Indian Activist’s Bold Life on Film

From ‘San Francisco State Phoenix’, November 20, 1980

by John Tuvo

“Brave Hearted Woman,” a 90-minute documentary film on the death of Indian activist Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, touched the hearts of a good-sized crowd at SF State’s McKenna Theater Tuesday and raised disturbing questions about American law officials’ dealings with Indians.

Written and directed by independent filmmaker Lan Brookes Ritz, who was present at the screening, the film focuses on alleged harassment of Indians by FBI agents and local police, who, several people interviewed in the movie contend, murdered Aquash.

Aquash had been a thorn in the side of law officials during the ’70s. She participated in numerous American Indian protests and sneaked food to the warriors under siege at Wounded Knee.

On Sept. 5, 1976, Aquash was arrested during a massive sweep of FBI agents of the Crow Dog reservation. Upon her release in January 1976, letters written by Aquash said FBI agent David Price told her she could clear herself by informing on Indians involved in the Wounded Knee siege. “You could shoot me, or put me in jail,” replied Aquash. According to the letters, Price then told Aquash, “I’ll see you dead within a year.”

Aquash’s sister read the letter containing these quotes in the film. The letter was postmarked before Feb. 24, 1976 the date Aquash’s decomposing body was found on the outskirts of Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

The body was not immediately identified. The film showed local police making no effort to discover the identity of the corpse. The body was finally sent to Pine Ridge Public Health Hospital, where Bureau of Indian Affairs Pathologist W.O. Brown performed an autopsy and concluded that the woman died of exposure. Brown then severed the hands and sent them to FBI headquarters for identification.

“It was an act of mutilation,” said an irate Indian interviewed in the film. “It’s the kind of thing that’s done in war.”

When Aquash’s sister was notified of Aquash’s death, she was suspicious. Her sister requested, through lawyer Bruce Ellison, an independent autopsy.

On March 11, Garry Peterson exhumed the body and found Aquash’s face had been smashed and a 38 caliber bullet hole in the back of her skull.

Peterson said he found it difficult to comprehend how Brown had missed seeing the bullet hole and smashed face.

Brown would not comment. In fact only one FBI agent was interviewed in the movie.

According to Ritz, it wasn’t a lack of objectivity, but the unwillingness of federal law enforcement officials to talk to her that caused their viewpoint.

Some officials even threatened her, she said.

“Some of them (FBI members) told me if I was going to embarrass them like ABC or CBS did, that they would bodily throw me out.” Ritz added that the one FBI official she interviewed, a ‘Mr. Boitlan,’ was very cooperative, but added she felt sorry for him because he seemed to believe that the FBI was a just and good organization.

In making her first movie, Ritz said she had no problems interviewing the Indians.

Although the $130,000 documentary seemed to make a strong political statement on behalf of the Indians and against the United States government, Ritz said she did not intend it to.

Sid Welch, president of SF State’s Student Council of Inter-Tribal Nations, sponsor of the film, said the movie was educational.

“It’s important that people realize that Indians are still struggling,” said. Welch. “Indians haven’t been receiving much publicity lately.”

“This government is supposedly run by the people, so if they realize what we are going through, things may change,” said Welch.

Betty Ann Parent, SF State associate professor of Native-American Studies, agreed that “Brave Hearted Woman” is a good educational tool for Indians, adding that white people’s romanticization of the American Indian is false.

“The U.S. government is committing genocide of Indians,” said Parent. “Hopefully, the movie will bring this to light.”

This positive outlook seemed to infect the audience as it clapped enthusiastically as the final scene of “Brave Hearted Woman” faded from McKenna’s screen.

“It was powerful,” muttered a young Indian woman as she left the theater, “but it hurt.”

Excerpt from event listing by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Apr 13, 1981

The body of Annie Mae Pictou Aquash, an activist in the 1973 Wounded Knee uprising and 1972 siege of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was found in a ravine in 1976, a bullet in her brain. Lan Brookes Ritz’s award-winning documentary, which had its world premiere at the 1979 American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco, is an investigation into the circumstances of Annie Mae’s death, and a portrait of the woman. The Washington Post called it, “the strongest statement ever made on film about the way this country deals with the peoples we displaced, the Indians,” revealed in the horrifying manner in which the FBI conducted its investigation. Marlon Brando comments, “With this film, Lan Ritz has taken these grisly details and has created a sense of beauty of the human spirit that touches all our lives.”

Directed, Produced, and Written by Lan Brookes Ritz. Photographed by Frank Byers and Victor DuBois. Edited by Jedidiah Horovitz and Jerry Feldman. Annie Mae’s Voice by Carole Marie. (1979, 84 mins, color, Print from filmmaker)

Review of ‘Annie Mae, Brave Hearted Woman’, by Akwesasne Notes (Late Spring 1982)

Annie Mae, Brave Hearted Woman

1979, 84 min. Produced, written and directed by Lan Brooke Ritz. 16mm. Color. Dist.: Ritz.

An activist in many struggles for Indian rights, Annie Mae Aquash was mysteriously murdered in the aftermath of the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee. In this film the reasons why the murder remains unsolved are traced through looking at who Annie Mae was and how her death was politically motivated. Her relatives, Micmacs in Boston; her coworkers at a Survival School daycare center; and her activist friends and associates all contribute to showing us a courageous woman with strong convictions. The events at Wounded Knee are also examined in detail to provide the necessary background for understanding her life’s work.

Annie Mae may have been assassinated for fighting for the freedom of American Indians. People who knew her at Wounded Knee dispute FBI claims to the contrary. They are outraged, as the viewers of this film will be, at the FBI’s attitude and apparently unnecessary mutilation of the body. The filmmaker has constructed a convincing film which shows why Native Americans have acted to defend their rights and why the Federal system is considered the primary abuser.