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bighorn medicine wheel

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 4 months ago

Bighorn Medicine Wheel

 

 

 

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/usa/images/wyoming/bighorn/aerial-view-unknown-source.jpg

 

Overview

About 10,000 feet above the ground sits the Bighorn Medicine Wheel, atop Mount Medicine in the Bighorn Range in Wyoming.  This Native American landmark is said to date back around 700 years ago, when it was built by the Plains Indians.  The Medicine Wheel is 80' in diameter and has 28 spokes made of stones that form its circular shape.  The spokes emerge from the center cairn, the donut-shaped hole, that is about 10-12 feet in diameter and 2 feet high.  On the outside of the circle there are six more of these cairns, but they are not as large as the center one.  It is believed that the number 28 was used because of its significance of the number of days in the lunar cycle.  Each cairn points to a far-off point on the horizon where the Sun rises and sets during the summer solstice.    

 

Astronomical Basis

In 1974, the Medicine Wheel's alignments of spokes, cairns, and rocks were studied by archeoastronomer Dave Eddy. He observed that the arrangements point to the places where the Sun rises and sets at summer solstice, as well as the rising places of the three important stars in the solstice: Aldebaran in Taurus, Rigel in Orion, and Sirius in Canis Major.

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/AO/images/eddy-diagram.jpg

 

Through cairn E the summer solstice sunrise is observed and a sighting through cairn C is the opposite, the summer solstice sunset.  The cairn pairs of FO, FB, and FA refer to the rising of the stars Sirius, Rigel, and Aldedaran.  The dawn rising of these stars is essential to the Indians because each star rose on an exact date.  After a long season behind the Sun this is the day that that star comes out from behind the Sun, visible to the Indians again.  For about 500 years, from 1200-1700 AD, these stars acted as solstice markers.  Fomalhaut, cairns FO, rose 28 days prior to the Summer Solstice, Aldebaran, cairns FA, rose during the 2 days exactly before the solstice, Rigel, cairns FB, rose 28 days following the solstice, and Sirius, cairns FC, rose 28 days after that. This would have led to the end of the Summer, therefor just in time for the Indians to move off of the mountain. 

 

 

 Works Cited

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/AO/bighorn.html

 

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/usa/bighorn-medicine-wheel.htm

 

http://www.codywyomingnet.com/attractions/medicine_wheel.php

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments (5)

Dave Goldberg said

at 4:21 pm on Oct 23, 2008

this is super breh

Anonymous said

at 12:56 pm on Oct 14, 2008

This is the ****. It has good written facts about the medicine wheel. It's well researched too.

Anonymous said

at 12:48 pm on Oct 14, 2008

I agree with Michelle that your page was informal but there was a confusing part that you could have explained better. Overall the page was banging. A+ work by my mans Mike.

Anonymous said

at 12:42 pm on Oct 14, 2008

Mike, your site was informal. The part where you were explaining the cairns and the stars, for astronomical basis, was the confusing part. Overall, your site was descriptive.

Anonymous said

at 12:26 pm on Oct 14, 2008

Yea, I do. Sometime at night I like to...

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