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Lame Deer Seeker of Visions – John Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes

In the old days we used to have many boulders which we painted and covered with feathers, or sage, praying to them, using them like an altar.  …..

North from here, in Montana, near the town of Busby, is an enormous stone called Medicine Deer Rock.  It is as tall as a building and you can climb on top of it.

It is covered all around with the images of men and animals, or with abstract designs such as whorls, spirals and zigzag lines.  Some are painted on, some are scratched into the rock.  There are layers upon layers of these images overlapping each other, because generations of Indians have left their pictures in that stone.

Just before the battle of the Little Big Horn the Sioux and Cheyennes held their Sun Dance at Medicine Deer Rock, and Sitting Bull sacrificed a hundred pieces of his flesh from each arm and had a vision.