His father was a medicine man, also named Crazy Horse before his son earned the name.

His mother died when he was young.

He grew up in the Oglala band of the Lakota people, and his childhood, by various accounts, was characterized by the qualities that would define his adult reputation: unusual quietness, an interior life that his contemporaries noticed as different, an independence from social convention that was distinctive even in a culture that valued individual courage and vision.

He was light-skinned and had wavy hair, unusual features among the Oglala.