Henrietta Verle "Henri" Mann was born in 1934 in Clinton, Custer County, Oklahoma to Lanora E. and Henry Mann. The Manns were enrolled in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. Her father was a farmer and raised cattle on his family's allotment near Hammon, Oklahoma and her mother raised chickens. Her great grandmothers were White Buffalo Woman, one of the survivors of the Sand Creek massacre, and Vister, a survivor of the Washita Massacre. Her mother was a Christian, but the rest of her family followed traditional belief systems, and were peyotists.