Leonard Crow Dog
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Leonard Crow Dog (August 18, 1942 – June 5, 2021) was a
medicine man A medicine man (from Ojibwe ''mashkikiiwinini'') or medicine woman (from Ojibwe ''mashkikiiwininiikwe'') is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Each culture has its own name i ...
and spiritual leader who became well known during the Lakota takeover of the town of Wounded Knee on the
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (), also called Pine Ridge Agency, is an Oglala Lakota Indian reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota, with a small portion extending into Nebraska. Originally included within the territory of the ...
in
South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state, state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota people, Dakota Sioux ...
in 1973, known as the Wounded Knee Incident. Through his writings and teachings, he sought to unify Indian people of all nations.Lorentz, Melissa. "First Nations of Minnesota: Famous Lakota." ''EMuseum @ Minnesota State University, Mankato.'' 2008
(retrieved 01 Oct 10)
As a practitioner of traditional herbal medicine and a leader of Sun Dance ceremonies, Crow Dog was also dedicated to keeping Lakota traditions alive.


Background

Leonard Crow Dog was born on August 18, 1942, into a Sicangu Lakota family on the
Rosebud Indian Reservation The Rosebud Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation in South Dakota, United States. It is the home of the federally recognized Rosebud Sioux Tribe, who are Sicangu, a band of Lakota people. The Lakota name ''Sicangu Oyate'' translates as th ...
in
South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state, state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota people, Dakota Sioux ...
. He was a descendant of a traditional family of medicine men and leaders. The name Crow Dog is a poor translation of ''Kȟaŋǧí Šuŋkmánitu'' (). His parents believed he would be a healer so they did not send him to school. Therefore he grew up not knowing how to read or write. At the age of seven Crow Dog was initiated by four medicine men. He embarked on his first
vision quest A vision quest is a rite of passage in some Native American cultures. Individual Indigenous cultures have their own names for their rites of passage. "Vision quest" is an English-language umbrella term, and may not always be accurate or used by ...
at the age of 13.


American Indian Movement

In 1970 the Native American activist
Dennis Banks Dennis J. Banks (April 12, 1937 – October 29, 2017) was a Native American activist, teacher, and author. He was a longtime leader of the American Indian Movement, which he co-founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1968 to represent urban Indian ...
met with Crow Dog. Banks had been seeking a spiritual leader for the
American Indian Movement The American Indian Movement (AIM) is an Native Americans in the United States, American Indian grassroots movement which was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 1968, initially centered in urban areas in order to address systemic issues ...
(AIM), which had started among urban Indians in
Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...
in 1968. Crow Dog had already been trying to unite people on the
Rosebud Indian Reservation The Rosebud Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation in South Dakota, United States. It is the home of the federally recognized Rosebud Sioux Tribe, who are Sicangu, a band of Lakota people. The Lakota name ''Sicangu Oyate'' translates as th ...
to organize and work together on issues affecting Indians. AIM organized the large march of the 1972
Trail of Broken Treaties The Trail of Broken Treaties (also known as the Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan and the Pan American Native Quest for Justice) was a 1972 cross-country caravan of American Indian and First Nations organizations that started on the West Coast ...
to
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, to demand presidential attention to Indian issues. They campaigned on behalf of Indian veterans who were not getting the services they needed. Crow Dog also led protests in
Rapid City Rapid City is the county seat of Pennington County, South Dakota, United States. It is located on the eastern slope of the Black Hills in western South Dakota and was named after Rapid Creek, where the settlement developed. It is the second-mo ...
and the town of
Custer, South Dakota Custer is a city in Custer County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 1,919 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Custer County. History Custer is the oldest town established by European Americans in the Black Hills. Gol ...
to demand justice for hate crimes against the Lakota. Crow Dog’s priorities shaped the Native American Self-Determination and Education Act, a landmark bill signed in 1975 that swung the pendulum away from assimilation and toward greater respect for cultural traditions. The atmosphere on the
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (), also called Pine Ridge Agency, is an Oglala Lakota Indian reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota, with a small portion extending into Nebraska. Originally included within the territory of the ...
, which borders Rosebud, became increasingly tense. Tribal chairman
Dick Wilson Dick Wilson (July 30, 1916 – November 18, 2007) was a British-American actor. He was best known as grocery store manager Mr. George Whipple in more than 500 Charmin bathroom tissue television commercials (1965–89, 1999–2000). Biograp ...
, believed by opponents to have been fraudulently elected, had accrued much power. He created a personal police unit, known as the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONs), which was used to suppress political opposition. Residents of Pine Ridge who were tired of corruption in tribal government and mistreatment by whites gathered to protest. In 1973 the Oglala Lakota of Pine Ridge took over the village of Wounded Knee to demand justice from the federal government and an end to Wilson's tenure. The takeover of Wounded Knee had special meaning for Crow Dog because his great-grandfather, Jerome Crow Dog, had been a
Ghost Dance The Ghost Dance (, also called the Ghost Dance of 1890) is a ceremony incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. According to the millenarian teachings of the Northern Paiute spiritual leader Wovoka (renamed Jack Wilson), pro ...
r. After receiving a vision, Jerome had warned several dancers to stay away from a large gathering of tribes in 1890; he saved them from being victims of the
Wounded Knee Massacre The Wounded Knee Massacre, also known as the Battle of Wounded Knee, involved nearly three hundred Lakota people killed by soldiers of the United States Army. More than 250 people of the Lakota were killed and 51 wounded (4 men and 47 women a ...
. When Leonard Crow Dog went to Wounded Knee in 1973, he was very moved. He later said:
Standing on the hill where so many people were buried in a common grave, standing there in that cold darkness under the stars, I felt tears running down my face. I can't describe what I felt. I heard the voices of the long-dead ghost dancers crying out to us.


Incarceration

Shortly after the Wounded Knee incident ended, the federal government began prosecuting AIM leaders for various charges. One early September morning in 1975, 185 FBI officers, federal marshals, and
SWAT A SWAT (''Special Weapons and Tactics'') team is a generic term for a police tactical unit within the United States, though the term has also been used by other nations. SWAT units are generally trained, equipped, and deployed to res ...
teams showed up at Crow Dog's Paradise looking for
Leonard Peltier Leonard Peltier (born September 12, 1944) is a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) who was convicted of murdering two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in a June 26, 1975, shooting on the Pine Rid ...
, who was a suspect in the murders of two FBI agents at Pine Ridge Reservation. They arrested Crow Dog as a suspect; he was first held at the maximum security unit at Leavenworth, where he was placed in solitary confinement for two weeks. Afterwards he was moved from one prison to another many times after he was convicted and sentenced to a long term in prison. The
National Council of Churches The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, usually identified as the National Council of Churches (NCC), is a left-wing progressive activist group and the largest ecumenical body in the United States. NCC is an ecumenical partners ...
took up Crow Dog's case and raised $150,000 for his appeal. Vine Deloria, Jr. was one of the attorneys involved on his behalf. However, his appeal was denied. When Crow Dog's defense team went before a judge to apply for a sentence reduction, they saw a long table stacked with letters and petitions from all over the world in support of Crow Dog. The federal judge ordered that Crow Dog be immediately released. He had already served nearly two years of his sentence.


Personal life

Crow Dog married his first wife, Francine, in the
Native American Church The Native American Church (NAC), also known as Peyotism and Peyote Religion, is a Syncretism, syncretic Native American religion that teaches a combination of traditional Native Americans in the United States, Native American beliefs and eleme ...
. He took the name "Defends His Medicine", in reference to the sacred
peyote The peyote (; ''Lophophora williamsii'' ) is a small, spineless cactus which contains psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline. is a Spanish word derived from the Nahuatl (), meaning "caterpillar cocoon", from a root , "to glisten". p. ...
plant. Shortly after Wounded Knee, Crow Dog began his second marriage. He was married to Mary Ellen Moore, later known as Brave Bird, with a pipe ceremony. They lived at Crow Dog's Paradise with Crow Dog's parents, three children from his previous marriage, and Mary's son, Pedro. His son, Leonard Alden Crow Dog, is an artist, spiritual Leader and Sundance Chief; Jancita Eagle Deer was his step-daughter. He married Joanne Roulette in 1998. Mary Brave Bird died on February 14, 2013. Crow Dog died at the age of 78 on June 5, 2021, in
Rapid City, South Dakota Rapid City is the county seat of Pennington County, South Dakota, United States. It is located on the eastern slope of the Black Hills in western South Dakota and was named after Rapid Creek (South Dakota), Rapid Creek, where the settlement deve ...
, from liver cancer. In a statement posted on Facebook, Philip Yenyo, executive director of the American Indian Movement of Ohio, called Crow Dog's death a "huge loss to the Indigenous community of Turtle Island and to the American Indian Movement.”


Prophecy

In 1978, Leonard Crow Dog was part of
The Longest Walk The American Indian Movement (AIM) is an American Indian grassroots movement which was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 1968, initially centered in urban areas in order to address systemic issues of poverty, discrimination, and police ...
from Washington, D.C., to the Black Hills. Other attendees on the Walk included Watermelon Slim, who joined on the last 20 miles. Crow Dog prophesied to a group that, "the human beings have a few more years to stop tearing Mother Earth, or she will take herself back from us."


Works

* ''Crow Dog'' recounts family history through four generations of the Crow Dog family. The book details ghost dancers, a group who brought a "new way of praying, of relating to the spirits"; Jerome Crow Dog, Leonard Crow Dog's great-grandfather, who was the first Native American to win a case in the Supreme Court in '' ex parte Crow Dog''; and Leonard's father, Henry, who introduced
peyote The peyote (; ''Lophophora williamsii'' ) is a small, spineless cactus which contains psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline. is a Spanish word derived from the Nahuatl (), meaning "caterpillar cocoon", from a root , "to glisten". p. ...
for sacred use to the Lakota Sioux. ''Crow Dog'' also details Lakota tribal ceremonies and their meanings, and his perspective on the 1972 march on Washington and the 1973 siege of Wounded Knee.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crow Dog, Leonard 1942 births 2021 deaths Sicangu people Native American activists Members of the American Indian Movement American Indigenous rights activists Native American writers People from Rosebud Indian Reservation, South Dakota Writers from South Dakota Native American people from South Dakota