In the winter of 1953, Schuon and his wife travelled to Paris to attend performances organized by a group of Crow dancers. They formed a friendship with Thomas Yellowtail, the future medicine man and Sun Dance Chief. Five years later, the Schuons visited the Brussels World’s Fair, where 60 Sioux were giving performances on the theme of the Wild West. New friendships were made on this occasion also. Thus it was that in 1959 and again in 1963, at the invitation of their Indian friends, the Schuons journeyed to the American West, where they visited various Plains tribes and had the opportunity to witness many aspects of their sacred traditions. During the first of these visits, Schuon and his wife were adopted into the Sioux family of Chief James Red Cloud, grandson of Chief Red Cloud, and a few weeks later, at an Indian festival in Sheridan, Wyoming, they were officially received into the Sioux tribe. Schuon's writings on the central rites of Native American religion and his paintings of their way of life attest to his particular affinity with their spiritual universe.