Prominent state leaders and tribal officials in ceremonial headdresses crowded around the flag-draped coffin of the last surviving war chief of Montana's Crow Indian Tribe.
At least 700 mourners on Wednesday packed into the one building on the Crow reservation large enough to fit them all, viewing the coffin of Joe Medicine Crow flanked by his World War II uniform and a picture of him in a massive feathered headdress.
Medicine Crow, who died Sunday at 102, spent decades cataloging Crow history and became a renowned Native American historian who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2009.
Medicine Crow attained the title of war chief for a series of deeds performed during combat in World War II. During the war, he wore an eagle feather under his helmet and war paint under his uniform. Continue ...
Joe Medicine Crow as a young man
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