Twenty Stands Woman/Standing Twenty Woman Henrietta Mann was born at 4:47am, May 22, 1934 at the Clinton Indian Hospital, Custer County, Oklahoma, the daughter of Holy Bird Henry Mann and Day Woman Lenora Wolftongue Mann, each 4/4 Cheyenne.

Paternal Grandparents: Spotted Horse Fred Mann and The Woman Who Comes to Offer Prayer/Prayer Woman/Prayer Cloth Woman Lucy Whitebear Mann

Maternal Grandparents: Deer Elmer Wolftongue and Bertha Powder Face Wolftongue

Paternal Great-Grandmother: Homa’oestaa’e/Homae’voestaa’e White Buffalo Woman was a Sand Creek and Washita Survivor. She is often referred to just as Voestaa’e, which translates as White Buffalo Calf Woman.

On the first morning following the coming home of mother and child, White Buffalo Woman blessed the infant Henrietta in the old way. She held her body as one holds a pipe, and pointed her headfirst to each of the four sacred directions of the universe (SE, SW, NW, NE), up, then laid her gently upon the earth supported by her hands. She was wrapped in a softly tanned calf hide, which was her primary blanket. Afterward, she prayed for the baby, and for all those assembled, who had come to welcome the infant to life on earth and to witness this special ceremony.

Chief Little Raven’s daughter Anna attended Carlisle Indian Industrial Training School in Carlisle, PA.  Upon her return home, she married White Shirt (Arapaho).  Two of their children Stephen and Ruth were listed on the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal Rolls as White Shirt; however, their youngest son Alfred was listed on the Tribal Rolls with the last name of Whiteman.  Technically he should have been Alfred Whiteshirt. 

Promoted to Associate Professor, University of Montana, Missoula

Promoted to Full Professor, University of Montana, Missoula.

Internal Sabbatical, University of Montana, Missoula

Eugene M. Kayden Award (Best Manuscript in the Humanities), University Press of Colorado, Dissertation, Cheyenne-Arapaho Education:  1871-1982, Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, Boulder, May 8, 1991.

1991-1992 National Coordinator, American Indian Religious Freedom Coalition and Director AIRFA Project, Washington, D.C. Office, Association on American Indian Affairs, NY, NY.  I was based in the Washington D.C. office of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF). 

It was the goal of the Coalition to get four legislative amendments to the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) of 1978, which had been passed by the U.S. Congress as a joint resolution.  It was my responsibility to build the support for Congressional passage (a monumental task).  The proposed amendments were: 

1. Protection of Indian sacred sites,
2. Protection of traditional use of peyote by Indians,
3. Protection of religious rights of Indian prisoners to the same extent as prisoners of other religious faiths, and
4. Protection of religious use of eagles and other animals and plants.

AIRFA came about as a result of religious rights violations of American Indians.  In reality, it is nothing more than a weak attempt, described as a “toothless tiger,” to extend First Amendment protection to indigenous people.  Proposed amendments were eventually introduced in the Senate as the Native American Free Exercise of Religion Act of 1993 but were never enacted.

Some Cherokees attempted to stop the Tennessee Valley Authority from completing the construction of the Tellico Dam.  The dam would flood their birthplace as a people, Chota their historic capital, burial places, and places where they gathered their sacred medicines.  This group filed a lawsuit Sequoyah v. Tennessee Valley Authority, and sought relief under AIRFA, but lost.  This case became the first Indian sacred site case lost after the passage of AIRFA.

This case was followed by the devastating 1988 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association.  The Yurok, Karok, and Tolowa Indians of Northern California attempted to stop the U.S. Forest Service from the construction of a six-mile paved road between Gasquet and Orleans (GO Road) in the Chimney Rock area of the Six Rivers National Forest, where the three Northern California nations hold their renewal ceremonies.

Christopher Peters, Yurok spokesperson concludes:  “This precedent-setting case established that Native Americans do not have First Amendment protection under the United States Constitution. . . . Lyng [Secretary of the Interior, Richard E. Lyng] deems that the total destruction of three Native American religions . . . is not a violation of the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause.”

Two years later in 1990, the Supreme Court handed down another equally devastating decision in the Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith

et al, which involved the Native American Church and its traditional use of peyote. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the State of Oregon and did not apply the “compelling state interest” test applicable to free-exercise cases. 

So again, the First Amendment did not protect a Native American religious practice with a lengthy history on this land because of its sacramental use of Peyote.  The Supreme Court directed all concerned, including mainstream churches, to go to Congress for a religious remedy.

Mainstream churches pursued their own legislative remedy, which ultimately resulted in the passage of The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, Public Law 103-141, which restored religious freedom to all Americans.  It, however, did not go far enough in protecting the unique, unwritten, and often misunderstood needs of American Indians in the free exercise of their religious practices.

Reuben Snake, respected Winnebago Road Man, his attorney James Botsford, the AIRFA Coalition, along with some church groups went back to work.  Their efforts ultimately resulted in Congress passing Public Law 103-344, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendments of 1994, which related to the “Traditional Indian Religious Use of the Peyote Sacrament.” 

With this legislation, one of the four sets of legislative amendments became law. It must also be recognized that AIRFA did result in the enactment of the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which addresses the return of human skeletal remains and sacred objects to their cultural homelands.

International Women’s Day

1. Workshop presenter, “The Native American Woman,” and Panelist/Speaker, General Assembly, Phoenix, AZ, March 8, 1992.
2. “Dr. Henrietta Mann:  Native American Recognizes Cultural Diversity,” Featured in Today’s ARIZONA WOMAN:  Success Magazine, March 1992.

Speaker, First Greifswald Conference on “Peoples in Contact, Remembering the Past – Sharing the Future,” Institute for English and American Studies of the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University, Greifswald, Germany, June 19, 1992.

Presenter, “Environmental and Spirituality” Workshop, Environmental Grantmakers Association, 1992 Fall Retreat, Orcas Island, San Juan Archipelago, October 3, 1992.

Included in Bataille, Gretchen M., Native American Women, A Biographical Dictionary.  New York:  Garland Publishing, 1993.

Henrietta Mann was a panelist on “Minority Religious Practices:  Where Does the State Draw the Line?” (March 17) at the conference titled Religious Liberty in America:  Crossroads or Crisis?  It was held at The Freedom Forum World Center, Arlington, VA, sponsored by The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University.

Speaker, “The West,” the Sixth Annual A Giving of Thanks to the First Peoples “With One Heart,” Fund of the Four Directions Thanksgiving Project and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, NY, November 20, 1993.

1993-1995 Intergovernmental Personnel Assignment (IPA) Visiting Professor, Natural and Social Sciences (Indian Studies); and Interim Dean of Instruction, Haskell Indian Nations University (HINU), Lawrence, KS

HINU has some wetlands on the southern boundary of the campus, which some HINU faculty (including me) and students sought to protect from development.  Further, a sacred earthwork in the shape of a medicine wheel is situated near the wetlands.  The State of Kansas proposed construction of a thoroughfare around the city of Lawrence, which would cut right through the wetlands and desecrate this sacred site.  The struggle to “Save the Wetlands” lasted many years, but I understand this road has been built, once again resulting in religious infringement and violation of another Indian sacred site.

Panelist, “American Indian Women,” Festival on The American West coordinated in the U.S. by the American Indian College Fund for Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, Italy, January 12-18, 1994.

Visiting Elder (Instructor/Speaker), 2000 Native American Environmental Awareness Summer Youth Practicum, Native American Fish & Wildlife Society, Mt. Evans Outdoor Education Laboratory, Evergreen, CO, July 28, 2000.

After advancing through the academic ranks to full Professor at the University of Montana, Missoula left a tenure track position to accept the position of Katz Endowed Chair of Native American Studies in the Center for Native American (CNAS) College of Letters and Science at Montana State University (MSU)-Bozeman.  Became the first occupant of the Katz Endowed Chair in NAS.

Closing Address, State of the Tribal Nations Address to the Bicentennial Legislative Assembly, Joint Session, 57^th Legislature, State of Montana, House Chambers, State Capitol, Helena, MT, February 8, 2001.

Governor’s Humanities Award given by Judy Martz, first female Governor of the State of Montana in association with the Montana Committee or the Humanities, Capitol Rotunda, Helena, MT, February 8, 2001.

Keynote Speaker, “This Is Sacred Land:  Native Spiritual Practices and the Sacred Mother Earth,” Opening Plenary Session THE SACRED EARTH CONFERENCE:  Building Alliances to Protect Sacred Lands, Seventh Generation Fund, Seattle, WA, April 20, 2001. (Following this, I became a member of their Board of Directors)

Benediction, Presidential Inaugural Convocation of Geoffrey Gamble, 11^th President of Montana State University, Bozeman, October 10, 2001

Offered Prayer at Ground Zero (World Trade Center), New York, NY, assisted by Montoya Whiteman, arranged by film actor Richard Masur with the American Red Cross, Brooklyn, NY (November 13).  Afterward, Richard gave me his hard hat which I had to wear during the ceremony we held at the edge of the pit under the big red crane.  I was told that the crane stopped for the entire time we were offering prayers.

Personal Feelings:  At the suggestion of Gail Small, Program Director SAL

I was scheduled to be in New York City for an event of the American Indian College Fund and mentioned this to my friend Richard Masur, whom I had met when I was doing sacred sites work with the American Indian Religious Freedom Coalition.  The AIRFA Coalition had an event at the University of Arizona, Tucson, specifically to discuss maintaining the sanctity of Mount Graham.  The San Carlos Apache call it “Big Seated Mountain,” which is the home of their Spirit Crown Dancers and is the gateway for their prayers.  Nonetheless, the Mount Graham International Observatory was being built.         

After 9/11, Richard had been working with the firemen and others excavating the pit at the bottom of what had been the World Trade Center.  He was bothered by the fact that every denomination in the country had been there to pray, except for this land’s first peoples.  He arranged for us to pray at Ground Zero.  Accompanied by a Chaplain and Public Information Officer, we all climbed on a UTV, Recreational Off-highway vehicle.  Richard drove, I was the passenger, and the three others climbed onto the rear bed, some feet dangling off the back.  We wore hard hats, but the five of us did not wear gas masks (respirators).

I will never forget my first sight of the wreckage and the smoldering pit.  Someone rushed up and told us that we had come at the right time as they had just found another body!  I thought “there is so much to pray for.”  Attempting to control my emotions I thought “so this is how a war-torn place looks.”  Even most of the buildings still standing on the periphery were blackened by fire and showed structural damage. 

I thought of the number of lives lost there.  I could not begin to fathom the horror of their last minutes, the grieving families left behind, the rescue workers who dug through the rubbish in search of people, and the heroes who died there—those that lived.  My heart all but broke, as I witnessed the aftermath of cruelty that defies description by those who blatantly committed this heartless act.  I silently asked myself  “Why? Why?”

We had specifically asked that the Mohawks, some of whom had helped build the Twin Towers, to join us in the ceremony.  As it usually is, they were doing the most dangerous work.  They sent two representatives, a man, and a woman to join us in ceremony. And so we burned cedar and offered prayers to Ma’heo’o and to the sacred beings who sit at the four directions of the world, as well as up and below.  I also sang my prayer song.  We are taught that tears are the highest form of prayer, and that day mine was the highest of prayer but offered in a most humble, pitiful way.  That day I learned what death is and the true meaning of inhumanity.

The ceremony concluded, we climbed back on the UTV and returned to the outside faucets located alongside the building where the rescue workers slept.  We washed our shoes and hands.  I looked back toward the big red crane working directly over the pit at Ground Zero.  Then I turned to walk away with my daughter and friend.  We walked in silence, absorbed with our many thoughts and a new experience.  I understood what my father, a World War II veteran, meant when he said “war is terrible.” 

Richard took us to eat at a small Mexican restaurant, saying “this is the nearest to a native meal I can offer you.”  We ate in silence.  I left a part of myself in that hallowed ground, and can never forget the experience of having seen the aftermath of what war looks like and having glimpsed into the cruel depths of murder committed by those dedicated to their own beliefs and actions.

I can only hope this has made me more compassionate, loving, and kind.  I also relish peace, honor life, and see with the eyes of my heart.  I also understand my name variously translated as “Prayer Cloth Woman,” “The Woman Who Comes to Offer Prayer,” or “Prayer Woman.”   

Washita Symposium:  Past, Present and Future, Proceedings of Symposium, November 12-14, 1998, United States Department of the Interior, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, Washita Battlefield National Historic Site, Cheyenne, Oklahoma, December 2001.

2001-2006 Honorary Advisory Council of 100 Scholars, Leaders and Chiefs-Traditionalists, American Indian Graduate Center, Albuquerque, NM.

Guest Writer, “Reflections of a Cheyenne Woman:  Ground Zero,” NARF Legal Review, Native American Rights Fund, Vol. 27, No. 2, Summer/Fall 2002.

Elder in Residence and Member of Governing Council, National Institute for Native Leadership in Higher Education (NINLHE), Summer Institute, Santa Ana Pueblo, NM, August 2-6, 2002.

Panelist, “Article I, Section 1(2), Preserving Indian Cultural Integrity,” 30^th Anniversary Celebration of the Montana Constitution, House Chambers, Montana State Capitol, Helena, June 22, 2002.

Professor Emerita, Native American Studies, Montana State University, Bozeman.

2003-2016 Special Assistant to the President, Office of the President, Montana State University, Bozeman.

Visiting Elder and Speaker, “Native American Spirituality and Education,” Harvard University Native American Program (HUNAP), Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA, February 10-11, 2003.

Delivered the Commencement Charge (address) to the graduates of the Hundred and Seventh Annual Commencement of Montana State University, Bozeman, May 2003.

Speaker, St. Labre Catholic Indian School, 2003 Commencement, Ashland, MT, May 22, 2003.

“Earth Mother and Prayerful Children:  Sacred Sites and Religious Freedom,” in Richard A. Grounds, George E. Tinker and David E. Wilkins, eds. Native Voices:  American Indian Identity & Resistance.  Book dedicated to Vine Deloria, Jr.  Lawrence:  University of Kansas Press, 2003.

Prologue “Elder Reflections” and Co-author with Maenette K.P. Ahnee-Benham, Chapter 9, “Culture and Language Matters:  Defining, Implementing and Evaluating,” in Maenette K.P. Ahnee-Benham and Wayne J. Stein, eds. The Renaissance of American Indian Higher Education:  Capturing the Dream.  Mahwah, New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2003.

“Education as Protection,” Guest Editorial, Winds of Change, American Indian Education & Opportunity, Boulder:  CO:  AISES Publishing, Inc., Winter 2003.

Opening Keynote Speaker, 16^th Annual National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE), convened by the University of Oklahoma (Norman), Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies, San Francisco, CA (May 27-31, 2003.

Speaker, Oxted and vicinity of London, England.  I was, also one of two American Indian ceremonial people, who led the group “Peace through Education,” in a sunrise ceremony at Stonehenge, Wiltshire, English, Salisbury Plain, which is a designated English Heritage Site.  We were granted permission to enter inside the circular stone structure and offer a pipe in prayer.  November 15, 2003.

(Year is an estimate only) The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) transferred the human remains in its collections from the Bronx, NY to the Smithsonian’s Support Center in Suitland, MD. 

Jim Pepper Henry and Terry Snoball of the NMAI were in charge of the transfer, who brought in four spiritual knowledge keepers from Indian Country to assist in the transfer.  They were:

Jerry Flute and Joe Williams, Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota;

Montoya Whiteman and Henrietta Mann, Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes;

Mann, Henrietta.  “Of This Red Earth,” in Stephen Greymorning, ed. A Will to Survive:  Indigenous Essays on the Politics of Culture, Language, and Identity.  New York:  McGraw-Hill, 2004.

Invocation, Hundred and Eighth Annual Commencement, Montana State University, Bozeman, May 8, 2004.

Speaker, Leiden University, Leiden, Kingdom of the Netherlands, North Holland, September 25-October 5, 2006,

2006-2007 Interim President, Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal College (June 2006-December 2007)

Katsi Cook and I, Guest Speakers, introduced Al Gore at the Opening Ceremony, MOTHER EARTH:  A Special INDIAN SUMMER SHOWCASE Event in the Spirit of the LIVE EARTH Concerts, Washington, D.C. Mall:  Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian, Tim Johnson, Director, Saturday, July 7, 2007.

2008-2015 President, Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal College (January 2008-June 2015)

Bernard S. Rodey Award for leadership, vision, and inspirational guidance in Native American education, University of New Mexico Alumni Association, Albuquerque, NM.

National Indian Education Association Lifetime Achievement Award for achievement and service to Native education, 39^th Annual NIEA Convention, Seattle, WA.

Invited by the Lummi Nation of the State of Washington to be a part of the Native American delegation that was to attend the Dalai Lama’s public speaking events in different places in Seattle where he was to be honored and to meet privately with him at his request.  I was among the few selected to sit on the dais with the Dalai Lama as he spoke on COMPASSION to the audience assembled at Seattle’s Quest Field.

The city is named for Chief Seattle, the great Suquamish and Duwamish leader from that place, who is credited with saying:  “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”        

We were informed in our briefing session not to touch the Dalai Lama, but as we walked up the steps to join him on the dais, he rose from his special chair, which is transported to all his speaking engagements.  As the Native American delegation came onto the platform, the Dalai Lama rose and shook hands with all of us Native American delegates, who sat on the platform with him.

Legacy Award Winner for the education of Native American women and men, Working Mother Media, A Division of Bonnier Corporation, 7^th Annual Best Companies for Multicultural Women National Conference, New York, NY.

Mann, Dr. Henrietta. Narrative writer for We Waited for You:  A Welcome Baby Book. Photographs:  Cheyenne and Arapaho Children.  eds. Sharon Connor and GordonYellowman.  Concho, OK:  Cheyenne and Arapaho Publishing, 2009.

Mann, Henrietta.  “Sand Creek Massacre,” in Encyclopedia of the GREAT PLAINS, Lincoln:  University of Nebraska, Center for Great Plains Studies, 2011.

Mann, Henrietta and Anita Phillips.  On This Spirit Walk:  The Voices of Native American and Indigenous Peoples.  A Small Group Curriculum Resource.  Muskogee, OK:  Native American Comprehensive Plan, the United Methodist Church, 2012.

Ely S. Parker Award, American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), 2012 National Conference, Anchorage, AK, November 1-3, 2012.

Lifetime Award Winner (First), College Board, Native American Student Advocacy Institute (NASAI), The University of Montana and Salish Kootenai College, Montana, May 30-31, 2013.  NASAI subsequently created the Dr. Henrietta Mann Leadership Award to acknowledge and thank leaders for their advocacy in improving lives within native communities.

Opening Keynote Speaker, University of Leiden, 35^th American Indian Workshop, “Tribal Colleges and Universities:  Voices for Tomorrow, Leiden, The Netherlands,

May 21, 2014.  The organizers of the event and invited guests celebrated my birthday with me, with song, cake, ice cream and gifts, which was a pleasant surprise as I was so far from my family and home on Turtle Island.

President Emerita, Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal College at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Weatherford, OK. The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes defunded the tribal college, necessitating its closure in June 2015.    

Honorary Professor Emeritus, Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Weatherford.

Became one of two Native American educational scholars ever to be elected to membership in the National Academy of Education.

Listed as one of The 2016 50 FACES OF INDIAN COUNTRY, Indian Country Today, September/October 2016.

Featured in the Spring 2017 edition of Our Native Traditions published by The Shawnee News-Star, Shawnee, OK.  Title of the article is “CHEYENNE & ARAPAHO, Dr. Henrietta Mann, a living legend among the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes,” written by Rosemary Stephens. 

An excerpt from one of the two MSU Presidents for whom I served as Special Assistant for twelve years was quoted in the article:       

“Montana State University President Waded Cruzado said that Mann’s ability to stand easily in both the Native and the academic worlds have allowed her an unprecedented impact in promoting respect and understanding across the wold [sic] of Native American culture, history and spirituality.

   I once heard her called the “Native Maya Angelou,’ and for good reason, Cruzado said:  ‘to hear Dr. Mann speak is to never forget her grace and power.”

Smith College, Northampton, MA conferred Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, their citation reading in part:

“You have said that your life has been ‘lived in the trenches of education with the goal of helping to create a just world in which indigenous cultures thrive and our youth learn what it is to be human.’”

Selected as one of the inaugural circle of eight SPIRIT ALIGNED Legacy Leaders of Elder women supported by the Spirit Aligned Leadership Program and NoVo Foundation, which includes fiscal sponsorship of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

Yellow Bird 400-Mile Spiritual Run, Fort Robinson NE to Montana, Elder and Northern Cheyenne History Presenter, January 8-14, 2018.

Signed “Contributor Agreement” on February 5, 2018 with Routledge:  London and New York for the inclusion of my article “Of This Red Earth,” in the book edited by Neyooxet Greymorning.

The book was published:  Neyooxet Greymorning, ed.  Being Indigenous:  Perspectives on Activism, Culture, Language and Identity.   London:  Routledge, 2019.

Circle of Honor Award/Inductee, American Indian FESTIVAL OF WORDS, American Indian Resource Center-Tulsa-City-County Library-Tulsa Library Trust, Zarrow Regional Library, Tulsa, OK, March 3, 2018.

Speaker, “White Buffalo Woman:  A Granddaughter’s Perspective,” Women’s History Month, Washita Battlefield National Historic Site, Cheyenne, OK, March 25, 2018.

Inducted into Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame, Oklahoma Historical Society, Annual Awards 2017, Oklahoma City, OK, April 27, 2018.

One of the featured panelists, Cultural Foundations of Indigenous Self-Determination, The Next Horizon:  A Symposium on the Future of Indigenous Nation Building, John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 30-May 1, 2018.

Induction into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Class III:  Social Sciences, 2018 Induction Programs, Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, October 6-7, 2018.