JACKSON, Wyo. — While the Summer Solstice marks the start of the summer season in the northern hemisphere, it is also tied to cultures and rituals in and around Wyoming.
The medicine wheel, sometimes known as the Sacred Hoop, can take many forms but symbolizes dimensions of health and life cycles to Native American tribes including the Hinono’eino (Arapaho), nimi (Bannock), Niitsitapi (Blackfeet), Tsis tsis’tas (Cheyenne), Apsáalooke (Crow), Ktunaxa (Kootenai-Salish), nêhiyawak (Plains Cree), Newe (Shoshone) and Oceti Sakowin (Sioux) tribes.
According to Stanford University, most medicine wheels are designed to align to the sunrise at the summer solstice.
The Sun Dance, also known as Wiwányang Wacípi, is a four day visionary dance practiced in various forms by the Tsis tsis’tas, Hinono’eino, Apsáalooke, Niitsitapi, nêhiyawak and Guchundeka’ or Boho’inee’ (Wind River Shoshone).
According to the Aktá Lakota Museum and Cultural Center, the Sun Dance was the most important ceremony to almost all Plains tribes, practiced around the summer solstice.
“They didn’t understand that the sun is a relative and illuminates our path on this earth.”
Joy Harjo
“Many of us continue ceremonies that ensure a connection with the sun,” wrote Joy Harjo, the first Native American to serve as the U.S. Poet Laureate, for NPR. “When explorers first encountered my people, they called us heathens, sun worshippers. They didn’t understand that the sun is a relative and illuminates our path on this earth…Humans are vulnerable and rely on the kindnesses of the earth and the sun; we exist together in a sacred field of meaning.”
Carlie Ideker, Bridger-Teton & Tribal engagement coordinator with the Wyoming Wilderness Association, has emphasized that awareness of Indigenous Knowledge is important to remind people that there is a deeply experienced alternative to the western perspective of relationships with the natural world.
