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ApsáalookeThese places all have English names on maps created by the state of Montana, but Old Coyote remembers what his people have called these places for hundreds of years, and he hopes the Crow Place Name Project will help generations to come remember them as well.

Two years ago Old Coyote and 20 other Crow elders began working with Little Big Horn College general studies instructor Tim McCleary to document place names and chronicle the stories behind them.The Crow are an indigenous people of North America whose language belongs to the Siouan branch of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock (see Native American languages ) and who call themselves the Absaroka, or bird people. They ranged chiefly in the area of the Yellowstone River and its tributaries and were a hunting tribe typical of the Plains cultural area. Their only crop was tobacco, which they used for pleasure and religious purposes. Until the 18th century the Crow lived with the Hidatsa on the upper Missouri River. After a dispute they migrated westward until they reached the Rocky Mts. The Crow developed a highly complex social system. They were enemies of the Sioux and helped the whites in the Sioux wars. Today most Crow live in Montana, near the Little Bighorn , where tourism, ranching, and mineral leases provide tribal income. In 1990 there were over 9,000 Crow in the United States. - Columbia Encyclopedia

The Crow reservation is home to the Crow people,. The reservation is located in south-central Montana, is bordered on the south by the state of Wyoming, with its northwestwern boundary bordered by the city of Billings, Montana’s largest metropolitan area. The tribal headquarters are in Crow Agency.

As of December 2003, the Crow Tribe has 10,930 enrolled members.  7,583 of the enrolled members live on the reservation. Crow pages

Crow NationThe Crow Reservation is where culture and tradition are a way of life, perpetuated from generation to generation. Experience the culture of the Apsaalooke, "Children of the Large-Beaked Bird," the Crow People.

Now an area of 3,565 square miles, the Crow Nation consists of seven main communities: Wyola, Lodge Grass, Garryowen, Crow Agency, St. Xavier, Fort Smith and Pryor.Annually, the communities of the Crow People live their tradition and hold a variety of cultural events such as hand games, arrow throwing, Indian dances and seasonal ceremonies.Sought after are beaded finery of the Crow People. Old Crow Indian style designs and contemporary beaded creations on traditional regalia are of collectible caliber. Visitors will find many artisans and art pieces.Pow-wowsEach year, both of Custer Country's Reservations host renowned pow-wows. On the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, the Lame Deer Pow-wow (July 4-6, 1997) features the Princess Contest (all princesses are welcome), dance contests in all categories, parades and grand entries. Gourd dancing is held daily, and rations and feasting are always part of the festivities. All drums, dancers and singers are welcome. For more information, contact the Tribal Secretary at (406) 477-6284. Dates of pow-wows on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation:Memorial Day Weekend: Lame Deer Memorial Pow-wow & Rodeo July 4-6: Lame Deer Pow-wow August 29-September 1: Ashland Labor Day Pow-wow November 11: Veteran's Day Pow-wow, Lame Deer December 24-26: Busby Christmas Pow-wow December 31-January 2: Lame Deer New Year's Pow-wow On the Crow Reservation, Crow Fair in Crow Agency is the premier Pow-wow of the Plains Indians. Each year on the third weekend of August (in 1997, August 14-17), Crow Fair is the Teepee Capitol of the World.From every western state and Canada, Indians come to camp along the Little Bighorn River. Events include: spectacular parades each morning; an all-Indian rodeo with cowboys from all over the nation; parimutuel racing and betting, wild horse races, and dances.A short history of Montana’s Native Americans The history of the various modern tribes in the part of America we now call "Montana," is characterized by movement within seasonal cycles for many of them. They traversed the plains to follow the bison and then retreated in intertribal struggles for control of hunting territory. Finally, with the bison nearly extinct and tribes decimated by battles with white men and disease, there came the final move onto reservations, marking the end of an era. Archeological evidence shows that Native Americans inhabited Montana more than 14,000 years ago. Artifacts indicate the Kootenai have roots in the area's prehistory. The Kootenai inhabited the mountainous terrain west of the divide, venturing only seasonally to the east for buffalo hunts. The Salish, the Pend d' Oreilles and the Crow were probably among the first “modern” Indians to join the Kootenai in Montana. The Salish and the Pend d'Oreilles occupied territory as far east as the Bighorn Mountains. During the 1700’s these three tribes shared common hunting and gathering grounds. With the signing of the Hellgate Treaty, their massive landholdings were ceded and the tribes now share the fertile ground of the Flathead Reservation.    The Chippewa and Cree were the latest tribal groups to come to Montana. They came from reservations outside the state late in the nineteenth century after Montana's reservation system was in existence. These tribes today are intermixed and use the hybrid name, "Chippewa-Cree," and claim the windswept Rocky Boy's Reservation in the north.

The majority of Montana's Indians arrived after 1700. By the time most Indians came to this area, white men's culture was already strongly felt. The horses introduced to Indians by Spaniards in the Southwest, and guns from white frontiersmen, became deciding factors in determining which tribes would dominate the Montana territory in a culture completely dependent upon the bison. The bison-based economy deteriorated in the 1880s when several factors affected the future of Montana’s Indians. Bison were hunted to near extinction, the Canadian and United States governments became the dominant force driving Indians from their lands, and white men's diseases diminished the population and faded the spirit of the Native Americans. By the 1870’s large tracts of land, through various treaties and executive orders, were formally reserved for Indian people. Thus the reservations evolved. Today nine percent of the Montana land base is reservations. Not all of this land is still owned by native people, but all is governed by tribal or federal law. Reservations are important, not only because Native Americans have strong spiritual ties to the land, but because reservations have become the Indians' last retreat and the last chance to preserve their culture. Now, the people of Montana's reservations are working to build strong economic bases so that their culture will survive and flourish for future generations.DATES RESERVATIONS WERE ESTABLISHED (with main community and resident tribes) Blackfeet  1851 Blackfeet  (Browning) Crow  1851  Crow (Crow Agency) Flathead  1855  Salish, Kootenai (Pablo) & Pend d'Oreilles Fort Belknap  1888 Assiniboine & Gros Ventre  (Fort Belknap Agency & Harlem) Fort Peck  1888  Assiniboine & Sioux  (Poplar) Northern Cheyenne 1884  Northern Cheyenne (Lame Deer) Rocky Boy's  1916  Chippewa-Cree  (Box Elder)

From:     Graetz, Rick, and Susie Graetz.  Crow Country:  Montana's Crow Tribe of Indians.  Billings:  Northern Rockies Publishing Company, 2000.

CROW COUNTRY“The Crow Country is a good country. The Great Spirit has put it exactly in the right place; while you are in it you fare well; whenever you go out of it, whichever way you travel, you will fare worse.  “If you go to the south, there you have to wander over great barren plains; the water is warm and bad, and you meet the fever and ague.  “To the north it is cold; the winters are long and bitter, and no grass; you cannot keep horses there, but must travel with dogs. What is a country without horses!  “On the Columbia they are poor and dirty, paddle about in canoes, and eat fish. Their teeth are worn out; they are always taking fishbones out of their mouths. Fish is poor food.  “To the east, they dwell in villages; they live well; but they drink the muddy water of the Missouri... that is bad. A Crow’s dog would not drink such water.  “About the forks of the Missouri is a fine country; good water; good grass; plenty of buffalo. In summer, it is almost as good as the Crow country; but in the winter it is cold; the grass is gone; and there is no salt weed for the horses.  “The Crow Country is exactly in the right place. It has snowy mountains and sunny plains; all kinds of climates and good things for every season.  When the summer heats scorch the prairies, you can draw up under the mountains, where the air is sweet and cool, the grass fresh, and the bright streams come tumbling out of the snow banks. There you can hunt the elk, the deer, and the antelope, when their skins are fit for dressing; there you will find plenty of white bears and mountain sheep.  “In the autumn, when your horses are fat and strong from the mountain pastures, you can go down into the plains and hunt the buffalo, or trap beaver on the streams. And when winter comes on, you can take shelter in the woody bottoms along the rivers; there you will find buffalo meat for yourselves, and cottonwood bark for your horses; or you may winter in the Wind River valley, where there is salt weed in abundance.  “The Crow Country is

exactly in the right place. Everything good is to be found there. There is no country like the Crow Country.”  Chief Eelapuash (Arapooish in some of the older books) in the 1830s to a fur trader. Crow lands of today are exceptional. They range from the high desert-like Pryor Mountains in the west to the Wolf Mountains and Rosebud Creek on the eastern fringe, and from the Wyoming line north to the edge of Billings and Hardin. Their 2.2 million acres take in some of Montana’s most noteworthy landscapes…the rugged and beautiful Bighorn Canyon, ice caves and wild horses in the Pryors, the 9,000-foot rise of the snowy Bighorn Mountains and the historic Little Bighorn and Bighorn rivers…a place for all seasons.

Seen from the air, it is obvious that much of Crow Country is still wild and uncluttered. The diverse landscape ranges from high, sharp-edged terrain to flat cultivated benches. Much of the western reach is difficult to negotiate, as the hills that climb from the bottom lands are dissected by a labyrinth of coulees and canyons.

Pryor MountainsNamed after Nathaniel Pryor of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Pryors, or Baahpuuo Isawaxaawuua (Hitting the Rock Mountains) as the Crow called them, rise from the heart of traditional Crow Country.

Still used for vision quests today, this treasured land contains sacred sites and ancestoral burial grounds.  In essence, the Pryors are made up of two high ridges, each about twenty miles across. The northern Pryors

are within the boundaries of the present reservation; here the highest points ascend to just a little over 7,300 feet descending gradually into lower timbered buttes.  Ice caves and a wild horse range highlight the

southern part where the higher points top out at over 8,700 feet. A dramatic plunge of 5,000 feet to a desert environment exists at the southern most tip.  The west side consists mostly of an 8,500-foot high reef of

limestone.  The eastern perimeter drops from a timbered ridge to lower hills that are abruptly ended by the walls of Bighorn Canyon.  Before the onslaught of early day hunting and disease, bighorn sheep roamed the ridges of these mountains. In 1972, the animals were reintroduced to the nearby Bighorn Mountains.

Not too long after, they crossed the frozen Bighorn River and moved back up into the Pryors. Today, there are approximately 115 sheep living along the east escarpment and the southern reaches of the mountains.

John Pretty On Top, a Crow traditionalist explains the Pryors in the publication Every Morning of the World by Loendorf and Nabokov. "I like to go up high enough to see all God’s creations and the more you

see of God’s creations the more you realize of the gift to you…And the place to do it is up high, in the mountains, that is a cathedral without a roof, without a wall, it is forever, as far as you can see is what He

has given you...that is how I see that mountain.”

Bighorn MountainsThe Bighorns are the most sacred of the mountains in Crow Country. Today only the northern most twenty miles of this 120-mile long uplift is on the reservation. The entire range is an integral part of their history,

having been used for hunting, rituals and as a respite from the heat of the low lands. Many legends are also told about this high country. One of them was recounted by Henry Old Coyote in the book Bighorn Canyon

National Recreation Area…" a boy and his step-father went into the Bighorns to hunt at a place called Hole-in-the-Wall. On the brink of a steep canyon, evil spirits entered the man and made him push his step-son from the steep cliff to a certain death. When he returned to the village, the man reported that the boy

had lost his ways in the forest. A search was unsuccessful.  “The boy had fallen into some cedars growing from the canyon wall and survived. On this perch, hundreds of feet above the rocky talus slopes of the narrow canyon, he sat for four days. Nearly dead of hunger and exhaustion, he finally was rescued by a band of seven bighorn sheep led by Big Metal with hooves and horns of glistening steel. Big Metal gave

his own name to the boy and each of the six other sheep gave him power, wisdom, sharp eyes, sure footedness, keen ears, great strength and a strong heart.  “Big Metal returned to his people bearing a sacred

message. The sheep had told him…we seven rule these big mountains. That river down there is the Bighorn River. Whatever you do, don’t change its name. If you ever change the name of the river, there

will be no more apsaalooka (Crow) tribe. The apsaalooka will be nothing."  This wide expanse (up to fifty miles across) of mountains start their gradual climb to 9,000 feet from the valley of the Little Bighorn

River as a series of fissured wide ridges. Compared to the rugged south of the Bighorns where Cloud Peak soars to 13,167 feet high, the northern segment is relatively flat. Most of the large glaciers that helped

shape these granite and sediment mountains have given way to a few small ice remnants, perennial snowfields, forested slopes and sage covered meadows. In the warm seasons, magnificent wildflowers

cover the area.

Two deep ravines, Black Canyon Creek on the east and Big Bull Elk Canyon on the west divide the northern mountain plateau and descend rapidly into Bighorn Lake. In places, the relief is an imposing 2,000 to 2,500 feet. The Crow Buffalo Pasture, where the tribe manages 700 to 1,200 head of bison, sits between these two colorful and dramatic canyons.  On the west side of the range, Precambrian rocks, the oldest in

the world, are exposed showing a chain of geologic events.

Wolf MountainsGuarding the eastern perimeter of the reservation are the low-lying Wolf Mountains. Here several summits are between 5,000 and 5,200 feet in elevation, but most only reach 4,000 to 5,000 feet. This range extends

northward from the Wyoming line for approximately fifty miles.  Dense forests, interspersed with huge park lands, provide good grazing as well as wildlife habitat. The eastern side, sloping off to the Tongue River Valley has particularly beautiful wildflower shows in the spring and summer.  From points on the

western fringe, it is possible to look out across all of Crow Country.Bighorn Canyon

Before the 1962 completion of the 525-foot high Yellowtail Dam, the wild free-flowing Bighorn River, coming out of Wyoming, incised deep into the limestone plateau between the Pryor and Bighorn

mountains. Its power of erosion carved one of the most precipitous gorges (more than 1,000 feet deep) in the Northern Rockies. The depths of the canyon were a daunting place to early-day trappers and natives. In

order to avoid the dangers of the river, they blazed the fifty-mile long Bad Pass Trail above the western edge from the canyon’s mouth upstream to the lowlands near Barry’s Landing.  In 1852, famed mountain

man Jim Bridger is suppose to have run the wild rapids of the river in a log raft.  Today, a seventy-one mile-long lake fills the once untamed Bighorn Canyon. The National Park Service manages the park lands

with input from the Crow Tribe. The water is open to public use, however, reservation lands border the entire northern segment and much of the eastern boundary of Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area; a tribal permit is required for access.  Yellowtail Dam, named after, but against the wishes of, former Crow

Tribal Chairman and reservation superintendent Robert Yellowtail, didn’t come without controversy. Many of the Crow people, including Yellowtail, opposed the project and viewed it as yet another incursion by the white man on sacred lands. The US Government condemned more than 60,000 acres for the recreation area

and the dam, which flooded many burial sites.Bighorn River

As water pours out of Bighorn Lake at the dam, the Bighorn River picks up again and flows north for forty-eight miles through the Crow Reservation on its way to the Yellowstone River. The cold, nutrient rich waters of the first twelve miles beyond Yellowtail Dam are considered one of the nations great trout

fisheries.

At one time the Crow had complete control over the river, but lost out in a prolonged court battle with the State of Montana to keep non-Indians off the Bighorn. Today there are four public access sites.

Little Bighorn RiverThe "Greasy Grass," as the Crows sometimes call the Little Bighorn, occupies a broad flood plain as it

drifts north from Wyoming for more than fifty miles through Crow Country. Enroute towards its meeting with the Bighorn River at Hardin, it picks up waters from Lodge Grass Creek headwatering in the Bighorn Mountains and Owl Creek tumbling out of the Wolf Mountains. The benches and low lands on either side of the river provide fertile ground for farming and grazing.  The Little Bighorn River has a place in history owing to a one-day event that the Crow had nothing to do with, other than the fact that some of them were

scouts for the US Army. On June 25, 1876, George Armstrong Custer, Commander of the US Seventh Calvary led his troops to complete annihilation at the hands of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. The site

today, near Crow Agency, is marked as the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Other than that time, the Little Bighorn observed a quiet history of cattle drives, trappers and then eventually Crow farmers

and ranchers establishing their claim to the soil.Population and Culture

Today, more than 10,000 tribal members call the Crow lands home.  Two-thirds of them live on, or are

adjacent to, the present day reservation.  Divided into three subgroups…Mountain Crow, River Crow and Kicked in The Bellies…they live in the reservations six districts…Lodge Grass (sometimes called the Valley of the Chiefs), Wyola (Mighty Few), Reno, Bighorn, Pryor and Black Lodge.  Proud of their

history, traditions and language, the Crow are striving to keep them a part of everyday life. One of the best examples is the strong, time honored clan system…a complex, matriarchal based, extended family. There

are seven different clans on the reservation, each one is supportive of the other, shares family responsibilities and provides for the needs of their less fortunate members.  At birth, a child becomes a

member of and takes the name of the mother’s clan. Here they are never without a mother or a father, there are no cousins, only brothers and sisters. The father’s clan members become the newborn’s uncles and

aunties. Also some unrelated members are considered kin. It takes a bit of time and practice to understand this system.  More than ninety percent of the Crow elders and adults speak the Crow language. Emphasis is

being placed on keeping their culture alive. Because many under thirty prefer to speak English, and are adopting the white man ways, the clan system and the language are endangered.

LandIt can’t be emphasized enough, how important the land is to the Crow people. Clara Nomee, current chair

of the Crow tribe, says…"the land is sacred to us, we consider the earth our mother. Within the Crow culture, we are told by the elders that all Crow members are blessed with three mothers...the earth, our

natural mother and our tepees or lodges." Burton Pretty On Top Sr., Cultural Director of the tribe stresses that "…spiritual concerns are more important than material…preserving land for the future, saving it for

Crow children is important.”  He emphasizes that “the children belong to a proud tribe and the tribe considers their land important to their being...The Apsalooka and the land are one.”  Pretty On Top also relates, “In the hearts and minds of the Apsalooka, it is our belief that “Akbaatatdia” (the Creator or First

Maker) selected us to be his children and to be the inhabitants of a sacred place, this land He selected for us is where we still live today.”  For this reason, the tribal administration has set up a fund to buy property

from individuals, Indians as well as whites, that comes up for sale.  Once these pieces are purchased they become tribal lands. The approximate 5,000 whites now living within the confines of the reservation have

bought almost 34 percent of the land from the original allotments granted to members. In the past, far more land was sold to whites than is now.

Intro to Crow History....By Rick and Susie GraetzThe history of the Crow Tribe of Indians is at once colorful, fascinating and sad. Several existing good books and numerous papers detail their passage through time. It is not the purpose of this work then to

reinvent what has already been well stated elsewhere. Rather we present an overview of important documented events, profiles of several notable individuals and the two versions of how the Crow came to

“Crow Country.”  Four books were an immense help and are well worth reading; they are... Montana Indians by William L. Bryan Jr., From The Heart Of The Crow Country by Joe Medicine Crow (to be

released fall of 2000 by the University of Nebraska Press), Parading Through History: The Making Of The Crow Nation In America 1805-1935 by Frederick Hoxie (Cambridge University Press), and The Crow And

The Eagle by Keith Algier (Caxton Printers, Ltd.).  The Migration Story, The Battle of Pryor Creek, and Chief Medicine Crow were penned by Joe Medicine Crow, whose grandfather, Medicine Crow, was one of the last of the great Crow war chiefs. Appointed in 1948 by the Crow Council as Tribe Historian, Joe, now

in his eighties, was the first of his tribe to graduate from college. Earning a Master’s degree in anthropology from the University of Southern California, he also has finished all of his course work

towards a doctorate there. As a young boy, he garnered information from his notable grandfather and elders of the Sioux, Northern Cheyenne and Crow who had experienced the free-roaming days before reservation life...men like White-Man-Runs-Him, one of Custer’s scouts who survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn. This former warrior lived with Joe’s family for a time, recounting many stories detailing the Indian Wars.  In 1932, drawing from his background and education, Joe began to formally research an accurate portrayal

of his people.  Timothy McCleary, who has a Master’s degree in anthropology from the University of Montana, is the chair of the Department of General Studies at Little Big Horn College, and is presently

working on his Ph.D., researched many facets of historic and contemporary Crow culture. In his book The Stars We Know; Crow Indian Astronomy and Lifeways, he writes a second version of early history

somewhat similar to Joe Medicine Crow’s, but with one fundamental difference concerning the sacred

seeds.  Space has not allowed us to say much on the many intriguing rituals and festivals such as vision quests, sweat lodges, etc. In brief, two in particular are important in the Crow world. The planting and

harvest of a rare and special tobacco by members of the Tobacco Society heralds back to the sacred seeds given to No Vitals and the group that separated from the original Hidatsa in the late 1500s. This gift from

God, as long as it is planted and cared for, ensures that the Crow will always exist and enjoy good things. It is an enactment of their origins and territorial claims.  Sun Dances, viewed as anti-Christian because they involved the sun as a deity, body piercing, and the seeking of revenge against an enemy, were prohibited by early reservation Indian agents. Revitalized in the 1940s when the piercing was eliminated, the dance

now asks to have good fortune, well being, and health bestowed on the Crow people.

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Crow HistoryThe Migration Story

From:     Graetz, Rick, and Susie Graetz.  Crow Country:  Montana's Crow Tribe of Indians.  Billings:  Northern Rockies Publishing Company, 2000.

Crow oral tradition links the origin of the tribe to a separation from a parent

group. Tradition relates that this group traveled extensively across the upper Midwest of

the United States, and possibly into southern Canada. Eventually this parent group came

under the leadership of two brothers known as No Intestines and Red Scout. These

leaders had their respective followers and, even though they camped as one group, the

two divisions were clearly defined within a single village. The group following No

Intestines called themselves Crow people, "Our Side," and they would become the

historic Crow who eventually settled in Montana and Wyoming. The group under Red

Scout would move to the Heart River area of North Dakota. They would learn

horticultural ways from the Mandan of that region, and would become the historic

Hidatsa tribe.

In addition, Crow oral tradition lends religious validity to this separation of the

Crow and Hidatsa. Their narratives relate how the two leaders had fasted at Devil's Lake

and each had received a vision. No Intestines received a vision that told him to seek the

seeds of Sacred Tobacco, Ihchichiaee. Once locating this tobacco, he and his followers

would be in the center of the world--the best place for his people. Red Scout, on the

other hand, received a vision instructing him to settle with his people on the bluffs above

the rivers, and to plant corn on the flood plains below.

After the initial vision, No Intestines and his followers began a long trek west.

Eventually, the Crow people stopped near Chief Mountain, in present day Montana, and

there No Intestines fasted again. On the fourth day he received a second vision telling

him he was not yet at his destination, the area was too cold. Then the Crow people

moved south, passing by Salt Lake, Utah. After a while, No Intestines and his group

reached the Canadian River in Oklahoma, called Arrowhead River by the Crow. Here,

No Intestines fasted again and was told to move north. So the Crow people headed north,

following the Missouri to the Platte River, then trekking to the Powder River which they

followed north until they reached the Big Horn Mountains in northern Wyoming.

To the Crow the highest peak on the crest of the Big Horn Mountains is called

Awaxaawakússawishe, "Extended Mountain," and it is considered the center of their

world. On this peak No Intestines fasted for the fourth time and received a vision telling

him that he was in the right place, that the tobacco seed could be found at the bottom of

Awaxaawakússawishe. As he looked to the base of the mountain, he saw the seeds as

"twinkling stars," ihkaxáaxaaheetak. The Crow people then made their home in Montana

and Wyoming, with the Big Horn Mountains as their heartland.  

The Migration Story

By Joe Medicine Crow

From:     Graetz, Rick, and Susie Graetz.  Crow Country:  Montana's Crow Tribe of Indians. 

Billings:  Northern Rockies Publishing Company, 2000. The migration story of the Crow Indians, or Absaro-kee, is certainly interesting, intriguing, and often frustrating to the researcher. At the outset there exists a time gap, as well as a credibility gap, between the legendary and the real, but as oral and re-corded history reach back into the past and begin to support and substantiate the legendary, the gap begins to close and a starting point is finally found from which some continuity can be identified and maintained.   Now, let us hear perhaps the most extensive and dramatic Indian migration story ever told, the one known and repeated by a succession of sixteen generations of Crow historians, keep-ers of the tribal annals, and tellers of tales. It is said that in the long, long-ago times, the ancestral tribe of the Hidatsa and Crows once lived toward the east in the “tree country,” now believed to be the western end of the Great Lakes, say south of Lake Superior and west of Lake Michigan. Here the tribe followed the lifeways of woodland Indians. One spring, as the grass was turning green and the deer and buffalo were grazing with relish in the open parks, the rains stopped. Hot winds began blowing continuously, and soon the green earth was parched to brown. The buffalo disappeared. The chiefs held council and an earnest search for the vanished herds was organized. Teams of fourteen men were sent out in all directions. The parties eventually returned without succes...all but the team going west. It was a long time later that this last group returned. When they did, each man was laden with huge packs of jerked buffalo meat. Everyone in the tribe had a little meat to eat. The searchers then reported that their travels had led them far to the west where trees began to thin out and there were open areas of grassland. There the hills were rolling, broken by bluffs covered with pines. The men killed some buffalo and returned. This place is now believed to be in the area of St. Paul, Minnesota. Soon after, the entire tribe packed up and headed west. As the story goes, they caught up with the buffalo herds and resumed a more leisurely way of life, maybe even settling down as part-time farmers and hunters in what is now perhaps northern Minnesota and southern Manitoba. Up to this point, our story is legendary. But here the oral history takes root. In 1932, Cold Wind, then more than ninety years of age, said that, as a young man, he had gone to visit his Hidatsa relatives in North Dakota. From there, he went east and traveled many, many days and finally came to some Indians (probably on the White Earth, Red Lake, or Leech Lake reservations of northern Minnesota). There, he met an old, old man, a tribal historian, who knew stories about the ancestors of the Hidatsa. This old man took Cold Wind on a trip farther east and north. They came to a valley, and along the river were the caved-in sites of the earthen lodges and other structures of a village. Next, the old man took Cold Wind up on a nearby bench and showed him tepee rings. Then he said, “According to our historians, your ancient ones, the forefathers of your people, once lived here. These tepee rings were used by a part of the tribe who preferred to live in tepees during the summer and hunt the buffalo, while the others lived in the village along the river and did some farming. Then, one day the two groups got together and moved away.  They headed southwestward and never came back!”  As Cold Wind continued, he became more positive and explicit. His informants and teachers were the octogenarians, and older, of his youthful years. It was about 1550 A.D. that this ancestral tribe deliberately moved away, either looking for better hunting and farming grounds or fleeing from hostile tribes from the east. We now know that, as eastern tribes acquired firearms from European traders, the bow-and-arrow Indians were pushed farther and farther west. Nearly all of the present Montana tribes migrated there from the eastern woodlands. On the way, these migrants stopped for some time at Sacred Waters (Devil's Lake in northeastern North

Dakota). Here, two chiefs...No Vitals and Red Scout, fasted and sought the Great Spirit's guidance on their perilous journey. Red Scout received an ear of corn and was told to settle down and plant the seeds for his sustenance. No Vitals received a pod of seeds and was told to go west to the high mountains and plant the seeds there. These seeds were sacred, and the proper way to use them would be revealed. The Great Spirit promised No Vitals that his people would someday increase in numbers, become powerful and rich, and own a large, good, and beautiful land!

The journey was resumed and by the turn of the seventeenth century, the band had reached the Missouri River and moved in with the Mandans, whose village was located on the west side near the junction of the Heart River with the Missouri. Later, the newcomers moved farther upstream and built their own village of earthen lodges in the vicinity of the confluence of the Knife and Missouri rivers. It was probably between 1600 and 1625 A.D. that No Vi-tals, now middle-age, finally decided to go westward to plant the sacred seeds and look for the promised land. “It is time I heed the Great Spirit's instruction. I have tarried too long. Those who want to go with me are welcomed.”

Thus, one spring morning there was hurried activity in the village. Large dogs and tamed wolves were harnessed to travois. As relatives bade farewell, No Vitals and about 400 tribe members faced westward and left. Thus began perhaps one of the longest and most dramatic migra-tions of any Indian tribe, covering thousands of miles over rough and rugged terrain, through intense winters and tor-rid summers, and consisting of about 100 years of wandering.  It has been assumed by white historians and archaeolo-gists that this secessionist tribe straightaway entered present Montana, either by following the Missouri all the way up to the three forks or by going up the Yellowstone and then “disappearing” for a long period of time. According to ac-cepted Crow oral history, however, this was not the case. Contemporary tribal historians relate in detail how No Vital’s band traveled up the Missouri and settled in the Cardston, Alberta, area for quite some time. The band prob-ably trekked up the White Bear River (Milk River) in a northwesterly direction.

The ethnohistorical concept that the incipient tribe trav-eled very slowly as it gradually experienced a cultural tran-sition from sedentary to nomadic lifeways, was probably not the case. When No Vitals left, he started out afresh as a brand-new tribe without a name; he literally and symbolically decided to travel light, for he left all the heavy implements behind him for good. His band became an instant tribe capable of existing as a separate and distinct entity, and one motivated with the desire and dream of someday receiving the blessings of the Great Spirit when it reached the promised land! The people of this new tribe, still without a name, referred to themselves as “Our Side.” One day, the leaders called a council. The consensus of opinion was: “This place is too harsh; the winters are long and cold. We must move and find a better place to live.” Once again, they packed their dogs and wolves and headed south through the valleys and passes of the Rocky Mountains. Just how many moons or winters the wandering tribe traveled through was never specifically mentioned. Then, one day, they came to a lake that was described as “so large that the other side could not be seen” and so salty that they could not drink it. There is no question but that this was the Great Salt Lake in Utah. It is not known how long this tribe stayed here, but they apparently disliked the arid land and decided to move on once again. This time they headed eastward. The details of this trek are lacking until the band came to a huge pit in the ground with a roaring fire at the bottom, apparently a burning coal vein. It may have been located somewhere in the present states of Wyoming, Colorado, northern New Mexico, or northern Texas. From this “Place of Fire,” our story fades into the legendary once again. One version indicates that, they finally came to a large river flowing to the east. As they followed it downstream, they found many arrowheads and other stone artifacts along the banks. They called it “Arrowhead River, ” now identified as the Canadian River of north Texas and Oklahoma. The group eventually came to a forest country. Here, they noticed flocks of large birds with striped wing and tail feathers (turkeys). The people didn't like this area since "they could not see distant places” because of the trees. This was probably in the present state of Oklahoma and Arkansas or even Missouri.

Once again, the decision was made to turn and go in another direction. This time, the group headed north

and west. Just how it emerged once more onto the prairie country of the Western Plains is not known. It may be conjectured that the migrants either followed the Arkansas or the Missouri rivers upstream. If they followed the latter, they could have turned directly westward by going up the Platte River and eventually entering into what is now northern Wyoming and southern Montana, the very region they called their own land in the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty.  When the wandering tribe finally arrived in this area, the people were still pedestrians. No Vitals, who led the exodus around the turn of the seventeenth century, had been succeeded as head chief by his protégé Running Coyote. He was entrusted with the care of the sacred seeds and was credited with originating the Crow technique of stampeding buffalo over cliffs.  Subsequent head chiefs...called the “chiefs before the coming of the horse and the white man,” were listed as Paints His Body Red, Red Fish, One Heart, Raven Face, and White Moccasin Top. It appears that, by the time the tribe arrived, One Heart was the head chief.

In about 1734 or 1735, Chief Young White Buffalo, who succeeded White Moccasin Top, was regarded as being instrumental in transforming the new tribe from walking to horseback riding Indians. In closing, may I again take courage to state that when No Vitals led the exodus of some 400 people away from the ancestral village along the Missouri, the break was made quickly and cleanly. The new tribe left its material culture behind; there was no gradual transition from the earth lodge to the tepee!

The migration was purposely made. It was motivated by the dream of one man named No Vitals. At the Sacred Waters, the Great Spirit promised him a good land far to the west where his people would find the good life one day. Yes, it took about 100 years of wandering through the wilderness over long, long distances. The original migrants all died along the way, but it was their great-great-grandchildren and their children who brought the sacred seeds to the mountains of the west...the Beartooths, the Crazy Mountains, the Bighorns, the Wind River Mountains, the Absarokas, and even the Grand Tetons. Indeed, this is the land the great Crow chief Arapooish described as “a good country because the Great Spirit had put it in exactly the right place.”

  Copyright © 2001 Little Big Horn College Library.  All Rights Reserved

 

Crow HistoryCreation Story

The Crow people say the Creator, Iichikbaalia, created the humans by instructing four ducks to go down into a body of deep water and retrieve mud from the bottom. The first three ducks failed, but after a long time, the fourth duck brought some mud from the bottom of the water. From this the Crow were formed. The Creator then breathed into his creation and for this reason Crow people say that speech or the word is sacred. Then he brought the Crow to a very clear spring and inside this spring they were shown a man with his bow drawn taught. The Creator said, "This is Crow people, I have made them to be small in number, but they will never be overcome by any outside force". The Crow people say that neither man nor woman was made first, it is simply said that the Crow were created.

 

Crow HistoryHistorical Timeline

Prepared by Timothy P. McCleary of Little Big Horn College, with the assistance of  Dale D. Old Horn and Joseph Medicine Crow.  March 7, 2000.

1400

The ancestral tribe of theApsáalooke and the Hidatsa were living the "Land of Forests and many lakes" (The present upper Great Lakes of Canada and the UnitedStates.

1450

Two leaders of this group, No Intestines and Red Scout, fasted at Holy lake (present day Devils Lake, North Dakota).  Red Scout received a vision indicating that his people would survive through the spiritual graces of Sacred Tobacco.  Red Scout and his people settled on the Missouri and learned horticulture from the Mandan, eventually becoming the contemporary Hidatsa's.  No Intestines and his followers traveled on an extensive migration in search of the Sacred Tobacco.  The trek eventually led them to their historic homeland, present-day southeastern Montana and northern Wyoming.  This group became known as the Ashalahó/Many Lodges or the historic Mountain Crow.

1490

The Apsáalooke are firmly established in their homeland, displacing the Shoshones and allying themselves with the resident Kiowa's.

1500

During or shortly after the migration of the Apsáalooke, a band formed called the Bilápiiuutche/Beaver Dries Its Fur.  No one knows for certain what became of this group, but many Apsáalooke and Kiowa's believe that they went to the Southern Plains with the Kiowa in the 1500's and eventually became assimilated into that tribe.

1600

The next band of the Apsáalooke developed out of a separation from the Hidatsa.  Sometime after No Intestines group had become established on the Plains and argument arose between two factions in the Hidatsa villages on the Missouri River.  The quarrel was over the distribution of a drowned buffalo, the wife of the leader Bad Heart Bear felt that she had not received enough of the tripe.  The ensuing dispute led to a permanent separation when the followers of Bad Heart Bear joined the Ashalahó Apsáalooke on the Plains.  This group became known as the Binnéassiippeele/Those Who Live Amongst The River Banks, or the historic River Crow.

1700 The Apsáalooke acquired their first horses

from a Shoshone camp near the Great Salt Lake.

1743

A group of Apsáalooke camped at the confluence of the Bighorn and Little Bighorn Rivers meet with the La Vérendrye Brothers, French-Canadian traders.  Most likely the first encounter between the Apsáalooke and the Europeans.

1805

Lewis and Clark Expedition travels across Apsáalooke territory.  On their return trip in 1806, the remuda of horses meant for Clark, being held by his sergeant, Nathaniel Pryor, are taken by Apsáalooke warriors near present-day Huntley, Montana.

1825

The first treaty between the Apsáalooke and the United States is signed by Apsáalooke leader Long Hair and Major O'Fallon of the United States.  The other prominent Apsáalooke leader Sore Belly refuses to sign.

1840

The Apsáalooke are afflicted with the first of three severe smallpox epidemics that reduced the tribe from an estimated 10,000 in the 1830's to approximately 2,000 by 1850.

1851

The Apsáalooke participated in the first Ft. Laramie Treaty.  The treaty stated that the Apsáalooke controlled over 33 million acres of land in present-day Montana and Wyoming.

1864

The outnumbered Apsáalooke successfully defended themselves against the combined forces of the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho on East Pryor Creek north of present-day Pryor, Montana.  The largest and most dramatic battle to protect eastern Apsáalooke lands from the Lakota invasion of the 1860's.

1865

The Apsáalooke assisted the United States military in protecting travelers on the Bozeman Trail.  To this end, three forts were established in Apsáalooke territory.

1868

The Apsáalooke participated in the second Ft. Laramie Treaty, and their land holdings were reduced to 8 million acres in present-day Montana.

1869 The first government agency is established for the Apsáalooke on Hide Scraper Creek (present-day Mission Creek, Montana).  This is the first exposure of the Apsáalooke to the reservation policies of the United

States.

1872Apsáalooke land holdings are reduced again and the government agency is moved to present-day Absarokee, Montana.

1876

The Apsáalooke continued to support the United States military by supplying the scouts to the columns of the Centennial Campaign.  If it were not for the assistance of the Apsáalooke to General Crooks Wyoming Column on June17 at Rosebud Creek, he and his men would have met the same fate as General Custer's command did eight years later.

1877

The Apsáalooke maintain constant attacks against the invading Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho, with and without the assistance of the United States military.  Even pursuing the fleeing Lakota's into Canada.

1881

sitting Bull and his followers surrender at Ft. Buford, North Dakota after being in Canada for four years.   Sitting Bull stated that one of the reasons for his surrender was to seek protection from the almost constant harassment of the Apsáalooke warriors.

1882

The Apsáalooke agreed to another land cession and the government agency is moved to its present site at Crow Agency, Montana.

1887

An Apsáalooke war leader named Wraps His Tail lead an unsuccessful insurgency against the United States government because of newly imposed laws restricting the Apsáalooke to their reservation and preventing them from engaging in inter-tribal warfare.  Wraps His Tail was killed and a number of his followers imprisoned.  One cavalryman was killed in the skirmish and is interred in the Custer National Cemetery at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

1888

Against possible imprisonment and/or death, the Apsáalooke leader Two Leggings leads a counter attack against a Lakota raiding party from the Ft. Peck Reservation.  He and his group overtook the Lakota horse raiders, killing one of them and reclaimed their horses.  Historians believe this to be the last inter-tribal conflict to occur on the Northern Plains.

Copyright © 2001 Little Big Horn College Library.  All Rights Reserved

Apsaalooke Then and Now Timeline

"There are no clocks to measure time but the beating of our singing hearts."-Herold Littlebird, Laguna Pueblo

Old Coyote, Mickey.  Apsaalooke: Then and Now. Greensburg: MacDonald/Swărd Publishing Company 1993.

1400-1500

Traditional exodus from the northern "bush country" and separation from the Crow ancestral tribe.  Chief No Vitals, after receiving a vision, led about 400 people westward on foot, using pack dogs.  Based upon glottochronology, the separation from the parent tribe occurred anywhere from 1800-2500 years ago.

1600 circa

The Great Spirit appeared to Chief No Vitals again and gave him sacred ceremonial seeds.  Later tribal members went on a reconnaissance trip to Mexico and returned in five years with much knowledge.

1675-1735

Crow Tribe and Northern Plains Indians acquired horses from natives near Great Salt Lake.  (Horses, after being extinct for 10,000 years in America, were reintroduced to Southwest Natives by European explorers, the Spaniards, in the 1500s and 1600s.  These horses were primarily of the Andalusian, Arabian, and Barb blood).

1743

Apsaalookas (Crows) saw white men for the first time near present town of Hardin, Montana.  These were the Verendrye brothers from Canada.  They the Crows Beau Hommes when crossing the Absaroka Divide, now called the Shoshone Pass.

1763 King George III set aside reserved lands for Indians.

1764 Plan for Imperial Department of Indian Affairs

1775 Continental Congress first named a committee on Indian Affairs.

1778 September 17

First United States Indian treaty-signed with the Delaware; previous treaties were with British.

1789 War Department, included Indian Authority, established by Congress.

1796 Government-operated Indian trading houses established.

1803

Louisiana Purchase, vast Indian lands, acquired by the U.S. from France-no consultation with Indians living on these lands as sovereign nations.

1805-1806 Lewis & Clark traveled across Crow

Country.  Clark met Apsaalookas at Pompey's Pillar.  Francois Laroque visited Crows on Yellowstone about this time.

1819 Congress enacted first Indian education program-civilization fund.

1822

Indian trading houses and Office of Indian Trade abolished; new Office of Superintendent of Indian Affairs with headquarters at St. Louis for western territories, General William Clark, first superintendent.

1823 Monroe Doctrine banned European colonial interference in Western Hemisphere.

1824 March 11

Bureau of Indian Affairs established, in War Department, called Office of Indian Affairs.

1825 Crows made their first treaty [Friendship Treaty] with the United States.

1830 May 28

President Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act (IRA) passed, forcing eastern Indians west; caused friction among all.

1832

congress recognizes small Indian Bureau and designates its head, Commissioner of Indian Affairs; same year funds were appropriated by U.S. Congress for vaccination of some Indian tribes against small pox.

1834 June 30 Act organizes Department of Indian Affairs.

1834

New Indian Trade and Intercourse Act, regulating Federal Indian administration; Congress requires agents to live among tribes.

1843-1845

Government distributes smallpox-infected blankets as germ warfare in Crow Country where no vaccine had been inoculated.  Epidemic reduced population from over 8000 to fewer than 1000.  (Population in 1992 back to nearly 8000.)

1848-1871 Long colonial period, in eyes of western Indians.

1848 Reservations formed.1850 circa

First siege of entire Crow Tribe by Sioux in which Crows won.

1851 First so-called Treaty of Fort Laramie.  Crow Country reduced to 38 million acres.

1862 Homestead Act, giving 160 acres of Indian lands to settlers for $1.25 an acre.

1864 Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapahoe's tried to annihilate the Crows but failed, seven miles

north of present Pryor, Montana.  Crow warriors were outnumbered over 10 to 1 but succeeded in blocking the invasion.

1868 August 13

Last treaty signed between U.S. Government and Indians, second Treaty of Fort Laramie.  Crow Country reduced to 8 million acres.

1869 Board of Indian Commissioners (9men) formed, lasting until 1933.

1870 Indian Homestead Act passed.

1870 Crow's required to conduct "reservation life."

1871 March 3

Treaty policy ends between United States and Indians.

1871 Extension of transcontinental railways across West.

1872First time American Natives mentioned in U.S. political party platform calling for "a wise and humane policy toward Indians."

1872 Crow Agency moved to Rosebud River near Absarokee, Montana.

1882Indian Rights Association formed during Helen Hunt Jackson's special Indian commissionership.

1882 April 11

Land Cessation agreement with Crow reservation reduced acreage.

1884Crow Agency moved near Big Horn and Little Big Horn junction due to murder of member by BIA.

1885 National Indian Association organized.

1885Congress unreasonably delayed relief for starving Indians in Montana; inaction rebuked by letter in the New York Tribune.

1886 Indians regarded as wards, with complete dependence upon the U.S.

1887 February 8

Congress adopts Dawes General Allotment Act.

1888 Crow Tribe confined to reservation, homeland remnants.

1893

Secretary of the Interior, Hoke Smith, (Cleveland Administration), came to Crow Agency to purchase part of the Crow reservation; Aleck Greene official interpreter for council.

1900 United States Indian population rose for first time since 1492

1902-1910 Federal Indian reclamation, forestry, and conservation began.

1903 Annual Crow Fair established.

1905 Land cessation of Crow territory reduces it to 3 million.

1906 May 8

Burke Act, amended Dawes Act on allotments.

1911-1923

Society of American Indians, founded by Gertrude S. Bonnin, Dr. Charles Eastman, (Ohiyesa, a Santee Sioux) etc., beginning of a new unified, pan-Indian faith.

1918 Native American Church incorporated in Oklahoma.

1920 June 14 Crow Allotment Act

1921 November 11

Chief Plenty Coups, the last traditional leader of the Crow Nation, represented all Native Americans at the dedication of the "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., by placing his war bonnet on this sacred shrine.

1921 Amended 1928

Snyder Act provided funds for health, social, economic assistance, and tribal health programs, without regard to degree of Indian blood.  Under amended act, basic tribal government activities and local services are funded through BIA.

1924 June 2

Indians (not all tribes) granted citizenship and right to vote.

1924 Indian Health Division established within Indian Bureau.

1926 May 26

Crow Act of 1920 amended, authorized leasing of allotted lands for many purposes, including oil and gas leases.  From 1920s until present, Crows request Allotment Act to be addressed by authorities.  No action taken.

1928 Committee of One Hundred; Meriam Report-poor tribal conditions.

1934 June 18

Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), Wheeler-Howard Act, New Deal, allotment policy ended but BIA in control of tribes.

1934 Crow Tribe opposes IRA due to BIA control clause.

1934 Johnson O'Malley Act, diffusion of Indian administration and education.

1934 BIA threatens to dismiss Indian employees who speak against Washington policies.

1935 Act set up Indian Arts and Crafts Board, established the next year.

1942 BIA protects non-Indians instead of Indians

in regard to leases.

1943 Indian Affairs Committee of the U.S. Senate recommended abolishing the BIA.

1944 National Congress of American Indians organized in Denver (NCAI).

1946

Indian Claims Commission established League of North American Indians; first time all Indians could file claim suit against Government.

1947

Competency Act allowed leases to be signed without direct approval of the BIA; instead went through private firms, which in turn had to get approval by the BIA.

1948 BIA constitution for Crow Tribe and other tribes; went into effect following year.

1948 Indian Revolving Loan Act.

1948Hoover Commission recommends transfer of Indian Bureau to Federal Security Agency; bill not passed.

1950 American Indian Historical Society formed by Rupert Costo.

1950

Under Truman Administration, Indian Commissioner Dillon Myer's Relocation Program, leading up to 12 termination bills.  Myers had run internment camps for American Japanese, his qualification for the job.

1953 July

Indian Termination Act; Congressional resolution of termination of Federal services and supervision of Indian Health Act passed; House Concurrent Resolution 108.

1955 July 1

Indian Health Act passed; transferred Indian Health Division from Indian Bureau to the U.S. Public Health Service.

1958 September 18

After many tribes terminated, policy of termination discouraged; concentration on health, education, and economic development instead of assimilation.

1958

Passage of Indian Land Sales Act, U.S. Public Law 80-529, permitting sale of individually-owned reservation lands to non-Indians.

1950s (late)

Modern-day problems of Crows increase.  Yellowtail Dam water rights lost.

1961Court of Claims awarded 10 million dollars to Crow Nation for land taken from them by the Federal Government since 1851.

1961 December 11

BIA inflicted strict Resolution 62-11 and 62-12 on Crows, controlling their money and forcing all tribal policies and activities to be

approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

1961

Area Redevelopment Act passed by U.S. Congress, provided economic assistance to deprived areas and also made grants to tribes for building tribal headquarters and community facilities.

1961 Interior Secretary Stewart L. Udall names Task Force on Indian Affairs.

1964

Economic Opportunity Act, major breakthrough during Johnson Administration's war on poverty, with Native Americans beneficiaries of action.

1966-1972 First time Crows strive for sovereignty, under Edison Real Bird.

1960s

Although FBI/OIG harassment and destabilization of Native nations became prominent in early 1960s, Johnson Administration reflected hope in Indian policy reform.

1968 President Johnson's Indian Bill of Rights, Title II, amendment to Civil Rights Act.

1968 Crow Mineral Act signed by President Johnson.

1968National Council of American Indians Opportunity created; Indian involvement in decision making policy planning began.

1969

Amerind founded under sponsorship of the National Indian Youth Council-established to protect rights of Indian employees of U.S. Government agencies.

1970 President Nixon's new Indian policy-self determination without termination.

1970-1971

Native American Rights Fund, California private legal organization, received over a million dollars in a grant from the Ford Foundation.

1971 April

National Tribal Chairman's Association (NTCA) created.

1972-1986 Period of fraud and mismanagement of Crow Tribe, principally by BIA.

1972

Indian Education Act; employment assistance or relocation program; first tribe, Menominee, restored after having been terminated.

1972 Trail of Broken Treaties, led by Dennis Banks and Russell Means.

1973 August 13

Office of Indian Rights, formed in Department of Justice, 182 years after the United States Bill of Rights.

1973 American Indian National Bank (AINB)

opened in Washington.

1973Indian voting age lowered to eighteen years to conform with the 26th amendment, U.S. Constitution.

1974Implementation of Indian Religion Issues including feather case; Crow Delegation to National Indian Traditionalist Conference.

1974

Passage of the Indian Financing Act provided $250 million in credit for Indians and grants up to $50,000 to Indian small businesses.

1975 January 4

Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act passed, Public Law 93-638.

1975 October

Crow Tribe sues to invalidate coal mining leases on reservation.

1976 Indian Health Care Improvement Act passed.

1977

American Indian Policy Review Commission (AIPRC) Final Report, 95th Congress, First Session, joint commission of Congress conducted exhaustive analysis of relationship between the U.S. and Native American governments.

1978 August 11

American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) passed.  Senate Joint Resolution 102, numerous Crow members instrumental.

1978Crow Tribe files coal severance tax suit against Montana, three years after controversial tax was passed.

1981-1986 Crow Tribe administered by strict BIA control.

1983 Crows win inherent sovereignty case in Supreme Court.

May 1986- 1990

Second time tribe starts to make progress toward sovereignty and development of resources, during Richard Real Bird administration.

1987 January 11

Apsaalookas win millions in Crow Coal Severance Tax Case from state of Montana, a Supreme Court decision.

1987 March 12

Real Bird Administration fires former Secretary of Interior, James C. Watt, for neglect, etc. in litigation over 107th Meridian Crow boundary, survey mistake made by the U.S. Government.

1987 August 4

Crow Tribe filed dereliction suit against U.S. Government regarding Section 2, Crow Allotment Act of 1920; breach of trust responsibility.

1987 First machine-gun raid on Crow Tribe by

October 22 FBI/OIG SWAT team that confiscated BIA records from Crow Tribal office.

1988 June 22-24

"The Crow Nation: A Historical and Cultural Presentation" at Billings, Montana, by the Crow Tribe.

1988 BIA shuts off Crow Tribe from heat, utilities, and their own monies.

1989 May 2

Coal taxes released to U.S. Treasury after accumulating in federal court escrow account since 1982.

1989 July 17

Second machine-gun raid by FBI/OIG SWAT team, at same time as Crow instigated investigation of mismanagement and missing millions of dollars of Indian funds in trust by BIA.

1989 July 24

Federal Marshals quickly indict 26 members of Crow Tribe.

1989 August 

Indian Leaders, led by Richard Real Bird, form First American Sovereignty Alliance.

1989 October

BIA secretary storms Crow Tribal Council meeting to take away voting rights and government participation from Chairman Richard Real Bird and others indicted; same month BIA froze tribal funds; BIA instigated riot.

1989 Real Bird Administration members' cases dropped in indictment.

1989

Investigation of BIA, called for by Crow Nation; with BIA found to be corrupt, New Indian Federalism proposed by Congress to give funds directly to Indians and to give them control of their own government.

1900-1992BIA presents dictatorial control over Crow Tribe in its Resolution No. 90-35; leader of 1989 riot in charge of Crow Tribe.

1991

Tribal Leader, Richard Real Bird incarcerated; joins list of imprisoned Indian Chiefs also striving for recognition of tribal sovereignty.

1992 October 12

Date indicates 500 years of suppression and oppression of Native Americans by dominant society.

1992 November Richard Real Bird released from prison.

1993 BIA still has stranglehold on Crow Tribal Government.

Crow HistoryBattle of Pryor Creek

By Joe Medicine CrowFrom:     Graetz, Rick, and Susie Graetz.  Crow Country:  Montana's Crow Tribe of Indians.  Billings:  Northern Rockies Publishing Company, 2000.

The Dakota (Sioux), particularly the Hunkpapa and the Oglala, routinely came to the Crow Country on horse-capturing and coup-counting raids. Inter-tribal warfare on the Plains was the dangerous sport through which young men climbed the military ladder to attain chieftaincy. This was the essence of Plains Indian warfare, not goals of booty, territory, or conquest.  By the mid-nineteenth century, the surging western expansion of the United States impacted the Sioux and Cheyenne then dwelling in the area now called North and South Dakota. This pressure drove the tribes westward. Their excursions into the Crow Country became more frequent and more hostile. In fact, by 1860 these tribes began considering occupying the Crow Country, which was then still unmolested by the ever more numerous white men.   The story I am nowgoing to tell is about a seriously planned invasion and attempted conquest of the Crows about 1860 or 1861. The site of the great Battle of Pryor Creek is only twenty miles south of what is now Billings, Montana.   In 1955 it was my good fortune to have acquired a reliable Sioux version of the battle from Charles Ten Bear, a Crow Indian historian.  He explained that about 1910 an old Sioux Indian and his wife came to the Crow Reservation and lived with Yellow Crane, where Charles Ten Bear was also living for the winter. This Sioux man was a survivor of the big Battle of Pryor Creek and often would tell the whole story in detail. Furthermore, in 1935 Joe Childs, a fine Crow historian, told me the Crow account of the battle. He said his father, Child in the Mouth, had been an active participant in the conflict and never tired of telling and retelling the battle story. Joe Childs would say, “I've heard the story so many times that I know all about it as if I were there myself.”

But first the Sioux story.In the early summer of 1859 or 1860, a Crow war party killed a fine young Dakota (Sioux) warrior. Already he had counted a number of battle coups, which entitled him to wear an eagle-feather war bonnet. His mother, overwhelmed with grief, decided to mourn until her son's death was avenged. Almost every evening she would lead her son's horse through the camp, with the war bonnet tied to the saddle horn, ready to go. As she passed the row of tepees, the woman would wail and challenge the warriors. “Is there a man among the mighty Dakotas who will take this horse and go fight the Absarokee?” She repeated this performance almost daily for one whole year.

Then one day Brave Wolf, who was very much in love with a maiden and wanted to make her his woman, asked his sisters and aunts to arrange a wedding. The women were silent. An outspoken aunt finally said they did not like the girl and did not want her as a sister-in-law or daughter-in-law. The young man was deeply hurt and decided to kill himself. In those days a man might commit suicide by joining the Brave Hearts, the warriors who took the suicidal oath to die fighting for their people. By allowing himself to be killed by an enemy, Brave Wolf would die with glory.

When the wailing woman next approached, Brave Wolf took the reins of the war horse. At this moment the woman began a song of victory, “At last, a brave one has taken my son's horse!” Within moments a big crowd gathered around to see the intrepid young

man. Brave Wolf was the instant hero that day!

Quickly a council was called, and to the assembly a leading chief spoke: “This is not just one man's decision; by his action today, we, the Dakota, are committed in what could be a very important and serious undertaking. I ask if the Wakan'tanka, the Great Power, has meant it to be this way?...and I say let us take one whole year to make plans against the Raven People.  They are not many, but they are shrewd and tricky in battle. The time has come that we must destroy them.”

Later that fall another council was called. It was here decided that all the bands of the great Dakota Nation and the Cheyenne and Arapaho be invited to join in a great undertaking.  Teams of two men were selected as emissaries to all the other bands with instructions to stay with these people for the winter. They were to gradually influence the bands to participate in what would be describe as a grand venture to move into the good country of their traditional enemies, the Absarokee.

The emissaries did their work well. By the next May all the Dakota bands, the Cheyenne, and the Arapahos began coming to the designated place of gathering—the forks of Big Goose Creek and Little Goose Creek, where Sheridan, Wyoming, now stands. As the bands arrived and set up their tepees, the encampment grew larger and larger. It was said that camp criers had to change mounts several times before making a complete circle around the entire encampment. This was probably the largest gathering of Indians at any one time in North America. Sitting Bull's famously “large” camp on the Little Bighorn River some sixteen years later would be lost from sight in this gigantic camp.

Scouts reported that the Crows were at Pass Creek, only a halfday's ride to the north. The war chiefs quickly gathered in council.

The Arapaho chief was asked to speak. He was tall and impressive in appearance. He said, “The Dakota people and their Cheyenne friends know me as Night Horse, Arapaho chief.  Other tribes also know me. I fear no man of any enemy tribe. I am an Absarokee by birth, and I will not fight my own relatives. This is not Indian war you are planning. To destroy another tribe is wrong. I don't want any part of it. However, I give permission to my warriors to stay and fight with you if they desire. You have heard me, Aho!”

Night Horse broke camp and departed, heading for the Bighorn Mountains to the southwest.  He quickly dispatched his two half-Crow sons to warn the Crow camp of the war expedition massed against them by thousands of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahos.

In the meantime, the Crows had also broken camp and were headed west. By evening when Night Horse's sons arrived, they were at Rotten Grass Creek. Immediately they were surrounded by alert Crow warriors, but when one spoke some Crow words and said they were the sons of Night Horse, they were escorted to the lodge of the head chief. Explaining that a huge enemy army was only a day's ride behind them, they relayed Night Horse's advice that this small camp of Crows move away as fast as possible and join with other Crow bands.  Tepees were taken down hastily, horses packed, and soon the Absarokee were on their way.

While the Crows were making the fast march toward the Bighorn River, there was great

activity in the Sioux camp at Goose Creek. As the horde of warriors started out, there was much gaiety. Wives sang farewell songs and shrilled encouragement, warriors whooped war  cries, and old men sang praise songs.

The Sioux storyteller recalled that many noncombatants joined the march, mainly wives and girlfriends of the warriors, and many old and retired warriors who wanted to see the utter defeat of their traditional enemy.

The advance scouts reported that the Crows were at the Bighorn River a short distance below the canyon. The head chiefs decided to attack the Crow camp, consisting of about four  hundred lodges, at dawn the following morning, but at daybreak the Crows were gone, the campfires still smoldering. Here the chief in command motioned his men to stop. He wanted to estimate the size of the Crow fighting force. The commander quickly estimated, on the basis of three Crow warriors for each lodge, that the Absarokee were outnumbered at least twenty-five to one (1,200 Crows against 8,000 to 10,000 well-armed Sioux and allied warriors). At this the chief smiled and shouted, “Wash-tay!” (good), and the warriors let out a thundering war whoop that shook the nearby Bighorn Mountains! The chief shrilled, “Today when the sun sets, there will be no more Absarokee left! We will kill all their warriors and even the old men; we will save their young boys and raise them to become Dakota warriors, and  we shall marry their wives and daughters to raise more warriors to fight the whites when they follow us to our new land.”

It has been said that this was the first time in Sioux history that all the bands came together to wage war against a common enemy. Moreover, it's never happened since.

One afternoon Joe Childs and I sat on a hill overlooking the Pryor Creek battlefield. Joe recalled that many times he and his father, Child in the Mouth, would sit at this very same spot and relive that glorious day in the history of the Crow Indians.

Joe Childs explained that when Night Horse's sons came and warned the Crows, the decision was made to hasten far into the interior of Crow Country. That next evening the travelers reached Pryor Creek, about fifty miles to the west.

The events of the fateful following day began quickly and dramatically. At early dawn a Crow man named Hits Himself Over the Head was searching for his horses when he suddenly came up a hill to look over upon a seething mass of men and horses. The scene was one of bustling activity as warriors got their war horses ready, put on their battle regalia, and were about to mount and charge down the hill toward the Crows. Hits Himself raced for the Crow camp. As he approached he hollered the warning call, and the head chiefs gathered to hear his report.  Immediately they dispatched ten galliant warriors toward the enemy to hold off the initial charge just long enough to set up battle lines and to put up a fortress of tepee poles and covers.

The ten Crow men charged right into the enemy and fired into the ranks, killing a number of Sioux. As they swerved to return, thousands of Dakota warriors roared down the hills in hot pursuit, truly a thundering charge.  Thus the long-awaited day for exterminating the Absarokee began. Suddenly the small valley exploded with war whoops, gunfire, and the thunder of horses' hooves beating the ground. The followers of the Dakota war party now

sat in clusters here and there on a high escarpment near the battle scene. While some men smoked the pipe, the women sang victory songs and emitted shrills of encouragement to their fighting men below.

My storyteller, Joe Childs, now on his feet, launched into a lively and excited description of the fight as if he were right there at the real battle! He pointed to an open flat area and said that was where the Crows had set up their first line of defense. Crow warriors noted for their fine marksmanship with guns and bows took a similar position nearby. As the enemy crossed the creek and charged, one of the veteran Crow chiefs gave a loud command, and the Crows opened a concerted fire with deadly results. Quickly the Dakotas regrouped and made another charge, again suffering heavy casualties.

It may be explained at this point that for this particular encounter...a clear life-or-death situation...-the Crow war chiefs adopted the strategy of warriors working together as a team under the direction of a war chief; the traditional display of bravery, where individuals would charge into the enemy ranks trying to count coups by striking an enemy with a stick, was put aside.

The repeated charges by the Dakotas suddenly stopped. The Crows waited and wondered.  Then a wise Crow Indian decided to take advantage of the lull to try a bluff, hoping to instill fear into the hearts of the attackers. He rode toward the enemy making the sign that he had something to say. This often happened in Plains Indian warfare. Through the inter-tribal sign language, he said: “You have come a long way. By the size of your party, you have come  prepared to wage serious battle against the Absarokee this day. Yes, the Raven People will fight you in a great way. Right now our two other bands are on their way to help us. They will arrive soon, and then you will have a real fight on your hands. I have spoken, Aho, Aho!”   The truth was, no help was coming at all. But the bluff was quickly followed by strange happenings.  As the Crow was returning to his ranks, the Sioux onlookers on the hill were on their feet pointing excitedly toward the north; then they waved frantically and shouted to their warriors below that a large war party was coming up the creek. At this moment it so happened that a large herd of elk had become excited by the noises of battle and had started milling around. Their sharp hooves stirred a swirling cloud of dust. Their white rumps looked like war bonnets!

Again the ones on the hill hollered...another war party was fast approaching from the west.  This time the warriors could plainly see a huge cloud of dust moving rapidly toward the battleground. This phenomenon was caused by a large herd of stampeding buffalo frightened by the noise of battle in the valley.  The Sioux war chiefs quickly ordered a determined charge, hoping to dislodge the Crow defense lines before help arrived. Once again the lines held and inflicted heavy casualties.

At this time, a third strange thing took place. Now the Sioux saw a lone warrior riding hard from the hills to join the Crow defenders. His weapon was a two-pronged spear made of elk antler. Suddenly this mystic warrior hollered, “Kokohay! Kokohay!” and charged right into a group and began spearing Sioux warriors right and left. Other groups stood their ground and opened fire with many guns. Their shots were harmless; the man was invulnerable to bullets and arrows. He would circle and return, repeating the one-man onslaught. At this time the Crow ranks holding the defense lines broke loose into a full charge. The Sioux and their allies gave ground, breaking into a full retreat, with every

man for himself. The strange Crow warrior was right behind them, shouting, “Kokohay! Kokohay!” and continuing to wield his deadly spear.

Here I will digress and take up Charles Ten Bear's Sioux version, as told by the one who tagged along just to watch the battle. This man explained to Ten Bear that just before the charge into Pryor Creek Valley, his brother handed him one of the two extra horses he had brought along. So he got into the battle about the time the Crows started the counterattack. He recalled that he decided to retreat as fast as his horse could run. The horse started to weave and to lose speed; then it rolled over, dead.

Now he was afoot and could hear, "Kokohay! Kokohay!" not far behind him. He thought he would surely die. But very fortunately a Sioux horse trotted by, dragging the reins. He succeeded in catching the horse, and escaped. He joined a group and hastened back toward the big camp. Whenever they stopped for a short rest in the dark, suddenly they would hear, “Kokohay! Kokohay!” above them in the sky. On they would go.

The Sioux storyteller related to Charles Ten Bear that when his group reached Goose Creek, already there was wailing throughout the camp. After two days of waiting, when no more warriors returned, the various bands dispersed.

After the era of inter-tribal warfare on the Plains, which ended with the Battle of the Little Bighorn of 1876 and with Chief  Joseph's surrender at the Bears Paw Mountains in 1877, the Plains tribes would visit back and forth among the various Indian Reservations. Here the tribal historians and storytellers would exchange information and verify in detail all the facts pertaining to a particular battle.

On one occasion, some Sioux came to visit the Crows. Among other inquiries, the visitors wanted to know the name of the ferocious warrior who almost single-handedly stampeded the Sioux and Cheyenne that day at Pryor Creek. The Crow historians, some of them veterans of the Pryor Creek battle themselves, could not recall such a warrior, even though the Sioux insisted that he had been there that day.

Finally it was recalled that during the height of the Sioux attack, an old Crow woman came out of the fortification, walked to a point where she could see the enemy, and prayed: “Old Man Coyote, teacher and benefactor of the Absarokee people, one day you made a promise. You said that after you had been gone from us for some time, if one day the people should be in great danger, that you would come back to help us. You said that we should pray for your quick return. I now pray for you to come and help us survive this very day. Come, come!” It was believed that the woman's prayer was answered when Old Man Coyote, the Great Spirit's helper to the Absarokee, suddenly appeared in the form of a special warrior and stampeded the enemy. It was also believed that it was Old Man Coyote's help that caused the elk and buffalo herds to mill around, raising clouds of dust that looked like fast-approaching relief. Perhaps Night Horse was right when he said to the war chiefs at Goose Creek that the plan to exterminate another tribe, the Absarokee, was wrong.

  Copyright © 2001 Little Big Horn College Library.  All Rights Reserved

Crow History

Crow History NotesFrom:     Graetz, Rick, and Susie Graetz.  Crow Country:  Montana's Crow Tribe of Indians.  Billings:  Northern Rockies Publishing Company, 2000.

While oral records indicate the first meeting of white men (Canadian) and Crow took place somewhere near present-day Hardin, Montana in about 1743, the first documented encounter was with a trapper named Menard on the Yellowstone River in 1795. A French-Canadian fur trader, Francis Antoine Larocque, made contact in June 1805 near the then confluence of the Little Missouri and Knife rivers in North Dakota, and William Clark, co-leader of the famous Corps of Discovery, met with the Crow at Pompey’s Pillar on July 25, 1806.

It’s significant to mention that throughout the various treaty discussions of the 1800s, the Crow, who split into two separate bands in 1830...the Mountain Crow that lived in and around the mountains of northern Wyoming and southern Montana and the River Crow who spent much of their time between the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, were acted upon as one tribe. Contract negotiations seemed to take place for the most part with only the Mountain Crow in mind.

When the reservation idea was initiated, the River Crow were assigned to the Milk River Reservation in the north, but conditions there were less than ideal. It soon came to pass, that the River Crow had three choices: 1) To stand alone and starve. 2) To join their traditional enemies the Sioux and Arapaho, or 3) To reunite with their Crow kinsmen in southern Montana. There was to have been a separate reservation treaty with the River Crow, but it was never ratified by the US Senate. By the early 1870s, although not without much difficulty, both bands began uniting on the same reservation.

1825 Agreement

The Crow, like many other tribes in the upper Missouri River region signed an agreement of friendship with the United States via the Atkinson-O’Fallon Expedition. In essence, they accepted the sovereignty of the US Government and as well, territorial boundaries. It is important to note that throughout all of the so-called "Indian wars" and turmoil between white and red, the Crow people always remained friendly. They were never at war with the US Government and many of their members served as scouts for the US Army.  In substance, this pact was more of an agreement with fur traders, namely the American Fur Trade Company, than a peace treaty. Eventually this action, helped escalate inter-tribal warfare in Montana and the Dakotas. Earlier, when the Indians realized that constant battles were resulting in too many deaths and there were plenty of bison for all to hunt, they began working towards peace amongst themselves. Art Alden Jr., of today’s Tribal Cultural Committee relates that tribes even exchanged children for a time so they would come to know each others ways.  However, as fur traders and others moved into Indian Country, they began exterminating the bison and pushed the tribes into a more concentrated area. Guns that came with this so-called 1825 Treaty put the Indians into the arms race. Tensions again flared and inter-tribal warfare picked up and continued well into the late 1800s.

Smallpox Visits the Crow

The steamship Saint Peter, coming up the Missouri River in June of 1837, brought the smallpox virus with it. When it stopped to unload at Fort Union, in an area that would become the Montana/North Dakota border, the disease spread to those Indians who were camped in and around the trading post. Infecting many tribes, some such as the Mandans, were almost completely eliminated. It was reported that only about forty-three adults and seventy children survived. Other tribes lost close to fifty percent of their numbers. The Sioux (Dakota) for the most part avoided the epidemic. As word got out, the Crow left the area and were only lightly touched by the malaise. Later, other outbreaks, including scarlet fever, influenza and another smallpox epidemic, decimated the Crow. Numbers vary according to the records, but by the mid-1840s, the Crow population is estimated to have been between 6,000 to 8,000 strong; however, various ailments soon dropped that count to less than 1,000 survivors. The Crow’s enemy, the Sioux, being relatively untouched by illnesses, grew in numbers and as hostilities increased, became even more of a threat to the Crow existence.

1851 Fort Laramie Treaty.

Convened as a peace council at Horse Creek, forty miles east of Fort Laramie, Wyoming, it concluded on

September 17th with the signing of a "treaty.” The goals were to allow safer passage for Americans crossing Indian Territory on their way to Oregon, reduce inter-tribal warfare and establish boundaries for the tribes. The Crow “were given” more than thirty-eight million acres as their land to “keep forever.” After the agreement, Crow Country consisted of nearly the entire northern half of Wyoming (including the headwaters of the Tongue and Powder rivers and the Wind River Mountain Range), and southern Montana from the headwaters of the Yellowstone River in Yellowstone National Park, east through the Paradise Valley to the Powder River, and then north beyond the Crazy Mountains to the Musselshell River. The actual northeast boundary (the region where the River Crow lived) wasn’t quite clear. The Bozeman Trail

In spite of promises, treaties, and supposed control over their own sphere, white invasion of Crow lands and those of the other Indians increased. Major mineral strikes had been made at Bannack, Alder Gulch, and Helena. The town of Bozeman was growing rapidly; people were being attracted to Montana. In 1865, to enable more settlers to reach this region, John Bozeman established a wagon route... The Bozeman Trail. Leaving the Oregon Trail that crossed Wyoming, it headed north on the east side of the Bighorn Mountains (through Crow domain) to just below the mouth of Bighorn Canyon. From there it pointed northwest to the Yellowstone Valley and then on to Bozeman. The presence of this road and the hordes of whites using it, incensed the Indian Nations, especially the Sioux. Their constant harassment of travelers forced the US Military to establish several strongholds along the route, including one at the site of today’s Fort Smith.

1868 Fort Laramie Treaty

Prompted by white pressure, the US Government, once again, attempted to sign “new treaties” with the Indians in order to further reduce “their territory.” The goal was to bring them into the white lifestyle and therefore “solve the nation’s Indian problem.” This time though, the Crow and other tribes, had demands of their own, including removal of all forts along the Bozeman Trail, and assurances that they be allowed to continue their nomadic way of life. On May 7, 1868, the treaty was signed and shortly thereafter the trail and forts were closed.  In the process, the Crow lost nearly thirty million acres of their land, while being “given” an eight million-acre reservation. Headquarters for the reserve, the first Crow Agency, was established at Mission Creek on the Yellowstone River east of Livingston. The Reservation Era in Crow history had commenced. Successive Indian agents at Mission Creek made attempts to convert the nomadic Crow to agriculture, based on the hopes of these 1868 accords. In his 1879 annual report, then agent A.R. Kellar felt the efforts were a failure and that the Crow were still very much embracing their traditional ways. He wrote, “When the grass begins to grow in the spring they all sigh for the excitement of the chase, strike their tents, and, like a grand army, move out upon the broad prairies to engage in their summer hunt, which they keep up until mid-summer, when they return to the agency, dress their hides, make their lodges, and remain until fall, then they go out to kill the buffalo and secure robes and dry the meat, which constitutes their stock in trade. So soon as this hunt is concluded, which usually runs to the middle of January, they return to the agency, tan their robes, draw their annuities, and enjoy themselves singing and dancing, with a hilarity unknown to other people on the continent.”

Before 1868, Sioux attacks on the Crow were held back by the US military presence along the Bozeman Trail. The garrisons had served, for the most part, to keep the enemy to the east of the Little Bighorn River. Now, in the first half of the 1870s with the forts gone, the Sioux pushed west and intensified their assaults on the Crow, coming as far as Mission Creek.  This is not to say the Crow always lost out. In a large skirmish the summer of 1873, at the confluence of Pryor Creek and the Yellowstone River, Crow warriors aided by the Nez Perce, repulsed a Sioux attack and chased them off.

What the military presence failed to do was to keep the white intruders from violating Indian Territory. The Crow agent wrote, “whites were coming onto reservations by the hundreds, killing and driving game...destroying the best of their grazing country by bringing in herds of cattle and horses; roaming at will from one end to the other; searching for gold and silver mines...”

The White Man’s Attitude

Montana was now a territory and many settlers resented the Federal Government establishing large reservations for the Indians. On July 21, 1866, an editorial in the Montana Post, perhaps then the most prominent paper in the state, proclaimed, “the nonsense of trying to civilize the Indian, needs to be replaced by a more aggressive national policy.” Another article later that winter called for a halt to “sickly sentimentalism” that had been ruling Indian regulation. The paper proposed, “a more realistic policy would be to wipe them out,” contending that, “the Indian’s presence in Montana was a blockade to the increased civilization of the territory.” They wanted the Indians to leave or “suffer the consequences.” Governor Meagher (considered by many to be inept) also wanted the reservations to be closed down and demanded that the Indians “get out of the way of the white’s advancement.” There was a double standard in place. The Indians were expected not to stray from their reservation and to refrain from hunting on US lands. Yet ranchers and prospectors held that the Crow domain boundaries should not keep out whites. Agent Kellar reported in August 1881, that whites had “no respect” for the tribe and “deemed it no crime to kill an Indian, but rather an act of heroism.” It was a sad time in our state’s history.

Relocation

Coercion from mineral seekers and politicians, the fact that a railroad was to be pushed through the Yellowstone Valley, and the desire to place the tribe on more favorable agricultural lands, led the government, in June 1875, to relocate the Crow Agency at Mission Creek to the Stillwater Valley, near present-day Absarokee. This site though, was close to the Sioux and almost immediately, raids on the new outpost for horses, food and guns began. Life here was not good.

Another Move

By the fall of 1883, more pressures were being brought upon the government’s Indian office. Politicians and stockmen solicited the federal agency to “recognize the destruction of the game population by seizing the new hunting territory and confining the tribe to a small agricultural reservation.” Crow agent Henry Armstrong wrote from the Stillwater Headquarters, “these people cannot hold such an extent of country as they now do very much longer.” In addition, Armstrong sensed that the tribe was on the “verge of starvation.” In the past few years, less than fifty Crow had spent the winter at the isolated Crow Agency. Now in early 1884, hostile whites and disappearing game forced most of them to stay close to the agency warehouse. Henry Teller, Secretary of the Interior, wanted the Indians to agree to be moved again. Agent  Armstrong offered that the Indians should be governed by force with no say in their plight. In April, 1884, the Crow left the Absaroka Mountains and moved to the valley of the Little Bighorn River to a “permanent reservation” with headquarters at the present-day Crow Agency. It has been written that many of the leaders of the Crow wanted to cooperate with the relocation. They felt that without the help of the “Great White Father” there was no chance for survival, and Chief Plenty Coup sensed that ranching and farming might be an answer to the disappearance of game and bison from their traditional territory. No one could foresee the suffering that was to come to the Crow in the Little Bighorn Country.

1885 Allotments

The matter of individual land allotments on the “new” reservation, had mixed support from the Indians as it was mostly the white man’s idea. Agent Armstrong was convinced that allotments would “save great trouble, annoyance and discontent within the tribe by giving every Crow an opportunity to make his home his castle in every respect.” Others were also anxious to see this system adopted. Calculations showed that if 2,500 tribal members each received a 160-acre homestead, only fifty percent of the five million acres would be needed for the Indian’s use and the rest could be opened up to whites. The Billings Gazette, outspoken against the Crow in those years, said that “the sooner the Crows were allotted, the better for themselves and for the nation; particularly for the citizens of Montana.” Initially, the Indians went about removing allotment survey stakes and fought all efforts to establish them. Several government agents came and went, but were unsuccessful in trying to get the Crow to take possession of their "homesteads.” At the same time, whites continued to intrude on the reservation. The Billings Gazette stated that “the Crows were setting fire to their grazing lands to keep trespassing white stockmen off Crow ranges…another strong argument for settling the Crow on lands in severalty (individual units with no communal tribal land) and promptly reducing the reservation, which has become an intolerable nuisance and a constant menace to

white settlers outside of its boundaries.” By 1886, most of the inter-tribal animosities were gone and the Crow and the Sioux began establishing friendships. In September 1886, Sioux Chief Sitting Bull, much to the dismay of the federal Indian agents, came to the reservation to beseech the Crows to fight off any efforts towards forced allotments.

Further Ceding of Crow Land

The Indian agency in Washington D.C., in September 1890 was authorized by Congress, to negotiate with the tribe for the sale of all of their lands west of Pryor Creek, the area that now serves part of the western boundary of the reservation. Within the tribe, there was opposition, as well as support for this idea. Chief Plenty Coups responded, “If you white men put in all your money to buy that land, you would not pay all it is worth…I don’t want to have bad feelings against Indians or whites, but I want my country to remain. The Great Father buys and buys from me and this time I won’t do it.” However, tribal members living in the eastern end of the reservation and those from the country of the Little Bighorn wanted the money and favored the government’s proposal. Referring to them, Plenty Coups said, “In my country (speaking of the western end of the reservation) you can’t find four young men you have had in prison. My people never pointed their guns towards the whites…these people on the Little Bighorn have always had trouble amongst themselves. Mine do not…I don’t want my people to get mixed up in such a crowd as this. The commissioners had better go home.” This resolute stand caused the meeting to be adjourned without action. Eventually, the land sale went through and the tribe received $900,000 plus other “benefits,” including a $12 per tribal member annuity-per-year for twenty years. In 1898, the Government returned once again with another “offer” to purchase “acreage that was being unused.” At a meeting with the land commissioners from the Washington D.C. Indian agency, Chief Plenty Coups, in his role as a leader, was the first to speak. He was absolutely opposed to any new discussions until the promises of the 1890 land sale were fulfilled (most of them were not). He stated, “When you have made these settlements to the Indians then you can come back and I and my people will talk to you about these lands that you now want.” This time Plenty Coups had the unanimous support of the tribe. He and other Crow leaders enlisted young Indian men, who had been sent to government schools off the reservation, to communicate. Spotted Horse told the commissioners…“Here gathered near me you see the boys we sent to school…they are young men now and can read and write; they are men that we look on with confidence.” The learned young men spoke of all the broken promises made in the past. The commissioners were dumbfounded and postponed discussions on the land sales until the spring of 1899. Those deliberations were also put off and a meeting was finally held on August 8, 1899. The commissioners were once more facing a united tribe adamant about having their demands met. Now, the government wanted to purchase the entire reservation lands south of Lodge Grass and to the north of the meeting of the Little Bighorn and Bighorn rivers. Their reasoning was “you would still have all of your most valuable land.” The commissioners listed their promises and on the second day of the meeting, Plenty Coups said “after the back payments are made, we will come back and we will talk to you about buying this land…I will have my boys…young fellows who are educated…see that all back payments are made…” As the proceedings went on, an Indian agent produced $10,000 in US Government drafts to take care of all the back payments owed the tribe. Flashing this money changed the flow of the meeting to discussions on price and what would be sold. It was agreed that the southern portion of the reservation would not be sold. Lands in and around present-day Hardin and north became the focus. The sales were completed in those last months of 1899; the government paid something on the order of one dollar per acre.

Life on the Reservation

In the 1880s times were hard and there was much discontent. At one point, a railroad company wanted a right-of-way across lands in the western end of the reserve. The tribe for the most part was agreeable, but Plenty Coups, head of the band of Indians living on the western district, told the white officer who was negotiating for them, “I want you to get all the pay you can for us.” Other leaders spoke up. Old Dog stated he wanted far less contact with the whites and said, “Don’t ask us for anything else…don’t ask us for anything more. We don’t want anymore roads on our land anywhere…we need larger rations…we don’t get enough.” Spotted Horse added, “We are hungry…you issue us rations to last seven days and they don’t last half that time.” He then admonished the agent to view the Indian men before him…“You don’t see one

fat one among them all.” More rations did come to the Crow, but tension continued to mount. Population

In 1806, Lewis and Clark estimated that there were a total of 3,500 Crow Indians in all of the bands. A census taken in the summer of 1887 listed 2,450 Crow on the reservation with 630 families accounted for. Ensuing census figures showed a decline in the population for sometime. In 1894, the numbers were 2,126, in 1903 - 1,941, in 1910 - 1,740, and in 1920 there were 1,714 counted. The first rise in population was shown in 1930 with a total of 1,963 Crow listed.

The US Government’s efforts to try and "civilize the tribe" by bringing them into the white man’s world was a large factor in the death of many young tribal members. Tuberculosis, diphtheria and typhoid fever brought on by unsanitary conditions took their toll as they spread throughout the reservation.

Agent Henry Armstrong wrote in 1884, “These Indians hate the white man’s way of life in their hearts.” In 1888, another agent said “hereditary disease and the abrupt change from a nomadic life and the meat diet, to living in houses and an almost vegetable diet, is causing an enormous death rate.” The Crow people tried their best to hold on to their culture and as some visitors to the reservation in 1886 said, “they still cling with tenacity to all the traditions of the past, and have not deviated in dress, habits or pursuits of the tribe of fifty years ago.”

 More Attacks

From 1907 through 1919, the Crow, using perseverance and a new found political savvy, fought off several attempts by outsiders to reduce the size of their property. Members of Montana’s Congressional delegation, viewing much of the reservation as “surplus lands,” intended to retrieve a good amount of it for white homesteaders.

Senator Joseph Dixon made the first assault in December 1907, by asking for 2.5 million acres, with payment to be made only as each parcel was sold. Leading the defense, Chief Medicine Crow advised sending Plenty Coups and several of the well educated tribal members to the nation’s capital to present their case and lobby for a positive resolution. Never giving up, by 1911 they had influenced the defeat of three such bills.

In 1915, Senator Henry Meyers took aim with a “compromise” bill. Robert Yellowtail, a young, well educated Crow from Lodge Grass, came into prominence when he made an eloquent plea to halt said bill and stated that tribal lands would never be taken without the consent of the Tribal Council. A united display and the political alliances formed by Plenty Coups and others began to pay off; the action never made it to the Senate floor. At the end of World War I in 1919, yet another aggression was made to usurp Crow lands. This time, the ploy was...a promise that no legislation would be enacted without tribal approval, if, the Crows could agree to devise a way to end communal land ownership on the reservation. A split ensued. The older warriors like Plenty Coups, wanted no change whatsoever and felt a solid front could, once again, overcome Congress. The younger faction, influenced by Robert Yellowtail, sensed that the best choice of action was to divide the unallotted lands among themselves, thereby stopping the US Government from eventually giving it away. This would also diminish the effectiveness of the federal Indian office over their people. After much discourse on both sides, Plenty Coups deferred to Yellowtail and stepped aside. The council drew up a bill, presented it to Congress and in a speech before the Indian Affairs Committee, Robert Yellowtail set the standard for future tribal leaders to follow. He admonished President Woodrow Wilson to remember that the American Indian did not enjoy the same rights as other citizens. Having just returned from the signing of the Versailles Treaty ending World War I, President Wilson was about to present his principles for world peace, stressing a US resolution of self-determination for all people.

Likening his people to the “small and weak” of the world, the emerging Crow leader spoke, “Mr. Chairman, I hold that the Crow Indian Reservation is a separate, semi-sovereign nation in itself, not belonging to any State, nor confined within the boundary lines of any State of the Union...no Senator or anybody else, sofar as that is concerned, has any right to claim the right to tear us asunder by the continued introduction of bills here without our consent simply because of our geographical proximity to his State or his home, or because his constituents prevail upon him so to act; neither has he the right to dictate to what

we shall hold as our final homesteads in this our last stand against the ever encroaching hand, nor continue to disturb our peace of mind by a constant agitation to deprive us of our lands, that were, to begin with, ours, not his, and not given to us by anybody.” In April of 1920, the Crow Act was passed and a new era in Crow community building and politics came about.

Beyond 1920

This new legislation didn’t ensure the tribe would be free of interference. Now though, as more of the young Crow gained an education, they were better positioned to deal with a future that was to become more complicated. Section II of the Crow Act gave individual tribal members their own land bringing private property rights to the forefront. Land could now be sold, and was, to outsiders, resulting in a loss of some of the all important land base; although, since the early 1990s, more land than ever before is being returned to tribal ownership through exchanges and outright purchases. This segment of the 1920 law put a limitation on non-tribal land ownership; a stipulation that was to be enforced by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The BIA however was lax in complying and the regulation was constantly violated. As a consequence, the titles of an estimated 650,000 acres are currently clouded. A survey of Crow lands along the 107th meridian went astray, in some place up to one mile, and deleted reservation property. With the successful 1990 settlement of this boundary fiasco, the tribe received a portion of the land back, plus an additional 40,000 acres of school lands. Also they were granted a permanent eighty-five million dollar trust fund; the interest from which is used for economic development, education, and youth and elderly programs. Water rights have, until recently, been hazy. Early on, the tribe didn’t know how much they owned and lacked management authority over flows through the reservation. Notification that their water would be adjudicated by the state was given in the mid-1970s; and a negotiated settlement, rather than a court mandated measure, was reached in June, 1999, which by all appearances the Indians benefited from. The actual contract is not final until Congress and the tribe give approval. Negotiations are still under way to clear up some of the wrongs of the Crow Act and a state and tribe coal severance tax question tied to the water affair. When all of this is completed, the Crow stand to gain more resources. There have been, and continue to be, many other controversies and concerns since 1920, such as coal development and struggles with the National Park Service over Bighorn Canyon land and economic benefits. But the Crow People today are in a much stronger position to handle them. More dialogue is taking place and issues between white and red are being sorted out, in spite of ongoing prejudices and past injustices. The Tribal Council prefers mediations over court. A long history of friendship with whites is on record; they would like to continue in that spirit. Common sense dictates that partnerships work far better than confrontations. A victorious Crow delegation that defeated the efforts of a powerful US Senator in 1919 created a turning point in Crow history. Before this the Crow existed on the edge of US society. Afterwards they slowly became part of the nation’s mainstream and self-sufficiency increased. This course continues today as positive signs of progress appear at Crow Agency; at the same time the traditions and values of the past are not being dismissed. Strong leadership and education through the Crow’s own Little Big Horn College are leading the way. 

Copyright © 2001 Little Big Horn College Library.  All Rights Reserved

Montana, also known as the "Big Sky State" offers visitors unequaled beauty and untouched nature - visitors to the state rarely walk away untouched. Bed & Breakfast visitors can enjoy Western hospitality, endless outdoor activities, cultural activities such as local theater, galleries, fine dining and more. Outdoor enthusiasts can enjoy downhill skiing, crosscountry skiing, fishing, hunting, hiking, rock climbing, river rafting, and more.� HYPERLINK "http://www.ibbp.com/obb/montana.html" \t "_top" www.ibbp.com/ obb/montana.html.

Major Attractions

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Wheelchairaccessable Cocktail service Picinic tables On-site

gift shopRestrooms available Food service

HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p17.htm" Glacier National ParkCrown of the continent. A million-acre wilderness national park containing more than 200 lakes, 30 to 40 living glaciers, over 1,800 species of plant life and more than 700 miles of hiking trails. HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p17.htm" \l "GI" General Information HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p17.htm" \l "GT" Guided Tours HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p17.htm" \l "Scenic" Scenic and Whitewater Float Trips HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p17.htm" \l "Boat" Boat Rentals and Tours HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p17.htm" \l "Trail" Trail Rides HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p17.htm" \l "Back" Backcountry Tours

HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p19.htm" Grant-Kohrs Ranch An early cattle empire. The National Service preserves artifacts, buildings, and activities of this legendary frontier cattle operation.

HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p20.htm" Little Bighorn Battlefield National MonumentBattle of the Little Bighorn. A national monument with museum exhibits, an interpretive center, and ranger-led programs that commemorates the site of the Indian victory over Custer's 7th Cavalry. HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p20.htm" \l "Gold" Gold Discovered HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p20.htm" \l "125Yrs" 125 Years Later HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p20.htm" \l "LittleBigGI" General Information

HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p22.htm" Madison River Canyon Earthquake Area A visitor center with interpretive displays sits at the site of a massive 1959 earthquake and landslide.

HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p23.htm" Virginia City/Nevada City Montana's Gold Rush Revisited. Two historic, authentically restored Old West towns with entertainment, shops, a working railroad, and accommodations. HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p23.htm" \l "VirNevGI" General Information HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p23.htm" \l "GoldGar" Gold and Garnets

HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p24.htm" Yellowstone National Park Wildlife and natural beauty abound in this, the nation's first and largest, national park. HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p24.htm" \l "YellowGI" General Information HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p24.htm" \l "TW" Guided Outdoor Activities HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p24.htm" \l "Motor" Motorcoach Travel HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p24.htm" \l "YellowScenic" Scenic and Whitewater Float Trips HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/" http://montanagroups.com

CROW TRIBECOMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL PROFILE

 CROW TRIBAL GOVERNMENT:The United States Government as defined by the United States Constitution has governmental relationships with International, Tribal, and State entities. The Tribal nations have a government-to-government relationship with the United States. The Crow Tribe signed treaties in the 1825, 1851,

and1868 with the United States which are the legal documents defining our relationship with the United States that established our boundaries and recognized our rights as a sovereign government.The Crow Reservation was established by the Treaty of 1851. The Tribal government maintain jurisdiction within the boundaries of the reservation including all rights-of-way, waterways, watercourses and streams running through any part of the reservation and to such others lands as may hereafter be added to the reservation under the laws of the United States. The Tribal government operates under a constitution approved on June 24, 1948 by the Tribal membership. Under this constitution the tribve has a general council form of government in which every adult enrolled member is allowed to vote if he is present during the meeting of the General Council. One hundred or more adults constitutes a quorum of the general council. This Council has the authority to represent, act and speak for the Tribe and its members. General Council meetings are held on a quarterly basis or more if Tribal business is pressing.The administration of Tribal government is conducted by the Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Secretary and the Vice-Secretary. All Tribal members are the Council Members. The Tribal Council Chairman is the administrative head of the Tribe and serves a two year term as do each of the officers, all of whom are elected at large. Tribal/Agency Headquarters: Crow AgencyCounties: Big Horn and YellowstoneFederal Reservation: YesTribal membership: 10,030Reservation Service Population: 6,498Labor Force: Not availableUnemployment rates: 85%Language: Crow and English

 Land Status: AcresTotal Area: 2,266,271

Tribal Owned: 533,956Allotted Owned: 1,039,594

Total Tribal/Allotted Owned: 1,573,550Non-Indian Owned: Not available

LAND:The Crow Service Unit is located in south central Montana, and is comprised of Big Horn (part), Carbon, Treasure, and Yellowstone counties in Montana and Big Horn and Sheridan counties in Wyoming. The Crow Reservation’s eastern boundary is adjacent to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. The reservation is approximately 60 miles wide and 40 miles in length, encompassing 1,574,394 acres. For FY 1996 the IHS Official Population for the Crow Service Unit consists of 10,603 Indian people. The FY 1995 "User Population" is 10,254 Indian people. The majority (98 percent) of the Indian people reside in Big Hom and Yellowstone counties in Montana.Mountains, residual uplands, and alluvial bottoms make up the topography of the Crow Reservation. The 3 principle mountain areas are the Wolf Mountains to the east and the Big Horn and Pryor Mountains to the south. Sloping downward to the north from the mountains are rolling upland plains. The plains constitute the bulk of the reservation and vary in altitude from 3,000 to 4,500 feet. The alluvial bottomiands are located along the Big Hom River, Little Big Hom River, and Pryor Creek drainage systems.The principal communities located on the Crow Reservation are as follows:

CROW AGENCY -The Crow/Northem Cheyenne Hospital, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the Crow Tribal Government are located here. Approximately 3,245 Indian people reside here. A 16-bed hospital is located in Hardin, Montana, approximately 12 miles from Crow Agency. Two 250+ bed facilities located in Billings, Montana are 65 miles from Crow Agency. Billings is considered the major medical referral center for east central Montana and northern Wyoming.LODGE GRASS - The Lodge Grass Health Center is located here and is approximately 22 miles south of Crow Agency. Approximately 2,125 Indian people reside here.PRYOR - The Pryor Health Station is located here and is approximately 69 miles northwest of Crow Agency. Approximately 1,018 Indian people reside here.WYOLA - This community is located approximately 13 miles from Lodge Grass and approximately 35 miles from Crow Agency. Approximately 440 Indian people reside here. CLIMATE:This part of Montana has a moderate climate considering its latitude. Snow seldom accumulates for extended periods of time because of the warm Chinook winds which blow from the mountains in the west. This portion of Montana enjoys "Indian Summers" which frequently extend into November. This is a time of warm sunny days and cool evenings. The mean annual temperature is 45.5oF with a summer high of 110oF and a winter low of -48oF. The bulk of the reservation varies from 12 to 18 inches annual precipitation, depending on the elevation. ECONOMY:The basis of the economy and income is the reservations land which is used directly to support livestock operations. The Tribe owns vast and varied amounts of renewable and non-renewable resources on the reservation which include land, sand and gravel, water and timber, coal, oil and gas. These resources serve as the basis for revenue for the Tribe largely under lease agreements.Over 10,000 tribal members are enrolled and many live on the 2.5 million acres that make up the Crow Indian Reservation. This huge reservation, approximately 60 miles wide and 40 miles long, lies in south central Montana. Members of the Tribe are employed in various occupations. Ranching and farming, government services, coal mining, and tourism create jobs for many of the people.Lodge Grass, Pryor and Crow Agency have limited services and shopping, although the staples can be attained there. A short drive of 15 minutes north of Crow Agency takes one to the off-reservation town of Hardin where larger shopping needs can be met. A short distance further, approximately an hour’s drive from Crow Agency takes you to Billings, the largest city in Montana. Billings offers much in the areas of arts, entertainment and shopping. RECREATION:The annual Crow Fair, one of the largest powwows held in the United States, takes place at Crow Agency every August. There is lively competition dancing, drumming and singing, as well as food and craft concessions. Crow Agency is also near the popular tourist site of the Battle of the Big Horn National Monument. Each year they produce an excellent re-enactment of the battle.Yellowtail Dam at Big Horn Canyon provides some of the finest fishing, water sports and camping in the state of Montana. EDUCATION:Located on the reservation are eight elementary schools, three high schools and the Little Big Horn Community College. Also available are public schools in both Billings and Hardin. Montana State

University - Billings, Rocky Mountain College, MSU College of Technology at Billings, and two technical colleges as well as two beautician schools are all located in Billings. The opportunities are endless for those desiring to further their education. HOUSING:The Crow Housing Authority manages housing units in the district communities and on rural scattered sites through HUD Low rnt and Mutual Help home ownership housing programs. Crow Agency is the headquarters of the tribal government, the Indian Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Government housing is available there for the Indian Health Service professional, as well as in Lodge Grass. For those wishing private housing, both Hardin and Billings offer homes in quite a wide price range to suit individual needs. FUTURE:The Tribe has identified alternative sources of income that can be defeloped to generate revenue ihn a very short time, in the following areas: (1) Agriculture (2) Energy (3)Tourism and Recreation (4) Commercial Institutions. Agriculture is the most important commercial activity on the reservation. The amoutn and quality of the land and water resources would favor increased agricultural production. In 1996, Tribal environmental staff identified surface water contamination from an upstream wastewater treatment plant and septic systems are contaminating surface water used as a drinking water source and as a water source for sweat lodges as the major reservation environmental problem which may be hazardous to the health of reservation residents. HYPERLINK "http://www.mnisose.org/profiles/crow.htm" http://www.mnisose.org/profiles/crow.htm

The PeopleAbout 75 percent of the Crow tribe's approximately 8,000 enrolled members live on or near the reservation. In the Hidatsa language, this tribe was called "Absarokee," which means "children of the large-beaked bird." Other Indian tribes called them the "sharp people" because it was thought they were crafty and alert as the bird for which they were named, probably the raven, later interpreted by white men as "crow."

EconomyFor many years the vast coal deposits under the east portion of the reservation remained untapped. One mine is now in operation and providing royalty income and employment to tribal members. The Crow operate only a small portion of their irrigated or dry farm acreage and about 30 percent of their grazing land.

LocationThe Crow Reservation is in southcentral Montana bordered by Wyoming on the south with its northwest boundary about 10 miles from Billings.

Points of Interest: INCLUDEPICTURE "http://montanagroups.com/buttons/bullet.gif" \* MERGEFORMATINET Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area and Yellowtail DamFort Smith, MT 406-666-2412Spectacular scenery, wildlife viewing, boating, fishing and camping. INCLUDEPICTURE "http://montanagroups.com/buttons/bullet.gif" \* MERGEFORMATINET HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p20.htm" Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument/Reno-Benteen BattlefieldCrow Agency, MT 406-638-2621Commemorates the site of the Indian victory over Custer's Seventh Cavalry.

INCLUDEPICTURE "http://montanagroups.com/buttons/bullet.gif" \* MERGEFORMATINET Chief Plenty Coups State ParkJoliet, MT 406-252-1289The home of Plenty Coups, the last Crow chief.

HYPERLINK "http://montanagroups.com/p62.htm" http://montanagroups.com/p62.htmDecember 15, 2004

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Crow Tourism Focuses on Battle AnniversaryBy Michael Beaumont

Crow Cultural Affairs (Apsaalooke Tours) c/o Crow Tribal Council P.O. Box 159 Crow Agency, MT 59022

Thursday, June 19 events: -11am: Opening Ceremonies -2pm: Indian Reenactment Battle of the Little Bighorn, Real Bird Camp -5pm: Arrow tournament

Friday, June 20 events: -9am: High School Softball tournament -2pm: Reenactment, Real Bird Camp -7pm: Handgame tournament at Little Bighorn Casino

Saturday, June 21 events: -9am: High School Softball tournament (cont.) -5pm: Rodeo, horseraces -9pm: Concert at Apsaaloke Center

Sunday, June 22 events: -8am: 5k run/bicycle -9am: High School Softball tournament (cont.) -2pm: Reenactment, Real Bird Camp -5pm: Rodeo, horse races -9pm: Pow Wow

Monday, June 23 events: -9am: Youth Triathlon -9am: 3-on-3 basketball tournament -9am: Horseshoe competition -1pm: Crow cultural demonstrations -8pm: Vincent Craig concert -Rodeo continued

Tuesday, June 24 events: -9am: 3-on-3 tournament continued

-1pm: Living History cultural demonstration -5pm: Chairman’s reception/Buffalo bbq -7pm: Rodeo continued -7pm: Indian Relay -9pm: Pow Wow

Wednesday, June 25 events -Sunrise Ceremony at Little Bighorn Battlefield -10am-4pm: Indian War Memorial Dedication -5pm: Ultimate Warrior challenge -8pm: awards ceremony

Accommodations:

Lariat Motel 709 N. Center Avenue Hardin, MT 59034 (406) 655-2683

Super 8 Motel 201 W. 14th Street Hardin, MT 59034 (406) 665-1700

American Inn 1324 N. Crawford Avenue Hardin, MT 59034 (406) 665-1870

Western Motel (406) 665-2296

KOA campground Route 1 Box 1009 Hardin, MT 59034 (406) 665-1635

Hotel Becker Bed and Breakfast 200 North Center Avenue Hardin, MT 59034 (406) 665-3074

Battlefield: Telephone: (406) 638-1876 Fax: (406) 638-2019 email: HYPERLINK "mailto:info@custermuseum.org" info@custermuseum.org website for battlefield: HYPERLINK "http://www.custermuseum.org/" \t "new" www.custermuseum.org

CROW AGENCY, Mont.- The Crow Tribe is preparing for one of the most active tourist seasons in history, focusing on the anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn and Crow Native Days. Collaboration between the National Park Service and the Affiliated Tribes of the Little Bighorn began 17 years ago and culminated in the creation of the Indian War Memorial. Dedication ceremonies for the newest monument at Little Bighorn Battlefield will coincide with festivities surrounding the 127th anniversary of the battle. According to Marvin Dawes, Assistant Crow Tribal Tourism Director, the tribe has approved numerous tournaments, running events and the annual Ultimate Warrior contest.

"We’ve organized a lot of events so that we can attract the younger people," he said. "We want to get them involved so that they’re not out on the streets." Kicking off the week-long celebration will be the annual Real Bird Reenactment of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Other events include arrow throwing, hand games, softball and basketball tournaments, running challenges, concerts and a rodeo. The annual Ultimate Warrior contest has become more popular since its inception 2001, rewarding $6000 for first, second and third places combined. The 18 mile-long event involves riding a horse, canoeing along the Bighorn River, and distance running. Each arm of the course is in six-mile increments, and includes men’s and women’s teams. Aside from physical challenges, event coordinators have organized cultural history demonstrations that will include Crow traditional food preparation and craftwork. Vincent Craig, a Navajo musician and motivational speaker, is planning to perform at the event. Having served as opening act for renowned country artists Shenandoah and Dwight Yoakum, he wants to share the message concerning Native American young people. "It is our duty to nurture our youth to not be afraid to express themselves through music, drama, literature to allow their dreams to take flight," he said. Through the Crow Cultural Affairs office and the Montana Tribal Tourism Alliance, Dawes has received inquiries from Europe, Asia and Australia concerning the event. "The seven tribes of Montana all work together to promote tourism to the different reservations," said Dawes. "Through the Alliance, we’ve generated a lot of publicity through word-of-mouth and by attending different tourism conferences." Apsaalooke Tours, (ap-sah-loo-kah, or "Crow"), which was organized by the Tribe, specializes in touring cultural sites on the reservation. The company has itinerary-based tours, as well as customized packages. Some of the areas of interest include the Battlefield, Big Horn Canyon, and Chief Plenty Coups State Park. "Some groups just want a presentation at the Battlefield or at the college. Other times we get requests for the entire reservation. It all depends," said Dawes. Apsaalooke Tours caters to customers, serving traditional Crow fare prepared by Dawes’ family. Deer and Elk, potatoes, flat bread, dry meat stew and berry pudding are all served for around $25 dollars per meal. Depending on the specifications, the company creates special menus, including vegetarian and vegan options. "A lot of people expect to eat an Indian Taco…that’s not what we do. The Crow people didn’t create that. We serve the real thing," said Dawes. Through Apsaalooke Tours and the Alliance, the Crow Cultural Affairs office hopes to welcome all visitors and generate publicity for future events. Anyone interested in the event or tourist opportunities can reach the Crow Cultural Affairs office at (406) 638-3774. Michael Beaumont is a full-time student at LBHC majoring in education. He lives in Billings, Mont. He can be reached at HYPERLINK "mailto:mbeaumont21@hotmail.com" mbeaumont21@hotmail.com or HYPERLINK "mailto:lbhc_magpie@hotmail.com" lbhc_magpie@hotmail.com

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Unemployment Rate, 2003 (Montana L&I) 4.7%

HYPERLINK "http://ceic.commerce.state.mt.us/MTQuickFacts.htm" http://ceic.commerce.state.mt.us/MTQuickFacts.htm

The Montana Tribal Tourism Alliance is a non-profit intertribal organization that works to promote culturally appropriate economic development through tourism. HYPERLINK "http://www.bigskytribes.com/about_mtta.htm" http://www.bigskytribes.com/about_mtta.htm

In the year 2002 over 900 000 groups (out of four million that visited Montana) travelled through Crow CountryMontana : most attractive fishing, wildlife watching, visiting Native American sites