"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." n Mahatma Gandhi

MILES CITY -- Many stories start by introducing a living person.

This story starts with what some describe as a living object -- a sacred hoop.

The Hoop is a simple willow branch rounded into a circle. One hundred eagle feathers have been tied around the circumference. Those who come across the Hoop say it wields power. It is believed each feather carries people's prayers to the Spirit World, to the Creator.

The Hoop and its keeper traveled last month to every tribal community in Montana, four correctional facilities and the state Capitol. At each of the 13 stops, its keeper explained to community members how they could live a life of wellness through culture, including songs, language and ceremonies. And at each stop, people came to the Hoop to offer prayers.

"Being around this hoop changed me, inner-most me," said Vince, a youth at the Pine Hills Youth Correctional Facility in Miles City.

Vince stood before the Hoop and his peers, counselors and elders. The young man felt foolish. He looked away. He didn't think his words did justice to the good feelings he experienced with the Hoop and those who brought it.

Vince thanked the Hoop's keeper. He said recent events had taken a toll on him. He said he recently lost a friend. He felt alone. And he was losing hope. "I was left with no breath."

Don Coyhis stood and assured Vince he was no fool. You just earned my respect, and that of everyone in the room, he said. Coyhis reminded all the young men at Pine Hills that they were loved and important.

"Our people want you back home," he said. "It's time to come back home."

The vision

Coyhis, director of White Bison Inc. in Colorado Springs, Colo., -- a nonprofit health and wellness organization he founded in 1988 -- shares messages of hope through cultural healing across Indian Country. Lately, his message has been spreading like a wildfire.

"Nationally, we're at the tipping point," Coyhis said. "The elders said we have entered a time of healing."

Coyhis has made six journeys with the Hoop since 1999, logging more than 35,000 miles and coming in contact with thousands of people. Elders say the Hoop envelops four gifts: forgiveness, unity, healing and hope.

Last month, on the Flathead Reservation, the Mohican man told an audience about his vision in which a ball of light touched upon a tree. A hoop grew from a tree branch, and an eagle feather appeared and hung from the hoop. Soon, there were 100 feathers.

Elders told Coyhis to build the Hoop.

And to be its keeper.

Coyhis thought, "no, no, no." He said he "didn't feel worthy." He said if he were "the Creator and had a list of names to select from, I'd put my name way down at the bottom."

Growing up on the Stockbridge Munsee Reservation in Wisconsin, he never thought he would have a vision, let alone fulfill one.

Now that he's the keeper, it is his job to take the Hoop to those who need it. He's not supposed to refuse anyone. He tells people: "This is your hoop. This isn't my hoop. I was just given the responsibility of taking care of it."

When Coyhis travels with the Hoop, he typically introduces people to the wellbriety movement, which means healthy and sober living, a term coined by Coyhis and an elders council.

The wellbriety movement is continually growing and evolving. But an overarching theme in the teachings remains the same: Culture is prevention. Coyhis encourages people to embrace centuries-old cultural teachings to achieve balance among the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual parts of themselves. When individuals, families and communities find this balance, they are said to be walking on "the Red Road."

Tribal elders say the teachings and the Hoop are open to people of all races. Coyhis repeats this phrase often: "The Creator did not make four races. He only made one race. The human race." The cloth-covered hoop is wrapped in four colors -- black, red, yellow and white -- to represent the unity among people of all skin colors.

"Everyone is welcome to this hoop," said Coyhis.

The believers

Along his many journeys, Coyhis has seen a lot of people respond to the Hoop and the teachings that surround it. People have shared their own personal stories of strife and despair, and of hope and healing.

He's seen a lot of tears. They cleanse the spirit. Tears say what words cannot, said Leroy Comes Last, a spiritual leader of the Fort Peck Tribes in northeastern Montana. "They have a language of their own."

On his journey through Montana, Coyhis invited community members to share stories of healing in their lives. April Charlo was the first person to step forward on the Flathead Reservation. She was on the Salish Kootenai College campus, walking between buildings in search of a power cord, when she saw the White Bison van.

She dropped everything to listen to Coyhis. She recalled the day she first saw him in Oklahoma. A group of Natives had gathered. The young woman asked people what was going on.

Someone told her: "Indians are getting healthy."

Charlo went to see for herself. She left with thoughts about how alcohol was damaging her life. About how it was killing her friends. The citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes has been sober for five years now.

When Coyhis took the Hoop to the Fort Peck Reservation, again, people willingly shared stories of life changes.

"I grew up kind of crazy," said Mike Todd, of the Assinboine and Sioux Tribes of Fort Peck. His adult life was crazy, too. He didn't know what he was doing for two full years because he was drinking or using drugs. He said he was one of the first people to bring methamphetamine onto the reservation.

It wasn't until Todd had to spend time in Warm Springs, a rehabilitation and alcohol treatment center, that he participated in a ceremonial sweat lodge. That's when he decided his life would be different, that he would quit hurting those around him. He cried. "Can't you see that we're killing each other?"

He never knew of Coyhis before he heard him speak at the Spotted Bull Treatment Center in Poplar last week. But he understood everything Coyhis was saying.

"Words can't describe what culture has done for me," Todd said. "The inside of a sweat lodge is the best thing for me."

Royal Hoag, a non-Native healing arts practitioner at the Spotted Bull Treatment Center, met Coyhis four years ago. Before meeting him, she felt like a hypocrite because she was helping alcoholic patients at the center while secretly hiding her own drinking soirees.

She participated in Coyhis' conference. "I went home to my husband and said, 'I don't know what's going on, but it's changing my life.' " This past July marked Hoag's fourth year of sobriety.

When Comes Last first met Coyhis, he had been sober for more than two decades but he had not dealt with other issues in his life.

"This man set me free," said Comes Last. "I cried. I got well that day. I became a believer of the wellbriety movement."

Wellbriety Movement

Coyhis and tribal elders have had nearly 20 years to build upon the wellbriety movement. It's now a multifaceted program centered on cultural teachings, and including 12-step programs for men, women, girls, boys, children of alcoholics, family members and re-entry programs for those in prison.

Additionally, Coyhis has invited 100 communities to participate in the wellbriety movement and bring healing to their friends and family by 2010. Once they complete all the training programs, each community will be given a handmade "big drum." Four communities n in Minnesota, Oregon, Arizona and North Carolina n have already received drums. Twenty-five others are in training.

Once 100 communities complete the wellness program, they will gather in White Earth, Minn., with all the drums.

Here's how the program works: A community assembles a team of at least three people to lead seven areas of teachings. The goal is to create a core group of at least 21 individuals. Each volunteer is called a "firestarter." It becomes their job to bring the 12 steps to wellness into their communities.

Since 2005, more than 1,500 people around the country have agreed to be a wellbriety firestarter. Training will be available in October for all Montana communities that want to participate.

Already, the movement is bringing change to tribal communities, many of which are just beginning to use cultural practices to overcome the epidemics brought on by historic oppression: suicide, methamphatime abuse, alcoholism, diabetes and violence against women.

The re-entry training component -- called Warrior Down -- provides assistance to prison inmates as they return home. Coyhis said more than 80 percent of Native parolees return to prison within six months. But Warrior Down has successfully kept 50 men in Idaho sober. And none have returned to prison in the last two years.

The Sons of Traditon and Daughters of Tradition training components are proving successful on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. Marlin Farley, a firestarter, has been an active leader in the wellbriety movement, introducing more than 300 youths in Minnesota to wellness and sobriety in the last four years.

His community now has more drums, more sweat lodges and more dancing than at any time in recent memory. School officials and law enforcement officers have told him: "We don't know what you're doing. Just keep doing it."

Typically, 90 percent of all juvenile crimes on the reservation are alcohol-related. With wellbriety, the crime rate has dropped as much as 50 percent, said Farley.

"The things Marlin has been doing has impacted a lot of communities," said Mike LaRoque, acting chief of police for the White Earth Tribal Police Department.

Jim Hunter, director of Montana's Pine Hills Youth Correctional Facility, said his counselors have just started using the 12-step program at Pine Hills, where Native youth make up one-fourth of the inmate population. The young men have responded postively, he said, especially to the cultural aspects.

Many said they never had a chance to learn traditional songs or to participate in sweatlodge ceremonies until they ended up in Pine Hills. Every incarcerated youth who stood to speak during Coyhis' visit expressed respect and gratitude for the Hoop and the healing it holds.

Keenan, a youth at Pine Hills, thanked Northern Cheyenne elders, Coyhis and his helpers for sharing their time and wisdom. "It makes my heart feel good."

"This brings back hope to me," he said. "I'll pray for you guys.

"Pray for me."

Reach reporter Jodi Rave at

1-800-366-7186 or jodi.rave@lee.net.