In Native Spirit and The Sun Dance Way, Joe Medicine Crow offers a poignant recounting of his family’s painful transition from “Living a free life in a beautiful country” to being forced onto the government run reservations.

Dr. Joe Medicine Crow is the Crow Tribal Historian. As well as being the oldest living man of the Crow tribe, he is also the last traditional war chief of the Crow tribe. In 1939, he was the first member of the Crow tribe to obtain a Master’s degree. His Master’s thesis, “The Effects of European Culture Contact upon the Economic, Social, and Religious Life of the Crow Indians,” remains an authoritative and widely read source on Crow culture. Dr. Medicine Crow is a guest speaker at Little Bighorn College, the Custer Battlefield Museum, and several other colleges throughout the nation.

Also an author, his books include, A Handbook of Crow Indian Laws and Treaties, and From the Heart of the Crow Country, published by University of Nebraska Press.

He lives on the Crow Reservation in Lodge Grass, Montana.