Frances Theresa Densmorewas born in 1867 in Red Wing, Minnesotaandspent nearly 60 years working for the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of American Ethnology. She visited some thirty-five American Indian tribes, recorded more than 2500 songs, collected hundreds of artifacts, and transcribed a wealth of first-person narrations. Densmore died in her hometown in 1957. Her work remains highly valued by scholars and by many members of the first nations she studied.

Joseph A. Fitzgerald studied Comparative Religion at Indiana University. An adopted grandson of the Crow Sun Dance Chief Thomas Yellowtail, he maintains contact with members of the Crow, Sioux, and Shoshone nations. Fitzgerald is the award-winning editor of The Cheyenne Indians: Their History and Lifeways, Illustrated. He lives with his wife and daughters in Bloomington, Indiana.

Charles Trimble was born and reared on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and was principal founder of the American Indian Press Association and later served as Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians. He is retired and lives with his wife in Omaha, Nebraska.