John Fire Lame Deer

John Fire Lame Deer (in Lakota Tȟáȟča Hušté; March 17, 1903 – December 14, 1976, also known as Lame Deer, John Fire and John (Fire) Lame Deer) was a Lakota holy man, member of the Heyoka society, grandson of the Miniconjou head man Lame Deer, and father of Archie Fire Lame Deer.

Life John Fire Lame Deer was a Mineconju-Lakota Sioux born on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. His father was Silas Fire Let-Them-Have-Enough. His mother was Sally Red Blanket. He lived with his maternal grandparents until he was 6 or 7, after which he was placed in a day school near the family until age 14. He was then sent to a boarding school, one of many run by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs for Indian youth, which were designed to assimilate Native Americans into the dominant Euro-American culture after their forced settlement on reservations. He attended for six years without learning to read, write, or speak English.

Lame Deer's mother died of tuberculosis when he was 17. His father moved north to Standing Rock Indian Reservation soon after and left Lame Deer with land and livestock, which Lame Deer quickly sold.

Vision-seeking or hanblechia At 16, Lame Deer participated in the vision-seeking ceremony or hanblechia, during which he decided to become a medicine man, or wičháša wakȟáŋ.

Political and spiritual work Making his home at the Pine Ridge Reservation and traveling around the country, Lame Deer became known both among the Lakota and to the American public at a time when Indigenous culture and spirituality were going through a period of rebirth and the psychedelic movement of the 1960s had yet to disintegrate. He performed pipe ceremonies and often participated in American Indian Movement activist events, including sit-ins at the Black Hills. The U.S. Supreme Court found that the federal government "decided to abandon the Nation's treaty obligation to preserve the integrity of the Sioux territory" and used military force to seize the Black Hills. The Lakota continue to campaign for the return of the Black Hills. He was also present at the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee. and the importance Lakota ceremonial traditions played in his later life and eventual understanding of the world.