The Woman Who Loved Mankind: The Life of a Twentieth-Century Crow Elder

by Lillian Bullshows Hogan, Barbara Loeb (Editor), Mardell Hogan Plainfeather (Editor)

Overview

The oldest living Crow at the dawn of the twenty-first century, Lillian Bullshows Hogan (1905-2003) grew up on the Crow reservation in rural Montana. In The Woman Who Loved Mankind she enthralls readers with her own long and remarkable life and the stories of her parents, part of the last generation of Crow born to nomadic ways.

As a child Hogan had a miniature teepee, a fast horse, and a medicine necklace of green beads; she learned traditional arts and food gathering from her mother and experienced the bitterness of Indian boarding school. She grew up to be a complex, hard-working Native woman who drove a car, maintained a bank account, and read the local English paper but spoke Crow as her first language, practiced beadwork, tanned hides, honored clan relatives in generous giveaways, and often visited the last of the old chiefs and berdaches with her family. She married in the traditional Crow way and was a proud member of the Tobacco and Sacred Pipe societies but was also a devoted Christian who helped establish the Church of God on her reservation.

Warm, funny, heartbreaking, and filled with information on Crow life, Hogan's story was told to her daughter, Mardell Hogan Plainfeather, and to Barbara Loeb, a scholar and longtime friend of the family who recorded her words, staying true to Hogan's expressive speaking rhythms with its echoes of traditional Crow storytelling.

Barbara Loeb taught Native art history at Oregon State University. She is the author of Felice Lucero-Giaccardo: A Contemporary Pueblo Painter and numerous writings on Crow and Plateau Indian art and culture. Mardell Hogan Plainfeather is the daughter of Lillian Bullshows Hogan. She is retired as a supervisory park ranger with the National Park Service and as a Crow field director of the American Indian Tribal Histories Project at the Western Heritage Center in Billings, Montana.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803216136
Publisher:	Nebraska
Publication date:	07/01/2012
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	1,101,179
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Barbara Loeb taught Native art history at Oregon State University. She is the author of Felice Lucero-Giaccardo: A Contemporary Pueblo Painter and numerous writings on Crow and Plateau Indian art and culture. Mardell Hogan Plainfeather is the daughter of Lillian Bullshows Hogan. She is retired as a supervisory park ranger with the National Park Service and as a Crow field director of the American Indian Tribal Histories Project at the Western Heritage Center in Billings, Montana.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations viii

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction Barbara Loeb xi

Thoughts about My Mother Mardell Hogan Plainfeather xxxi

Genealogies xxxvii

Chapter 1 My Birth and Infancy 1

Chapter 2 My Mother 13

Chapter 3 My Father 25

Chapter 4 My Parents Meet and Marry 47

Chapter 5 My First Memories 57

Chapter 6 Boarding School 73

Chapter 7 Memories of Youth 93

Chapter 8 My Mother Teaches Me to Be a Good Woman 147

Chapter 9 Tobacco Iipche (Sacred Pipe Society) and the Medicine Dance (Tobacco Society) 175

Chapter 10 We Were Always Hard Up 197

Chapter 11 The Last Years in School 205

Chapter 12 My First Marriage Was to Alex 213

Chapter 13 We're Adopted into the Tobacco Society 225

Chapter 14 I Married Robbie Yellowtail 229

Chapter 15 Paul 241

Chapter 16 George 263

Chapter 17 The Kids Are Growing Up 307

Chapter 18 Sacred Experiences 333

Chapter 19 Traditional Healing 341

Chapter 20 I Gave Indian Names 357

Chapter 21 I'm an Old-Timer 363

Chapter 22 Education 379

Chapter 23 Life as an Elder 387

Bibliography 405

Index 409

Editorial Reviews

"A must read for anyone interested in native, feminist, or humanistic studies."—Timothy P. McCleary, Montana, The Magazine of Western History

Montana, The Magazine of Western History - Timothy P. McCleary

"Hogan's stories read like an epic poem."—Cal Cumin, Billings Gazette

Billings Gazette - Cal Cumin

"Essential reading for new and seasoned students and scholars of American Indian cultures."—Kelly M. Branam, Great Plains Quarterly

Great Plains Quarterly - Kelly M. Branam

"This fascinating book is part autobiography, part history, part memoir, part cultural guide, and part poetry. . . . Loeb and Plainfeather made the wise decision to adopt an ethnopoetic approach to the reminiscences, thus preserving not only Lillian's words but also the rhythm and structure of her speaking. This choice elevates the book. The stories themselves are interesting, but the preservation of oral performance lends an intimate and important cultural feel to the work."—J. B. Edwards, Choice

Choice - J. B. Edwards

"Loeb and Plainfeather made the wise decision to adopt an ethnopoetic approach to the reminiscences, thus preserving not only Lillian's words but also the rhythm and structure of her speaking. This choice elevates the book. The stories themselves are interesting, but the preservation of oral performance lends an intimate and important cultural feel to the work. As such, this book will appeal to those interested in Crow culture and history, and also to those interested in linguistics."—J. B. Edwards, Choice

— J. B. Edwards

Choice