Lesson 4

Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski and Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear officially started the Crazy Horse Memorial on June 3, 1948. The Memorial’s mission is to honor the culture, tradition and living heritage of North American Indians. The original Crazy Horse sculpture depicts the Lakota warrior, Crazy Horse, seated on his horse and pointing over the horse’s head as he says, “My lands are where my dead lie buried.”1

In order to create the Crazy Horse Memorial, a small model was first sculpted by Mr. Ziolkowski. He used this small model to create a larger model, which is an exact scale enlargement of the original sculpture. The final monument on the mountain will be a very large duplicate of these sculptures. When completed the Crazy Horse mountain carving will be 641 ft long by 563 ft high (approximately 195.4 m by 171.6 m). Crazy Horse’s completed head is 87 ft 6 in (26.67 m) high. The horse’s head is 219 ft (66.8 m) or 22 stories high.