Medicine wheel
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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In some Native American cultures, the medicine wheel is a metaphor for a variety of spiritual concepts. A medicine wheel may also be a stone monument that illustrates this metaphor.
Historically, the monuments were constructed by laying stones in a particular pattern on the ground oriented to the four directions. Most medicine wheels follow the basic pattern of having a center of stone, and surrounding that is an outer ring of stones with "spokes" (lines of rocks) radiating from the center to the cardinal directions (East, South, West and North). These stone structures may or may not be called "medicine wheels" by the people whose ancestors built them, but may be called by more specific terms in that nation's language.
Physical medicine wheels made of stone have been constructed by several different Indigenous peoples in North America, especially those of the Plains nations. They are associated with religious ceremonies. As a metaphor, they may be used in healing work or to illustrate other cultural concepts.
The medicine wheel has been adopted as a symbol by a number of pan-Indian groups, or other Native groups whose ancestors did not traditionally use it as a symbol or structure. It has also been appropriated by non-Indigenous people, usually those associated with the hippie, New Age or Neopagan communities.
See also
- Archaeoastronomy
- Cahokia Woodhenge
- Inukshuk
- Majorville Cairn and Medicine Wheel site
- Original Keetoowah Society
- Petroforms
- Rock art
- Sandpainting
- Temenos
