George Horse Capture

Horse Capture died April 16, 2013, of kidney failure at their home in Great Falls, as complications from diabetes and congestive heart failure. He was buried at Fort Belknap Agency Cemetery. He was survived by his third wife, KayKarol Horse Capture, and his four children. His many grandchildren and great-grandchildren knew him as "Grandpa Braids".

In 1994, Horse Capture was selected as the Deputy Assistant Director for Cultural Resources at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City. He worked at NMAI for 10 years, helping to develop the new museum to be built on the Mall in Washington, DC. He served as senior counselor to the director. He retired in 2004. "He was determined to make it a museum for Native peoples, not just about them." In 2005, he organized a conference at the University of Great Falls, "American Indian Nations: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow."

His published works include The Seven Visions of Bull Lodge (1980/1996), which he edited an annotated An American Indian Perspective, I'd Rather Be Powwowing, and Indian Country. Horse Capture spent his entire professional life gathering materials about his tribe, the A'aninin. These works include photographs, objects, publications, and songs. With this material, he created the Tribal Archive Project, "a database that includes information from worldwide museum sources about the A'aninin." One month after he presented his final version of the archive to tribal members, he died. This may be the first tribal digital archive created.

In 1979, Horse Capture was hired as the first curator of the Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming; he was one of the first Native Americans to serve as a museum curator in the US. He is credited with bringing the museum to "national prominence."

After leaving the Navy, Horse Capture worked for five years as a welder's helper, becoming a steel inspector for the California Department of Water Resources; he was "the only minority person at that time for the State of California." He participated in the Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island beginning in 1969. It gathered national attention for American Indian activism and issues. He enrolled at University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology.

George Paul Horse Capture (October 20, 1937 – April 16, 2013) (A'aninin) was an anthropologist, activist, and writer.