Lame Deer is the pen name of Henry Jackson, a Lakota medicine man. Lame Deer was born in 1887 on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. His mother, Morning Star, was a princess of the Blackfoot Confederacy. His father, Iron Crow, was a leader of the Oglala Sioux
Lame Deer's early life as a Sioux Indian was marked by poverty and hardship. He was often hungry and had to make his own clothes from rags and old blankets. As he grew older he became known as a potter and carver of sacred objects such as masks and pipes. He also learned to dance and sing for other tribal members and to read and write in English. In 1906, after living many years as an Indian, Lame Deer left his people and moved to St.
Paul, Minnesota. There he lived as an Indian for five years and learned how to speak English like a white man. In 1910 he settled in Minneapolis where he worked at odd jobs until he became the household servant of the wife of a wealthy family.
This changed his life forever because it gave him access to money and allowed him to study books such as Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance . Lame Deer began his education at MacMurray College near St. Paul but soon transferred to Macalester College in St. Paul where he studied philosophy, literature, and psychology with the intent of becoming a minister or professor of liberal arts at some university.
After graduating from Macalester in 1910, Lame Deer became an ordained minister at the age of 26 years old, but this position lasted only two years because he was not licensed by any church organization. In Chicago from 1915 to 1918, Lame Deer attended classes at Northwestern Christian University . After returning from Chicago, Lame Deer married Miss Mary LaRose, daughter of a Presbyterian minister from Montana, who'd been sent to work as a missionary among the Native Americans there at Reservations in Montana and Alberta . On July 22nd , 1920 , they moved to California where Lame Deer worked as a carpenter for three years .
From 1922-24 , Lame Deer worked as a foreman for an irrigation company in Los Angeles . In 1924 , he started working for Sinclair Lewis at Arrowhead Ranch near Malibu . In 1928 , Lame Deer went to New York City where he studied architecture at Columbia University .
In 1930 , he returned to Los Angeles where he lived out his days studying
A human being too, is many things. Whatever makes up the air, the earth, the herbs, the stones is also part of our bodies. We must learn to be different, to feel and taste the manifold things that are us.Lame Deer
Only human beings have come to a point where they no longer know why they exist.Lame Deer
