Episode 7 Medicine Wheels of the Great Plans
Ancient Civilizations of North America
Dr Edwin Barnhart (2018)
Film Review
Medicine wheels, found throughout the Great Plains of Canada and the US are difficult to date (by Carbon 14 and and/or Optically Stimulated Luminescence – see Unkown Story of Ancient North America) because many are still in use. Most are found in Canada and are shaped like a wagon wheel, with a central cairn, spokes and outer rim. However some are ovals, rectangles or even the likeness of animals or human beings. Located away from habitation, usually on a mountain or high plateau, in some legends they’re associated with vision quests, a supernatural experience in which an individuals seeks to interact with a guardian spirit.
Medicine wheels are strongly connected to the modern day Ojibwa nation, as well as medicine lodges, bison, dream catchers, vision quests and the The Great Hoop of Life. The latter is a collection of traditional learning and wisdom first published in 2000.
The largest in the US, the Big Horn medicine wheel in the US is 88 feet in diameter with a 120-foot diameter central cairn and 28 spokes. There’s also a 28-spoke medicine wheel (still in use) in Majorville Alberta dating from 5200 BP (before present). A 30-foot diameter medicine wheel in Moose Mountain Saskatchewan had a 14-foot diameter central cairn (before it was vandalized) and only five spokes.
At least five of the medicine wheels that have been studied have astrological alignments with summer and winter solstice sunrise and sunset points. Others seem to be monuments to past chiefs or even burial sites. Sun lodges, used by many Plains nations for annual gatherings, tend to have the same shape as medicine wheels with 28 roof poles radiating out from a center post. Temporary shelters that were rebuilt annually, the sun lodges were used for grueling sun dances associated with fasting and tests of physical endurance.
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The Most Revolutionary Act 