Medicine path of experiences with animals and Birds

Cynthia Kay said...

Enjoyed your story. It is true many Native Americans did adopt others who were not members of their band, group, or tribe. Your vission quest was interesting you saw a crow. From what I have read you again the crow abilities and strengths. Another example Quanah Parker on his vision quest came in contact with a bear. He gains his stregths through the bear's abilities. Check out my new book available on my publisher's website
http://www.stategicpublishinggroup.com/title/BetweenTwoWorldsThelegendOfQuanahParker.html
Thank you sincerely, Cynthia Kay Rhodes

Cynthia Rhodes, author of "Between Two Worlds: The Legend of Quanah Parker" brings up an interesting point.

When I was studying with several Medicine men and specifically one in particular one of his abilities was to see through the eyes of a Crow. Part of the medicine path is to recognize the power that particular animals carry. In the tradition I was taught which is a combination of Blackfoot and Sioux traditions was that it was very important to observe which animals visited you as you wandered the wilderness. It would give you clues as to what was happening in your life and what was going to happen in the near future. So, observing not only the animals and birds but of their specific behaviors was one of the way one protected oneself in all ways.

So, likewise when the "White eyes" first came they were observed in this way. The Indians eyed the "white eyes" (anglos from northern Europe) with suspicion just like they would observe rival tribe of Native Americans. However, Americans didn't follow any of the accepted rules of behavior of Native Americans. The fact that the (white eyes) didn't practice birth control and the fact that the first trappers brought smallpox, black plague and influenza so decimated tribes by up to 90% or more, that by the time that settlers arrived tribes were already in confusion from the human toll and trying to regroup from their losses. Settlers and soldiers only became the "Coup De Gras" for native american tribes during the 1800s.

But many Tribes like the Hopis in the four corners area of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah predicted the arrival of the "White man" and of his "Iron road" (trains) and of pieces of moon brought to earth and of all the trouble that that would create.

But what I found really useful about studying a Medicine path is just how basically logical it is to observe animals and birds and how incredibly helpful it is to get a sense of what is happening in your life. Animals and birds are far more sensitive to changes in any environment that humans to can be intellectually diverted in all sorts of ways in making tools and things and art objects and weapons and nowadays TV, computers, reading, jobs, careers, etc. So still it is important to observe the animals around you whether they be your pets, the birds outside or raccoons or deer in your neighborhood (we have a lot of these), and to protect your dogs from contact with raccoons(we lost a dog, a jack russel corgi mix to a raccoon encounter about 5 years ago now because the baby sitter forgot to bring her in at dark. Because of the Jack Russel part of her she had a mouth full of Raccoon blood too. But she died a month later from kidney failure from the encounter.

So, watching birds and animals can save your life, especially in an earthquake where animals tend to predict such occurances by acting sort of crazy so watch for these kinds of behavior just before an earthquake.

Also, an island tribal group in the Indonesia area was the only group near the shores of the islands then not to lose any people. One of the elders noticed the crazy animal behavior and got all his people into boats to ride out the Tsunami out to sea. However, none of the more modern people heeded their warning and all others near the shore that day died. This was in December 2004.

So even today watching the behavior of animals might save your life one day too.

note: I just remember the Indonesian area tribe of people are called the Moken Tribe who live very close to nature and to the ocean and to fishing as a way of life.