Crazy! The 60-year carving

THE face of Indian warrior Crazy Horse has finally been carved into a mountain – sixty years after work began.

However, the warrior’s body, his horse and a planned university and medical training centre for American Indian students at the South Dakota site are still years away.

Crazy Horse was a famed Lakota warrior and leader who played a key role in the 1876 defeat of the US Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana.

He died a year later after being stabbed in Nebraska.

Ruth Ziolkowski, widow of sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, who started the memorial on June 3, 1948, has said she can’t predict when the sculpture or buildings will be completed.

Sculpture

"To picture it 60 years from now, I’d like to think we had the first building, at least, for the university so that we’d actually have some students here," she said.

The entire project is expected to cost more than $26million and will be funded through private donations.

Mrs Ziolkowski added: "Crazy Horse represents the values of American Indian tribes - of bravery, respect generosity, wisdom.

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"So by being on this memorial he represents some of those struggles that he fought for a long time ago, of protecting our land base and our treaties.

"We’re still in those fights today."