Madonna Swan - Early Life

Early Life

Swan was born on the Cheyenne River Reservation to Lakota, Western Sioux parents in 1928. She was the fifth child of ten, of which only five survived to adulthood. Makoka Winge’ Win (Goes Around The World Woman) was her Indian name given to her by her father. Her parents, James Hart Swan and Lucy Josephine High Pine-Swan were born around the turn of the 20th century. Madonna’s father James completed education at both Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, an Indian school in Oklahoma, where he would have been taught a skilledtrade geared toward agriculture, and two years at Haskell Indian College, which was the equivalent to a junior college. For the first five years of her life the Swan family lived with Madonna’s paternal great-uncle, known as Grandpa Puts On His Shoes, or Grandpa Puts for short. American Indian elders of the age cohort of Grandpa Puts (born before 1900) were alive during the nomadic days before the Indian victory and defeat of Custer at Little Big Horn and the subsequent final Indian confinement on indian reservations. Madonna Swan’s childhood was filled with beliefs and customs of the traditional Indian lifestyle. She relates a story of being cured of warts with the rubbing of a raw potato on them, applied by her father.