Mary Brave Bird (1954–2013)

I suppose since this autobiography by Mary Ellen Moore-Richard (Crow Dog / Brave Bird), a Lakota / Sioux Native-American (9/26/1954 – 2/14/2013) and co-author, Richard Erdoes (7/7/1912 – 7/16/2008), a journalist of European extraction, is some 16 or 17 years old (c. 1990), a college text book, and the basis of a Jane Fonda produced 1994 movie, that most folks already know about this autobiography of a Lakota Indian from the Rosebud Reservation of South Dakota, or perhaps know of her activities from news reports of the 1970’s. . .but maybe not.
I appreciated the clinical writing style that allowed me to learn on a cerebral, rather than emotional, level about the conditions with which Mary Crow Dog lived at the Rosebud Reservation in the 1960-s and 70’s that led her, at the age of 10, to indulge in alcohol; as a young adult, to leave, giving up the fight to retain her dignity and cultural identity, the Catholic school that she’d been forced to attend (compliments of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie); to subsequently live for a time as an impoverished delinquent; and then, still a teenager, to become a key player in the American Indian Movement (AIM) protestations. She describes in detail the 1973 Wounded Knee Incident, during which she gave birth to her first son—less afraid of the many flying bullets, than a trip to a hospital from which she’d seen too many pregnant Native American women return infertile instead of with new babies.
On a lighter note, of particular interest are the descriptions of the role of the Medicine Man as not only a healer, but also a religious and political leader.
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2.5 stars

It was interesting to learn about the Sioux people - their culture and history, etc. However, this book is more political rhetoric than memoir. Crow Dog recounts events from growing up in the 1960s and 1970s on a reservation. The book was published in 1990, so the nearness of events likely has influenced her opinions about race, which are quite generalized and unfair.

She attended a Catholic school, and during those times, Catholic schools were very strict (and unbiblical!) in their approach to education.

"[The beatings at school] had such a bad effect upon me that I hated and mistrusted every white person on sight, because I met only one kind. It was not until much later that I met sincere white people I could relate to and be friends with. Racism breeds racism in reverse." p 34

I cringe when I read this type of thing being perpetuated by people who are supposed to love others in response to God's love for them, but we can't change the past. We can only apologize that it ever happened, and attempt to do better going forward.

However, while I understand the sentiment of hating the people who hate you, I feel it's an illogical, and immature, position to hold as an adult. More racism will never right the original racism - it only keeps the cycle going.

And for all her talk of meeting "sincere" white people and becoming friends with them, she still seems to hate whites. Her assumptions about white people are terribly incorrect in many ways, and she made blanket, derogatory statements about whites on nearly every other page. Whenever the tiniest thing went wrong in her life, she always found a way to blame whites for it.

She also had strong statements to make about "half-bloods," whom she doesn't view as being "real" Indians - despite the fact that she is actually half-white herself! She sees herself as being a special exception; she considers herself a "whole-blood" because she practices the traditional religion of the Sioux.

She kept saying how brave she was and how everyone kept telling her she was brave during the American Indian Movement (AIM) stand at Wounded Knee, when she was 8 months pregnant, eventually giving birth there. In reality, she was selfish and immature. I was appalled at her failure to protect her unborn child. She tells how one day the government declared a cease-fire so that the women and children could leave, unharmed, but she decides to stay, stating, "If I'm going to die, I'm going to die here... I have nothing to live for out there." p 132

She also states, "One morning.... the feds opened [gunfire] upon me... some of the shots barely missed... all the men were overprotective, worrying about me." p 133

I certainly wouldn't consider that overprotective!

The timeline was very frustrating - Crow Dog kept jumping back and forth between multiple timeframes, without giving references so readers knew where she was in the story. In addition to all of this, there are also several sexual details given and quite a bit of language.

I've read that some of her historical reporting is not accurate, though I don't know it that's true or not. I would be interested in reading other accounts from Native American Indians to see how their accounts of the same time differed or remained the same.… (more)

Mary Brave Bird grew up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota in a one-room cabin without running water or electricity. With her white father gone, she was left to endure “half-breed” status amid the violence, machismo, and aimless drinking of life on the reservation. Rebelling against all this—as well as a punishing Catholic missionary school—she became a teenage runaway.

Mary was eighteen and pregnant when the rebellion at Wounded Knee happened in 1973. Inspired to take action, she joined the American Indian Movement to fight for the rights of her people. Later, she married Leonard Crow Dog, the AIM’s chief medicine man, who revived the sacred but outlawed Ghost Dance.

Originally published in 1990, MHS library purchased as a paperback. Lakota Woman was a national bestseller and winner of the American Book Award. It is a story of determination against all odds, of the cruelties perpetuated against American Indians, and of the Native American struggle for rights. Working with Richard Erdoes, one of the twentieth century’s leading writers on Native American affairs, Brave Bird recounts her difficult upbringing and the path of her fascinating life.… (more)