Mary died at the age of 58 in California. Erdoes also helped Mary publish her second book, Ohitika Woman, in 1993. She published Lakota Woman, her first book, in 1990 with the help of Richard Erdoes, an artist, writer, and activist who was a long-time friend of Mary’s.

In addition to her birth name and the name she took after her marriage to Leonard Crow Dog, she is also known as Mary Brave Bird and Mary Brave Woman Olguin. Throughout her life, Mary went by several names. The couple later divorced, and in 1991, Mary married Rudy Olguin. Shortly after the Occupation of Wounded Knee, Mary married Leonard. She felt called to join the movement and participated in several historical events, such as the Trail of Broken Treaties and the 1973 Occupation of Wounded Knee, where she gave birth to her first child, Pedro. Mary first encountered the American Indian Movement (AIM) in her late teens, when she heard Leonard Crow Dog (her future husband) speak at an event. Francis Boarding School, a Catholic missionary school that forced its Lakota students to practice Christianity and assimilate to white American culture. Her biological father left Mary’s mother before Mary was born, and Mary was primarily raised by her grandparents. A member of the Sicangu tribe (one of the seven Lakota tribes), Mary grew up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. (Apr.Mary Crow Dog was born Mary Ellen Moore-Richard on September 26, 1954. The book also describes AIM's renewal of spirituality as manifested in sweat lodges, peyote ceremonies, sacred songs and the Ghost Dance ritual.

The authors write of AIM's infiltration by FBI agents, of Mary Crow Dog helping her husband endure prison, of Indian males' macho attitudes. She ran away from a coldly impersonal boarding school run by nuns where, she reports, Indian students were beaten to induce them to give up native customs and speech. Her girlhood, a vicious circle of drinking and fighting, was marked by poverty, racism and a rape at 14. Written with Erdoes ( Lame Deer Seeker of Visions ), her searing autobiography is courageous, impassioned, poetic and inspirational. Seventeen years old at the time, she married fellow activist Leonard Crow Dog, medicine man and spiritual leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM). Mary Brave Bird gave birth to a son during the 71-day siege of Wounded Knee in 1973, which ended with a bloody assault by U.S.

Lakota woman book