Sun Bear and his Medicine Wheel gatherings
The seeds of today’s Inter-Tribal Unity Consciousness were paved by many dedicated medicine men & spiritual people of the past. Their attunement with native prophecies, like the Whirling Rainbow & White Buffalo prophecies, allowed these individuals to reach out to the human family of the 4 directions, including the “White Man” who has occupied much or the Red Man’s pristine land on Turtle Island.
From the late 60’s through the 80’s, despite criticism & scorn by fellow Indians, Mad Bear, Rolling Thunder, David Monongye, Thomas Monongye, Semu Huaute, and others like Sun Bear (Ojibwe), Wallace Black Elk (Lakota Sioux), John & Mina Lanza (Hopi), Eddie Box (Southern Ute), Harvey Goodbear (Cheyenne-Arapaho), Oren Lyons (Onondaga), Larry Bird (Santo Domingo-Laguna), Craig Carpenter (Mohawk) and others, have reached out to their non-native brothers & sisters of America, Europe & Australia. As a result, much of today’s inter-tribal unity consciousness has materialized due to their cross-cultural outreach & spiritual mentorship.
Sun Bear (1929-1992) was the most prominent of these men in regards to reaching out to non-native people in mass. Sun Bear was the publisher of “Many Smokes”, a Native American monthly news magazine, which he founded in 1961. He was a supporter of the Unity Caravans and was one of the principal delegates at Mad Bear & Doug Boyd’s Cross-Cultural Conference. In 1971, Sun Bear was instructed by Spirit to start working with non-native men & women. So he formed the Bear Tribe Medicine Society, based out of Spokane, Washington.
At his peak, Sun Bear was speaking to more than 10,000 people a year and he had 320 apprentices who had completed his apprenticeship program.
Sun Bear also founded Medicine Wheel Gatherings in 1981. In total, more than 60,000 people have attended 72 gatherings in the United States, Canada & Europe. In addition, Sun Bear authored a total of 9 books.
In 1993, the National Congress of American Indians issued a “declaration of war” against non-Indian “wannabes”, hucksters, cultists, commercial profiteers, and self-styled New Age shamans. Earlier that year, at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, in Chicago, activists also denounced the commerce in American Indians’ sacred traditions & spirituality. Theses issues dates back at least to the early 1980s, when Indian activists issued forceful condemnations of commercialized spirituality.
Sun Bear has been accused of selling Native American spirituality. This accusation has been used to assassinate his character; whether the accusation has some merit or not. Upon evaluation of Sun Bear’s entire life mission, accomplishments, sacrifices of material wealth, and the traditional path he walked, much of which is documented in his autobiography, “Path of Power”, he certainly appears to have been a legitimate “traditionalist”, medicine man and champion of inter-tribal unity consciousness. If this is the case, Sun Bear deserves proper recognition for his years of service & dedication to the cause.
At the 2015 Eagle Quetzal Condor gathering in Sedona, Arizona, a relatively large contingent of Northern European representatives had attended. Sun Bear’s outreach into Europe, beginning 35 years ago, certainly had a role to play in their appearance.
Fortunately, today there are many non-native people in the U.S and abroad who are walking on the Red Road and working hand-in-hand towards building an inter-tribal unity movement.
[Post by Mackboogaloo]
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