Both the monument and the mystery reflect the fundamental question of how Crazy Horse is to be known and remembered.

The monument is a choice made by specific people about representation.

The mystery is the result of a choice made by other specific people about protection.

Neither can be fully understood without the other.

The Long Shadow Of The Fort Laramie Treaties

The burial mystery exists in the legal and political shadow of the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868.

The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty — the more consequential of the two for the period immediately preceding Crazy Horse’s death — guaranteed the Black Hills and a significant territory of the western Plains to the Lakota in perpetuity.