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| Barney
(left) and Henry shown in traditonal Crow
dress (P. Bauerle family photo). |
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| The
life of Barney Old Coyote, '68 HonDoc, is
the stuff of novels. So it comes as no surprise
that his most recent activity involves a major role
in a non-fiction book that has been praised by scholars
as a rare look into historical Crow culture. |
| Old
Coyote is a collaborator for "The Way of the Warrior,"
a set of traditional Crow stories that have been
edited into a book. |
| Phenocia
Bauerle, '02 Eng, one of Old Coyote's granddaughters,
edited the book. She began the project of editing
the stories while she was an undergraduate at MSU
taking a class in Native American Literature from
MSU professor Alanna Brown. Bauerle brought in stories
that her grandfather and his brother had compiled
over the years. |
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| When Brown
saw the material, she knew it was special. She introduced Bauerle
and her stories to Gary Dunham, Native American editor at the
University of Nebraska Press and the most prestigious publishers
of Native American literature in the country. |
| According
to Dunham, the quality of the information was so impressive
that they agreed to publish it, even though Bauerle was still
an undergraduate. The book has sold out of its 2,180 run first
edition and a paperback edition is planned later this year. |
| "It's highly
unusual for an undergraduate to be involved this heavily in
a book published by a university press," Dunham said. |
| The idea
for the manuscript came after Barney, and his brother Henry,
returned to the Crow Reservation after World War II. They returned
with Silver Star medals and other decorations, as well as a
better understanding of the world beyond the reservation and
the importance of their rare culture. Henry formed the Crow
Cultural Commission. Part of the commission's work was to record
the stories of the old ones before the stories and their storytellers
died, for the history and culture of their tribe were braided
into the stories. |
| In their
spare time, the two Old Coyote brothers traveled from Pryor
to Wyola to St. Xavier with a reel-to-reel-recorder powered
by an automobile cigarette lighter. They taped as their tribe's
storytellers told about warriors, spirituality and the way of
life along the Elk (Yellowstone) River before the arrival of
the white culture (roughly about 1800-1860). Altogether, they
recorded more than 100 hours of tape. |
| While they
were traveling throughout the reservation and surrounding country
in Canada, Wyoming, Idaho and the Dakotas, Barney and Henry
led accomplished lives. In 1964 Barney was appointed as a special
assistant to the Secretary of the Interior under Lyndon B. Johnson.
He and his brother also helped lobby for the American Indian
Religious Freedom Act. |
| In 1970
Old Coyote began a long and successful association with MSU
when he was recruited to begin the university's Native American
Studies program. While at MSU, Old Coyote also consulted for
the government. He helped charter the American Indian National
Bank in 1973 and successfully sued the U.S. Internal Revenue
Service to recognize the Native American Church. In 1973 he
resigned his post at MSU to become the first president of the
American Indian National Bank. After a few years, he returned
to MSU as an adjunct professor in the Native American Studies
department and during that time wrote the catalog and the course
studies for the Little Big Horn College's Crow Studies Program.
He still works at Little Big Horn as a teacher and consultant. |
| In 1968
he received an honorary degree from MSU. "MSU has always been
special to me," he said. |
| While his
career progressed, so did the work on the manuscript. The brothers
hoped to publish the stories into a book. |
| "We were
pretty well started on writing the stories but never quite fleshed
them out," Barney said. In 1988 Henry died. |
| "When my
brother died, I gave it up," Barney said. |
| The stories
did not die, however. Old Coyote used the manuscript as text
material at Little Big Horn, and Crow Reservation schools utilized
stories from the manuscript for skits, plays and pageants. The
Crow Fair used the book to honor the tribe's U.S. veterans.
Stories from the manuscript entertained his grandchildren as
he drove from Bozeman through the land of the Crow. |
| "I remember
as he would drive he would point out a Crow landmark and say,
'Do you know what happened there? And, then he'd tell us a story,'"
Bauerle recalls. It was those beloved stories from her childhood
that Bauerle wove into the book. |
| Since the
book has been published, Old Coyote and Bauerle have been featured
in US Today and a Montana Magazine feature is
due out soon. They plan at least two more books, and Old Coyote
has now given her the sole rights to the stories. At age 80,
he said it is a very fulfilling chapter in his storied life. |
| Is he proud
of his accomplished granddaughter and the book they worked on
together? "That is not a word that we use," Old Coyote said.
"But this can be said. There have been books written by Crows,
but none embraced by the Crow tribal administration except this
book. I think that says something." |
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