Rolling Thunder aka John Pope, 1916–1997) was a hippie spiritual leader who self-identified as a Native American medicine man.
[3][better source needed] He has been considered an example of a plastic medicine man, with little or no genuine connection to the culture or religion he claimed to represent or study.
[4] Going by his chosen name, Rolling Thunder, he appears in taped interviews with Native American author and activist John Trudell, and Michael Chosa in which he discusses the contemporary treatment of Native Americans.
[3][better source needed] In 1975 he and his wife Spotted Fawn founded a non-profit community on 262 acres (1.06 km2) of land in north-eastern Nevada (just east of the town of Carlin) that they named Meta Tantay.
It operated until 1985; visitors over the years included Mickey Hart, a drummer with the Grateful Dead.