How Did The Flathead Tribe Take Revenge for Jeremiah Johnson's Wife? 

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Well done Pilgrim . A fitting tribute to a "legendary" warrior and Mountain man . One of my favorite movies .

One of my favourite movies, I've watched it multiple times.

One of my great grandmothers was Flathead. Left the reservation and came to California, her surname was Eagle.

I watched this movie for 2 weeks, Straight. When 11 yrs old. Me & my brother 10yrs old, snuck into a drive in theater- through a rain run off gap between fence & pavement. Turning up the speakers close to us. We also watched Posieden adventure. Mom knew we were safe. Even though we crossed an ankle deep creek to get there. Loved both movies. The bear in cabin part was great. We were living in Knoxville TN. Knew had to be a basis for the movie, Thank you for the information. Since it was Mid '73 when seen it.

Robert Redford's finest performance.

The “Flathead” tribe are the Bitterroot Salish, and now call the Flathead Reservation home, in the Flathead Valley of the Mission Mountains in NW Montana. They consolidated with Kootenai, in the Mission Valley, and the Pend d’Oreille , to the west. They all form the Consolidated Salish Kootenai Tribes (CSKT), which administers the reservation. I live on the Flathead Reservation and can confirm: their young women are drop-dead gorgeous. John Johnston got himself quite a catch.

Your video provided a much needed context of the movie. The struggles of the various tribes are still active today with getting along with each other as evidenced by their videos. This video made me appreciate the movie more.

I lived for a while on Flathead Lake, in view of the Swan Range. I think now those mountains were named for her.

That part of the movie was so tragic, upsetting that thirteen cowardly women killers got away.

The actress who portrayed Swan was quite attractive. I researched her one time and she did very few movies for some reason.

Truth - especially outside of civilized times and places - is usually far more interesting and complex than books and movies ever capture.

If you read the book, at the time of this incident, Johnston’s cabin was in southern Wyoming/ northern Colorado. The war party caught her at this cabin. His vengeance took place over years and many mountain ranges.

Johnson was also known as liver eater Johnson to the Crow according to popular lore.

Thanks . That was informative and entertaining. I know the movie but you have supplied so much more information. Cheers from Oz. 👍

I still watch this from time to time….knowing it did have a historic foundation. Life was hard back then…and people were tough…they had to be to survive. I salute to our pioneer ancestors.

My favorite movie. I used to live on the West fork of the Bitterroot river, outside Darby MT.

Great! I always wondered about her Father and what he would do. He did not disappoint. 6:13

If you watched the movie he was not trapping, he had led a white recue group to a stranded wagon train. They passed through one of the Indian grave yards and this was the reason they killed his wife

Great movie! Powerful stuff & should be on your must watch list! 1

My favorite movie of all time..

A great movie... Thanks for flushing out more content about the movie!

I've been wondering exactly about this. Thanks!

What a FANATASTIC movied this was, one of Redford's finest. He also fell in love with Utah during the filming, starting the Sundance Film Festival.

I’ve been reading the book “Crow Killer.”….and Johnston was an amazing man, as were all of those early mountain men. It was a tough life, with tough rules, and tough people. It is amazing how far they travelled back and forth, and what they accomplished.

Great stuff...thank you Sir....

This was excellent, thanks 😊

I thoroughly enjoyed your video. Ill sibscibe and im looking forward to perusing more. 💪🏻🙏🏻✨

In the movie starring Robert Redford, it showed him killing about 30 Crow indians over the next several years , Hollywood toned it down . In reality historians think it was closer to 300 . The crow finally made some kind of peace agreement with Johnston .

A fine commentary the details I was unaware of. I saw the movie in the Spring of 1973 and it had a lasting affect on me, as a troubled 18 year old. It spurred me to want to see the Northwestern territory, and I began acquiring camping gear. I even bought a 50 caliber muzzle loader, that I still have to this day. A friend and I attended the World's Fair in Spokane by driving across the country, and we camped in territory around the story line places. People would talk to us about the Liver Eating Johnson history of the area, as it was freshened by the event of the movie. Such was common knowledge in that territory, but that was 50 years ago.

A forgotten gem of a movie. Gunslingers are a teenagers dream....lasted a few decades...mountain men were the people you walked quietly around.

Just a fun fact. Did you know that in the early days of television, Indian people could not play Indians because they could not be members of the screen actors guild, and in those old westerns the Indians we're played by Italians. There are Italian actors who made a good living playing the Indians. This is just one of many stories told to me by Shaman Cheif Kitpou in his teepee, as we sat around in a circle sitting on bear rugs. This was back in the 70's.

My brothers fav. Movie. Think of him especially when I see this movie.

Very interesting, My brother in-law is from that tribe. I will see if he knows the history...

Good job!

I’ve been on the Flathead reservation north of Missoula, Montana.

Great movie, saw it at the cinemas in the 1970s.

Thanks mate

I loved that movie

In Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 we’d call big Robert, big rab or BOABY

That movie was great! Never be another one like it...

I read the book, Crow Killer. Quite different than the movie.

Johnston terrorized the Crow tribe after this. He hunted them, 💀 them, and ate the liver of over 300. Crow learned to fear "Liver Eating Johnston".

...like the flatheads even better now!!!....as a SAXON warrior I greet you!!!

good yarn .where did you dig this up from

One of my favourite movies

For me story and western movie of Jeremiah Johnson are excelent...

I hit the bar in Browing Montana one morning and there were Flathead tribe members laying on the floor and band stage passed out. Went to the bar and was surrounded and had a knife pulled on me and my life threatened if I didn’t buy them some drinks. I’m a stone cold alcoholic is why I was there in the first place and would have bought them drinks without all of that. The pot holes in the street were the worst part. A few years later I was in treatment with a few of them in Great Falls. Good guys as far as I’m concerned.

Big Robber was supposedly killed by Shoshone chief Washakie at Crowheart Butte on the Wind River.

They made that commercial where the Chief Is looking all over the ground. Garbage, dirt, and debris tossed everywhere. The fading shot is on the Chief's face with a tear slowly running down his cheek.

One of my favorite movies , over the years i have watched this movie at least 9 times. I heard they used to call him liver eating Johnson for consuming the liver of warriors he killed.

Johnson was also called “liver eating Johnson”. The reason was his feud with the crow over his wife’s death made him a target of the crow. One time they had him outnumbered and he had shot a crow warrior who wasn’t yet dead. He knew the crow were a very superstitious people and in a desperate act to save himself he took his knife, and while the rest of the crow looked on he cut open the dying crow warrior and tore out his liver and started to eat it which terrified the crow so much they fled. After that when he would kill a crow warrior he’d take out the liver and eat part of it raw and leave it for the rest to find. That became the thing he was infamous for and it not only instilled fear in the crow, but also a deep hatred that drove the crow to try to kill him. What most people don’t know is that Johnson didn’t die in the mountains, but in a old folks home in Maine I think. It might have been New Hampshire I’m not quite sure since I first read his biography many years ago. I don’t know if it’s still in print but as I recall it was called “the life of liver eating Johnson”. A good but frightening read of hatred and revenge. Also the biography of Juan Garcia who was a mountain man who married a beautiful young Blackfoot woman who he bought and there were photos of them. I remember seeing the photo of Garcia and her and he was a dirty ugly man, and I literally couldn’t take my eyes off of this young woman who was so stunningly beautiful she’d be a raven haired beauty even by todays standards and that’s her pure natural beauty. I looked at her and could only imagine how repulsed she must have been to submit her body to a filthy ugly man like Garcia. In the photo her long black hair down to her lower back made me feel a real sense of sadness that such a beautiful creature as she was would be sold to someone like him. The sadness in her beautiful black eyes was so moving I kept that photo for forty years.

Waiting for the next movie.

I never knew the story of Jeremiah Johnson was actually true, thank you so much! And Redford kept the movie so accurate! A great story of love, Vengeance and life in the old west!!

I read that the ‘liver-eating’ was unproven and that 300 livers was likely an exaggeration. Great story either way!

The Crows were also despised by the Oglala and Lakota Sioux for acting as scouts and fighting on the side of Custer.

Thank you.

I knew the flatheads were capable of being fierce when Dell Jew said if they took insult they would gut them from belly to eyeball with a dull deer antler.

I’m not sure how accurate this betrayal of what happen or if it’s true but I like the movie still got it typed on my DVR regularly watch it.

It was so sad. She was such a nice lady

The best movie ever made.

Yes

Liver eating Johnson was from New Jersey.

According to the book "Crow Killer," the Crazy Woman was a real person who had settled in the Wolf Tail Valley. After her children were killed and her husband taken captive, she remained in her cabin. Liver Eatin' Johnson, Del Gue and Anton Sepulveda were among the mountain men who "avenged" her. One popular story was that the mountain man known as "Hatchet Jack" was actually her husband who had gone insane after being scalped and tortured by the Blackfoot Indians when they took him away. It was known that Hatchet Jack had been scalped at some point in his life and that he was mentally unbalanced. Johnson refers to this when he tells the Crazy Woman that he cannot find any sign of her husband, but that he might return if he escaped from the Indians.

What a movie. Not quite as accurate as the WWII story about Allied airmen in a german prison camp. Their slapstick humor, keen inventions and constant outwitting of the colonel warden and his bumbling sergeant are stuff of legend. Please showcase that documentary-like treasure. Give the reading bot a real heavy accent. For realism.

saw the movies years ago, first time finding out it was based on a real person.

I’ll admit I didn’t watch the video but I’ve never known of the flathead to be at odds with Johnson but the Crow

Robert redord great actor my one favorite was the mountain man with charlton heston

Johnson went on a twenty year killing spree killing crow everywhere he found them it wasn't that cut and dry

Get over modern sensibilities and offending them. People for thousands of years did this and modern thinking is an abberration and will certainly be looked down upon in the future. Our society today is unsustainable in its lack of moral values and celebrates what is wrong and deplorable as beneficial. Not all nations are like us for good reason. Our reason for allowing what we have become is cowardice and seeking our own pleasure. We would rather be on the golf course, at the shopping center, watching a movie, planning for a year and then going to Disney World, all things that simply can't be disturbed in response to wrong doing. We are entertained to death, a dead society still walking.

For those who liked Jeremiah Johnson, here are other movies. "Mountain Men" starring Charlton Heston and Brian Keith. "Man In The Wilderness" with Richard Harris, similar to the Revenant. Both were about the mountain Man, Hugh Glass. Neither was accurate about the real life encounters of Hugh Glass. Also one to watch, but very hard to find, "Sacred Ground" with Jack Elam. Last but not least is The full series of "The Life And Times Of Grizzly Adams" Starring Dan Hagerty and Denver Pyle." Both seasons of this Wonderful TV series. Hours of entertainment at a great value. I bought a copy in Walmart!!!! Can also be found online. Hope this helps for those interested in mountain Man lore and life. All the best and may God bless.

The second half of the movie was sad!!! Johnson knew not to travel through the sacred burial land yet, he did....he paid dearly for the mistake.

Ambushed and out numbered 4 to 1 they still managed to kill almost twice their number. Dang, that ain’t good!

My man !

My all time favorite movie! I'd like to see more vlogs on this topic.

I saw this movie for the first time about a year ago. He was a peaceful man, but when it came time for violence, he was all in. He was absolute death for those that tested him.

That actress was lovely.

It’s weird I’m watching the movie right now😂

This is very different from the legends ive heard. From the legends its said Johnson spent the rest of his life hunting and ambushing Crow warriors wherever he found them. Hes said to have killed them , cut out their livers and cooked them. Thus earning him the name liver Johnson

Did ya read the book

Because he took a group of men through the flathead burial Ground that is sacred. So they punished Johnson by killing his family ! So Johnson declared war on the Flathead Tribe. It lasted for years and years. 😮😊

👍

Frontier justice.

Dang the crow were outnumbered AND ambushed and they still killed more flatheads.

✋

Im glad we in times...i would rather not put my daughter up for sale...or trade like ever!!! However as a tribal and bloodline strong partial native ....i would love to put some of my inlaws up for sale or trade....😂

Wow. Outnumbered 4 to 1 and killed 60? Not a very effective ambush. Who punished who?

As to her murder: to forgive means *it was unimportant,* to forget means *it never happened.*

The film and the book are complete fiction. John Johnston give many newspaper interviews in his life and the real story blows all the nonsensical fiction away.

Filmed entirely in Utah.

Great Film.

And I thought she was made up. Never will understand these people’s right and wrong, bu to I’m glad they avenged her. Sorry the flatheads took so many hits

😃💬 Cool, I was born and raised in S/W Mt, on the banks of the Clark's Fork River. I was in S.I.S. in Miles City twice in the 1960s, and I made some good Native American buddies there - including some from the Flathead Rez. 🤠 Yup❕ G~G. ✏ 🗳 ☑ 🇺🇸.

Some of this is fact some fiction & some just plain wrong.She was sold to Jeremaih Johnson not Liver Eating Johnston.2 different people & the liver eater was a cannibal.

I'm from Scotland are they still native Americans people living we don't hear anything about them in Scotland i wonder if they were mostly killed or just a few left compared to the old days

There was nothing fictitious about the story of Liver-eating Johnson, the story loosely used for the film.

JJ was a very good movie.

The Fathead tribe was always warring with the Flatfeet tribe.

Why do you keep saying "JohnsTon"?

I love the Robert Redford movie. It is incredible. But make no mistake, The real Liver Eating Johnson was no hero.