A Sacred Connection

Since time immemorial, the Golden Eagle has been revered by the Indigenous nations of Montana, Wyoming, and North and South Dakota. The iconic Golden Eagle feathered headdress, also known as the “War Bonnet,” is worn by the Tribes of this expansive region, including The Séliš (Bitterroot Salish), Nimipu (Nez Perce), Qlispé (Pend d’Orreille), Ktunaxa (Kootenai), Pikuni (Blackfeet), Tsistsis’tas (Northern Cheyenne), Apsáalooke (Crow), Anishinaabe (Chippewa), Nehiyawak (Cree), Newe (Shoshone), Hinono’eino (Northern Arapaho), Metis, Nakota (Assiniboine), A’aninin (Gros Ventre), Dakota, Lakota, and eventually the Comanche. All of these nations are bound together by Big Sky Medicine Wheel Country and the ceremonial way of life that comes from it.  

Despite acute linguistic barriers, the Tribal communities of the Northern Plains learned to communicate vast amounts of cultural knowledge, evident today in shared oral traditions like Indigenous song, dance, ceremony, and story, to name a few.  One common theme across the Plains is that Golden Eagles are regarded as one of the world’s most sacred and spiritually powerful animals, and the use of their tail feathers for any head attire signifies that the wearer is a person of distinction and achievement.  Historically, Golden Eagle feathers could be obtained by a warrior if he “counted coups” against his enemy in battle. “Counting coups” represented an agreed upon set of rules for war and combat in which enemies could compete for superiority without taking each other’s life. Within the context of this high-stakes and potentially violent game, a warrior could count coups on his enemy and earn for himself a Golden Eagle feather.  According to the Apsáalooke (Crow) tradition, warriors must count coups 36 times to compile enough feathers for a complete headdress, or baleissheenmaaooshe, in the Apsáalooke language.  

I am a member of the Apsáalooke nation, and I grew up on the Crow Indian Reservation, where Golden Eagle feathers are common in the community and always held in the highest regard. I learned when I was very young that those feathers are for special purposes and must be protected from damage because they blessed us with spiritual strength, grace, and wisdom. Some of my earliest and most powerful memories include elders burning cedar leaves and fanning the smoke with an Eagle feather fan to show love and comfort. Eagles show us what it means to have trust and faith as parents to their eaglets, and I was taught by elders that the choke-cherry wooden pins above the tipi door symbolize and imbue the power of a Golden eagle’s wings; closing in around its vulnerable eaglets and protecting them from the harsh elements of the world.  

My nation also has a story of how the Golden Eagle came to share its tailfeathers with the Apsáalooke people, and it is based on the traditional values of reciprocity and gratitude. The ancient story describes how the eagles and other raptors have a constant tension with the animals of the water and earth, as eagles are apex predators and strike fear into the hearts of all that are under them. Yet, high in the mountains at Yellowstone Lake, Crow Indian folklore says there are water monsters who are capable of inflicting great harm on the Golden Eagles by attacking their baby eaglets. It is during the first part of May, when the eaglet’s fluffy white plumes drift softly from their nests down onto the water, that the otter-monsters become alerted and use their medicine to bring a thick blanket of fog to the lake. Then in the cover of night and fog, they climb into the Golden Eagle nests and eat the little eaglets before they are able to fly.  

One day, the father Golden Eagle had enough suffering and heartbreak and decided to seek the help of an Apsáalooke hunter in order to protect his eaglets from the Yellowstone Otter-monsters. The Eagle scouted until he found a man who was an expert hunter and who wore an antelope hide on his back. Packs the Antelope was the greatest hunter and had just finished harvesting and dressing an elk when he decided to take a short nap before returning to his village near present-day Greycliff, Montana. When he dozed off, the giant Golden Eagle swept in and picked him up with his talons and flew him back to Yellowstone Lake, where his eaglets were about to hatch. The Eagle told the man that he needed his help to protect his eaglets from the deadly otter-monsters who he could not see or stop in the dark night. Packs the Antelope decided to build a great fire and fill the fire with hundreds of rocks from the area. He let the fire burn for days until the rocks were red hot and glowing in the night. 

Then, one night when the fog settled in, he waited for the monster to approach and used the light from the fire to see it. As soon as it got close, Packs the Antelope used a stick to flick the hot rocks into the monster’s mouth, killing it and causing hot rocks to be flung all about the area, where they are still burning today, causing the water to get hot and shoot from the ground. The Golden Eagle was profoundly thankful to Packs the Antelope for saving his eaglets. Because of his great courage and loyalty, the Eagle gave him 12 of his own tail feathers to use for ceremonies and ceremonial attire. Ever since that time, the Apsáalooke people only use the tailfeathers of the Golden Eagle for their most sacred ceremonies and events. 

This story, and many others like it, connects Native people with Golden Eagles in ways that are ancient and sacred, and it speaks to common threads of resilience, compassion, gratitude, and reciprocity. As contemporary Indigenous people, our historic stories inform us not just of who we are, but of who we aren’t, and these lessons benefit not just us, but the world around us as well.