June 18th, 2016: Joe Medicine Crow

[Snakeadelic]

It's always sad to discover the passing of the final icon of a lost culture. I am so glad this fella was well-spoken and well-documented! The mind boggles at how many people like him we lose every year--people who are not well-known, whose cultures and languages and mythologies die with a single individual. One example I can think of was an old woman in a village of about 300 deep in the taiga forest of central Russia. She was mentioned during a Werner Herzog documentary about this (insane) sable trapper; during one of Herzog's visits to the village outside the trapping season (winter, because bears) her alcoholic grandson accidentally burned their house down and was unable to rescue her. She was the last in their culture who knew the old ways, how to make doll-like effigies of those who had died that were considered crucial to a happy afterlife. We should probably all be glad Joe Medicine Crow was not lost to the world as well.

Someone should make a WWII movie with main characters based on Joe and on Audie Murphy, who repeatedly had to insist that Hollywood producers and directors cut "unbelievable" scenes from movies based on his own war experiences because he didn't think the public would believe them.