CRAZY HORSE - SERIES OUTLINE

Based on the book “The Journey of Crazy Horse” by Joseph M. Marshall lll

EPISODE 1 BIRTH OF A WARRIOR

Prologue – The taking of 100 hundred horses (raid on snake encampment) Not a man or horse lost it’s life. This event also happens to correspond with the day Crazy Horse or Light Hair was born. The men and women puzzle at the baby’s light hair and light skin.

ACT 1 - THUNDER DREAMER

-       Mother Passes (Scaffolding with long bundle of buffalo hides atop it.

-       There are no orphans in a Lakota community – The whole tribe pitches in, Crazy Horse Sr. takes on other wives to assist him. 

-       Crazy Horse is teased, left out.

-       Bows, arrows and grasshoppers

-       Light Hair sleeps  (vision) – Thunder dreamer

-       Others start to notice admirable traits in Crazy Horse – His athletic abilities, and his depth and stillness.

ACT 2 – THE MENTOR

-       High Backbone takes a liking to him, begins a mentorship.

-       Village puzzles over High-backbone’s choice to mentor the young light haired boy.

-       High Backbone helps him make a bow

1.     They find a young ash tree, smudge it, offer a bundle of tobacco to it.

2.     The harvested green Stave no bigger then a mans wrist is placed on a bed of coals and cured.

3.     A template is marked on the stave and then it is carved to desired form.

4.     Notched and strung with sinew string.

-       High-backbone works to help him refine his bow skills.

-       ACTION BEAT (Light Hair is swept down river, and through a series of treacherous rapids. He finally settles into a slow section and drags himself to the bank. While he lays there exhausted he hears a rumble, then the sound of oxen mooing. He slides up the muddy bank to the grass edge and looks out to the middle distance, he see’s two men setting up camp near a covered wagon. He watches for a moment and then rushes off undetected.

-       Back at camp Light Hair tells his father what he has seen.

ACT 3 – INVASION OF THE LONG KNIVES

-       High- Backbone and Light are joined by a hundred curious Lakota men and boys on a hill overlooking the Shell River. In the sweeping valley below them they see an endless wagon-train snaking along. The Long Knives have arrived!

-       Light Hair and Lone Bear make their first connection.

-       Talk of the white-man or Wasichu spread throughout the encampment.

-       The elders council with one another about the strange visitors from the East. The men recount stories of encounters with the Wasichu. They talk of disease (running face sickness) and of curious weapons.

EPISODE 2 THE ODD COUPLE

ACT 1 – LIGHT HAIR vs PRETTY ONE

-      Light Hair and Lone Bear practice warrior games.

1.     Knocking them off their horses.

2.     The wounded man drag

-       Enter “Pretty One” (fancy Clothes) Influential family Father skilled in oratory. Verbal barbs from Pretty-one to Light-Hair and Lone-Bear –  Little did the two friends know that the immaculately dressed boy (Pretty One) would always be like Bothersome pebble beneath their moccasin souls.

-       Light Hair is challenged by Pretty-One to a buffalo chase, Light-Hair gets the best of him.

ACT 2 – FEAR CLOUDS GOOD SENSE

-       Two Lakota boys wander in to get a closer look at a group of wagons near Ft. Laramie, the whites send a couple of out-riders to investigate, one boy is shot and killed.

-       Light-Hair and Lone-Bear curl up on the ground next to the council lodge to listen to the old men discuss the incident. “The whites had to leave, give up Ft. Laramie and stay off the Shell River Trail”.

-       Light Hair and Lone Bear tempting danger ride in toward Ft. Laramie – Along the way the see Skeleton Wagons (miles of abandoned wagons stripped down to frames) And they see endless burial mounds some marked with stones others with small planks of wood with roughly etched

inscriptions – Here lies Oliver Platt Husband and Father. Light Hair has a waking vision, he see’s the struggle of the settlers – feels empathy for them. But then he see’s the violent actions taken against his people, the senseless murders, the brutal beatings.

-        They watch from a distance the busy agency crawling with white men.

-       Growing tensions: A few Lakota men demand payment to allow the settlers to pass. The white’s nervousness turns into fear. Fear always clouds

good sense.

ACT 3 – A STAB AT PEACE

-       Broken Hand meets and councils with his subordinates about how to address the growing tensions. Pleads with military for a peaceful resolution.

1.     Protect the Oregon Trail.

-       Broken Hand sends out runners to arrange a meeting with Lakota leaders

-       The Lakota men and women council. The consensus among the Lakota is that they will meet.

-       Broken Hand fears the outcome.

EPISODE 3 THE BIG TREATY

ACT 1 – POWDER KEG – The Great Gathering

-       8000 Native peoples from varying tribes gather - The Lakota called it The Council at Horse Creek – The ft. Laramie Treaty Council of 1851 – Light Hair is present with High Backbone, marveling at the impressive collective.

1.     Oglala and Sicangu Lakota Camps were first to arrive, it being their territory.

2.     Ancient Lakota enemies arrive – Blackfeet from the NW, Crow from the N, Shoshone from the West

3.     Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara came from the Knife River Country near the Great Muddy

4.     Shahala, Blue Clouds came from South of Shell

5.     Dakota and Nakota East.

-       Old enemies put aside ancient animosities.

-       Promised gifts are late to arrive. The meeting is drug out for twenty days to allow the military to track down the missing gifts.

-       Grass grazed down prairies near the camp by the thousands of horses. Horse dropping caused a horrible odor.

-       A meeting is called to move camp to Horse Creek.

1.     Horse Racing – Light Hair establishes himself as a formidable opponent as he competes against other tribes.

2.     Trading

ACT 2 – THE BIG TREATY

-       Peace-Talkers surrounded by warriors The head men garbed in their finest feather bonnets and their keenly decorated shirts made from elk, deer and mountain goat. Such a powerful assortment of native leaders had never before gathered together.

-       Private council with the various tribes

-       Translation issues. The chief complaint among the natives was lack of interpreters. 9 languages made it difficult for the peace talkers to communicate.

-       Tribes share information to make sense of what was being asked or offered. They arrived at the consensus that the white man wanted 3 things.

1.     They wanted the tribes to stop warring amongst each other.

2.     The whites wanted to say where the land ended and where it began by drawing pictures on bleached parchment. The whites wanted to mark territories.

3.     Travelers on the trail must not be molested.

a.     The trail must be treated as a sacred passage, or the Great Father (president) would not be happy. Therefore, the trail became known as the Holy Road.

-       If they did these 3 things then the Great Father (President Polk) would give them annuities.

1.     Beef, Flour, beans, plows, hoes, and other farm implements.

2.     Light Hair tries coffee for the first time. Finds a new inner power 

ACT 3 – DEMONSTRATION OF POWER

-       A demonstration of power. Soldiers line up and march, a new gun is unveiled The Howitzer Canon.

-       The tribe leaders make a mark on the treaty.

-       Annuities and other gifts finally arrive.

-       The tribes feast and dance - lodges are struck – they depart.

EPISODE 4 – THE MORMON COW

Prologue –  VO by Joseph Marshall - The first condition of the Big Treaty obliterated by old tribal squabbles. The Lakota raid the Snake.

-       Loaf-about-The forts or Loafers

-       Buffalo stayed away fro the trail.

-       Annuities -Thorn buried deep in the foot, it cannot be removed without blood flowing.

-       3 human weaknesses

1.     Fear

2.     Anger

3.     Arrogance

 ACT 1 – THE MORMON COW

-       A Mormon man chases down an old cow, but it dashes off toward a Lakota encampment. The Mormon man watches on fearful, afraid to approach the encampment.

-       The old cow wanders into Conquering Bears camp, running between lodges and knocking over meat racks. The men and women at the camp laughed at the sight, the cow thin and foot sore, clearly lost or abandoned.

-       A young Miniconjou Lakota Man recognizes that the cow’s days are numbered, he dispatches it, butchers it and divides the meat among the old ones.

-       At Ft. Laramie the Mormon man reports to Officer Flemming that one of his cows has been stolen.

-       Loafers from the fort ride in to let Conquering Bear know that trouble might be brewing.

-       Conquering Bear rides into Ft. Laramie to explain what had happened with the cow and to make recompense offering payment for the cow. He offers a horse worth far more to the men then a cow.

-       Flemming denies the olive branch and demands that the man who dispatched the cow be turned over to the military.

-       Conquering Bear returns defeated and sits with Man Who’s Afraid of His Horses, Smoke and Bad Wound. What shall we do?? The men are confounded.

ACT 2 – LOOKING FOR A FIGHT

-       Officer Gratin a known Indian killer volunteers to lead a couple of wagons to apprehend the young Lakota man. Two dozen soldiers load up two wagons, secure wagon guns and head off.

-       Officer Gratin arrives with Speaks White – As they pass through the encampment he shouts at the people, demanding they stay put in their lodges.

-       Light Hair and Lone Bear hide in low shrubbery, watching the events unfold.

-       When the soldiers reach his camp Conquering Bear left his lodge to meet them, the soldiers pour out of the wagons and form a line. Conquering Bear was still trying to stop the trouble but Gratin ignored him. Speaks White rode up and down the lines of soldiers shouting threats at the Lakota.

-       Gratin steps down from his horse and walks to the wagon, a soldier unveils one side revealing the wagon gun. Gratin grabs ammo and loads it.