Written by, Stacey

The authors of the book Lakota Women are Mary Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes. The author I’m going to tell you about is Mary Crow Dog. She is also known as Mary Brave Bird and Brave Woman. Her nationality is American, and her occupation is an activist.

Mary Crow Dog's mother, Emily Brave Bird, had been raised in the village of He-Dog on the Rosebud Reservation. She was taken to St. Francis Mission boarding school where she was converted to Catholicism. Robert Brave Bird, her father trapped in the winter and farmed in the summer. Her mother eventually became a nurse.

Mary was sent to the same boarding school as her mother when she was five years old. At the school, she was disciplined harshly and deprived by force of using their language. When she was seventeen, she married Leonard Crow Dog and at that time he was thirty-one years old. His ex-wife was a full blood Lakota, and Mary’s in-laws constantly told her that she was ill-equipped for traditional needs of the children because she a half blood. She raised seven children, and three of them were her stepchildren.

Mary and Leonard were involved in A.I.M. There were two factors that influenced Mary’s life for the better. The first was being a young hippie from New York who visited the reservation in the sixties and managed to gain some trust from the Indians. The second was the American Indian Movement. This helped Mary feel like a white-educated half blood who becomes fully Indian.

While Mary struggles with poverty, brutality, of not just the American government, but also, the male Indians, alcoholism, drug abuse, and the loss of many loved ones, she still helps with the stories of others. Her books pay tributes to her murdered friends, Anne Mae Aquash and Micman. In my opinion by writing her books, Mary was able to express her hardships and overcome them.