Joe Medicine Crow became a war chief. He set a standard for aspiring warriors and was his son's inspiration. His maternal step-grandfather, White Man Runs Him, was a scout for US General George Armstrong Custer and an eyewitness to the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. Joe Medicine Crow's cousin is Pauline Small, the first woman elected to office in the Crow Tribe of Indians. When he was young, Medicine Crow heard direct oral testimony about the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 from his step-grandfather, White Man Runs Him, who had been a scout for General George Armstrong Custer. Beginning
Custer of the West from critics. At Rotten Tomatoes, the film received only a 25% "rotten" rating. It holds average rating of 4.1/10. Many were unimpressed by the attempt to shoehorn two different viewpoints into the same film – the mistreatment of the native Americans by American troops, and the portrayal of Custer as an American hero who was not to blame for the disaster. The general inaccuracies of the film were also questioned, particularly the portrayal of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. "Custer of the West" was released to VHS by Anchor Bay Entertainment on July 14, 1998 and on DVD by