Jacob Brien talks about Apsáalooke History at Fort Phil Kearny

Around 40 people attended the program about the Crow language and the tribe’s relationship with this area, the Bighorn Mountains, as well as sharing the Crow story about the origin of the Medicine Wheel on Tuesday, August 1 at Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site.

The Crow tribe has a long history with this part of Wyoming, including around Fort Phil Kearny, coming here as early as the 1100s. The speaker was the second American Indian Student Interpretive Ranger, Jacob Brien, a member of the Crow tribe who recently spent four weeks educating the public at the Medicine Wheel/ Medicine Mountain National Historic Landmark.

Sharie Shada, site superintendent, introduced the speaker,

Brien talked about the Crow language and asked the audience,

Brien opened his talk by demonstrating a more modern dance set to traditional music, known amongst the Crow as the “Push Dance.” He asked for volunteers to learn the dance, and several people did.

He also sang some traditional songs, and one he said translated to mean, “Meet me in Hardin, Montana.”

He introduced the crowd to several Crow words, the word for Medicine Wheel, Medicine Mountain, and for this area, which was the Crow ancestral homeland.

He talked about the Crow legend of the Medicine Wheel, when a man named ‘Burned Face’ encountered the ‘Little People’ who were said to live on medicine mountain. They adopted him and taught him how to make the medicine wheel. He fashioned the wheel on Medicine Mountain, and built four other medicine wheels, two on the Crow reservation and two in southern Wyoming.

Brien’s main focus of his talk was the Crow language, and how it is being lost. He talked about theCode of Indian Offenses legislation in 1883, which outlawed Indian’s religious and culture ceremonies and discouraged the speaking of Native American languages. Punishments for breaking that law were harsh.

At one time the Crow people needed a permit to go anywhere off the reservation. Indian children were forced into white man’s schools and taught English and were punished for speaking Crow.

Brien pronounced several Crow words, and he had several ‘flash-cards’ that showed the spelling of some Crow words, and he gave a quiz on the pronunciation of them to the crowd. There was a great deal of laughter as attendees tried to repeat the words in Crow.

Brien talked about several other important dates in the history of the Crow tribe and the Native American’s and how in 1978, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) was enacted to allow Native Peoples to practice, protect, preserve and exercise their traditional religious rites and cultural practices.

Brien plans to continue his studies in the Crow language and plans to teach it to others as well.

LeeAnn Bruised Head of the Real Bird Family, and member of the Crow Tribe, who attended the event, talked some about the history of the Crow and United States and how for them it was survival.

Bruised Head is also a member of the Big Lodge Clan and Child of Whistling Water.

Dave McKee, President of the Fort Phil Kearny/Bozeman Trail Association, wanted to acknowledge the many people who helped to bring The American Indian Student Interpretive Ranger program to the fort. This is a new partnership in conjunction with the Fort Phil Kearny/Bozeman Trail Association, U.S. Forest Service, and the Wyoming Council for the Humanities. He added that donations for the program, the Medicine Wheel and the Fort are always welcome.

Brien will give another program on August 10 at Fort Phil Kearny.