Seven Arrows
Seven Arrows – Chief of the Little People (a group of other-thanhuman persons who live inside mountains). Seven Arrows acted as the “medicine father” who elected, initiated, and aided several generations of Crow and Shoshone Native Americans, including John Truhujo, Thomas Yellowtail, and John Pretty on Top. He is also credited as preserving the Shoshone-Crow Sun Dance during the period when its performance was banned (c. 1875–1941) among Native American nations, and then reintroducing it via Truhujo and his successors. It was also his instruction that led to the removal of selfpiercing from the Sun Dance in its revived form among the Crow and Shoshone. Yellowtail’s biography (as told to and written by Michael Oren) includes an account of Truhujo’s visionary journey into the other world, here located within the mountain, and his adoption and education by Seven Arrows. It also contains a note that Seven Arrows directed Yellowtail’s choice of a successor. Yellowtail says of Seven Arrows and his people, “They represent, and pass on, the power of God, the Maker of All Things, and this is something we should not say more about.”
SOURCE:
Historical Dictionary of Shamanism by Graham Harvey and Robert J. Wallis 2007
