George Horse Capture facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
George P. Horse Capture
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|---|---|
| Nay Gyagya Nee ("Spotted Otter") | |
| Born |
George Paul Horse Capture
October 20, 1937 |
| Died | April 16, 2013 (aged 75) |
| Resting place | Fort Belknap Agency Cemetery |
| Nationality | Fort Belknap Indian Community, American |
| Other names | "Grandpa Braids", Butch, George Capture |
| Education | Bachelor's degree, anthropology, Master's degree, history |
| Alma mater | Butte High School, University of California, Berkeley, Montana State University |
| Occupation | Anthropologist, activist, museum curator, professor of American Indian Studies, shipfitter, welder |
| Employer | National Museum of the American Indian, Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Montana State University |
| Known for | Participation in the Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island; one of the first Native American museum curators |
| Spouse(s) | Vera Capture, KayKarol Horse Capture |
| Children | George Jr., Joseph, Daylight and Peter |
| Parent(s) | Joseph Horse Capture and Carmen Falcon Deane; stepfather, Peter Deane |
| Awards | Honorary Doctorate of Letters, Montana State University-Bozeman; Humanities Award, Montana Committee of the Humanities; Presidential Appointee to the National Museum Services Board; member of the Montana Committee for the Humanities; Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History, 1990 |
George Paul Horse Capture (October 20, 1937 – April 16, 2013) was an important A'aninin (Gros Ventre) leader. He was an anthropologist (someone who studies human societies and cultures), an activist (someone who works for change), and a writer.
Horse Capture was one of the first Native Americans to become a museum curator. A curator is a person who manages a collection of art or artifacts in a museum. He was the first curator of the Plains Indian Museum in Cody, Wyoming. He also worked for ten years at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. He was a member of the Fort Belknap Indian Community in Montana.
Contents
Early Life and Education
George Horse Capture was born in a log cabin in Fort Belknap, Montana. This area is in north-central Montana, near Harlem. He was a member of the A'aninin (Gros Ventre) tribe.
As a child, he lived with his grandmother and cousins on the reservation. When he was old enough for high school, he moved to Butte, Montana, to live with his mother. After graduating, he joined the U.S. Navy. He worked as a shipfitter (someone who builds and repairs ships) for four years.
After leaving the Navy, Horse Capture worked for five years as a welder's helper. He then became a steel inspector for the California Department of Water Resources. He was the only minority person in that role for the State of California at the time.
Standing Up for Native Rights
In 1969, George Horse Capture took part in the Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island. This event brought a lot of national attention to Native American rights and issues. After this, he went to the University of California, Berkeley. There, he earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology.
Academic Career and Museum Work
After college, Horse Capture returned to Montana. He became an assistant professor of American Indian Studies at Montana State University in Bozeman. He also taught college in Great Falls and earned a master's degree in history there.
Leading the Plains Indian Museum
In 1979, George Horse Capture became the first curator of the Plains Indian Museum. This museum is part of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming. He was one of the first Native Americans to be a museum curator in the United States. He helped the museum become very well-known across the country.
George Horse Capture made sure that Native people had a strong voice in how their history and artifacts were shown. He organized important exhibitions, like "Wounded Knee: Lest We Forget" and "PowWow." He also created Plains Indian Seminars. These seminars allowed Native people and others to share ideas and new information. He worked closely with tribes across the Northern Plains to make sure their voices were heard in the museum. He also started the first powwow grounds connected to a museum in the country. Annual powwows are still held there today.
He also began publishing information he had gathered about the Gros Ventre people, their culture, and their language.
Working at the National Museum of the American Indian
In 1994, Horse Capture was chosen to work at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in New York City. He worked there for ten years. He helped plan the new museum building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. He was a senior advisor to the director. He retired in 2004. He was determined to make the NMAI a museum for Native peoples, not just about them. In 2005, he organized a conference called "American Indian Nations: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" at the University of Great Falls.
Personal Life
George Horse Capture was married to Kay-Karol, his third wife. He had four children from his previous marriages: George Jr., Joseph, Daylight, and Peter.
He passed away on April 16, 2013, in Great Falls, Montana. He was buried at Fort Belknap Agency Cemetery. His many grandchildren and great-grandchildren lovingly called him "Grandpa Braids."
Published Works
George Horse Capture spent his whole life collecting information about his tribe, the A'aninin. He gathered photographs, objects, publications, and songs. With all this material, he created the Tribal Archive Project. This is a database that includes information about the A'aninin from museums all over the world. He presented the final version of this archive to tribal members just one month before he died. This might be the first digital archive created by a tribe.
His published works include:
- The Seven Visions of Bull Lodge (1980/1996)
- An American Indian Perspective
- I'd Rather Be Powwowing
- Indian Country
