Duane Medicine Crow is a member of the Crow Nation which is located in south central Montana. Some tribes refer to the Crow people as the Raven people. His Indian name translates as ‘He Who Helps His People.’ His mother was Piegan from the Blackfeet people and his great-grandmother was full-blood Piegan. His great-grandfather on his father's side was full blood Crow. His name was Medicine Crow, but actually, he regarded his name as Sacred Raven. His great-grandmother was taken on a raid by the Crows, her and her sister when they were young, just four or five years old and became a part of the Crow Nation.

 

He was an athlete during his school years and played football and basketball. He was also an artist, and also had experience working on ranches, including training horses. Like so many Indian people, he also developed a great desire for hunting wild game.

 

His working career was with the US Forest Service as a wild land fire fighter. He shares that “Indian fire crews were highly regarded and sought after. Almost every tribe in the nation has a crew of firefighters. And I'm proud to be kind of associated with those folks, because I was one of the few who made it beyond just working on the fire line.” As a middle manager he had a lot of additional managerial responsibilities working in cooperation with other people and helping make the ranger districts run the way they were supposed to run. The budget in his department was nearly a million dollars so as a supervisor, he hired and supervised a lot of people.

 

Grandfather Medicine Crow now lives in Salem, Oregon where he leads a group of individuals of the four colors who meet (when possible) at Morningside Methodist Church. He also serves as Board Co-chair of Elderberry Wisdom Farm where he recently discovered a big Oak tree out back that had a fire scar on it. He believes that that fire scar is evidence of a century or more ago when the Indians were doing controlled burning in this part of the country.