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Biographie

Luther Standing Bear (December 1868-February 20, 1939), aka Ota Kte (meaning Plenty Kill) or Mochunozhin, was a Native American writer and actor.

He was born on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to an Oglala Lakota family and raised in the Sioux tradition. He was educated at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an Indian Boarding School in Pennsylvania, where their first tactic was to separate the Indians from their tribes by allowing them to choose a new name more congenial to American standards. Thus, Plenty Kill became Luther Standing Bear. He was among one of the first groups to attend Carlisle. After graduating, he operated a dry goods store at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota until becoming a dancer and horseback rider for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. From the 1910s to the 1930s, he starred in Western films, including White Oak and Cyclone of the Saddle.

According to American interpretation, he inherited the position of "chief" to the Lakota peoples. In the Lakota vernacular, "wise man" or "leader" or "speaker of the people" is probably a nearer meaning since chief has more of a "ruler" connotation, and it is not clear that "chief" is how a Lakota would refer to any Lakota people. Linguistics is problematic as many words in the Sioux language cannot be easily reduced to what a term might mean in American English. Until recently, the Sioux languages have been confined to spoken word or oral traditions that can render different meanings according to how the word is said or even pronounced.[1]

Although Standing Bear achieved many successes by American standards, including becoming a member of the Actor's Guild of Hollywood, the plight of his people remained foremost in his mind. The Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 was particularly disturbing to him.[2]

Standing Bear published books during his lifetime to educate the public about Native American and Lakota culture and government policies toward his people. These included My People the Sioux (1928), Land of the Spotted Eagle (1933), and Stories of the Sioux (1934). In 1939, he died of the flu while on the set of the film Union Pacific. He is buried in Los Angeles, California's Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Standing Bear's saying 'Thought comes before speech' was quoted by A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr in his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee in the hearing for impeachment of President Clinton.