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Medicine Wheel/Medicine Mountain

One of our most significant success stories is the protection of the Bighorn Medicine Wheel/Medicine Mountain. The mountain is sacred to many tribes, particularly Plains tribes.

In 1990, the AAIA helped create the Medicine Wheel Coalition, a coalition of Plains Tribes who have a traditional history of using the Medicine Wheel and Medicine Mountain for spiritual purposes. With the assistance of AAIA, the Coalition negotiated and signed in 1996 a landmark Historic Preservation Plan (HPP) with the Forest Service, as well as state and local government agencies, designed to ensure that the entire area around Medicine Wheel and Medicine Mountain is managed in a manner that protects the integrity of the site as a sacred site.

In 1999, Wyoming Sawmills, a local logging company, filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the HPP, claiming it violated the First Amendment of the Constitution and several federal laws. In this effort, Wyoming Sawmills was represented by the Mountain States Legal Foundation a right-wing legal organization consistently opposed to government efforts to voluntarily protect Native American sacred places. AAIA provided legal counsel to the Medicine Wheel Coalition, which intervened in this case. The Coalition and Forest Service ultimately prevailed, with a Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in 2004 dismissing the lawsuit and a petition to the Supreme Court for review which was ultimately denied.

Following that ruling, AAIA has worked with the Coalition and other consulting parties to ensure that the HPP is fully implemented, including incorporation of the HPP into a new Forest plan.

Finally, in June 2011, the efforts of AAIA and the Medicine Wheel Coalition achieved the permanent protection of the Medicine Wheel and Medicine Mountain when the entire mountain was designated as a National Historic Landmark for its traditional cultural significance.
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Please note our mailing address change:
Association on American Indian Affairs
6030 Daybreak Circle
Suite A150-217
Clarksville, MD 21029

General Information


​The Association is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3)
publicly supported organization.
​We do not take federal grants.

The Association is governed by an all-Native
Board of Directors and leadership team. 

The Association is an accredited charity and meets all 20 standards of the BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU. 
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The Association has achieved the highest rating - PLATINUM - from GuideStar, now known as Candid​

100 YEARS OF ADVOCACY

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The Association is celebrating its 100th year of service in Indian Country. We have changed the course of federal Indian law and policy away from termination and genocide towards sovereignty, self-determination and healing. Help us move forward even stronger into our next 100 years!

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