The Brave Heart Women’s Society
From The Kitchen Sisters Present by The Kitchen Sisters & Radiotopia
May 19, 2026 · 26 min · Episode 286
About this episode
The episode celebrates Faith Spotted Eagle and her contributions to the Brave Heart Women’s Society and Native women's ceremonies.
Today we’re celebrating Faith Spotted Eagle, an Ihanktonwan Oyate elder who has just received an honorary doctorate from South Dakota State University. We first met Faith in 2009 when we were working on our NPR Hidden World of Girls series — stories about rituals and rites of passage, of women who crossed a line, broke a trail, forged a path. That certainly describes Faith. When we opened up a phone line for the series and asked people to tell us their stories, Faith’s daughter Brook Spotted Eagle called in and left this message. Hi. My name is Brook Spotted Eagle. I belong to a women’s society on my reservation in South Dakota. The Brave Heart Women’s Society. My mother is one of the founding grandmother’s who has brought it back to life. Over the last 100 years we’ve lost a lot of our ceremonies. I’ll have to check with the elders, but when I saw the Hidden World of Girls I thought it would be amazing to share with other Native women the Isnati coming of age ceremony for our girls.
People in this episode
Host: The Kitchen Sisters
Guest: Brook Spotted Eagle
Topics covered
- Native American culture
- women's rights
- ceremonies
- elders
- education
- community
Keywords
- Faith Spotted Eagle
- Brave Heart Women’s Society
- Isnati ceremony
- Native women
- elders
- South Dakota
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: South Dakota State University, Brave Heart Women’s Society, NPR
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