Natives use power of Hoop to heal
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By JODI RAVE / Lee Enterprises
MILES CITY, Mont. — Many stories start by introducing a living person.
This one starts with what some describe as a living object — a sacred hoop.
The Hoop is a simple willow branch rounded into a circle, 100 eagle feathers tied around the circumference.
A community assembles a team of at least three people to lead seven areas of teachings, with the goal of creating a core group of at least 21 individuals. Each volunteer is called a "firestarter." It is their job to bring the 12 steps to wellness into their communities.
Those who come across the Hoop say it wields power. It is believed each feather carries prayers to the Spirit World, to the Creator.
The Hoop and its keeper traveled last month to every tribal community in Montana, four correctional centers and the state Capitol.
Its keeper explained to members of each group how they could live a life of wellness through culture, including songs, language and ceremonies.
And at each stop, people came to the Hoop to offer prayers.
“Being around this hoop changed me, inner-most me,” said Vince, incarcerated at the Pine Hills Youth Correctional Facility in Miles City.
He stood before the Hoop and his peers, counselors and elders. He felt foolish. He looked away. He didn’t think his words did justice to the good feelings he experienced with the Hoop and those who brought it.
Recent events had taken a toll on him, he said. He lost a friend. He felt alone. He was losing hope.
“I was left with no breath.”
Don Coyhis stood and assured Vince he was no fool. You just earned my respect, he said, and that of everyone in the room. Coyhis reminded the young men at Pine Hills they were loved.
“Our people want you back home,” he said. “It’s time to come back home.”
The vision
Coyhis, director of White Bison Inc. in Colorado Springs, Colo., shares messages of hope through cultural healing across Indian Country.
Lately, his message has been spreading like a wildfire.
“Nationally, we’re at the tipping point,” Coyhis said. “The elders said we have entered a time of healing.”
Coyhis has made six journeys with the Hoop since 1999, logging more than 35,000 miles and touching thousands of people. Elders say the Hoop envelops four gifts: forgiveness, unity, healing and hope.
Last month, on the Flathead Reservation, the Mohican man spoke about his vision in which a ball of light touched upon a tree.
A hoop grew from a branch, and an eagle feather appeared and hung from the hoop.
Soon, there were 100 feathers.
Elders told Coyhis to build the Hoop.
And to be its keeper.
Coyhis thought, “No, no, no.”
If he were “the Creator and had a list of names to select from, I’d put my name way down at the bottom.”
Growing up on the Stockbridge Munsee Reservation in Wisconsin, he never thought he would have a vision, let alone fulfill one.
Now that he’s the keeper, it is his job to take the Hoop to those who need it. He’s not supposed to refuse anyone. He tells people: “This is your hoop. This isn’t my hoop. I was just given the responsibility of taking care of it.”
On his travels, Coyhis introduces the wellbriety movement — healthy and sober living.
The movement is growing and evolving. But an overarching theme remains the same: Culture is prevention.
Coyhis encourages people to embrace centuries-old cultural teachings to achieve balance in the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual parts of themselves, to walk on “the Red Road.”
Tribal elders say the teachings and the Hoop are open to people of all races. Coyhis repeats this phrase often: “The Creator did not make four races. He only made one race. The human race.”
The hoop is wrapped in four colors — black, red, yellow, white — to represent unity among people of all skin colors.
The believers
People have shared their stories of strife and despair, of hope and healing with Coyhis.
He has seen a lot of tears. They cleanse the spirit.
Tears say what words cannot, said Leroy Comes Last, a spiritual leader of the Fort Peck Tribes in Montana.
“They have a language of their own.”
On his journey through Montana, Coyhis invited community members to share stories of healing.
April Charlo was the first to step forward on the Flathead Reservation. She was on the Salish Kootenai College campus, walking between buildings, when she saw the White Bison van.
She dropped everything to listen to Coyhis. She recalled the day she first saw him in Oklahoma. A group of Natives had gathered. The young woman asked people what was going on.
Someone told her: “Indians are getting healthy.”
Charlo went to see for herself. She left with thoughts about how alcohol was damaging her life. About how it was killing her friends. She has been sober for five years now.
When Coyhis took the Hoop to the Fort Peck Reservation, again, people willingly shared stories of life changes.
“I grew up kind of crazy,” said Mike Todd of the Assinboine and Sioux Tribes of Fort Peck.
His adult life was crazy, too. He didn’t know what he was doing for two full years because he was drinking or using drugs. He said he was one of the first people to bring meth onto the reservation.
Todd was in Warm Springs, a rehabilitation and alcohol treatment center, when he participated in a ceremonial sweat lodge — decided his life would be different.
He cried. “Can’t you see that we’re killing each other?”
He never knew of Coyhis before he heard him speak at the Spotted Bull Treatment Center in Poplar last week.
But he understood everything Coyhis was saying.
“Words can’t describe what culture has done for me,” Todd said.
Royal Hoag, a non-Native healing arts practitioner at the Spotted Bull Treatment Center, met Coyhis four years ago. Before that, she felt like a hypocrite because she was helping alcoholic patients while hiding her own drinking.
She participated in Coyhis’ conference. “I went home to my husband and said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s changing my life.’”
She’s been sober for four years.
Wellbriety movement
Coyhis and tribal elders have had nearly 20 years to build upon the wellbriety movement.
It’s now a multifaceted program centered on cultural teachings, including 12-step programs for men, women, girls, boys, children of alcoholics, family members and re-entry programs for those in prison.
Additionally, Coyhis has invited 100 communities to participate in the wellbriety movement and bring healing to their friends and family by 2010.
Once they complete all of the training programs, each community will be given a handmade “big drum.”
Four communities — in Minnesota, Oregon, Arizona and North Carolina — already received drums. Twenty-five others are in training.
Once 100 communities complete the wellness program, they will gather in White Earth, Minn., with all the drums.
Here’s how the program works: A community assembles a team of at least three people to lead seven areas of teachings. The goal is to create a core group of at least 21 individuals. Each volunteer is called a “firestarter.” It becomes their job to bring the 12 steps to wellness into their communities.
Since 2005, more than 1,500 people have agreed to be wellbriety firestarters.
The re-entry training component — called Warrior Down — provides assistance to inmates as they return home. Coyhis said more than 80 percent of Native parolees return to prison within six months. But Warrior Down has kept 50 men in Idaho sober. And none returned to prison in the past two years.
The Sons of Tradition and Daughters of Tradition training components are proving successful on the White Earth Reservation. Marlin Farley, a firestarter, has introduced more than 300 youths in Minnesota to wellness and sobriety.
His community now has more drums, sweat lodges and dancing. School officials and have told him: “We don’t know what you’re doing. Just keep doing it.”
Typically, 90 percent of all juvenile crimes on the reservation are alcohol-related. With wellbriety, the crime rate has dropped as much as 50 percent, Farley said.
Jim Hunter, director of Montana’s Pine Hills Youth Correctional Facility, said his counselors have just started using the 12-step program at Pine Hills, where Native youths make up one-fourth of the inmate population.
Many said they never had a chance to learn traditional songs or participate in sweat lodge ceremonies until Pine Hills.
Keenan, a youth at Pine Hills, thanked Northern Cheyenne elders, Coyhis and his helpers for sharing their time and wisdom.
“This brings back hope to me,” he said. “I’ll pray for you guys.
“Pray for me.”
Jodi Rave covers Native issues for Lee Enterprises. Reach her at (800) 366-7186 or jodi.rave@lee.net.
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