Joseph Marshall III

A memorial service for multi-award-winning Sicangu Oglala Lakota author, historian, and educator, Joseph Marshall III was held at the Charlie and Marla Bull Bear home in Herrick, SD, on Sunday, June 22, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. Traditional Lakota Services were officiated by Jerome Kills Small and Richard Broken Nose. Marla Bull Bear read a poem, Echo Garrett gave the eulogy, and Chaze White Feather and Lorenzo Stars were the vocalists. Honorary urn bearers were Charlie Bull Bear, Nate Bull Bear, Mitch Bull Bear, Michael Bull Bear, Lorenzo Stars, and Don Stars. Inurnment will take place at a later date in White River, SD, and Hettinger, ND. Kotrba-Smith Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.

Joseph Melvin Marshall III, Ohitihya Otanin “His Courage Is Known”, was born April 8, 1945, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in White River, SD. The oldest of eleven children, Joe entered this world as the son of Hazel Two Hawk and Joseph Marshall Sr. He was raised to the age of eight by his maternal grandparents, Albert and Annie (“Nellie” Good Voice Eagle) Two Hawk, in a traditional Native household on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. When the young boy went to live with his paternal grandparents, Charles Sr. and Blanche (Roubideaux) Marshall, he solely spoke Lakota. However, he mastered reading, writing, and speaking English by the age of twelve.

As an author, Joe’s works were informed by his background as a Lakota archer and craftsman. The prolific author did not begin his professional writing career until he was in his early 40s and secured a newspaper column writing about life from the Native perspective. He subsequently penned 21 books, mostly nonfiction, including some children’s books. Some of his works were translated into French, Hebrew, Korean, Japanese, German, Italian, Chinese, Romanian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Bulgarian. He also narrated his own audio books, his deep voice unmistakable. He will be remembered for his international best-selling, award-winning books like The Journey of Crazy Horse, The Day the World Ended at Little Bighorn, The Lakota Way, and his final works—contemporary mysteries in the Smokey River Suspense Series. All three books in the series, including Last Prisoner of the Little Bighorn and The Wolf and the Crow (all published in 2024), had already won major awards at the time of his death. He had completed his work on the final book in the series Blood on the Dress on the day he died. In 2023, he received the Owen Wister Award by Western Writers of America for lifetime contributions to Western literature and was inducted into the Western Writers Hall of Fame.

Throughout his life, he taught, first at the high school level, and later as a professor at several colleges and universities, where he educated students on Native culture, Lakota language, and history. He was one of the founders of Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Reservation, one of the first tribal colleges in the United States, and served on the Board as President of Lakota Youth Development (LYD), Inc. He worked diligently on the Lakota Voices Audio Dictionary and started the Lakota Bow and Arrow Camp that LYD has been hosting since 2014.

In 2022, he received the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation Educator of the Year Award for his lifelong leadership in education and the impact that he made on indigenous youth and communities. In addition to his two PhDs in Native history and culture, he was presented an honorary doctorate from South Dakota State University in 2024.

He will be remembered for his work in tribal government and for his efforts to ensure the Native perspective and ways were authentically depicted by serving as a cultural and historical consultant and technical advisor on more than 50 films, television series, and documentaries.

Tall, strikingly handsome, and an expert horseman, he appeared as an actor in the television mini-series Return to Lonesome Dove and Into the West and in many documentaries and films.

Joseph (Joe) M. Marshall III, PhD, passed away on April 18, 2025, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota where he was born.

He is survived by his children: Kira Vanderwalker (Frank), Michael Marshall (Trish), Erin Marshall, Steven Marshall, Caitlin Marshall, Margeaux Wirt, Alixandra Sager (Arthur) and Gabrielle West; and as the grandfather of sixteen. Some of his children and their partners requested anonymity.