Crazy Horse family elder and author to visit Osage Centre on Jan. 16 and 17

Note: This story has been updated to reflect a second event, added for 11:30 a.m. Friday, Jan. 17, at the Osage Centre.

Crazy Horse family elder Floyd Clown Sr. and author/filmmaker William Matson will be in Cape Girardeau on Jan. 16 and 17 to discuss and sign their book, “Crazy Horse: The Lakota Warrior’s Life and Legacy,” an exploration of the family’s oral history, and anticipation is high — the event outgrew its original space at the public library, and will instead be held at the Osage Centre.

The library later added another installment, 11:30 a.m. Friday at the Osage Centre.

Matson, a South Dakota resident, said he didn’t set out to write a book about Crazy Horse, the Lakota tribe and the history of how the family has been treated — and survived. What he did intend was a film about the historical figure, his life and legacy, and in the course of researching it and writing a nearly complete screenplay in the 1990s, Matson hit a dead end when trying to find the names of the women who raised Crazy Horse, born around 1840 and killed in 1877.

Matson got online, in the internet’s infancy, he said by phone Saturday, and eventually reached someone who put him in contact with Lakota tribal elders, including Floyd Clown Sr., who told him the painstaking research he’d done in libraries, reading nearly 300 books, had led to a screenplay that was “garbage.”

Matson, who had undertaken the project to fulfill his father’s dying wish, was hurt, he said, but tried not to show it.

“Then he said, ‘We’ll tell you the true story if you have a good heart,’ but I wasn’t sure if I had a good heart,” Matson said.

The elders invited him to a session in a sweat lodge, Matson said.

“We went in, sang in Lakota, and nobody said anything,” he said.

He was walking on eggshells, Matson said, until later, when an uncle cracked a joke to him, and with that, “he crushed the eggs I was walking on with the heels of his boot.”

From that point on, he and the family became close, and for the next 12 years, Matson accompanied them to oral history sites, where he heard the history, took photos and figured out historical camping sites that were far off the beaten path.

“I wasn’t supposed to write the book, but the guy who did got called to Afghanistan,” Matson said. “They honored me by asking me, since I had a visual, to write it.”

It took a year to write the book, he said, and another six months spent in corrections.

“I thought at times there would be no end to this. They were very specific,” Matson said, but finally, he got on the same page, and the end result is their story.

Matson said for this project, he had to learn not only the written history, but the oral history, so he could bridge the gap between the two.

“I ask a lot of questions,” Matson said. “They didn’t like that. Their attitude is, everything was written down wrong.”

And, he said, his motivation isn’t the same as a historian trying to make a name for himself.

“It’s only because Dad on his deathbed asked me to,” Matson said.

He doesn’t consider himself an expert on the Lakota, he added, and referred to himself as “basically just the messenger.”

The publishing contract had specified the publisher wasn’t able to make corrections, as well.

“They (the family) had the last say,” Matson said.

The book was published in September 2016, and he’s been doing events such as the ones set for next week ever since.

This will be the 284th event, Matson said — they’ve traveled across the United States and into Europe.

Floyd Clown Sr. was raised by Edward Clown, nephew to Crazy Horse and keeper of the sacred bundle and pipe, meaning he knew all the stories, Matson said.

In Missouri, Matson said, there’s a lot of interest in Native Americans and their stories, in his experience.

“When we’ve had a talk in Missouri, it’s been pretty full,” Matson said, so he reached out to the public library in Cape Girardeau at the urging of some followers of the Facebook page (search Tashunke Witko Tiwahe/Crazy Horse Family/ECF).

Whitney Burton, director of Adult Services at Cape Girardeau Public Library, said she’s excited to see the early response to this event.

“The event got a huge amount of interest on Facebook,” Burton said, adding, “We realized pretty quickly we were going to need registration for it if I was going to manage having it at the library.”

When confirmed registration topped 140 people, the maximum occupancy for the planned space at the library, Burton worked with Cape Girardeau’s Parks and Recreation Department to secure a space at the Osage Centre, 1625 N. Kingshighway in Cape Girardeau, for the event, which is free and open to the public.

The event is scheduled from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Jan. 16, and for 11:30 a.m. Friday, and the program consists of discussion by Clown and Matson. Books will be available for purchase.

“If people are interested, register early,” Burton said. “We might not have space the day of.”

Registration is online at www.capelibrary.org/event/crazy-horse.