Spirit Seeker Solution

10/01/2026

North of the Medicine Line, September 30 marks the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, the last day of September = Cry Month, when Indigenous children were forced to attend Indian boarding/residential schools. It is also referred to as Orange Shirt Day, when we wear orange to honor residential/boarding school survivors and those who never made it home. Yet in the lead up to this national holiday the black shirts/white supremacists showed up at the Kamloops Indian Reserve (Tk’emlups te Secwepemc) where the first unmarked graves of Indigenous children at former Indian boarding/residential schools had been located to spread hate and deny the genocide that had happened at those genocidal institutions set up with the intent to destroy our culture. We just marked the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, after which my ancestors were forces to Indian territory and from there the children especially from Chiefs’ families were targeted to be sent to the Carlisle Indian Boarding school in Pennsylvania, the first off reservation boarding school south of the line established just 2 years after the battle. As set out below the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families with the intent to take our culture away meets the international definition of genocide. One of my relatives, was the first Cheyenne child to lose his life there within weeks of the genocidal institution opening its gates. We cannot tolerate denial of genocide against Indigenous Peoples, the peoples of this land! I stand with the Kamloops Indian Residential school survivors many of whom I have worked with on countering the Intergenerational effects of genocide with our Indigenous teachings - they are some of the strongest people I know much stronger than the hooded weaklings who showed up to intimidate while too scared to show their faces because they knew what they were doing was a hate crime which has to be prosecuted!

09/26/2026

Every week is Native American week, still since schools selected this week, Chief Phillip Whiteman Jr. was invited to give a presentation about Cheyenne Lifeways at the Northern Cheyenne Tribal School at Busby. He first shared a meditation his grandparents had him do as a child, to go out from where they were at, to the universe, looking down on their home and community (which the kids all said they could see in their mind) and release all their worries and bring a blue light back and release it into the earth. He then did other exercises with the kids to show them how powerful their imagination is! He also shared the woodpecker story reminding the students that they are all unique and carry special gifts. From there he asked them to form a circle and follow his drum beat and song until they were all proudly dancing! Most Indigenous children are born right-hemisphere of the brain connected circular thinkers and you could just see they were in their element with these Indigenous teaching methods. Often Western left-hemisphere of the brain dominated linear ways of teaching do not work well for Indigenous children. Still we noted that after Chief Phillip’s presentation, some teachers ask the students to line up, at St. Labre it was even announced over the speaker system. It shows how deeply engrained some of these linear ways are in the schools system, after all the school at Busby previously had been a boarding school, making it all the more important to reclaim Indigenous ways of teaching and learning! So Chief Phillip invited the students to the next horse medicine camp Sunday October 4, 2026 at 3 pm at the Yellow Bird Lifeways Center less than a mile past the round about in Lame Deer. We will mark Native American Week, September 30, the day of Truth and Reconciliation North of the Medicine line, the end of cry month when Indigenous children were forced to attend residential/boarding schools; and National Indigenous Day! Every day is Indigenous Day!

09/19/2026

It is always emotional to travel back to Pendleton. First come the memories of being here with my parents and dancing as a child and winning in the traditional dancing and being blanketed by Chief Clarence Burke. I remember standing in the Round Up Arena determined to compete here in the rodeo one day! I would also look up at the images of the greats on the outside of the arena imaging to join them one day, you need dreams and visions to make it to your imagination!

We also came for Root Fest where my father sang with the Lame Deer singers and I still visit with our intergenerational friends and relatives, including Eleanor and Curtis Bearchum, who I gave away to during an earlier give away. We still visit at their camp site in the village and this year I brought a 40 pound water melon from the land they also grew up on.

Competing in professional rodeo is a lot harder when you are born Native American. My grandfather Frank who was an amazing athlete was not allowed to participate in “mainstream” rodeo adding to my determination to do so and I not only became a two times Indian National Finals Rodeo (INFR) world champion; I also won in the Northern Rodeo Association (NRA) placing in the World Finals; and the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association (PRCA) becoming their first European Champion at Helsinki Finland.

It was after that that I qualified to compete here at the Pendleton Round Up, in order to do so you have to have be ranked high and have even higher season earnings. I had earned my spot and PRCA number and yet when I showed up at the Rodeo Secretary in 1995 they told me the Indians go over there, pointing to the Wild Horse Race. I told them I had a PRCA number and that I am on their competitor list and yet the rodeo secretary said she could not see my name. I said: As of rights I should be the only Whiteman on your list; and she chuckled and found me and gave me my back number. Still that did not stop Security from stopping me and wanting to send me to the Wild Horse Race again. I showed them my back number and still they held me up till the local local stock contractor Frank Beard yelled: Phillip you are late! And they let me through, with little time to prepare and already rattled. My horse bucked on the sand but started running on the grass so I got a reride; which played out similarly. Frankly I left Pendleton angry and I did not want to come back.

It took decades until I decided that I would not let that experience be my last memory of Pendleton. Instead I decided to come back to the Round Up to give away and recognize my connection to the arena and people from competitively dancing and winning as a child to competing as a professional saddle bronc rider. In 2022 I gave away a horse to a young Yakama girl, who still loves and treasures that horse out of my registered paint stud Run Indian Run (look up the song by Buddy Red Bow if you have not heard it) who had made his journey just weeks earlier. In the following years I gave away to intergenerational friends and relatives strengthening the connection to Pendleton and their leadership. This year I gave away to the next generation because they carry our hopes and dreams!

There was a moment during the Friday morning parade reminding us that all the gaps have not been bridged yet. A woman who thought she was in control, got out of control: trying to tell local Indigenous leaders what to do and how to line up, and while they remained silent and observed, there was a heated exchange with comments that I am not sure were more racist or homophobic. She then dangerously drove her electric cart between our horses who got scared and it left a bad taste. One of the local leaders afterwards wisely said: we will take the parade at our own speed and if anyone noticed the gap between the first part of the parade and the Indigenous leaders that is why.

I also noticed that people along the route stood after we rounded the corner and many had waited for the horses and Native people in beautiful beaded regalia. We proceeded calmly and solemnly and I was proud to be part of the group. I had often wondered why in this parade, like protocol would dictate, it is not the Indigenous chiefs leading rather they come behind the can-can dancers and the fire wagon from Happy Canyon. In a way still, this year due to the gap, Indigenous peoples led, like we were taught calmly and from the back forward and while many might not have known what happened, we did and they probably felt the silent strength and posture.

It was after that that I completed my fourth sacred give away to the next generation and the announcers, as is our Cheyenne tradition. These star quilts, collected over more than a year with love, are precious and priceless and it was beautiful to see them displayed in the main arena and draped around our future leaders. I also want to acknowledge Round Up Director Jason Hill for all his support and his gifts and Fred Hill for his, he leads the two cultures pow wow along with other friends. Finally I want to thank all those who helped with the gifting: Kristin Windbigler, Executive Director of Cowboy Poetry at Elko Nevada; the Bruised Head and Many Guns family from Canada; and previous honorees, including the Brown family who got the horse in the first give away; Ronnie Red Crane from the second give away to intergenerational friends and relatives and Thomas Morning Owl from the third give away who announced this time.

08/24/2026

I want to honor the Great American Cowboy Phil Lyne who just made his journey, so he and his family have been on my mind and heart. Phil's extraordinary rodeo career included five world championships—two in all-around, two in tie-down roping, and one in steer roping—as well as induction into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame, Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame,Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, Texas Rodeo Hall of Fame, Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame, Pendleton Round-Up and Happy Canyon Hall of Fame, PBR Ring of Honor, Bull Riding Hall of Fame,Texas Trail of Fame and numerous other awards and honors.

At the last National Finals Rodeo (NFR) he was the recipient of the Casey Tibbs award at the Gold Card Reunion. I did the invocation, remembering that my heroes have always been cowboys and Phil Lyne is the Great American Cowboy and I sang an honor song for him, rodeo and the spirit of the horse, that has brought us all to great heights. We do not only share our first name that designates us as a lover of horses and a passion for rodeo, we also share a cancer journey. Unfortunately he was not able to make it to the NFR, still I sent him messages of encouragement and his granddaughter gracefully stood in his place. I gifted her beadwork and he called and left a message on New Year’s Day thanking me for honoring him and the gift. I have kept him in my prayers and send my love to his family and the reminder that we are spirits having a human experience!

Chief Phillip Whiteman Jr. Heove ve’keso (Yellow Bird)

08/02/2026

As the state of Colorado and many Coloradans celebrate its 150th anniversary, as a traditional Cheyenne Chief, I reflect on it differently. If you ask me how I relate to these past 150 years I can give you a linear time line of genocidal campaigns:
- From the Sand Creek Massacre in late November 1864 led by Colorado Volunteers many from affluent Colorado families, that some of my family survived and where others were massacred, including Chief White Antelope;
- To Wash*ta, almost 4 years to the day later, when George Armstrong Custer rode the Seventh Cavalry into what remained of that peaceful camp of mainly women and children and massacred more. Still our ceremonial people made peace with Custer to protect our people;
- To the Little Bighorn, on June 25, 1876, when Custer went against our ceremonies and based on our Cheyenne teachings the outcome had already been written in stone;
- To the opening of the Carlisle Indian School within 3 years on November 1, 1879 that saw Arapaho, Cheyenne and Lakota Children targeted because of the battle. The first Cheyenne child to fall victim to the school was a direct descendant of White Antelope whom they named Abe Lincoln after the President he had received a peace medal from, just for them both to fall victim to these ongoing genocidal campaigns.

I could keep going all the way to present day, and I know many will say that this is ancient history and that we have to get over it. So let me put this into the context of the concentric circles in the way I really am related to what you call Colorado history, as Cheyenne we use the word -hóhta'hané for telling a story or testifying:
• My great-grandfather Vehoc was three at the Sand Creek Massacre escaping the bloodiest day in Colorado history with scars he carried for the rest of his life.
• He was teenager at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and my great-grandmother Sadie Lowbrow, who had my grandparents on my paternal side together, was 13 and witnessed Cheyenne matriarchs pierce Custer’s eardrums, so in the next lifetime he would listen and not go against our ceremonies.
• She became the last survivor to know where Custer’s secret papers were buried. She made her journey around the time I was born.
• My mother, Florence Bites Whiteman, was born 100 years ago, on July 17, 1926, almost 50 years to the day of the Battle of the Little Bighorn and raised by her (great)grandparents who had been there and subject to the genocidal campaigns and carried the trauma from it deep in their bones, passing it on to the next generations.

What they also passed on and what runs even stronger through their blood and ours are our Cheyenne teachings of resilience, peace and love, and that is what I was also raised with, in our Cheyenne language.

So on the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, when many streamed to the Battlefield, I hosted a peace gathering on the land on the Northern Cheyenne reservation I steward, in the four days leading up. My ancestors had gone into ceremony there and so did we, including people who traveled all the way from Colorado and beyond, some direct descendants of Colorado Volunteers who had been at the Sand Creek Massacre.

Together we learned about circular Cheyenne teachings and worked hard to put peace back into the land and ourselves and I hope it helped let go of intergenerational trauma and guilt, in the case of survivors of those who were part of and benefitted from these genocidal campaigns.

Among us were survivors from Indian Boarding/residential schools, now elders who had to go back to their own childhood to release the trauma from being forcefully removed from their families with the intent of taking their cultures away, which meets the international definition of genocide. They are doing this work for their children and grandchildren, so that they do not have to carry the same trauma and intergenerational effects.

We are just coming up on the Seventh generation which is central to many of our teachings, in my case my great-grandchildren, who I do not want to grow up with the same trauma as my great-grandparents and all since who faced these genocidal campaigns and their intergenerational effects. I want them to grow up with our language and teachings and know who they are as Cheyenne children and people.

So I hope you can relate to those concentric circles, just visualize yourself as standing in the center and see the connection to your ancestors below you and your descendants above.
We all grew up on the same land, under the same stars, that as Cheyenne people we carry a deep connection to and knowledge that we are ready to share. For the last 150 years the state of Colorado and jurisdictions below it and those who live there have benefitted from the dispossession of Indigenous Peoples. In the case of my people, the Cheyenne, we have been driven from the state by genocide and I have heard us referred to out of state tribes, when this is our homeland.

While we have inherited intergenerational trauma and effects of genocide that had negatively affected our health and every part of our being. There are families in Colorado that have been building intergenerational wealth, some for as long as 150 years, others shorter, still they have benefitted, while our people have received no remuneration for the access to our land, water and resources, which have been depleted and polluted in turn. As fires burn and it is hard to see the sky, I could still tell you the stories of the stars, and this land from the North to the South, that I was raised with along with the teachings to protect them. We do not have another seven generations to make the necessary changes, we have to make the shift now, guided by Indigenous teachings, to protect this land, water and sky for all future generations. It has to come hand in hand with recognition of our Indigenous homelands throughout Colorado and fair ongoing remuneration for past, present and future access to our land and knowledge that holds the key to preserving it. We have always loved this land and the people in it and we will continue to do so; and we hope you join us in it. So as you look up at drone shows and fireworks that Colorado deploys to cerebrate its 150th anniversary and the US did for 250, remember the stars above and the land below that we know and that remembers us.

07/26/2026

Traditional Northern Cheyenne Chief Phillip Whiteman Jr., Heove ve'keso, Yellow Bird, returned to Bear Lodge (Devil’s Tower National Monument) to share his intergenerational knowledge.

He was introduced by pointing out that: he just has to go 3 generations back to his great-grandparents who were in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, making him the fourth generation. He was joined by his oldest daughter, his granddaughter and his great-grandson who carries the Cheyenne name Sitting Bull; and represents the seventh generation. They had all just come from praying at Nóávóse, Bear Butte. So he shared the more detailed story about Sweet Medicine, who as a young man and later teacher and prophet brought arrows, coveted gifts, out of that mountain, and a structure: chieftainship, governance and a way of life that the Cheyenne people still follow today.

This connects to the more detailed story about Bear Lodge Náhkȯheome, where the children were chased up on a stump by a bear and that stump grew; that he shared the night before (the reel is on the Yellow Bird Lifeways Center page). The young girl and boy brought back a Suhtai way of life and chieftainship, including the first half of chiefs that were later completed by Sweet Medicine to form the Council of 44.

Chief Phillip shared Sweet Medicine’s prophecies and called on all present and listening to protect Mother Earth and learn and honor our languages, cultures and identities.

07/25/2026

Please join Chief Phillip today when he shares his ancestral knowledge at Bear Lodge, we might even try to go live at 8 and Chief Phillip might share star knowledge in person after once it gets dark!
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1GZ8PVnQ5C/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Who: Chief Phillip Whiteman, Jr., Northern Cheyenne
What: Phillip is renowned for creating the Medicine Wheel Model and the Spirit Seeker Solution, merging ancestral teachings to connect horse, human and spirit. He is a traditional story teller, flute player and champion traditional grass dancer.
When: July 25 at 8:00 p.m.
Where: The Amphitheater across from the picnic area by the campground.
NPS .

07/18/2026

We just marked the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn and now we mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of our Beloved Mother Florence Bites Whiteman, who was born on July 17, 1926 – within less than a month of the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, that many of her (great)grandparents and ceremonial people, who raised her, were present at. One of them they called Limpy because he was wounded at the Battle, shared his Cheyenne name with her: Appears in the Morning Woman, Meome'ėhne'e, through a ceremonial sweat when she was less than 3 years old. Her mother Sally Crazymule Bites, Ameo'e, Milky Way Woman, recounted being concerned because the little girl had to fast and go into the sweat and still she did not even cry. She was raised in the language by her parents and (great)grandparents, including Maude Black Bear and Louis Dog. Florence remembered him waking up from nightmares remembering the young US soldiers who rather took their own life than surrender to the Cheyenne people. When she was about nine, the truant officer came to force her to go to boarding school. She did not speak English and had to learn fast, because children were punished for speaking Cheyenne, still after she taught the language for the rest of her life. This all constitutes evidence of the intergenerational effects of genocide and how our Cheyenne teachings carry the counter remedy!

When she was 12 Meome'ėhne'e was nominated by one of the chiefs to became inducted into the Elk Scraper Society, the training was rigorous, and involved ceremonies and a lot of rules and she caught on really fast and became the last fully initiated Cheyenne warrior woman. Her society brothers arranged her first marriage to Joe Waters, who came from a Chief’s family. They had 4 children together: Lorraine Waters, Jolene Waters WalksLast, Joseph James Waters and Charlene Waters Alden. Joe Waters served in the second world war and was sent in with the Army Corps of Engineers to “clean up” after the atomic bomb had been dropped in Hiroshima. He died within a decade of a brain tumor and Florence was left with little children.

She herself had been infected with tuberculosis (TB) and was sent to the Cushman Indian Hospital at Tacoma Washington, where she was subject to medical experiments and she said that if she had not received such rigorous training as a warrior woman, she would have passed away like so many of the other Indigenous persons there. She was called back in 1950 as her beloved father James Bites had a stroke and was half paralyzed and she cared for him until he died still young in late 1951. She then also took in her mother who had seizures. She lost her father and husband in close succession and was determined to pick her next husband herself: Phillip Whiteman Sr. who was kind hearted and also came from Chiefs’ lines. Together they had 4 children: Phillip Jr., Florene, Philomena and Philene, that they raised in the language.

Meome'ėhne'e was a very traditional women who devoted her life to sharing her
vast knowledge of Cheyenne history. She was featured in the book "Battle of the Little Big Horn, Untold Story," often spoke at the Smithsonian Institution and appeared on ABC and the History Channel. She was the last original ceremonial Elk Scraper Woman, a Sun Dance priestess and member of the Native American Church and the Mennonite Church for whom she translated the Bible into Cheyenne together with her Mother Sally.

People would come to seek her counsel and prayer, since she had a very strong spiritual connection which allowed her to see things. She played a pivotal role in the return of the sacred buffalo hat, a coveted gift and covenant of the Northern Cheyenne, that had been kidnapped by an armed group in late 1994, resulting in a lot of deaths and hardships for the Cheyenne people. Until they had a Chiefs’ meeting on our parents’ land in early 1995, it was really the last big Chief’s meeting that was convened and everybody recognized that this was a matter of Cheyenne law and the Chiefs are the keepers of this sacred law and the societies enforce it. The Chiefs passed a resolution for the return of the sacred hat and the elected tribal leaders and the BIA police all supported it and the enforcement by the societies. In the end it was our mother who went out unarmed with society leaders, and while the other group was armed, secured the peaceful return of the sacred buffalo hat, our grandmother.

Our mother earned her teacher’s certificate in the school district and also taught our Cheyenne language at Chief Dullknife College. They named a room at the Lame Deer School and the Cultural Center at Chief Dullknife College after her, in April 2001 she graduated her last class there and made her journey on April 22, the day that is internationally commemorated as Earth Day.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of her birth and in recognition of all the great contributions she made, we ask that Chief Dullknife College put up a proper sign for the Florence Bites Whiteman Cultural Center – if necessary we are ready to help with fundraising. The impact our mother had on so many lives and the her role preserving our Cheyenne language and knowledge have to be properly recognized. It is hard to put in words all our mother’s life experiences, the changes she saw and how she navigated hardship with grace and strength. Most importantly she deeply loved her people, her family, children and (great)grandchildren. We always feel her powerful spirit close. Né-méhót-atseme! We love you!

07/05/2026

On this July 4 weekend as the US marks its 250th anniversary I reflect on the message from the peace gathering I hosted on the land I steward in the lead-to the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn just a week ago. I also reflect on the stand my ancestors took there for our Indigenous Lifeways. In so many ways our Cheyenne people paid the greatest price in the midst of the genocidal campaigns against our people. From the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 to the first class at Carlisle Indian Boarding School in 1879 having proportionately to the size of our population the most Cheyenne children, also meeting the international definition of genocide. 150 years ago the message of the outcome of the Battle of the Little Bighorn just reached Philadelphia and the East Coast as they were set to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the US at the time. On this 250th anniversary I want to share the message to the East Coast that our original Cheyenne teachings carry the counter remedy to the intergenerational effects of Genocide and that only love can defeat war. Really the world needs to hear this message now more than ever, if we do not address the Intergenerational effects of genocide, history will repeat itself. As the Cheyenne people we are known as the kindhearted peace loving people and I love you and there is nothing you can do about it.
Traditional Chief Phillip Whiteman Jr, Heove’vekeso (Yellow Bird)

07/02/2026

In the lead-up to the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Chief Phillip Whiteman Jr., Heove’vekeso (Yellow Bird) hosted the only permanent camp on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation where his ancestors had gone into ceremony in the lead-up to taking a stand for their Indigenous Lifeways. Their teachings that carry the counter remedy to the intergenerational effects of genocide resonated strongly with Indigenous peoples and supporters that came from all four directions and the Center. Another connecting point was horse medicine and all could feel the healing energy from the horses, buffalo and dogs on the land, all deeply rooted in Cheyenne culture. Dr. Henrietta Mann shared a message that it was high time to put peace back into the land and gather in ceremony. Chief Phillip took participants to Medicine Deer Rocks where his ancestor Ma’ome had guided ceremony and into the sweat he had set up while sharing the story that connects their family over generations to these places. We also marked the Mayan ceremonial new year with a fire ceremony guided by day keeper Lix Lopez. We are grateful for the music shared, Miss Northern Cheyenne Neveah KillsNight masterfully played the viola followed by cowboy music and round dance songs. These and other right (hemisphere of the) brain connected activities reconnected us to Indigenous ways of being from the youngest to the oldest. On June 25th, the anniversary, the original staff and flag that have been guiding the annual Little Bighorn Memorial Run, led the way carried by the prayers of the runners. At the National Monument Chief Phillip was one of the featured speakers and shared the message of love and peace (see post immediately below) from the gathering while also remembering his ancestors and the price Cheyenne People paid in terms of the intergenerational effects of genocide, that he continues to address with his ancestral teachings. We are grateful to Melissa Polk, the Cowgirl Camera, for the professional pictures marked accordingly, the others are ours.