On the Big Horn Medicine Wheel: A Comment on Matthew Liebmann, Plains Anthropologist 47-180: 61-71

The Big Horn Medicine Wheel, often considered as "shrouded in mystery," has been interpreted as a depiction of a Sun Dance lodge on a horizontal plane, and as a place for vision-seeking. There should be no quarrel with the latter proposition. The first proposition, however, is erroneous. T...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Plains anthropologist 2002-11, Vol.47 (183), p.387-392
Main Author: Schlesier, Karl H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
America and Arctic regions
Anthropology
Cairns
Ceremonies
Comments
Generalities
History
Keresiouan languages
Liebmann, Matthew
Medicine
Na Dene languages
Native American dance
Native North Americans
Natural history
North America
Paleoanthropology
Prehistory and protohistory
Roofs
Space
Stars
Thunder
Tipis
Traditional dance
Traditions
Uto-Aztecan languages
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Summary:The Big Horn Medicine Wheel, often considered as "shrouded in mystery," has been interpreted as a depiction of a Sun Dance lodge on a horizontal plane, and as a place for vision-seeking. There should be no quarrel with the latter proposition. The first proposition, however, is erroneous. The tribes near the location of the Big Horn Wheel in prehistoric and historic times included the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Kiowa, and Kiowa Apache. These tribes did not have "Sun Dances" but major ceremonies with names different and no emphasis on sun worship. The exception is the Shoshone, who adopted a Sun Dance between 1800 and 1820. The lodge structure of the ceremonies of these tribes, investigated here in detail, in no way reflect the feature of the Wheel. The author explains the Wheel as a depiction, on a horizontal plane, of the Cheyenne Massaum lodge. This lodge, in which the secret part of the ceremony was held, was a closed tipi with a frame based on 28 poles. The Wheel, in addition, is here seen as a Cheyenne oxzem, a spirit wheel, as a territorial marker directed to the spirits of the world above.
ISSN:0032-0447
2052-546X
DOI:10.1080/2052546.2002.11949256