Thomas Yellowtail

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Thomas Yellowtail (born March 7, 1903 near Lodge Grass , Montana ; † November 24, 1993 in Montana) was a medicine man and chief of the Sun Dance (German sun dance ) of the Absarokee (Crow). Yellowtail's life was devoted to the rediscovery and preservation of the Sun Dance religion and the preservation of Indian traditions.

Childhood in the reservation

Thomas Yellowtail was born on March 17, 1903 south of Lodge Grass, Montana in the Crow Reservation , his Indian names were Medicine Rock Chief (German chief of the medicine stone) and Fire Heart (German fire heart ). His parents were Hawk with the Yellow Tail Feathers from the Big Lodge Clan and Lizzie Chienne from the Whistling Water Clan. His brother was Robert Yellowtail , after whom the Yellowtail Dam was named. After the United States of America tried to assimilate the Indians and classify them into common forms of registration, the family name was changed to Yellowtail .

When Yellowtail was still little, the great warriors of the Indian wars , the medicine men and hunters were still alive, they had lived the traditional nomadic life of their people themselves before they were forced to move into the reservations. Yellowtail often remembered seeing the ancient warriors around the campfire and watching them perform sacred rites.

Spiritual influences

The Lodge Grass Valley was also called the Valley of the Chiefs because all of the former warrior chiefs lived there in Yellowtail's childhood. When Yellowtail was six years old, one of the most important chiefs of the Absarokee, Joseph Medicine Crow , gave him his Indian name Medicine Rock Chief . Receiving his name from such a famous chief was not only a great honor, it was all the more significant because the name was chosen by Medicine Crow's own spiritual mind. These old timers , as Yellowtail called the ancient warriors, taught him to know and love the traditional spirituality of his ancestors. Yellowtail's character was shaped by the ancients and he believed that traditional spiritual values ​​should be at the center of life today.

In contrast, the US government tried to destroy the ancient traditions of the Indians. Various laws banned traditional ceremonies, such as the Sun Dance, for nearly 50 years. During this time, the children on the reservation, including Yellowtail, were sent to government-run boarding schools. There they were forbidden to speak their own language, they had to wear white clothes and cut their hair. At the same time, almost every Christian church opened places of worship in or near the reservations to remove the Indians from their traditional religion. In the Crow Reservation, each family was randomly assigned to one of the churches and forced into membership.

Revival of the Crow Sun Dance

The Absarokee had stopped performing the Sun Dance during the 50-year government ban. When the ban was lifted in 1934, the memory of the ritual was forgotten and could not be revived in the original. However, the Shoshone continued to practice their traditional sun dance in ignorance of the legal prohibitions. The Absarokee turned to John Trehero, a medicine man and leader of the Shoshone Sun Dance. This helped the Absarokee to celebrate a Sun Dance again in the early 1940s and thus to revive the tradition in the Crow Reservation.

In the meantime, Thomas Yellowtail had married Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail in 1929 and together they took part in the annual Sun Dance and monthly prayer meeting from 1943 onwards. With the group of Sun Dancers, the Crow Indian Ceremonial Dancers , they went on a very successful European tour from 1953 to 1955. Over the next 20 years, Yellowtail deepened his relationship with the Great Spirit (see Manitu ) through daily prayers, cleansing in the sweat lodge and regular vision searches .

Medicine man and leader of the Sun Dance

In 1963, John Trehero informed Yellowtail that his spiritual fathers had instructed him to give Yellowtail responsibility for conducting the Sun Dance. For the next 30 years, until his death on November 24, 1993, Yellowtail was the leader and chief of the Sun Dance. At the time of his death, Yellowtail was one of the most revered and respected Sun Dance leaders and medicine men of his tribe.

Preservation of traditions

Yellowtail wanted every Indian to learn the spiritual traditions of their ancestors. After many of these traditions were lost to the US government's policies of assimilation, Yellowtail believed that there was enough left to find a valid spiritual path that he called the Sun Dance Religion . He encouraged young Indians to learn the language of their ancestors and to seek out their spiritual leaders who hold traditional ceremonies. Yellowtail dictated his autobiography in order to preserve the ancient spiritual traditions that he held to be sacred.

literature

Movies

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Rodney Frey: Tom Yellowtail at University of Indaho (English) accessed on July 1, 2020
  2. ↑ a b c Native Spirit: Thomas Yellowtail (English) accessed on July 1, 2020
  3. ^ Ceremonial Dancers Are Headed by Donald Deernose in The Independent Record, February 27, 1955
  4. ↑ Crow Dancers Centennial Stars? in The Billings Gazette, April 22, 1962, p. 2
  5. ^ New York Times: Obituary (English), accessed July 1, 2020

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personal data
SURNAME Yellowtail, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Yellowtail, Tom
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian chief and medicine man
DATE OF BIRTH March 7, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Lodge Grass , Montana
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 1993
Place of death Montana