Shawnee Real Bird

Richard Wallace - Apsaroke
photographed by Edward Curtis (left) and Shawnee Real Bird photographed by John Graybill for The Descendants Project (right)

Descendants photo © Curtis Legacy Foundation 2024

In Southeastern Montana, in the Wolf Teeth Mountain Range, Shawnee Real Bird chases her family legacy, a herd of wild horses. A story of mysticism and beauty blends together as she compares the wild horse herd to the feeling of flying an airplane solo. “When I solo’d my first aircraft, I thought about my dad. He’s been an Indian Cowboy his whole life and I saw a freedom when he rode horses that would allow him to go anywhere he wanted to go.” Among the sagebrush, Shawnee saw her father connect to the spirit of the horse and as a young girl wondered what would bring her this feeling. When she turned 20 years old she obtained her first flight license becoming the first pilot from the Crow Nation. In the clouds, she honors the ability to connect to the spirit of an airplane like her father connects to his horse.

Shawnee is a descendant of Richard Wallace, a Crow man photographed by Edward Curtis during one of his field trips to the Crow Reservation in 1908. Shawnee was born in Crow Agency, Montana to John Real Bird and Jerilyn Harris. Shawnee’s parents placed importance on her growing up living the Crow culture. Her paternal grandfather Hank Real Bird (Timber Leader), grandson of Richard Wallace, and grandmother, Alma Real Bird, educated her on the Crow language, customs, and the mysticism that lives within her people. Some of her earliest memories are of Timber Leader, a former poet laureate of Montana, taking Shawnee out to look at the stars and telling her stories of their ancestors making a home across the Milky Way. Her grandmother taught her how to dance in an elk-tooth dress and shared her generational knowledge of being a Crow woman. Today, the wisdom of her ancestors leads Shawnee into the sky and beyond the ether.

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