The war comrade and mentor of Crazy Horse was called
High Backbone (Canku Wakatuya). Reckonings
of his age differ: Charles Eastman stated that High
Backbone was significantly older than Crazy Horse, while
He Dog told Eleanor Hinman that the two men were about
the same age. I suspect that High Backbone was maybe
five-ten years older than Crazy Horse, born in the first
half of the 1830s: that's a big differential in the
crucial boyhood years, when we know that High Backbone
was a teacher and mentor to Crazy Horse, less important
in adult life.
This High Backbone was the strategic leader in the
Fetterman battle, 1866. Indeed, one contemporary document
indicates that he was the Miniconjou head chief that
year. What I suspect that reflects is that in this crisis
year over the Bozeman Trail issue the Miniconjou civil
chiefs were 'pushed aside' and a war leadership placed
in charge of tribal affairs. A similar process placed
Red Cloud at the head of Northern Oglala affairs that
year. High Backbone remained a prominent war leader
(blotahunka) among the Miniconjou. He was killed by
the Shoshones in fall 1870.
Just what the relationship was between High Backbone
and the younger man Hump (Chahahake), born ca. 1847,
is not entirely clear. Ten or fifteen years ago, Cheyenne
River elders told me that they thought there was an
uncle-nephew relationship there. Some people today state
that it's a straight father-son situation, but the year-spans
don't fit. Hump's father was named as Dogskin Necklace
in one of the Walter Camp interviews. My own informants
named the father as Mashes His Nail, which sounds to
me like a classic nickname. This Hump was the one who
fought at the Little Bighorn, surrendered to Miles,
etc.
I'm not convinced that One Horn/Lone Horn and High
Backbone were brothers in the Euro-American sense.
— Kingsley Bray