Jay Ellis Ransom Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark research materials, 1920s-1997

Jay Ellis Ransom became interested in the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark as early as 1924 on a visit to the site with his father. The mystery of the site sparked an interest in the 10-year-old Ransom which led him into anthropology. He studied at the University of Washington and graduated in 1935 with a graduate degree in anthropology, specializing in linguistics, anthropology administration, and ethnography. He went on to UCLA and studied primitive psychology and received a Masters degree in education.

Ransom’s education background and interest in Native Americans led him to the Flathead Indian Reservation near Kalispell, Montana, where he spent a summer learning the native language of the Flathead Indians. Later, he went to Alaska to work for the United States Indian Office (precursor to the Bureau of Indian Affairs), where he taught at an all-grade Indian school. He learned to speak Fox Island Aleut and further pursued his interest in linguistics and ethnography. After finishing school, Ransom taught high school and college courses in chemistry, mathematics, psychology, and anthropology. After 1949, he became a full-time author, writing articles for magazines and newspapers and completing several books for Harper and Row.

During all of this time, Ransom did not lose his interest in the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark. He returned to it in the 1930s and 1950s to do further research. He amassed a large amount of data and photographs and came up with an original theory. Ransom believed that the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark was constructed sometime between 0-500 AD by Aztec-Tanoan peoples who lived in the Bighorn Canyon and who later migrated into Central America. Ransom believes that the wheel was laid out as a symbolic center of the universe for the builders, “where original humanity emerged from a conduit from the underworld.” Ransom also postulated that the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark is a precursor to the Aztec Calendar Stone found in Mexico in the 17th century.

Ransom’s theory was controversial in that it denied the claims of modern Plains Indians who viewed the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark as a sacred site. Ransom said that the Plains Indians had nothing to do with the creation of the wheel, never had any religious use for it, and therefore, should not claim special privileges for the use of the Medicine Wheel. Ransom’s explanation of the wheel’s origin was met with resistance by Native American groups and some scholars, but he received support from many local and state residents who found much to like about his tourism-friendly argument.