1. Native Studies 120
The Medicine Wheel

2. Represents harmony and connections and is considered a major symbol of peaceful interaction among all living beings on Earth.
A number of stone Medicine Wheels are scattered across the plains of Alberta and northern United States. Some are extremely large with a diameter greater then 12 meters across

3. Alberta and British Columbia, have two-thirds of all known Medicine wheels (47) which suggests that Southern Alberta was a central meeting place for many Plains First Nations tribes who followed Medicine Wheel ceremonies
There is a lot of mystery that surrounds the Medicine Wheel as no written record to their purpose has been found.
Two theories are: the wheels contain significant stellar and cosmological alignments, and/or, the performance of specific rituals and ceremonies that have been long forgotten

4. Stone Medicine Wheel at Big Horn

5. The Medicine Wheel Applied to Life
“The circle represents a harmonious relationship with nature and with all living things who are our relatives and that all things are connected and equal because in a circle there is no beginning and no end.”

6. All Medicine Wheels are tools for teaching people about their place in the universe and their relationship to all things created.

7. Numbers have always played a significant part in traditional Aboriginal life. Four is one of the most sacred numbers used in Aboriginal culture. Many aspects are seen in terms of four.
The Four Directions and these four powers provide the organizing principle for everything that exists in the world:
The Seasons (spring, summer, winter, fall)
The Races (white, black, yellow, red)
The Elements of the Universe (earth, air, fire, water).
The Stages of Life (child, adolescent, adult, elder)
The Emotions and Aspects of Human Behavior (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual)

8. Micmac Medicine Wheel
Because the circle represents the passage of the sun and the seasons, discussion of the Wheel usually starts in the East direction, where the sun rises, and travels in a clockwise direction*. This also applies to moving around any circle during a ceremony.
The East, then, is seen as a direction of beginnings, including infancy (the beginning of life) and spring (the beginning of a new year.) The West is seen as a direction of endings, and is the direction the spirit travels when it leaves this Earth.

9. Micmac Medicine Wheel DIRECTION COLOUR GUIDE MEDICINE ELEMENT SEASON
LIFE STAGE
East
White
Eagle
Sweet Grass
Water
Spring
Infant
South
Yellow
Thunder Bird
Sage
Fire
Summer
Adult Woman
West
Red
Black Bear
Cedar
Earth
Fall
Elder
North
Black
White Bear
Fungus
Air
Winter
Adult

10. Micmac
Medicine Wheel
North
East
West
South