What is a medicine wheel?
John Chambers
San Jose, California
A medicine wheel, or sacred hoop, is indigenous to Indians in Canada and the northern states of the American West. The wheel, oriented to the four directions (north, south, east, west), represents the circle of life—harmony and peaceful interaction among living things.
Small medicine wheels decorate ceremonial drums symbolically, much like kachina dolls represent supernatural beings to Hopi Indians. Authentic medicine wheels were
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