“Take the Medicine to the White Man”

Leslie Fool Bull
President of the Rosebud Reservation Native American Church of South Dakota

Oklevueha Native American Church has been blessed by Leslie Fool Bull, Lakota Sioux Medicine Man and President of the Rosebud Reservation Native American Church, with the specific mission of taking “the medicine” to the white man.

James Mooney was beginning to receive death threats because he was sharing the medicine with white people. James contacted a federally authorized peyote cultivator and custodian, Salvador Johnson and asked him what he should do. Salvador Johnson recommended that James reach out to Leslie Fool Bull and request a blessing. Salvador told James that Leslie was the Spiritual leader of the Rosebud Reservation’s Native American Church. The Rosebud Reservation’s Native American Church is one of a kind, as it is recognized by the federal government as being the only indigenous representative of the American Native Culture.

James traveled to Rapid City and visited Leslie Fool Bull while he was in hospital. James stood in the  doorway to Leslie’s hospital room when Leslie looked up at me from his hospital bed and without any hesitation, said, “Ah, you need my help.”

James Mooney handed a bundle of several hundred peyote buttons to Leslie Fool Bull and he immediately received the bundle, knowing what it was and held it to his heart, and shed tears of gratitude.  Fool Bull, with both of his hands clasping the bag of peyote to his heart gave me a blessing in his language.  After he had completed the blessing he asked James “You didn’t understand what I said, did you?” He then explained to James Mooney that he had prayed and blessed him to “Take this medicine to the White Man”.  He then, in his own handwriting, on a hospital paper napkin recorded this blessing and then had two witnesses sign it, first Leslie’s Son, Kirk Fool Bull and then Jorge Alvarado.

This blessing has been verified by Richard “He Who Has the Foundation” Swallow.

More information about Richard Swallow can be found here.