Experts

Faith Spotted Eagle

Founder, Brave Heart Society

Faith Spotted Eagle is the Founder of the Brave Heart Society, an organization dedicated to the revival of a traditional cultural society for indigenous women.

She is a fluent speaker of the Dakota Language and a member of the Ihanktonwan. Faith is a leader in the resistance against tar sands pipelines including DAPL, Line 3 and the Keystone XL pipelines. As the Chair of the Ihanktonwan Treaty Committee and Brave Heart Society Grandmother ,she helped bring forth the International Treaty to Protect the Sacred against the KXL Pipeline and the Tar Sands.

Faith has a unique ability to facilitate workshops between people from diverse cultures to understand and support each other. She was part of many of the key actions on the KXL pipeline from the first Spirit Camps, water testing, cultural resources studies, Treaty signings and the Reject and Protect event in Washington, DC. At Standing Rock, Faith was an elder leader in protecting the Horn of the Oceti Sakowin Camp.

Faith attended college at American University in Washington, DC and Black Hills State College, Spearfish, South Dakota, and earned a Master’s in Guidance and Counseling in her early twenties at the University of South Dakota. She has been active in teaching the Dakota language and is a 20-year member and coordinator of a revived traditional Brave Heart Society which operates a multi-purpose lodge.

She has been a delegate of the Treaty Committee NGO at the United Nations. Faith’s priority, beyond stopping risky pipelines, has been to battle for the preservation of Sacred Sites through Brave Heart Society support of the World Peace and Prayer Day, represented by Bundle Keeper, Arvol Looking Horse.

Faith descends from the Sicangu, Hunpati, Hunkpapa and Mdewakantonwan of the Oceti /Peta Sakowinand and has French/Irish blood through her grandmother Julia Deloria and John McBride. She is a grandmother and lives in South Dakota.