The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1923-11-01

Copies of the pamphlet on the his.
tory and superstitions surrounding
the historic medicine wheel in the
Big Horn mountains, around which
are woven most of the legends of the
Arapahoes and Cheyenne Indians OF
southeastern M o n t a n a and nor
thern Wyoming, written by George
Bird Grinnell, chairman of the ma
tional parks commission, have been
received by friends of the celebrat-
ed author and naturalist in Billings
and Sheridan, 'Wyo.
DR.. Grinnel visited Sheridan a few
weeks ago investigating the feasibil-
ity of the proposed Big Horn nation
al park 40 miles west of Sheridan.
If that portion of the Big Horns is
set aside for a national park, one of
it's feature attractions will be the
medicine wheel, which DR.. Grinnell
describes as follows:
Known to Indians
"The ~so-called medicine Wheel in
Wyoming has long been known to a
few white men and always to the In
dams. Yet many present day Indians
appear almost to have forgotten even
the vague stories that they have
heard from an earlier generation.
Its first mention in type, as far
as I know, is found in an account of
a trip into the Big Horn mountains,
printed in Forest and Stream, Sep
TENDER %, 1895, which gives the gen.
eral location and a rough description
of the wheel, as follows:
ION the very top of Medicine
can still be seen the So
Medicine Wheel, the plan and
general arrangement of which bear
a striking resemblance to the famous
Calendar Stone of Old Mexico. AS
the name implies, this Medicine
Wheel is a circle composed of loose
In the middle of it is a hut
(also of stone) from which spokes
Of stones radiate to the circumfer-
ence, there terminating in smaller
huts. 1t is said that these smaller
huts were, during the religious cere-
monies, occupied by the medicine men
of the different tribes, while the
larger hut in the center was supposed
10 be the abode of the Manitou. The
wheel appears to be of great anti
History Unknown ;
ga number of the people have Wis
ted the Medicine Wheel in recent
ears, but nothing seems to be known
IS to it's history or the uses to which
t was put. 1t is built on the flat
opped shoulder of a bald mountain
IN the western side of the Big Horn
Mountains, just about at timber line,
# perhaps a little above it. The
boulder, which is almost without
oil, consists of a hard white or
ream-colored limestone h h
feathers into slabs or flat frag-
lents; and the wheel is made up of
ieces of this rock arranged on the
round in a certain order. Because
has been disturbed by visitors and
owe by wandering cattle, ac-
urate measurements of it can not be
"The wheel consists of a wide and /;
omewhat irregular circle of large ]
which has a diameter of from {
4 to 80 feet. In the center of this {
ircle is inner circle of large stones
lied up in a wall, about IL feet in t
Inside diameter and seven feet in l
de, and from two and a half to three {
set high. From the outer side of the {
all of this inner, the central circle t
s lines of small stones, set close to- {
ether, radiate to the border of the t
Utter circle. /
Was Religious Resort t
'"The arrangement of these stones 7
.lstifies the term wheel" and the 9
ord medicine obviously refers to c