Discovery January / February 2002

by Carol Schmidt

In the way of the Crow, storytellers have passed down the traditions and history of the people word by word, from one generation to the next, since the beginnings of the tribe.

Phenocia Bauerle, a senior at Montana State University and an enrolled member of the Crow Tribe, has become a storyteller with a contemporary twist. She has edited a book of Crow stories that will be published next spring by a major scholastic press.

Bauerle, an English major from Bozeman, is the editor of a book currently titled "The Way of the Warrior: Stories from along the Elk River" to be published by the prestigious University of Nebraska Press.

The book's stories are about Crow warriors who lived in the time before contact with non-Indian influences, roughly 1800-1860. They were passed to Bauerle by her grandfather, Crow elder Barney Old Coyote, who now lives in Billings. He and his brother, the late Henry Old Coyote, recorded the stories from elders still living when the Old Coyote brothers returned from World War II. Years later, the two received funding from the Montana Committee for the Humanities that enabled them to have the recordings transcribed into a 138-page typewritten text.

The stories have been used in Native American literature courses at Little Big Horn College, where Barney Old Coyote now teaches. They have also been a treasure in the Old Coyote family.

"My brother and his wife dedicated themselves to preserve as much of the Crow stories as they could," Old Coyote said. "These stories meant a lot to him."

Two years ago Bauerle took an independent study class in Native American literature from MSU English professor Alanna Brown. When she read her texts, she told her professor that the best Native American stories she knew of were her grandfathers. When Bauerle brought the stories in, Brown agreed. She encouraged Bauerle to edit the manuscript and submit it to a publisher.

Bauerle edited the work over a school year with Brown's advice, and if the two ever had differing opinions, Brown deferred to her student. Bauerle's mother, Patricia, a social studies teacher at Bozeman's Sacajawea Middle School, wrote an introduction for the book that included family history and background. Barney wrote a dedication to his brother, Henry.

Bauerle and Brown learned of the book's acceptance by the University of Nebraska Press last fall.

Brown said she believes Bauerle's book is unprecedented because the collection, translation, interpretation and editing of the material was done by members of Bauerle's family - all Crow Indians who are familiar with the language, culture and context of the historical stories. Until this time, non-native speakers were involved with Native American texts Sara Jayne Steen, chair of MSU's English Department, said Bauerle's accomplishment is rare and joyous.

"Undergraduates do not have books accepted by major publishers," Steen said.

The book is the latest honor for a distinguished Montana family. In fact, Brown points out that the story of the Old Coyote family is nearly as fascinating as the stories in the book.

After Pearl Harbor, Barney and Henry enlisted in the Army and served as "Windtalkers" for Gen. Jimmy Doolittle in Europe and Northern Africa. The brothers would communicate strategic war information in the Crow language, which was a language that enemies with German and Italian backgrounds could not decode. The brothers came home from World War II with combat and non-combat medals.

In the 1960s Old Coyote served as an assistant to the Secretary of the Interior. He and Henry helped to pass the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.

Later, Barney helped form the American Indian National Bank and was its first president. He received an honorary doctorate from MSU in 1968, and started the Native American Studies program at MSU in 1970.

| MAIN PAGE | GRANTS CORNER | ON THE WEB | FEATURED STORIES |