08/21/2024
The Passing of a Great Teacher — Tracker Tom Brown, Jr.
January 29, 1950 - August 16, 2024
I spent most of yesterday (August 19) on the phone, accepting condolences from around the world for the loss of Tom Brown, Jr. who passed last Friday, (August 16). Though we had not seen each other in many years, there was a time in 1981 when I was taken by friends to Tom’s Standard course in New Jersey and we became close friends.
Tom was already in a very productive phase of his life as a teacher and author and I was visiting the United States from Adelaide, South Australia where I was working with the Aboriginal community at the Aboriginal Community College. Some of the elders had “recruited” me to help with the training of the youth and I was learning many things from the experience. As some of the young men had said to me, “When we’re in the classroom, we listen to you. But when we are out in the bush, you should listen to us.”
I had no idea how much they were teaching me until I went through Tom’s course as if I was born to tracking! I would do things in the class and Tom would come over — “I’ve never seen a man do that.” He invited me to do more of his classes and said, “When you come back to the States, come and teach with me.”
Tom had something so valuable — he actually had created a “method” and a curriculum for teaching tracking and survival that was remarkably effective. I carried his teachings back to the Aboriginal elders and we began to blend the Nature teachings from Turtle Island with those of Australia. I teamed up with Dookie O’Loughlin who took me to meet legendary Pitjantjatjara tracker Jimmy James. Uncle Jimmy was already 72 years old when we met and he was happy to have a young “partner.” We enjoyed some remarkable adventures.
In 1984 I returned from 7 years in Australia and I took Tom up on his offer to teach with him. I moved to New Jersey and for the next two years taught at the Tracker School, helping out with most all of Tom’s courses. I had begun to work with the leaders and youth of the Iroquois Confederacy, so I worked it out with Tom that two Native youth could attend his classes at no cost. (I heard from someone recently that this arrangement has continued up to the present.)
One of the young students who came through the school, Ricardo Sierra, went on to become a well-known wilderness educator, mentored by both Tom and by The Tracking Project. In the past few days, he posted a piece on his FB about how FUNNY Tom was, and I thought I would pick up on that thread.
This picture from 1984 shows Tom, a fellow named Colin and myself on “camo day.’ Tom had us fill a bunch of buckets with mud and then he called the class over. He took a big handful of mud and a nice “crown” of grass. He said, “Most people think John is too spiritual and they would never do this to him.” He rubbed the mud into my face and put the grass on my head.
I smiled and got a big handful of mud. “Most people think Tom is too big and strong and they would never do this to him,” I said. I pulled his shorts out and shoved the mud down his pants.
That began a huge mud fight which then turned into the whole class getting mudded up for “camo day.”
Tom was a Coyote, a Trickster, and he was really very funny. But he was also as serious as can be about Life and about caring for the Natural World. He leaves behind a library of books that he wrote and thousands (and hundreds of thousands) of students that he taught over these many years.
He will be missed.
