Daybreak Little Sky, the pioneering indigenous instructor, actress, and artist for Disney, died on Oct. 24 on the age of 95.

Little Sky's dying was introduced by her household by way of an official obituary on the web site for the Sioux Funeral House in Pine Ridge, S.D.

"Eunice 'Daybreak' Elsie Little Sky was born on April 17, 1930, in Fort Yates, N.D. to John and Ethe (Bruguier) Gates," the obituary reads. "Eunice made her journey to the Spirit World on October 24, 2025 on the Monument Well being Hospital in Speedy Metropolis, S.D."

Little Sky's obituary notes that she was raised on the Standing Rock Reservation, which belongs to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North and South Dakota and occupies territory that spans each states.

Whereas attending school at Haskell Indian Nations College in Kansas, Little Sky met Eddie Little Sky, the person she would marry and stay with till his dying in 1997. The pair married in Roswell, N.M., after which decamped for California, the place their twin careers in leisure started to blossom.

Daybreak blazed a monumental path ahead by touchdown a job at Disney's Frontierland, resulting in her function as an artist at Walt Disney Studios, the place, because the obituary notes, "she was the primary Native American artist to paint Disney cells."

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From there, each Little Skys segued into on-camera roles. Daybreak appeared in episodes of a number of common Western tv collection, together with Gunsmoke, Rawhide, and Daniel Boone. She additionally appeared as Arita Pink Feather within the Anthony Mann traditional Cimarron, considered one of a number of variations of the 1930 Edna Ferber novel of the identical identify.

Each Daybreak and Eddie appeared in episodes of The Magical World of Disney and Have Gun — Will Journey, in addition to movies like Journey By way of Rosebud, Loopy Horse, and the Gregory Peck-starring Western Billy Two Hats.

The couple moved again to South Dakota within the late Nineteen Seventies, the place Daybreak took up a publish because the director of the Eagle Butte Cultural Middle and taught artwork and tradition on the Little Wound College within the city of Kyle. Daybreak was given South Dakota's prestigious Indian Residing Treasure Award in 2005 for her conventional dancing.

"Daybreak lived a unprecedented life and left a constructive affect on all who had the distinction to work together together with her," her obituary learn. "Her life was filled with so many adventures and unforgettable experiences, and he or she was the perfect storyteller with probably the most wonderful humorousness! Daybreak’s heat presence and considered one of a sort smile shall be missed dearly by all who knew and cherished her."

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