Medicine wheel (symbol)
[1][2]: 5,168 It has since been used by various people to symbolize a variety of concepts, some based on Native American religions, others newly invented and of more New Age orientation.
LaDuke self-published a newsletter and several books, and formed a group of followers that he named the Bear Tribe, of which he appointed himself the medicine chief.
For a fee, his mostly wealthy and white followers attended his workshops and retreats, joined his "tribe", and could buy titles and honours that are traditionally reserved for respected elders and knowledge keepers.
The typical medicine wheel symbol is divided into four quadrants, each with an associated set of qualities, characteristics, and concepts, with many of these coming from non-Indigenous sources and blended with New Age ideas.
[19][20] Moreover, Cheyenne Elders and religious leaders do not typically teach cosmology by referring to the cardinal directions, as Storm did in his book.
[21][22] Moreover, the sacred cardinal directions in Cheyenne culture are closer to Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, and Southwest, not the North, South, East, and West as described by Storm.
[26] Though some Indigenous nations have traditional beliefs about people with a different skin colour in their sacred stories, the division of humans into four races is not traditional or universal, but is instead founded in scientific racism and the racist views of early anthropology and biology, notably Carl Linnaeus' classifications as Americanus (red), Europeanus (white), Asiaticus (yellow), and Africanus (black).
[4][11]: 141 Maliseet (Wolastoqiyik) academic Andrea Bear Nicholas argues that the broad adoption of the medicine wheel with little critical assessment and historical understanding of its fraudulent origins has effectively and almost totally displaced the unique oral traditions of many Indigenous nations.
"[15] "This book, Seven Arrows, will bring disgrace to Harper and Row.... Its content falsifies and desecrates the traditions and religion of the Northern Cheyenne, which it purports to describe.
If he is indeed Indian (and the tribal chairman states, 'I don't know how he ever got on the rolls,') then shame on him for making a blasphemous travesty of the Cheyenne Way in Seven Arrows.
The color plates are a solid disaster, in extremely poor taste, and in fact the end result desecrates the Cheyenne religion.
A reader searching for an understanding of the true beauty and profoundly moving religion of the Cheyenne people will not find it in this book.
[15][42][22] "Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Mr. Chuck Storm's book Seven Arrows is the fact that some of the beliefs which he presents in his book as having been derived from our spiritual ways are completely unfounded and extremely repugnant to the sensitivities of our people who are knowledgeable and qualified to speak about such things, not merely as the product of imagination, but as the result of actual lived experience."
[2]: 239 [11]: 13,15 [10]: 324 [3]: 200 Indigenous activists protested and distributed flyers at a lecture given by Storm in San Francisco in February 1995, with the bold title "STOP EXPLOITING THE SACRED TRADITIONS OF AMERICAN INDIAN PEOPLE!!!
", which began by saying: We are members of the Bay Area American Indian community, and we are outraged by non-Indian wannabes and would-be gurus of 'the New Age' shamelessly exploiting and mocking our sacred religious traditions....
"[1] The flyer distributed at Storm's San Francisco lecture was accompanied by a document titled "American Indian International Tribunal Elder’s Statement" that concluded with "Our young people are getting restless.
[16] Lakota leader Rick Williams has criticized Sun Bear's eclectic use of combined elements from different tribes, saying it creates a dangerous spiritual imbalance.
