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Bear Tribe Publishing Company
For those of you who read the fine print, you may think I have lost my mind. This book is over thirty years old - what can it possibly have to say abou anything! For me, this book has great meaning because it came to me while I was looking for books for another person. Once I started reading it, it felt like coming home. I am not Native American, but this book of truth was a coming home for me. And the truth of thirty years ago is still the truth of today.
The author of this book, Sun Bear, has not graced this earth since 1992. When he did, he was a visionary and a leader. Of Chippewa descent, Sun Bear was medicine chief of the Bear Tribe Medicine Society, a group that he founded. (Note: The Bear Tribe Society still exists today, under the leadership of Wind Woman, an apprentice under Sun Bear. A Google check will bring you to several sites about Sun Bear and the Bear Tribe Medicine Society.) Sun Bear lectured extensively throughout the world on Native American issues, the path of power, walking in balance, networking and natural communities. He has also authored/co-authored several other books, including At Home In The WIldernessand Sun Bear: The Path Of Power.
This is a book of stories - personal stories about Native American leaders of the past, from the time Europeans landed through their very ugly progress west, and the cost to the Indians, the native peoples. Through the eyes of Sun Bear, we look through time and meet the warrior chiefs, and see how they worked to help their people survive. How many of them wanted peace, and were consistently lied to, harrased, removed from their lands and killed - in spirit, as well as in body.
Sun Bear speaks from his heart - reading these stories is like sitting around of an evening and talking with old friends over numerous cups of coffee. We start out by hearing about several Indian legends - from many different tribes. (One of Sun Bear's basic tenets is that the tribes are a whole made up of individual units - individual tribes - and this is where their power for change will come from. This is how they will preserve their lifestyle.)
With this background, we move into stories about Indian medicine. There are stories here about the peace pipe, and sweat lodges, amongst other things. This takes us into Indian beliefs, the thought process and "heart" that drives the Indian peoples.
We look at several Indian warriors, including Chief Joseph, Pontiac, Crazy Horse, Mangus Colorado and Osceola. We hear stories from all parts of the United States, about the tribes, their lands and their way of life. We see how the government treated them, how the white man's belief's allowed him to do anything that he wanted to take away what belonged to the Indian nations - often in a viscious, cruel manner with little regard for life or way of life.
We look into the hearts and souls of these warriors and chiefs. We see the lengths to which they were willing to go for their people, their lands and their way of life. This book was written over thirty years ago, about issues that happened many years before that. But truth is truth, and the aftermath of how the Indian nations were treated is reality - still and always will be.
Buffalo Hearts is a must read book for those with a caring heart. It is a small book - 128 pages, but written with such heart that it will stay with you forever.
Thank you for visiting my Shamanism page. May your day be Blessed.
Mitakuye Oyasin - For All Of Our Relations.
Bonnie Cehovet
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