Cherokee Medicine Man

A modern medicine man portrayed through the words of the people he has helped Robert J. Conley did not set out to chronicle the life of Cherokee medicine man John Little Bear. Instead, the medicine man came to him. Little Bear asked Conley to write down his story, to reveal to the world "what Indian medicine is really about." For Little Bear, as for the Cherokee ancestors who brought their traditions over the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory, the medicine is about helping people. Visitors from neighboring states and Mexico come to him, each one seeking help for a different kind of problem. Each seeker's story is presented here exactly as it was told to Conley. Little Bear has cured problems involving health, relationships, and money by uncovering the source of the problem rather than simply treating the symptoms. Whereas mainstream medicine and counseling have failed his patients, Little Bear's healing practices have proven beneficial time and again. Robert J. Conley is the author of ten novels in the Real People series, The Witch of Goingsnake and Other Stories, and Mountain Windsong, all available in paperback from the University of Oklahoma Press. A three-time winner of the Spur Award and Oklahoma Writer of the Year in 1999, Conley was inducted into the Oklahoma Professional Writers Hall of Fame in 1996. He was named Writer of the Year by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers & Storytellers in 2000 for Cherokee Dragon.