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Joe Medicine Crow, the Last Link to the Battle of Little Big Horn, Dies at 102
- _lh7z 11y agoReading stories about the life of a 102 year old man really evokes feelings of inconsequentiality. I used to get the same feelings listening to my grandfather talk about World War II (which he didn't do often, but enough that I have memories of it), but not to this extent because I was younger and didn't know what my life would hold. As more years pass, I realize how little I've done... seen... and the smallness of impact my life has had. This could make me sad, but instead I feel somewhat inspired by the character and life course of a person like this.
- Dotnaught 11y agoThe impact of a life is not simply a matter of the historical significance of an individual. A great many people have been hugely influential in ways that just aren't apparent or measured.
- _lh7z 11y agoI don't disagree. It's a more personal feeling than how I might measure or respect the impact of others.
- bluedevil2k 11y agoIf you have't had children yet, once you do you'll realize how large of an impact you will have on their lives.
- _lh7z 11y agoFirst due in July... :)
- simonswords82 11y agoPrepare to feel emotions you didn't know existed. Good luck it's awesome :)
- protomyth 11y ago> This could make me sad, but instead I feel somewhat inspired by the character and life course of a person like this. Good, because the point is to feel inspired. Do with what you got left what you can. With the world how it is, a life lived without causing pain to others is a damn fine legacy.
- anexprogrammer 11y agoYou perhaps get less opportunity for heroism, but on the whole be thankful for your small impact I think. One common thread from both dad talking of WW2 and grandfather of WW1 was a lifelong cynicism of all things political. My Uncle was in Burma and got to see the River Kwai bridge as a prisoner. He never talked of the war. I only learned of this from dad, but was asked never to mention it. I wish I had chance to talk more in my 30s and 40s when my perspective had matured. I think I'm quite glad I never lived through events of that magnitude now I've matured past "Oooh I could have flown a Spitfire" of childhood. Despite the terrorism in the media constantly, we're in far safer times. I am saddened to read in this thread that we seem to have still not figured out how to treat indigenous people well.
- _lh7z 11y agoI'm very grateful we live in safer times, in part because people like our fathers, grandfathers, and Joe Medicine Crow participated in wars so that we (hopefully) never again have to. I think the twinges of existential crisis mostly come from the idea that I'm mostly just sitting and fiddling with bits of code, many of which will not benefit the world in any great way. Of course, it's stories like this one and others that serve to remind me that maybe I could, or should, contribute to something more positive and beneficial. And I fully agree with your last point too.
- anexprogrammer 11y ago> existential crisis mostly come from the idea that I'm mostly just sitting and fiddling with bits of code I can relate to that so much. It's the main reason I did a career change after many successful years in IT. I'm now in conservation, where I hope at least a few of the things I do outlast me. I keep half an eye out looking for a worthwhile OS project I can use some of my coding smarts on before I forget it all. Nothing yet has really enthused me. Something that makes a difference to some lives perhaps. All I can really say is I'll know it when I see it.
- hyperliner 11y agoWe don't live in safer times. Times are as dangerous as before. The difference is that there are a group of volunteers who fight the wars so that the rest can pretend the world is safer. The world would appear less safe to you if you, or someone close to you, were required to serve and fight the wars.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- sunstone 11y agoWow, so he would have been born about a year before Einstein discovered General Relativity.
- deadowl 11y agoI don't understand why they're calling him the last link to the Battle of Little Big Horn. He was born in 1913, well after the Battle of Little Big Horn.
- _lh7z 11y agoThe article references hearing stories of Little Big Horn from a direct family member who had his own direct connection to Custer. That's likely why.
- protomyth 11y agoHe heard the stories directly from the participants in the battle and was the last Crow war chief thus breaking the line with his death. The Herman Viola quote is fitting, but probably should have something about him seeing quite clearly what was needed for his tribe in the future.
- strictnein 11y ago> After a moment’s tussle, he grabbed the man’s neck. “I was ready to kill him,” he said. > And then the German yelled, “Mama.” > “That word ‘Mama,’ opened my ears. I let him go.” Stuff like this really gets to me, for some reason.
- pchristensen 11y agoHey, it worked on Batman too.
- peatmoss 11y agoThe quote in there from Chief Plenty Coup really resonates with me. I grew up in that part of the world, and attended high school with a member of the Crow tribe. He was the nicest, hardest working kid I knew. His parents drilled the idea into his head that he'd have to work twice as hard as the white kids to be half as successful. Even by the 90s, when I knew Crow kids, "second class" doesn't even begin to describe the discrimination they faced. "Prairie nigger" is a term that got thrown around--and wasn't objected to by a sitting US senator. As far as I can tell, things haven't improved. My nephews' dad is native by race, but was raised by adoptive white parents. Looking "half Indian" nets all kind of assumptions--some innocuous but cringeworthy, others pretty ugly. I don't know what the right answer is, but the US needs to figure out how to be less shitty to its indigenous peoples. New Zealand is far from perfect, but from my observations there, engagement with Māori is miles better than anything here.
- protomyth 11y agoSomethings have improved (the Tribal Community College system), and some things haven't or have gotten worse (Indian Health Service). The DoD money that helped build some industry dried up with the defense cuts in the 90's and never came back. Also, it probably doesn't help that certain institutions of higher learning don't recruit from the tribal schools and then give scholarships meant for Native Americans to non-natives (proof of tribal enrollment is quite easy to get). Also, some of the federal districts will not bring charges against non-natives who commit robbery on the reservation, and at the same time will not do the due diligence in investigating native-on-native crimes. Enforcing the rules, continued support of the expansion of tribal colleges, understanding state money rarely gets to tribes regardless of what the bill says, and actually funding the healthcare might be a nice step forward. Please note, whatever your opinion on the PPACA, it excludes tribes (yes, I read the whole bill). Also, understanding that no bank is going to loan money for housing on a reservation and doing something at the federal level might be a nice thing. There are some amazing bright spots, but the northern plains is a bit far from them.
- coredog64 11y agoAFAIK, banks can't loan for reservation housing because enrolled members don't own the land, they have a long term lease.
- peter303 11y agoHistorians call this "living memory", either direct witness of events up to 105 years ago, or had talked to a direct winess of events, up to 200 years ago. anything more indirect is oral or recorded history. For example I am old enough to have seen the last living Civil War veterans and slaves talk about their experiences. Ive read we tend tomonly know our ancestors up to the living history limit, an no further, unless s/he was a very notable person. We might have heard our grandparents stories about their grandparents. Republican Rome held a living history party called The Jubilee. A new Jubilee was held when last person who remembered the previous Jubilee died. (It gradually got debased to celebration of a leader who ruled for a long time.) Only two ladies are alive from the 1800s, but dont remember it.
- sevenfive_ 11y agoSource for Jubilee? Googling it yields nothing but the christian version.
- fapjacks 11y agoI married a woman who was raised on the Crow reservation. Her and her brother were mostly white, but they were members of the tribe. Interestingly, at the time we married, I was a Cavalry Scout with the US Army (19D secondary MOS, 11B primary). Anyways, stories still pervade that culture. Everybody knows what it takes to become a war chief. I believe there will be another in the future at some point. The circumstances get more difficult to fulfill, but I do think there will be another one day. Also interesting is the "generally known, accepted fact" of Custer having been killed while wading through the river by himself and with one other soldier (bearing the standard), apparently leading the charge into the village. He did not die on the hill. Also, it's told that he was mighty drunk when that happened.
- protomyth 11y ago1/4 blood quota is what most tribes require to be tribal members. If you have children, its worth the effort to make sure the kids are listed by the tribe even if they don't make the blood quota. Some schools get extra money on decedents for certain programs.
- fapjacks 11y agoI believe for the Crow tribe, it's 1/8 blood to enroll. If I had had children with my ex-wife, our kids would have been able to enroll, and I would have enrolled them. You're absolutely right, that there are some good benefits to being enrolled in a tribe.
- protomyth 11y agoInteresting, the Chippewa go with the 1/4 rule, and I'm 1/8 so I got all the "fun" of the Rez and not much of the upside. Plus, it was a Dakota rez instead of home country. Sorry it didn't work out.
- tyh 11y agoI will always remember the episode in the Ken Burns' documentary "The War", when he describes his service during the Second World War and how somewhat unbeknownst to himself, he became the last war Crow chief.
- zhemao 11y agoHis retelling of the incident in which he stole 50 horses from some SS officers was especially memorable.
- protomyth 11y agoAnd if you saw it in a movie most would say how full of BS it was. I do love the world because some truths are weirder than fiction. Plus, a Crow war cry echoing in Europe makes me giggle.
- bluejekyll 11y agoThe requirement of the horse in the requirement is odd: "The last prehistoric North American horses died out between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago, at the end of the Pleistocene, but by then Equus had spread to Asia, Europe, and Africa" [1] For a significant portion of the Native Americans existence in America, there were no horses. They were introduced back into the environment by Europeans. Which means this rule for becoming chief hasn't always been part of the requirements. It was added sometime in more recent history, and implies that the definition is probably being followed too strictly. This is like translating holy books literally, when they were written in completely different contexts. I'm sure the tribe could vote to change the definition to bring it up do date, yet still maintain the ideal. [1]http://m.livescience.com/9589-surprising-history-america-wild-horses.html http://m.livescience.com/9589-surprising-history-america-wil...
- protomyth 11y agoYou read a bit too much into an English translation of a set of rules that predates their use of English. I'm pretty sure the words for a lot of 4 legged animals are related by root word in Crow the same way they are in Dakota. There wouldn't be any vote, the tribal elders would decide, and I am guessing camels or yaks would qualify if it came up.
- bluejekyll 11y agoFair enough. Do you know what other domestic animals would have qualified as a replacement in the language at the time?
- protomyth 11y agoDog comes to mind first, stealing those would tick someone off a lot. Like the horses later, it was what you brought hunting and was a companion animal. Horse and dog are 1 word difference in Dakota: sunka (dog) vs. sunka wakan (horse). S is a sh sound, emphasis is 2nd syllable. [edit: of course I'm not Crow, I grew up with their rivals]
- fit2rule 11y ago
- Nutmog 11y agoHow can they glorify war so much without making a clear distinction of which side is right and which side is wrong? If you're on the wrong side of a war, then stealing a horse, invading someone else's territory or killing soldiers are absolutely wrong things to do and having a tradition of violence and crime doesn't somehow make it OK. We don't give ISIS soldiers that same kind of respect because we feel they're on the wrong side. How can we expect to be capable of judging every ancient Indian war and knowing that the Crow family was always on the right side? Even in WWII it wasn't clear at the time.
- davedx 11y agoI finished reading "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" a few days ago. It was emotionally draining reading the history of the native Americans' extermination by the colonialism of the USA in the 19th century. It's surprising there are any left living today given how they were treated. There are some books that I believe everybody should read, this is one of them. R.I.P.