| Pretty Shield | |
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Pretty Shield |
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| Born | 1856 |
| Died | 1944 |
Pretty Shield (1856–1944) was a medicine woman of the Crow Nation. Her autobiography was written with the help of Frank B. Linderman, who interviewed her using an interpreter and sign language. This book was perhaps the first record of the women’s side of Native American life.[1] The Pretty Shield Foundation is named in her honor.
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Born in 1856 to Kills-in-the-Night and Crazy-Sister-in-Law, Pretty Shield was the fourth of eleven children. Her name was given to her by her grandfather when she was four days old and it was considered a ‘name of honor’ - commemorating her grandfather's handsome war shield, which was big medicine.[2]
Pretty Shield's Crow clan, the "Sore Lips", had inhabited southeastern Montana for generations. The Crows were regularly at war with the Sioux, Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Blackfoot tribes. The Crow's bravery is evident in their survival despite being outnumbered decisively by the Native tribes they were at war against.[3]
| “ | “The happiest days of my life were spent following the buffalo herds over our beautiful country. My mother and father and Goes Ahead, my man, were all kind, and we were so happy. Then when my children came I believed I had everything that was good on this world. There were always so many, many buffalo, plenty of good fat meat for everybody.”[4] | ” |
At the age of three, her mother sent her away to be raised by a widowed aunt, Strikes-with-an-Ax; a River Crow woman who had lost her two young daughters.[5] Pretty Shield herself ended up raising nine grandchildren on her own, after the death of her husband, Goes Ahead, as well as her daughters.[6]
| “ | "The whole country there smelled of rotting meat. Even the flowers could not put down the bad smell. Our hearts were like stones. And yet nobody believed, even then, that the white man could kill all the buffalo. Since the beginning of things there had always been so many! Even the Lakota, bad as their hearts were for us, would not do such a thing as this; nor the Cheyenne, nor the Arapahoe, nor the Pecunnie; and yet the white man did this, even when he did not want the meat.”[7] | ” |