George Bird Grinnell

Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales George Bird Grinnell

Originally published in 1890, these legends were recounted to the author by the Pawnee Chief and others. In the late 1880's the ethnologist and writer visited the Pawnee Agency in Indian Territory. He told the Chief the object of his visit was to ask the people about how things used to be in the olden times, to hear their stories, to get their history, and then to put all these things down in a book. George Bird Grinnell was an American ornithologist, publisher, and conservationist. He talked his way onto a fossil collecting expedition in 1870, and then served as the naturalist on Custer's expedition to the Black Hills in 1874. Grinnell was interested in what he could learn from the Indian tribes of the region, and early on was well known for his ability to get along with Indian elders. The Pawnee called him White Wolf, and eventually adopted him into the tribe. The Gros Ventre called him Gray Clothes, the Black Feet "Fisher Hat." The Cheyenne called him wikis which means "bird," observing that he came and went with the seasons. His writings from this period are considered topnotch in the field of anthropology, and he served as an advocate for native Americans for his entire life. Grinnell took over Forest and Stream and became its editor in 1880 with financial assistance from his father, a New York financier. A member of the American Ornithologists' Union from shortly after its founding in 1883, Grinnell founded the first Audubon Society in 1886 and began publication of its Audubon Magazine the next year, but folded both of them in 1888 when public interest in bird conservation waned. Along with Roosevelt, he cofounded the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887.