Crazy Bear (Mah-To-Wit-Ko, also known as Foolish Bear, 1785–1856) was an Indian chief of the Assiniboine tribe. He is best known as a skilled negotiator with the American Fur Company at Fort Union, North Dakota; and for his participation and representation at the Fort Laramie Treaty Council of 1851—where he was a signatory of the treaty.
The Creator gathered all of creation and said, “I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realization that they create their own reality.”
Not so very long ago there was to be found living in the far West a quaint old man. He had seen many moons. His head was almost white from the frosts of some seventy winters. He was a Wyandot Indian, and he lived with his own people. His house stood among the trees by a clear, swift river in the beautiful hills. At a great city far from his home he had some land. This land was worth much…
Many days passed before the joy of that day settled deeply into my heart and I could move forward to thinking on the realities of the present situation of the buffalo on our People. The senseless slaughter of 60 million buffalo brought the herds to the point of extinction.
As we completed our prayers, we all sat there with the buffalo herd in silence. The buffalo had been making their low, gentle calls back and forth to each other during the entire time we had been praying and singing for and with them. Yet at the end of the prayers, we all, as one family, sat in peace and silence together. Slowly the real world began to slip back into the moment and the sounds of bustling tourists and…
One breath at a time and one second at a time adds together to a life well lived or one filled with sadness at missed opportunities to make the world a better place. On this September day there was peace, prayers, songs and the drum joining together with the buffalo and humans in a meadow where time seemed to stand still.