Coyote's Den

How Crow Dog (Crow Coyote) Got his Name

Told by Henry Crow Dog

This is the story... the version told by Henry Crow Dog, how the first Crow Dog (aka Crow Coyote) got his name. It differs a little from the version told by Leonard Crow Dog.

This is Henry Crow Dog speaking. Here's is how my grandfather, the first Crow Dog, got his name. He was chief about to lead a raiding party into hante paha wakan - now called cedar valley in South Dakota.

Before riding out, he had a vision; he saw a white horse in the clouds that have him the sacred horse power. As a result, his pony became shunkaka-luzahan, the swiftest horse in the band.

But that wasn't all of the vision. The chief heard the voice of Shunkmanitu, the Coyote saying: "I am the one!" Then his horse suddenly pricked up his ears, and the wind whistled through the two eagle feathers the chief was wearing. The feathers spoke, telling him: "There's a man standing on that hill over there, between the trees." The chief and his companions clearly saw the man, who raised his hands and then was gone. The chief dispatched two scouts, one to the north and one to the south, but they returned saying that they had seen no one.

"This man on the hill must have been a wanagi, a ghost," the chief said. "He tried to warn us, but what did he warn us of? I don't know, I'm a warrior about to lead a raid, and I can't bother overmuch about ghosts." So they rode out and came to a river. The chief decided to camp there so that if enemies came, the riverbank would prevent them from surrounding his party.

During the night the chief heard the coyote howl four times. Shunkmanitou was telling him: "Something bad is going to happen to you!" The chief understood and gathered the men of his party together. There were some Tokala, some Kit Fox warriors there. They sang a strongheart song:

I am the fox.
I am supposed to die.
I already threw my life away.
Something daring,
something dangerous,
I wish to do.

They painted their faces black. They made themselves sacred. They prepared to fight and to die. They said that it would be a good day for a man to give his life.

At dawn the enemy attacked. There were some wasichu, some white settlers, led by a blue-coated soldier, and many crow scouts and absaroka warriors helping them. Indians helping whites to fight indians! This was indeed a bad thing.

In the chief's party, however, were many famous warriors. There was Two Strikes - Numpa Kachpa - who got his name when he shot with one bullet two white soldiers riding on the same horse. Kill-in-water was there, and Hollow Horn Bear's son, and Kills-in-Sight. Two crow scouts wounded Kills-in-Sight and shot his horse from under him. The chief went to him at a dead run, killed the traitors, counted first coup on them and put Kills-in-Sight on his own fast horse. Kills-in-Sight whipped the horse, which took off with him hanging onto it. The horse was so fast that no enemy could come near, and it carried Kills-in-Sight safely home.

On foot now, the chief was looking around, hoping to catch himself one of the riderless crow horses, when he took two enemy arrows, one high on his chest right under the collar bone, the other in his side. The second arrow went deep, right into his bladder. He broke off the arrows with his hand, and Hollow Horn Bear's son and two others of the band came to help, though they too had been wounded. Their horses all had at least one arrow in them.

The chief told them: "No use bothering with me. I'm hurt bad. I can't live. So save yourselves!" Still, they caught a fallen man's horse and put the chief on it saying: "Be strong; hold on!" Then the absaroka and some wasichu swooped down upon them and they had a hard time forcing their way through. Fighting for their lives against many, they lost sight of the chief. They thought he must have been killed and rode home talking of the bad things that had happened.

The chief had been riding, but he soon became so weak from the loss of blood that he fell off the pony. Lying in the snow in great pain, he hardly had the strength to sing his death song. He was alone, with neither friend nor enemy in sight.

Suddenly two coyotes came, growling but gently. They said: "We know you!" And kept him warm during the night by lying on either side of him. They licked the blood off his face. They brought him deer meat to make him strong and a sacred wound medicine which they told him to apply where the arrows had hit him. The medicine made his flesh tender and caused it to open up so that he could pull out the arrowheads and what was left of the shafts. The medicine brought by the coyotes cured the chief, and the meat they gave him made him strong. When he was able to walk, a crow came flying and guided him home. All the people marvel on seeing him and hearing his story.

Sometimes after the chief recovered, he went out alone to hunt and was ambushed by a war party of pahanis. These enemies had guns, and the chief took two bullets, one in the arm and one in the ribs. The second touched his lungs so that in later life he was always somewhat weak in the chest.

He managed to get far away on his fast horse to be safe from the pahanis, but then he could ride no further. He got down from his horse and stretched himself on the ground. "This time I die for sure," he said to himself.

But again the two coyotes came, bringing meat and bullet medicine, nursing and warming him for four days until his strength returned and his wounds were a little better. And again the crow came flying, watching over the man, warning him when enemies were close, guiding him to the place where his horse had strayed. So once more the chief came back alive from the dead.

Then he made himself a shield from the neck skin of a buffalo and using sacred procedures, painted two arrowheads and two circles representing bullets on it. This was his wotawe, his crest and protection, because after he had survived these four wounds, and after he had made the shield, nothing further could ever hurt him.

And then also he took his last name - Kangi Shunkmanitu, Crow Coyote - which the white census takers misuderstood and made into Crow Dog. You can stand on a name like this.

Told by Henry Crow Dog on Rosebud Indian Reservation, South Dakota, in 1969, and recorded by Richard Erdoes