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Crow Indian Virtual Archive and Museum

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COLLECTIONS

Peggy White Wellknown Buffalo & Susie Kelly NMAI Crow Heritage Collection

Collection Cover image CIVAM Wellknown Buffalo Kelly NMAI.tiff

Collection Cover image CIVAM Wellknown B

Between 2001 and 2008, Peggy Wellknown Buffalo of the Crow Tribe, and Susan Kelly led seven trips with elders from the Crow reservation in Montana to the National Museum of American Indian, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC to videotape the Crow elders as they examined and described the history and stories about sacred and non-sacred items in the museum. This digital collection includes over 2,000 short, individual tapes of Crow items. Items include headdresses, shields, shirts, rattles, and medicine bundles, among many others.

Bill Yellowtail photographs, 1960s-2000

This collection consists of over 100 photographs taken by William Petzoldt Yellowtail, Jr, known as Bill, of ranch life on the Crow Indian reservation, Montana in the mid to late twentieth century. Yellowtail lived around the West and held powerful positions in government, yet ranch life on the reservation has always been home to him. Yellowtail took the photographs with a variety of cameras, using mostly slide color film. Subjects include ranch activities, such as cattle drives, cow camps, and round-ups. His photographs also depict his family members and their Indian and non-Indian neighbors at work and at play.

Crow Indian Gardeners & Farmers, 1930s

The collection includes photographs of Crow Indians, with captions, that accompanied annual reports of the U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs' Division of Extension and Industry. The Crow reservation extension agent compiled the report and sent it to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C. The photographs date from the 1930s and depict Crow Indian adults and youth in agricultural pursuits, 4-H programs, gardening, home economic activities, and in social gatherings. They are seen at feeds (feasts), working in their gardens, harvesting their farm fields, and managing livestock, among other activities. Many of the captions include the names of the individuals and the places depicted in them.

Crow Hymns, 1900 to present

Over 500 recordings of around 150 individual Crow hymns. The recordings include many repetitions of the same hymn sung by various singers at different times and venues. The recordings were made in private settings and public gatherings on the Crow Reservation from 1900 to the present. The collection is composed of recordings made by Crow people that they gave to David Graber, original live recordings made by David Graber, and copies of recordings by anthropologists, including Joseph Medicine Crow and Robert Lowie. All hymns available in CIVAM include the audio file of the song in mp3 format, the sheet music for the Crow songs with English translations, and the story of the song's origins when available.

More collections will be added soon!

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