Mary Crow Dog, nee Mary Brave Bird, was born to an impoverished Indian
family on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota in 1953.  Now a
spokeswoman for Indian rights and the wife of Leonard Crow Dog, in 1990
she published Lakota Woman.  Essentially an autobiography, written with
the help of her friend Richard Erdoes, the book gives a vivid picture of
reservation life, describing the ravages of alcoholism, racism, poverty,
and brutality, answered by the reawakening of Indian pride in the
movements of the early 1970s.  Mary Crow Dog also tells what it means to
be a Sioux woman, caught between the forces of tradition and feminist
movement, often subject to sexual harassment and degradation.  Many women
from Native American activist groups support the feminist movement but
fell Indian rights must be gained first.