"Two Paths"

Indigenous Americas By Brian Wilkes

One of the emblems of the Native American Church is a divided blanket of red and dark blue, bordered in gold. This represents many dualities in life and their containment by something else... day and night, light and shadow, life and death, It is a map of the human mind and of the universe. Worn with a white shirt, it presents the denominational colors of red, white, and blue surrounded by gold, paralleling the fringed US flag. The red-tailed hawk is one of the messenger creatures of the sun. Tail feathers are used for guidance in flight as well as in ceremony, and two slightly diverging feathers represent the choice of two paths often presented to us in life. The beaded disk represents the sun, the source of life and enlightenment, and the peyote cactus medicine for which the church is known. After generations of suppression, Native American ceremonial teachings are often hidden in plain sight where a casual observer will overlook them as simple decoration.