When we came home from Lethbridge to Walla Walla, in the early 1980's, for a summer visit, my beloved father said that in the morning he was going downstairs to do some work.
When I woke up at about 8 AM, I could smell sweetgrass coming from downstairs. I knew when it was time for me to join him, he would call me.
Finally, about sundown, my father called me downstairs. Laid out on the table was a Bald Eagle completely taken apart with all the feathers laid out in perfect order along with the fluff, without any of it clinging to my father's clothes or hands.
One of these bald eagle feathers was put in my mom and dad's car for protection. My father gave their car, with the eagle feather, to my sister, Deloria Bighorn, and her beloved Husband, Jacob, to protect them and their children
When Ellison Onizuka, an American astronaut from Kealakekua, Hawaii, came to speak at the Chemawa Indian School, in Salem, Oregon. My brother-in-law wanted to give him a gift. The best he could think of was my father's beaded, Eagle Feather, hanging off the rearview mirror in the car, my parents had given them.
Then Astronaut Onizuka successfully flew into space with the Space Shuttle Discovery. He carried the Eagle Feather around Mother Earth 48 times. On his return, he gave the Eagle Feather to the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES). Sadly, on his next flight on Space Shuttle Challenger, he died.
My father prepared another Eagle Feather for Chickasaw Nation Astronaut, Commander John Herrington, USN, Ret., for his flight into space. Commander Harrington carried the second Eagle Feather, from the same Eagle, into space as a member of the sixteenth Shuttle mission to visit the International Space Station (November 23-December 7, 2002).
Commander Herrington was the first Native American to walk in space. Herrington honored his Native American heritage during that walk by carrying six eagle feathers, a braid of sweet grass, two arrowheads and the Chickasaw nation’s flag. where it is now in the Museum of the American Indian in Washington. I knew my father had a reason to spend the day preparing the Eagle the way he did and my father always followed his heart and intuition!
