At its National Leadership Conference in 1984, AIM passed a resolution indicating the will of the elders would be implemented. Specifically mentioned in the AIM resolution were “Sun Bear and the so-called Bear Tribe Medicine Society” and “Wallace Black Elk and [the late] Grace Spotted Eagle of Denver, Colorado,” as well as others like Cyfus McDonald, Brook Medicine Eagle (spelled “Ego” in the resolution), Osheana Fast Wolf and a corporation dubbed “Vision Quest.” Others, such as Dyhani Ywahoo, Rolling Thunder, and “Beautiful Painted Arrow” have been subsequently added to the list.
As Russell Means put it at the time, “These people have insisted upon making themselves pariahs within their own communities, and they will have to bear the consequences of that. As to white people who think it’s cute, or neat or groovy or keen to hook up with plastic medicine men, to subsidize and promote them, and claim you and they have some fundamental ‘right’ to desecrate our spiritual traditions, I’ve got a piece of news for you. You have no such right. Our religions are ours. Period. We have very strong reasons for keeping certain things private, whether you understand them or not. And we have every human right to deny them to you, whether you like it or not.
“You can either respect our basic rights or not respect them,” Means went on. “If you do, you’re an ally and we’re ready and willing to join hands with you on other issues. If you do not, you are at best a thief. More importantly, you are a thief of the sort who is willing to risk undermining our sense of the integrity of our cultures for your own perceived self-interest. That means are you complicit in a process of cultural genocide, or at least attempted cultural genocide, aimed at American Indian people. That makes you an enemy, to say the least. And believe me when I say we’re prepared to deal with you as such.” Almost immediately, the Colorado AIM chapter undertook a confrontation with Sun Bear in the midst of a $500-per-head, weekend-long “spiritual retreat” being conducted near the mountain town of Granby. The action provoked the following endorsement from the normally more staid NIYC:
The National Indian Youth Council fully supports your efforts to denounce, embarrass, disrupt, or otherwise run out of Colorado, the Medicine Wheel Gathering ... For too long the Bear Tribe Medicine Society has been considered a repugnant but harmless to Indian people. We believe they not only line their pockets but do great damage to all of us. Any-thing you can do to them will not be enough.
The Colorado AIM action, and the strength of indigenous support it received, resulted in a marked diminishment of Sun Bear’s reliance upon the state as a source of revenue. Since then, AIM has aligned itself solidly and consistently with indigenous traditionalism, criticizing Sun Bear and others of his ilk in public fashion, and occasion-ally physically disrupting their activities in locations as diverse as Denver and Atlanta. Those who wish to assist in this endeavor should do so by denouncing plastic medicine folk wherever they appear, organizing pro-active boycotts of their events, and demanding that local bookstores stop carrying titles, not only by Sun Bear and his non-Indian sidekick “Wabun,” but charlatans like Castaneda, Highwater, Andrews and Storm as well. Use your imagination as to how to get the job done in your area, but make it stick. You should also be aware that Sun Bear and others have increasingly aligned themselves with such non-Indian support groups as local police departments, calling upon them to protect him from “Indian interference” with his unauthorized sale of Indian spirituality.
