Larry Littlebird

LARRY LITTLEBIRD
(Lawrence A. Bird)
June 6, 1941 - September 15, 2025


Larry Littlebird has made his blessed journey Home. In the early morning of September 15 with his loving family around him, Larry Littlebird walked up Holy Mountain.

Courageously navigating through a five year-long journey with Alzheimer's-Vascular Dementia, with his wife Deborah and their two sons steadfastly alongside him, caring for him, Larry is free.

Poignantly, September 15, was the first day of elk hunting in the mountains of northern New Mexico where Larry loved bow hunting. This was always his sabbatical month for his sacred hunting time. We are sure the elk are bugling with Larry in the realm of the Divine.

Larry Littlebird's life was one of deep faith, generosity and grace. Through his lineage of strong faith people and their courage, Larry gave graciously and generously to so many people across this beautiful globe with his loving kindness, his beloved Pueblo stories and his deep spiritual faith.

As a Keres Pueblo man from Laguna/Kewa Pueblo's, he was best known as a revered master storyteller, an eloquent inspirational public speaker and a vital culture bearer. Larry's core life mission was to perpetuate the living oral tradition culture of his People - so that the People shall continue. His life was a renaissance of accomplishments. Here are a few highlights of Littlebird's extraordinary life:

Larry Littlebird celebrated an indigenous holistic way of life. Growing up at his mother's village of Gwish-tee on the Laguna Pueblo, Larry spent much of his childhood out on the land with his Gramma and Grampa at their sheep camp and at Santo Domingo Pueblo, his father's Pueblo where elders and kin shared freely with him, stories, songs, and spiritual prophecies. These stories that flowed from his remnant oral tradition lineage informed and shaped his life's work.

Over the past six decades, Larry Littlebird has been a strong Native voice within his multi-faceted work as an artist, international speaker, filmmaker, author and experiential teacher.

He was one of the first American Indians to produce, write and direct films for and about Native people in the United States. He played the lead role in the feature motion picture, House Made of Dawn, based on N. Scott Momaday's Pulitzer-Prize winning novel. This film was archived by the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and declared a "watershed moment in the history of Native filmmaking".

Littlebird began painting in 1959 as an art major at Oakland City College, in California. As a teenager and young man, he lived in northern California with his family off the reservation while his father worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area and being part of that art scene in the early 60's became the catalyst for his developing interest in the arts. This is when Larry became close friends with the Beat Poets, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Michael McClure. Some of his early works were exhibited the Northern California Painters Exhibition at the Oakland Art Museum in 1961. He also did a stint as a talented pitcher for a California semi-pro baseball team during this time.

In the fall of 1961, Littlebird moved back to his beloved New Mexico homelands when he was awarded a full scholarship from the newly opened Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. He became part of the first alumni of IAIA. Littlebird would often share the colorful story of his arrival there, "We were given our own studio space filled with all the art supplies one could only dream about. I felt like I had arrived in heaven". And then later, how he was escorted off the campus and not to return because he wouldn't cut his long hair. Littlebird then painted from his Paguate Studio at Laguna Pueblo and later from his El Rito Studio in northern New Mexico. Many of his paintings from this period ended up in private collections in Santa Fe and around the U.S.

In one of his artist statements, Littlebird shared this: The art I make demonstrates my love of life and my feelings about our world, showing how learning to listen can become at the same time, learning to see. I believe creative painting is an acknowledgement reflecting how God blesses. As a Pueblo Indian artist, I come from a people who recognize and endeavor to live embracing this immense, creative sense. Possibly this is why we appear so incredibly gifted in our arts. We are compelled to live life creatively, making evident our Creator's great gifts, through our loving action toward one another. This is our true art; it is life long and a worthy purpose for any artist.

During the 1980's, Littlebird attended the Anthropology Film Center in Santa Fe. He served on the founding committee of Robert Redford's developing Sundance Institute and then attended Sundance as one of the first-year fellows. Littlebird began to explore film as "moving image art" and was fascinated with this medium as a way to tell his indigenous stories. He founded, Circle Film, a collaborative creative venture with Native American filmmakers and storytellers.

In the 90's, Littlebird together with his wife, Deborah Littlebird while raising their two sons, were deeply engaged in land based story work and regenerative living models at the grassroots level for healing and restoring land, people and culture. A renowned master storyteller, Larry and his wife Deborah co-founded, Coyote Gathers His People, a storytelling troupe and educational curriculum. They produced several historic, Hama-Ha Tribal American Storytelling conferences that brought together Native storytellers from many tribes across the country. His signature experiential program, Learning to Listen has had a profound impact on people's lives, globally, nationally and locally; taught in classrooms, boardrooms and tipis; at conferences and on stages from DC to San Francisco and around lodge fires. His cathartic teaching was a testament to the power of listening and storytelling as a path to deeper understanding and healing.

Larry was also an ordained Christian minister and birthed White Dawn House, an indigenous faith based organization, "a church without walls" rooted in land based pilgrimages. Over the past three decades Larry and his wife Deborah, led pilgrimages and reconciliation listening circles for healing historical wounds for First Nations people.

In 2006, the Littlebirds founded Hamaatsa (www.hamaatsa.org), an indigenous continuum and nonprofit dedicated to oral tradition lifeways, regenerative living models and spiritual wholeness for healing land and people. After retiring in 2019, Larry passed the torch to Deborah and their team who are now dedicated to keep his oral tradition legacy alive for the next generation of storytellers, song makers, artists, hunters-farmers and cultural custodians to gather, create and thrive.

Perhaps most significant, to those who knew Larry Littlebird best, he was a hunter. In his book, Hunting Sacred-Everything Listens, (2001 Western Edge Press) Littlebird says this: A hunter believes in God. My people were given hunting by the Creator as a way to remember. For my people, hunting was never a sport. It was always a spiritual discipline. Hunters journey by faith. Sounds call to them. Maybe it becomes a sound-song from some long-ago time. The song's language instructs and begins to guide. A hunter knows life will be sustained through correct action. The hunter works for all the people - to feed the people. He learns about God through keen observation of the intricate order of everything around him when he hunts. This knowledge is in the hunter's heart.

In Larry's final months, he became lucid in a deep spiritual liminal way with one foot in this world and one in the Other. It was a profound privilege to be in his presence at this time. He was auspiciously at peace. With his family's assistance, he was able to sing songs, pray and listen to the stories now being told to him. We held his hand and smiled together in our deep abiding love as he gave blessings of our Lord to those who sat with him. His spirit, full of love, was a beautiful reflection of the life he lived.

Walk on beautiful hunter man of God. We will always remember you, the indelible mark you made upon on all of our hearts and every good blessing way you humbly taught us. And continue to teach us from that Everlasting realm you now abide in.

Walk on brother hunter man of God. We will hear your soft melodic voice in the wind, your stories in the stars, your soft singing in the ripples of the water and listen to the voice in the land when we stand still on the ground beneath our feet. And in that early morning light, just before that time of the white dawn, when we hear the Coyotes howling as Creator gathers His People, we will smile with you.

~~~

Larry Littlebird is survived by his beloved wife of 35 years, Deborah Littlebird, his forever love, and their beautiful sons, Jesse Raine Littlebird and Hunter Littlebird (Mikaela Jones, daughter-in-law), their grandson, Jett Legend Littlebird; and his beloved brother, Harold Littlebird.

Larry is preceded in death by his parents, Tony Bird (Santo Domingo Pueblo) and Andrea Sarracino (Laguna Pueblo); his son, Abraham Lorenzo Bird; and brother Charlie Bird.

Larry is also survived by Gail Bird (sister) and children/grandchildren from his former marriages: Scarlet (Bird) Petrisko (Kevin Petrisko), grandchildren, Summer Petrisko, Lance Petrisko, Savannah Petrisko; Virginia Bird; and Cina Littlebird (Kevin Brandenstein), grandchildren, Ophelia Littlebird and Hendrix Littlebird.

The family would like to express their deepest gratitude to Beehive Homes-Memory Care of Rio Rancho for giving this revered elder such great care, compassion and dignity is his last 4 months. God bless you.

A Celebration of Life will be held on Sunday, October 26
Historic Old San Ysidro Church at 2:00 pm
966 Old Church Road, Corrales, NM 87048
We will gather joyfully together to honor Larry Littlebird and his extraordinary blessed life.
Contact Info:
email: littlebirdtwo@gmail.com
PO Box 66707, Albuquerque, NM 87193

In Lieu of flowers, we are receiving donation blessings for the
LARRY LITTLEBIRD ORAL TRADITION LEGACY FUND
www.hamaatsa.org/larrylittlebirdlegacy

Help continue Larry Littlebird's life's work and
ensure his oral tradition lives on for future generations.