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain, on a land considered sacred by some Oglala Lakota, between Custer and Hill City, about 17 miles (27 km) from Mount Rushmore. The final dimension of the statue is planned to be 641 feet (195 m) wide and 563 feet (172 m) tall. The Mad Horse Head will be 87 feet (27 m) tall; by comparison, the heads of four US Presidents at Mount Rushmore are 60 feet (18 m) tall, respectively.

This monument has been going on since 1948 and is still far from over. If completed, it may be the largest sculpture in the world and also the first non-religious statue to hold this record since 1967 (when it was held by the Soviet monument The Motherland Calls ).

Video Crazy Horse Memorial

Crazy Horse

Crazy Horse is the original American war leader of Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the US Federal government to fight encroachment on the territory and way of life of the Lakota community. His most famous acts against the US military include the Battle of Fetterman (December 21, 1866) and the Battle of Little Bighorn (25-26 June 1876). He surrendered to US troops under General Crook in May 1877 and was severely wounded by a military guard, while allegedly fighting a prison at Camp Robinson in Nebraska today. He ranks among the most prominent and iconic of the Native American tribe and was honored by the US Postal Service in 1982 with 13Ã, Â ¢ stamps that were part of his Great Americans series.

Maps Crazy Horse Memorial

History of the monument

Henry Standing Bear ("Mato Naji"), Oglala Lakota's chief, and renowned statesman and elder in the Native American community, recruited and commissioned Polish-American sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski to build the Gila Kuda Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota. In October 1931, Luther Standing Bear, Henry's brother, wrote the sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who carved the heads of four American presidents at Mount Rushmore. Luther suggested that it would be "best fitting to put up a Mad Horse face there." The Gila Horse is the true patriot of the Sioux and the only one worth putting on the sides of Washington and Lincoln. " Borglum never responded. After that, Henry Standing Bear started a campaign to make Borglum carve a picture of Mad Horse in Mt. Rushmore. In the summer of 1935, Standing Bear, frustrated at the stalled Crazy Horse project, wrote to James H. Cook, an old friend of Chief Red Cloud, "I struggled despairingly with this because I am without funds, no work and nothing help from Indian or White. "

On November 7, 1939, Henry Standing Bear wrote to the Polish-American sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, who worked on Mount Rushmore under Gutzon Borglum. He told the sculptor, "My colleagues and I want the white man to know that the red man also has a great hero." Standing Bear also wrote a letter to Deputy Minister Oscar Chapman of the Department of Home Affairs, offering all 900 hectares of his own land (365 ha) in exchange for barren mounts for the purpose of paying honor to the Mad Horse. The Government responded positively, and the National Forest Service, in charge of the land, agreed to grant permission for land use, with a commission to oversee the project. Standing Bear chose not to seek government funding and rely on influential Americans interested in the welfare of American Indians to fund projects in private.

In the spring of 1940, Ziolkowski spent three weeks with Standing Bear in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, discussing land ownership issues and learning about the Crazy Horse and Lakota way of life. According to Ziolkowski, "Standing Bear grew very angry when he talked about the damaged Fort Laramie Treaty (1868) That's what I read about where the President promised that the Black Hills would belong to Indians forever I remember how his old eyes emerged from the mahogany's face darkness, then he will shake his head and pause for a long time. "

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Memorial Pillar

The warning is a nonprofit, and does not accept federal or state funding. The Memorial Foundation charges a fee for its visitor center and earns revenue from its gift shop. Ziolkowski was reportedly offered $ 10 million for a project from the federal government on two occasions, but he declined the offer. He feels the project is more than just a mountain carving, and he fears that his plans for the broader educational and cultural goals of the memorial will be reversed by federal involvement.

After Ziolkowski died in 1982 at the age of 74, his widow Ruth Ziolkowski, took over the statue, overseeing his work as CEO from the 1980s to the 2010s. Ruth Ziolkowski decided to focus on solving the Mad Dog face first, instead of the horse as her husband had planned. He believes that the Mad Horse's face, once completed, will enhance the attraction of the statue as a tourist attraction, which will provide additional funding. He also oversaw staff, including seven of his children.

Sixteen years later, in 1998, Crazy Horse's face was completed and dedicated; Crazy Horse's eye is 17 feet (5 m) wide. Ruth Ziolkowski and seven of the 10 Ziolkowskis children did work on the memorial. Ruth's daughter, Monique Ziolkowski, herself a sculptor, modified some of her father's plans to ensure that the weight of the arm extended was sufficiently supported. The foundation commissioned reports from two engineering firms in 2009 to help guide the completion of the project. Work started on horses after two years of careful planning and measurement.

Ruth Ziolkowski dies May 21, 2014, age 87. Monique Ziolkowski, Ruth's daughter, becomes CEO and her three siblings continue to work on the project, as well as Monique's three nephews.

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Vision complete

This memorial will be the centerpiece of an educational/cultural center, to include the South Dakota University satellite campus, with its classroom building and living hall, made possible by donation US $ 2.5 million in 2007 from T. Denny Sanford, a philanthropist from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It's called the University and Medical Training Center for North American Indians and the North American Indian Museum. The current visitor complex will be the center. Sanford also donated US $ 5 million for the memorial, which will be paid US $ 1 million a year for five years as a suitable donation raised, in particular for further work on the head horse.

Paul and Donna "Muffy" Christen from Huron, South Dakota, announced in July 2010 that they donated US $ 5 million in two installments to an endowment to support the operation of the satellite campus. It holds classes in math, English, and American Indian course studies for college credit, as well as outreach classes. The memorial foundation has provided more than US $ 1.2 million in scholarships, with the majority going to be a native student in South Dakota.

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Fundraising and events

This foundation sponsored the Native American cultural and educational program. Every year in June, the Memorial organizes Volksmarch , when the public is allowed on the mountain. Attendance has grown to 15,000.

Most of the land transfer equipment used is donated by the company. The work at this monument is mainly supported by the cost of visitors, with over a million people visiting each year. The visitor's center contains many pieces of rock blown off the mountain; visitors can take samples in exchange for small donations.

The Memorial started its first national fundraiser in October 2006. The goal was to increase $ 16.5 million in 2011. The first planned project was a dorm US $ 1.4 million to house 40 American Indian students who will work as an apprentice at the memorial.

Periodically memorial memorial blasting event, which attracts thousands of people from all regions. They may wait for hours because the clock counts down. The Gala ends in almost simultaneous explosions, and huge rock and dust shoots down the mountain.

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Controversy

The Mad Horse refuses being photographed and deliberately buried where his grave will not be found. Ziolkowski envisioned the monument as a metaphorical tribute to the spirit of the Mad Horse and Native Americans. He reportedly said, "My land is the place to die of my lies." His extended hand at the monument is to symbolize that statement.

Elaine Quiver, a descendant of one of the Crazy Horse aunts, said in 2003 that the old Bear Riders should not personally ask Ziolkowski to make a warning, because the Lakota culture dictates the consensus of family members for such a decision, which was not earned before the first rock named in 1948. He said:

They do not respect our culture because we do not give anyone permission to carve the sacred Black Hills where our burial ground is located. They are there for us to enjoy and they are there for us to pray. But it is not meant to be carved into a picture, which is very wrong for all of us. The more I think about it, the more it is the desecration of our Indian culture. Not only Crazy Horse, but all of us.

Seth Big Crow, whose great-grandmother is Crazy Horse's aunt, says she's wondering about the millions of dollars the Ziolkowski family gathers from the visitor's center and the shops associated with the memorial, and the "amount of money generated by her ancestral name". He says:

Or does it give them the freedom to try to take over the name and make money while they are alive and we live? When you start making money rather than trying to finish the project, that's when, for me, it goes in the wrong direction.

Other traditional Lakota opposed the warning. In his autobiography of 1972, John Fire Lame Deer, a Lakota treatment man, said: "The whole idea of ​​making beautiful wild volcanoes a statue of him is a landscape pollution that goes against the spirit of the Mad Horse." In an interview in 2001, Lakota activist Russell Means said: "Imagine going to the holy land in Israel, whether you are a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim, and starting to carve Mount Zion is an insult to our whole being.. "

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See also

• List of colossal sculptures in situ
• List of statues with height
• List of the highest sculptures in the United States

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References

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External links

• Official site at crazyhorsememorial.org
• "Live webcams". Crazy Horse Memorial .

Source of the article : Wikipedia