Once Leonard is released from prison and the couple returns to their work as medicine people, Mary realizes that she is full-blood at heart. Mary enjoys luxuries such as running water, indoor plumbing, and fair pricing, but feels more at home on the reservation beside Leonard. Mary spends some time enjoying the amenities of white life as she follows Leonard around the country while he is shuffled among prisons.
Her life becomes increasingly tied to the old Indian ways as Leonard teaches her how to perform sacred rituals and live as a medicine man's wife. Leonard is a respected Indian leader and medicine man.
Mary meets and eventually marries Leonard Crow Dog. He is born on the site of a devastating massacre a hundred years earlier and brings a new wave of warriors to the Indian rights movement. Pedro's birth in the face of the siege is a victory for the Indian nation. Her son, Pedro, is born during a seventy-one day siege at Wounded Knee amid gunfire. The man abandons her and AIM, but Mary continues to attend rallies and work for the AIM cause throughout her pregnancy. While involved with AIM she meets a man and becomes pregnant. As Mary searches for a place for herself in the Sioux nation, she encounters hatred, abuse, love, and finally acceptance.Īfter spending a summer traveling with a caravan of other Indian youth, Mary finds herself a member of the American Indian Movement. Instead Mary reaches out to her elder family members and the old traditions. Mary feels ill-at-ease watching her mother try to conform to a society that does not want her. Her mother wants to be accepted by whites and live according to their rules. Mary is a half-blood, having a white father and an Indian mother, who does not feel at home with full-bloods and is not welcomed by whites. However, her story encompasses the struggle of the Sioux as they waver between embracing the white man's ways and maintaining their ancestral traditions. Lakota Woman tells the life story of Mary "Brave Woman" Crow Dog.
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