Native American Traditions

07/22/2025

Keanu Reeves and Every Child Matters 🥰🥰
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This is Matrix movie star Keanu Reeves. He was abandoned by his father at 3 years old and grew up with 3 different stepfathers. He is dyslexic. His dream of becoming a hockey player was shattered by a serious accident. His daughter died at birth. His wife died in a car accident. His best friend, River Phoenix, died of an overdose. His sister battled leukemia.
No bodyguards, no luxury houses. Keanu lives in an ordinary apartment and likes wandering around town and often seen riding a subway in NYC.
When he was filming the movie "The Lake House," he overheard the conversation of two costume assistants, one crying as he would lose his house if he did not pay $20,000 - On the same day, Keanu deposited the necessary amount in his bank account. In his career, he has donated large sums to hospitals including $75 million of his earnings from “The Matrix” to charities.
In 2010, on his birthday, Keanu walked into a bakery & bought a brioche with a single candle, ate it in front of the bakery, and offered coffee to people who stopped to talk to him.
In 1997 some paparazzi found him walking one morning in the company of a homeless man in Los Angeles, listening to him and sharing his life for a few hours.
In life, sometimes the ones most broken from inside are the ones most willing to help others.
This man could buy everything, and instead every day he gets up and chooses one thing that cannot be bought;
Thank you for your interest in this post !
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04/29/2025

White Buffalo, Cheyenne was born in 1862 &died in June 1929.He was described in newspaper articles in 1902 as being of striking appearance, as his hair had turned completely white when he was very young. His photo from his Carlisle days, dressed in a suit with a short haircut in the white man''''s style, shows that to be true. In 1888, when he was 26, he married a full-blood Northern Cheyenne widow. Medicine Woman, who was 30 at the time. She had also been born in Montana as had her parents. On the 1905 Indian Census for their reservation, they had four children listed: Emma White Buffalo, son Receiving Roots, Paul White Buffalo and Pratt White Buffalo - named for the Carlisle School founder. On the 1910 U. S. Federal Census, they are listed with only three of seven surviving children: John White Buffalo, James White Buffalo and Fred White Buffalo. According to the 1910 census, the mother of Medicine Woman also lived with them as well, 76 at the time, widowed and named Siege Woman. Medicine Woman is listed on this census as illiterate, as is her mother. His son, John White Buffalo enlisted for service in World War I. As full blood Cheyenne, both White Buffalo and Medicine Woman received land allotments on the reservation in 1891 in Lincoln Township in present-day Blaine County, Oklahoma. These are listed on several of the Indian Census lists as allotments number 966 and 967. White Buffalo lived to be 67 years old, and passed away on June 23, 1929, per the 1930 Indian census for the reservation. According to his obituary in the Watonga Republican newspaper dated June 27, 1929, he is buried at the Indian Mission Church on the reservation and was survived by his wife and sons.

White Buffalo, Cheyenne
Photo by Frank A. Rinehart, 1898.

04/29/2025

This was written by Chief Dan George, in 1972.."In the course of my lifetime I have lived in two distinct cultures. I was born into a culture that lived in communal houses. My grandfather’s house was eighty feet long. It was called a smoke house, and it stood down by the beach along the inlet. All my grandfather’s sons and their families lived in this dwelling. Their sleeping apartments were separated by blankets made of bull rush weeds, but one open fire in the middle served the cooking needs of all.
In houses like these, throughout the tribe, people learned to live with one another; learned to respect the rights of one another. And children shared the thoughts of the adult world and found themselves surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins who loved them and did not threaten them. My father was born in such a house and learned from infancy how to love people and be at home with them.

And beyond this acceptance of one another there was a deep respect for everything in Nature that surrounded them. My father loved the Earth and all its creatures. The Earth was his second mother. The Earth and everything it contained was a gift from See-see-am… and the way to thank this Great Spirit was to use his gifts with respect.

I remember, as a little boy, fishing with him up Indian River and I can still see him as the sun rose above the mountain top in the early morning…I can see him standing by the water’s edge with his arms raised above his head while he softly moaned…”Thank you, thank you.” It left a deep impression on my young mind.

And I shall never forget his disappointment when once he caught me gaffing for fish “just for the fun of it.” “My son” he said, “The Great Spirit gave you those fish to be your brothers, to feed you when you are hungry. You must respect them. You must not kill them just for the fun of it.”

This then was the culture I was born into and for some years the only one I really knew or tasted. This is why I find it hard to accept many of the things I see around me.

I see people living in smoke houses hundreds of times bigger than the one I knew. But the people in one apartment do not even know the people in the next and care less about them.

It is also difficult for me to understand the deep hate that exists among people. It is hard to understand a culture that justifies the killing of millions in past wars, and it at this very moment preparing bombs to kill even greater numbers. It is hard for me to understand a culture that spends more on wars and weapons to kill, than it does on education and welfare to help and develop.

It is hard for me to understand a culture that not only hates and fights his brothers but even attacks Nature and abuses her. I see my white brothers going about blotting out Nature from his cities. I see him strip the hills bare, leaving ugly wounds on the face of mountains. I see him tearing things from the bosom of Mother Earth as though she were a monster, who refused to share her treasures with him. I see him throw poison in the waters, indifferent to the life he kills there; as he chokes the air with deadly fumes.

My white brother does many things well for he is more clever than my people but I wonder if he has ever really learned to love at all. Perhaps he only loves the things that are his own but never learned to love the things that are outside and beyond him. And this is, of course, not love at all, for man must love all creation or he will love none of it. Man must love fully or he will become the lowest of the animals. It is the power to love that makes him the greatest of them all… for he alone of all animals is capable of [a deeper] love.

My friends, how desperately do we need to be loved and to love. When Christ said man does not live by bread alone, he spoke of a hunger. This hunger was not the hunger of the body.. He spoke of a hunger that begins in the very depths of man... a hunger for love. Love is something you and I must have. We must have it because our spirit feeds upon it. We must have it because without it we become weak and faint. Without love our self esteem weakens. Without it our courage fails. Without love we can no longer look out confidently at the world. Instead we turn inwardly and begin to feed upon our own personalities and little by little we destroy ourselves.

You and I need the strength and joy that comes from knowing that we are loved. With it we are creative. With it we march tirelessly. With it, and with it alone, we are able to sacrifice for others. There have been times when we all wanted so desperately to feel a reassuring hand upon us… there have been lonely times when we so wanted a strong arm around us… I cannot tell you how deeply I miss my wife’s presence when I return from a trip. Her love was my greatest joy, my strength, my greatest blessing.

I am afraid my culture has little to offer yours. But my culture did prize friendship and companionship. It did not look on privacy as a thing to be clung to, for privacy builds walls and walls promote distrust. My culture lived in big family communities, and from infancy people learned to live with others.

My culture did not prize the hoarding of private possessions, in fact, to hoard was a shameful thing to do among my people. The Indian looked on all things in Nature as belonging to him and he expected to share them with others and to take only what he needed.

Everyone likes to give as well as receive. No one wishes only to receive all the time. We have taken something from your culture… I wish you had taken something from our culture, for there were some beautiful and good things in it.

Soon it will be too late to know my culture, for integration is upon us and soon we will have no values but yours. Already many of our young people have forgotten the old ways. And many have been shamed of their Indian ways by scorn and ridicule. My culture is like a wounded deer that has crawled away into the forest to bleed and die alone.

The only thing that can truly help us is genuine love. You must truly love, be patient with us and share with us. And we must love you—with a genuine love that forgives and forgets… a love that forgives the terrible sufferings your culture brought ours when it swept over us like a wave crashing along a beach… with a love that forgets and lifts up its head and sees in your eyes an answering love of trust and acceptance..."

~Chief Dan George was a leader of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation as well as a beloved actor, musician, poet and author. He was born in North Vancouver in 1899 and died in 1981. This column first appeared in the North Shore Free Press on March 1, 1972.

04/28/2025

Cheyenne mother and daughter. 1907. Montana. Photo by L.A. Huffman. Source - Montana State University

04/28/2025

(Born 1863-Died December 18, 1923)a.k.a. George Jackson and Buffalo Sundown,Waaya-Tonah-Toesits-Kahn (meaning “Earth Left by the Setting Sun”), also spelled We-ah-te-nato-ots-ha (meaning “Blanket of the Sun”)Jackson Sundown, a nephew of Chief Joseph, was with him on the flight of the Nez Perce in 1877. He was the first native American to win a World Championship Bronc Rider title in 1916, at the age of 53, more than twice the age of the other competitors who made it to the final round. He is also the oldest person to ever win a rodeo world championship title. He was posthumously inducted into the Pendleton Round-Up Hall of Fame in 1972, into the National Cowboys of Color Museum and Hall of Fame in 1983, and the American Indian Athletes Hall of Fame in 1994.
Historical accounts of his life cite that Sundown, at a young age, displayed the traits of an athlete, riding his Appaloosa pony from the time he could walk. At age 14, his knack for handling horses earned him the privilege of caring for his tribes’ horses and herding them when they moved camp during the turbulent 1877 Nez Perce War. On Aug. 9, 1877, the daring young Sundown displayed his stealth when his people were ambushed by the forces of the U.S. cavalry at Big Hole in southwestern Montana territory where they suffered many casualties, including women and children. Waaya-Tonah-Toesits-Kahn, although badly burned, outwitted the enemy and survived by hiding under a buffalo robe after they had torched his mother’s teepee where he had been sleeping. Another legendary account of Sundown’s bravery was when the Nez Perce, en route to Sitting Bulls camp in Canada, stopped to rest near Snake Creek in the Bear Paw Mountains just 40 miles south of the Canadian border. Unbeknownst to the Nez Perce, Brigadier General Nelson H. Miles had been dispatched to find and intercept them. Combined U.S. forces made an early morning surprise attack on the Nez Perce and after a three day stand-off, the war weary Chief Joseph surrendered and declared he would “fight no more forever.” Sundown, again displaying his prowess as a renegade Nez Perce warrior, escaped, although being wounded, “by clinging to the side of his horse so that it appeared riderless.” Despite having no blankets or food, he and a small band of survivors made their way to Sitting Bull’s camp in Canada. Sundown is said to have lived in hiding with Sitting Bull and those that defeated General George Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn as a war criminal for two years

04/27/2025

Northern Cheyenne warrior Bobtail Horse, circa 1906. Bobtail Horse was among the first Cheyenne to cross the Little Bighorn River to charge Custer’s E troop at the 1876 battle in Eastern Montana. Thirty years later, he held a rock-steady gaze into Richard Throssel’s camera. Bobtail Horse had painted portions of his face, including circumferential bands most visible on the forehead and designs below the eyes. His woven hair was wrapped in heavy wool strips; his earrings were made from shell. His eyebrows and eyelashes were plucked, a practice that was becoming less common. PC users can click the photo to better see details, including the beadwork on his shirt.In 1879, 27 years prior to the Throssel portrait, L.A. Huffman took the first known photo of Bobtail Horse. The photo can be seen in the first comment on my page. Bobtail Horse was then scouting for Col. Nelson A. Miles, commander of Fort Keogh. [Edited]

04/27/2025

Chief American Horse, SiouxChief American Horse (the younger) is one of the Indian Chiefs listed as either a visitor or a student at the Carlisle School.Chief American Horse was Oglala Lakota, born in 1840 in the Black Hills of South Dakota, he died in 1908 on the Pine Ridge Reservation. His adult Native name was Wasicun Thasunke, or, “He Has a White Man’s Horse.” His childhood Native name was Manishnee or “Cannot Walk” or “Played Out.” His nickname was Spider. He was the son of Sitting Bear (father) and Walks With (mother.) His wife was the daughter of Chief Red Cloud. His children were Ben American Horse, Samuel American Horse and Maggie Stands Looking.He was a US Army Scout and a progressive leader who promoted education for his people and friendly association with whites. He was one of the first Native people to participate in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show and he supported the Carlisle Indian School.

04/26/2025

Tall Bull (1830 - July 11, 1869) (Hotóa''''ôxháa''''êstaestse) was a chief of the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers. Of Cheyenne and Lakota parentage, like some of the other Dog Soldiers by that time, he identified as Cheyenne.He was shot and killed in the Battle of Summit Springs in Colorado by Major Frank North, leader of the Pawnee Scouts.Tall Bull was a major Southern Cheyenne Chief, war chief and Dog Soldier leader. In 1864, under his leadership he had approximately 500 people following him in the eastern Colorado and western Kansas and Nebraska area. He participated in the 1864-65 Arapaho-Cheyenne War, the retaliation that followed the Sand Creek massacre, but gave up the fight after seeing the futility of winning the war. In 1868, he participated in the Beecher Island battle. During the battle he warned Roman Nose not to go into battle until he fixed his broken medicine and to do it quickly so that he could join the fight. During 1869, Tall Bull was shot dead, during an ambush by Maj Frank North at a ravine near White Butte.At a peace council in 1867 he argued that the whites and the soldiers should stop making war upon the Cheyenne by invading the Cheyenne land and instigating further calamities. Furthermore, they should stop telling the Cheyenne that they should give up their land to have peace. Their Indian agent Edward Wynkoop tried bartering a peace with direct tones that were none too conciliatory. During one peace talk Tall Bull personally stopped the great Cheyenne warrior Roman Nose from killing Gen. Winfield Hancock.
Tall Bull was killed in the Battle of Summit Springs on 11 July 1869. Not even a year had passed after the death of his fellow Dog Soldier, the great Roman Nose, on September 17, 1868. Also dead was Chief Black Kettle. The war societies were devastated due to their loss of leadership. The Cheyenne never recovered and were no longer a threat on the southern Great Plains.

04/26/2025

Nana (sp. Grandma) (~1810-1896) was a distinguished warchief of the Warm Springs Apache band of the Chiricahua Apache, and the brother-in-law of Geronimo. He got his first taste of battle in raids in Mexico, accompanying the famous chief Mangas Coloradas (see page highlights on Apaches for his biography). After the death of Mangas in 1863, a warrior named Victorio took over as chief of the Mimbres Apaches, another band of the Chiricahua. Together, the two chiefs would try to live peacefully in their homeland until they were forced to fight and defend their homes against the U.S. army''''s encroachment. Facing a war on two fronts, they had to fend off Texan trespassers, as well as the Mexican government, which put a very large bounty on Apache scalps. Victorio was killed in 1880 at the Battle of Tres Castillos by the Mexican army, so Nana took on the position of Chief and kept the guerilla resistance alive and well from the Sierra Madre mountains. The resistance would end with the surrender of Apaches in 1886, and Nana would die 10 years later of natural causes as a prisoner in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The legendary chief is remembered for fighting alongside young men well into his 80s, even though he was half blind and had arthritis.

04/25/2025

Left Chief America Horse Right Chief Red Cloud..Sioux, broad alliance of North American Indian peoples who spoke three related languages within the Siouan language family. The name Sioux is an abbreviation of Nadouessioux (“Adders”; i.e., enemies), a name originally applied to them by the Ojibwa. The Santee, also known as the Eastern Sioux, were Dakota speakers and comprised the Mdewkanton, Wahpeton, Wahpekute, and Sisseton. The Yankton, who spoke Nakota, included the Yankton and Yanktonai. The Teton, also referred to as the Western Sioux, spoke Lakota and had seven divisions—the Sihasapa, or Blackfoot; Brulé (Upper and Lower); Hunkpapa; Miniconjou; Oglala; Sans Arcs; and Oohenonpa, or Two-Kettle.Before the middle of the 17th century, the Santee Sioux lived in the area around Lake Superior, where they gathered wild rice and other foods, hunted deer and buffalo, and speared fish from canoes. Prolonged and continual warfare with the Ojibwa to their east drove the Santee into what is now southern and western Minnesota, at that time the territory of the agricultural Teton and Yankton. In turn, the Santee forced these two groups from Minnesota into what are now North and South Dakota. Horses were becoming common on the Plains during this period, and the Teton and Yankton abandoned agriculture in favour of an economy centred on the nomadic hunting of bison.Traditionally the Teton and Yankton shared many cultural characteristics with other nomadic Plains Indian societies. They lived in tepees, wore clothing made from leather, suede, or fur, and traded buffalo products for corn (maize) produced by the farming tribes of the Plains. The Sioux also raided those tribes frequently, particularly the Mandan, Arikara, Hidatsa, and Pawnee, actions that eventually drove the agriculturists to ally themselves with the U.S. military against the Sioux tribes.Sioux men acquired status by performing brave deeds in warfare; horses and scalps obtained in a raid were evidence of valour. Sioux women were skilled at porcupine-quill and bead embroidery, favouring geometric designs; they also produced prodigious numbers of processed bison hides during the 19th century, when the trade value of these “buffalo robes” increased dramatically. Community policing was performed by men’s military societies, the most significant duty of which was to oversee the buffalo hunt. Women’s societies generally focused on fertility, healing, and the overall well-being of the group. Other societies focused on ritual dance and shamanism.Religion was an integral part of all aspects of Sioux life, as it was for all Native American peoples. The Sioux recognized four powers as presiding over the universe, and each power in turn was divided into hierarchies of four. The buffalo had a prominent place in all Sioux rituals. Among the Teton and Santee the bear was also a symbolically important animal; bear power obtained in a vision was regarded as curative, and some groups enacted a ceremonial bear hunt to protect warriors before their departure on a raid. Warfare and supernaturalism were closely connected, to the extent that designs suggested in mystical visions were painted on war shields to protect the bearers from their enemies. The annual Sun Dance was the most important religious event.Having suffered from the encroachment of the Ojibwa, the Sioux were extremely resistant to incursions upon their new territory. Teton and Yankton territory included the vast area between the Missouri River and the Teton Mountains and between the Platte River on the south and the Yellowstone River on the north—i.e., all or parts of the present-day states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming. This territory was increasingly broached as the colonial frontier moved westward past the Mississippi River in the mid-19th century. The California Gold Rush of 1849 opened a floodgate of travelers, and many Sioux became incensed by the U.S. government’s attempt to establish the Bozeman Trail and other routes through the tribes’ sovereign lands.

04/25/2025

Chief Running RabbitAatsista-Mahkan or Running Rabbit (c. 1833 – probably 24 January 1911) was a chief of the Siksika First Nation. He was the son of Akamukai (Many Swans), chief of the Biters band, and following the death of his father in 1871, Aatsista-Mahkan took control of the band. He was known for his generosity and kindness, and for his loyal protection of his family.In 1877 , he was a signatory to Treaty 7, but he and his people continued to follow the bison until 1881, when he and his people were designated to settle on a reserve, 60 miles east of today''''s Calgary, Alberta.Running Rabbit was born into a prominent family. His older brother Many Swans, who took their father''''s name, was chief of Biters band of Siksikas to which they belonged. As a teenager and young warrior, Running Rabbit had not performed any great deeds worthy of recognition until his brother lent him an amulet said to have spiritual powers made from a mirror decorated with eagle feathers, ermine skins, and magpie feathers. Running Rabbit was successful during his first ever raid as a warrior, gaining himself two enemy horses which he captured and gifted to Many Swans. Similar success during following expeditions resulted in Many Swans giving Running Rabbit the amulet as a gift. Word of Running Rabbit''''s success spread throughout the Biters band and many referred to him as the "young chief" before he earned or was appointed any leadership position in the band.

04/24/2025