Saponi-Tribe

I have searched the internet for 4 days now, I can find tons of dream catchers online but no medicine wheels, I did find about 10 medicine wheels however they was all in colors and designs that are not traditional medicine wheels.

I found one place online which says they have the medicine wheel kit and it looks somewhat traditional only problem is I put my order in for that about 4 days ago, I got the confirmation email........but the money is still on my visa card and this company does not seem to be sending me anything, not sure if the company no longer has them or what.

If I'm not mistaken the traditional ones are made with quills.

Well I thought this would be a really good topic, Everyone can pass on their ways of making "traditional" medicine wheels.......places that may carry them.......medicine wheel teachings, etc. Also add the traditional colors for each group (I've heard that tribes outside of siouan use different colors but I'm only keen on the siouan red,black,white,yellow colors).

Saponi-Tribe

I figure I will add this as well, since knowing what something means should always be known before making something or wearing something etc etc.

It's some teachings about the medicine wheel, from the Lakota aspect.

Part 1
YouTube - The Medicine Wheel - 1 of 3

Part 2
YouTube - The Medicine Wheel - 2 of 3

Part 3
YouTube - The Medicine Wheel - 3 of 3

Some more stuff on the medicine wheel.
YouTube - Sacred Native Teachings - part 2 circle

Saponi-Tribe

Found one more video on the medicine wheel teachings.

YouTube - Native American Medicine Wheel & Manoomin Project teens

Lakota Wiyan

What tribe are you from, and why are not going with your tribes traditions, rather than the "siouan"?

I think you might need some more understanding beyond what you can order on the internet, and I would suggest you go speak to the elders of your tribe, rather than becoming "keen" on a different tribes beliefs.

just my own two cents

Saponi-Tribe

Saponi is sioux, Lakota is also sioux.

The medicine wheel is also used by many other tribes outside of the sioux family. It was even used by the tribes of south American.

I put this topic in the "general crafts" section.

Since there is different colors for different tribes...I left that as a open topic for discussion.......the thread it self is for people to discuss ways to make medicine wheels, places they can get them from, etc.

You have to remember not all native americans live on reservations or live close to others........knowing a place for them to get supplies online helps them alot in keeping their heritiage alive. Also by them ordering from nativie american stores online helps in keeping money in the community. you have to always think positive and help support others....and never shun anyone from knowledge or anything else n matter if they are from another tribe. Actually I believe it is good to learn from other tribes....this is how tribes evolved....tribes a long time ago would meet with each other and share knowledge with each other....

WocusWoman

I have to agree that medicine wheels are used from many other parts of the nation. I have a beautiful one my little sister's, uncle in-law hand carved out of elk antler bone. He used something to color it greens and she gave it to me because most of my outfits are greens and blues. Its precious to me.

Saponi-Tribe

I wish I had access to more material like that.

I just spent 5 hrs making one today......I started out with this flexible wire stuff, small circle, bigger circle, then the 4 lines to connect them.

I used beads around the wire for strength, I used purple beads for the center circle.

I then wrapped it with Black (nw corner), red (sw corner), white (ne corner), yellow (se corner) embossary floss.....

I then attached 3 green feathers to hang down from the center. I used green beads at the tip of the feather and then rainbow beaded the rest of the feather to the feathers themself.

I then attached suede lace for the necklace part. loaded the suede lace with beads....dark blue, light blue, dark blue, light blue, yellow (went with this color combo to fully cover the suede lace).

Got everything from walmart (closest store to me)....total cost came to about 19 dollars with tax and all.

Everything was found on the same aisle........I wish I had access to better supplies......

stonewoman74

What is the medicine wheel used for?

__________________
We are all from the same tree, Just different branches..All we really have to do once in awhile is climb down out of that tree and take a good look at the whole tree.

Saponi-Tribe

I tried to post some videos that had various teachings of the medicine wheel, but they never did post.


I guess the most simple way to tell what the medicine wheel is would be to say it is a symbol for universal unity........everything in the world is in harmaony with one another....once everything is in balance then everything flows in a smooth circle.

If even one thing comes out of balance then nothing flows in a smooth circle.

The medicine wheel works for all things in the world.
The medicine reminds us this.

The four colors represents many things....white for europeans, yellow for asians, red for the original people of the americas, black for the people of africa.

You can also see the yellow to present the sun (or birth)...and the black to represent when the sun goes back down.

The medicine wheel also represents the circle of life in which all things must go thru.

There is also 3 other directions.....one being in the center of the medicine wheel (which is represented by the color purple)....This is where we are on the wheel....unless we are out of balance.

Then we have the direction of str8 up which is represented by the color blue.

Then we have the direction of str8 down which is represented by the color green.

I'll reply later with some more teachings of what the medicine wheel means.

Saponi-Tribe

North, white
East, yellow
South, red
West, black

This is your basic colors and directions.

In the east the sun comes up to represent a new day...the sun is yellow. Also with a new day is also Birth....can be seen as youth, Young people.

The south you have red....the color of the earth....mother earth....this can be used to represent our women....our mothers...sisters...

In the west we have the color black......this can be used to represent our men...fathers...brothers....

In the north we have white....this can represent our grand parents.

The four colors can also represent the 4 basic races of the world.

This is teachings from Ojibwa elder Glen Bressette.

Different people use different colors but the principles are still basically the same.

Saponi-Tribe

This next reply is from Don Warne who partially grew up on the pine ridge reservation.

The medicine wheel has been used for 10,000 years by the north and south american people.

The cross in basic terms represents the four directions....east,west,north,south....but the symbolism represents that while each direction is opposite to each other...they are still connected....this is what the circle around the cross represents.

Some people look to the center of the circle as being "With in" (7th direction). some people also see 2 other directions.....being up and down.

You have four basic elements....fire (yellow)....sun, Air (north) also animals, Earth (west) also minerals, Water (south) also plants.

North is where the snow and northern winds comes from....snow is white.
East is where the sun rises....the sun is yellow.
The sun sets in the west so it is black...the black hills or black earth is to the west as is the rocky mountains...many minerals are found in the west (remember the gold rush).
In the south we have the people and deserts....also we have the rain forests in the south (mexico and south america) which include water and plants.

Now even though the directions on the wheel are opposite to each other....effecting just one of them can effect them all.....destroying the rain forests in the south will effect the air to the north because the gifts are all connected by the circle.

Now humans also go by this......to the east you have your spiritual aspect, to the north you have your mental aspect.....
to the west is your physical aspect, and to the south is your emotional aspect.

Understanding the medicine wheel can help you understand your own well being.
Mental Stress can cause physical illness......physical illness can cause emotional depression.......when a person is in the hospitual they can tend to be more spiritual.

When people are emotionally upset....they tend to rationalize (mental) to try and get back in balance (get back to the center of the medicine wheel).

In the aspect of sports.....people use pride to make up team spirit (spiritual) this develops mental strength and mental toughness which influence the physical performance.....physical performance can lead to emotions.

When a aspect of the wheel is removed....then the wheel is not complete and you get negative reactions.........remove the spiritual aspect and you may fall back on emotions giving negative emotions....these negative emotions can cause violence (physical)......this will eventually lead to mental stress.

Emotions such as mourning...sadness...anger....frustration...low self esteem...etc if you do not have a spirituality to fall back on....negative emotions will not be able to go in the circle and instead break the circle and go to the next thing on the wheel....mental....mental will make decisions.....and this mental decision may bring in the next section on the circle which would be to physically drink alcohol or use drugs since the negative emotions was not cleansed thru the full circle process.

Wow this was probally really long lol.........

FluteMaker

not forgetting the 'buy native' sentiment, lets not confuse language grouping with culture sets. the mid-atlantic culture is nothing like the northern plains/great basin culture

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No bomb is smart enough to not kill the innocent.

Saponi-Tribe

That is true......and there is so many different variations to the siouan speech as well.

But still the medicine wheel has pretty much the same universal meaning no matter where it is used.


Life is about evolution.....life is ever changing.......we are not supposed to just learn about our self but also about the people around us.....this is how we evolve.....we are all brothers and sisters no matter if there is a different tribe name.......in days past tribes would communicate with other tribes and learn from each other...........tribes would also marry into other tribes......tribes would band with other tribes.......trading with other tribes has always been very big as well.......medicine men from one tribe would actually communicate with many other medicine men from many different tribes to increase their understanding of life........when we go out and learn new age knowledge we are supposed to use that to bring back to our people and help evolve them for the betterment of the people as long as that knowledge is for betterment and not for destruction.

Medicine it self was learned by watching the animals around us....animals would know what plants to eat on to make their self better.....you can even see this today with such animals as household cats......when they go out into the yard they will eat grass.......evolution is about observing the world around you and learning from it.

Peace comes from us understanding that we are one.....once we get into the mind frame of thinking we are different then that begins the birth of hate. We have to also remember that many tribes today think they was always that tribe......and they always forget that many tribes are actually broken off fractions of other tribes......and to try and find out their deep history and deep traditions they must go back to finding out which tribes did they break off from many many many many years ago (alot of times have to go back before the 1500's)......best way to do this I believe is to study the language of each tribe. But like you said....traditions can be different amoung various siouan tribes.......but you have to also look at it like this......take two dogs at birth...born of the same mother......release on to the woods and the other care for in your home......when them two dogs are grown they will have different actions but they will still have the same natural instincts as each other due to the fact they are from the same mother. This same concept applies to humans.....or tribes which have long ago departed ways with their mother tribes.......different names but same mother same natural instincts. A good question that may sum it all up is....go to each tribe and ask them "why do you dance".....

Maybe what I speak makes some sense..maybe not.......but my message should be clear.....no matter how much the traditions may seem different......they all come from one mother tradition.....over time each tradition may have changed some.......but if we never learn of other tribe traditions then we will never know our mother tradition.
If we see ourself as one person then we will never see ourself as a whole. If we see the future as one person then we will never know our past.

As for the "buy native"......this is very true....if a person is from a family.....they leave the family and better themself....they aquire food.....but never give any of the food back to their family.....instead gives the food to non family.......what happens to the family in due time?
If a person grows a great big garden of corn......that person picks the corn......takes the corn away from the garden and eats all of the corn without putting any back....will the garden live strong.......now if just a few seeds from each bit of corn picked is brought back to the garden......the garden will be much much larger year by year...........now put this concept in the economic sense....every little bit of money spent at a native run store means a few seeds put back into the garden...........if you plant seeds in another person's garden then your garden will never grow.

This is just how I see things in the world......it's the view of the world thru my eyes.....sometimes people say i make no sense...sometimes people can understand what I say....but my words are not for everyone to understand......if 1 million people never understand what I say....then I do not care.....if 1 person out of the million understand then thats all I care about because that one person was the one meant to understand.

Shiloh

Hi,
Last april (07) my ex girlfriend gave me a necklace which happened to be a medicine wheel made of gorgeus green labradorite.
I was amazed by it, and I wore it always... even though the pendant began to feel more like a burden then a pleasure.

I went through very diffucult and trying times, mentally, phisically, socially, with family, and now It has all started to get better and feel like a new begining.

And today while sitting in at lecture (one of my last of the semester) I noticed something fall on my lap and it was my medicine wheel it had broken clearly in half. I still havent figured out how a piece of stone broke in half when it wasn't dropped or hit by anything, and I remember that i adjusted the pendant rigth before class...
So I'm confused.

What do you think of this?
Does it mean something, or should I not fuss over it?