Westerman was born Floyd Westerman (Kanghi Duta) on the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation, home of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, a federally recognized tribe.
It is one of the tribes of the Eastern Dakota subgroup of the Great Sioux Nation, living within the U.S. state of South Dakota. Kanghi Duta means "Red Crow" in Dakota. At the age of 10, Westerman was sent to the Wahpeton Boarding School, where he first met Dennis Banks (who as an adult became a leader of the American Indian Movement). There Westerman and other boys were forced to cut their traditionally long hair and forbidden to speak their native languages. This experience would profoundly impact Westerman's later life. As an adult, he championed his own heritage.
Westerman's 1982 album, The Land is Your Mother, reflected the convergence of the interests of indigenous peoples worldwide and the environmental movement.
In 1990 he played the Sioux chief Ten Bears in the Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves, and the next year played the shaman who is Jim Morrison's spiritual guide in Oliver Stone's The Doors. He often described his career as following in the footsteps, and the parts, taken first by Will Sampson and then Chief Dan George. He was Sitting Bull in the TV mini-series Son of the Morning Star, and played a tribal elder in Richard Attenborough's Grey Owl (1999).
It is one of the tribes of the Eastern Dakota subgroup of the Great Sioux Nation, living within the U.S. state of South Dakota. Kanghi Duta means "Red Crow" in Dakota. At the age of 10, Westerman was sent to the Wahpeton Boarding School, where he first met Dennis Banks (who as an adult became a leader of the American Indian Movement). There Westerman and other boys were forced to cut their traditionally long hair and forbidden to speak their native languages. This experience would profoundly impact Westerman's later life. As an adult, he championed his own heritage.
Westerman's 1982 album, The Land is Your Mother, reflected the convergence of the interests of indigenous peoples worldwide and the environmental movement.
In 1990 he played the Sioux chief Ten Bears in the Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves, and the next year played the shaman who is Jim Morrison's spiritual guide in Oliver Stone's The Doors. He often described his career as following in the footsteps, and the parts, taken first by Will Sampson and then Chief Dan George. He was Sitting Bull in the TV mini-series Son of the Morning Star, and played a tribal elder in Richard Attenborough's Grey Owl (1999).
Floyd Red Crow Westerman is "the Medicine Man" for the singer Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors
Sioux chief Ten Bears in the Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves
Floyd Red Crow Westerman & Marlon Brando
There is an ancient Indian saying~ Something lives only as long as the last person who remembers it. My people have come to trust memory over history. Memory, like fire, is radiant & immutable while history serves only those who seek to control it, those who douse the flame of memory in order to put out the dangerous fire of truth. Beware these men for they are dangerous & unwise. Their false history is written in the blood of those who might remember & seek the truth.
~Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman
Right now, I feel so grateful that I'm able to approach life with a deeper appreciation than ever. We take so much for granted, including our breath. It's a gift. I give thanks now when I wake up with the birds chirping, can take a breath of air and do things I thought I'd never get to do again—like singing—which is really what I'm about.
-Floyd Red Crow Westerman
Our grandfathers knew how to live in harmony. They did not create poisons or technologies that destroyed things. They did not make their decisions based on greed or for selfish reasons. They did not take more then they used. Their thoughts and actions were about respect. The Elders conducted themselves in a respectful way. We need to consider our actions around respect for Mother Earth.
Floyd Westerman (Kanghi Duta)
Pictured here (left to right) are Muhammad Ali, Buffy St. Marie, Floyd Red Crow Westerman, Harold Smith, Stevie Wonder, Marlon Brando, Max Gail, Dick Gregory, Richie Havens, and David Amram at a concert at the end of the Longest Walk
Codebreaker Albert Hosteen in The X Files
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