Alternative Medicine – Medicine Hawk remembered as a man of the earth

A moving and healing ceremony was held recently at the home of Abraham and Bobette Szyller on the banks of the Little Bogue Falaya River north of Covington in honor of the late Robert “Bob” McClellan, known to many as Medicine Hawk. A native of Pensacola, Fla., McClellan explored and reclaimed his Muscogean Creek heritage in the 1970s despite the fact that his mother’s family did not follow the teachings of their Native American roots.

Although McClellan lost his life to cancer three months ago, his wife, Mary Ann Palumbo McClellan, waited to hold a memorial service until the autumn equinox, McClellan’s favorite time of the year.

“The autumn equinox ceremony was an amazing experience in a beautiful place,” Mary Ann McClellan said. “Bob had created a traditional Native American prayer wheel at the Szyller’s home for people to gather, and he held many ceremonies there on a solstice or equinox.

“Bob loved the autumn because while most people felt it was a time nature was in decline, he felt the earth put out its most vital energy when it was preparing for winter.”

About 45 people attended the event, which included a traditional opening ceremony followed by a thanksgiving address and acknowledgement of the natural world. After the formalities, a talking stick was passed around the circle allowing everyone to share their memories and how Bob had changed their lives.

“It was powerful, with many tears and laughter, but everyone seemed to have the same theme when talking about Bob, which was his groundedness, strength and patience,” Mary Ann McClellan said.

Together, the McClellans journeyed through life learning all they could about Native American culture and sharing what they learned with others. Their lives changed dramatically when Bob McClellan came across the works of Tom Brown Jr., a naturalist, wilderness tracker and author.

After meeting and studying with Brown in 1988, McClellan felt as if he had finally learned things he should have learned as a child. The couple participated in Brown’s Tracking, Nature and Wilderness Survival School in Asbury, N.J., and returned many times.

McClellan’s life took another turn in 1993 when Brown received a vision during a sweat lodge ceremony and renamed Bob McClellan “Medicine Hawk.”

McClellan felt his destiny had been revealed since the hawk represents a messenger.

After that point in his life, Medicine Hawk became a teacher and attracted a growing circle of people from the north shore, New Orleans and beyond. The couple’s work and lifestyle also attracted a wide audience of people who were interested in learning Native American skills and beliefs, including a richer spiritual life with a connectedness to the earth.

The couple held authentic Native American sweat lodge ceremonies on their north shore property and around the country as well as rite-of-passage ceremonies for young boys and girls and prayer circles at various locations.

But it was McClellan’s work that drew the widest audience and enlarged their circle of friends. He was invited to present programs on Native American culture at many public and private north shore schools, teaching the children how to make a fire, build outdoor shelters out of what was available and how to be good stewards of the earth.

“Bob taught about the old ways, listening to the earth, walking gently, seeing the spirit in everything,” Mary Ann McClellan said. “He considered his spirituality the most important part of his life.”

Mary Ann McClellan added that all of her husband’s teachings were to encourage people to connect with the earth.

“Bob felt that people had lost their connection with nature and it was very important for him to bring people back to that,” she said. “His mission was to help people learn that we are part of the earth.”

She added that her husband’s teachings were his legacy and he had a profound effect on people’s lives.

“It was amazing to me that even though his family did not have a strong connection to their native heritage, he did, and he felt it was the most important thing to continue to teach others how to care for the earth,” she said. “He was dedicated to keeping the traditional native ways of alternative medicine alive and shared them with others when the occasion arose.”

One of those people was Abraham Szyller, who participated with McClellan in a sweat lodge ceremony about 15 years ago.

“Bob was completely involved in reconnecting with Native American traditions,” Szyller said. “He was a very skilled carpenter in his everyday life but his soul was drawn to his tradition, and he became extremely knowledgeable in native traditions.”

Szyller said that McClellan was an example of what a person can be and do with his life.

“He was absolutely authentic with no ego involved,” Szyller said. “He was a man who was inspired by the highest ideals of Native Americans; those ideals were very meaningful to him and he wanted to pass them on to others.”

Former University of New Orleans English professor Joyce Zonana also participated in many gatherings organized by Medicine Hawk. Medicine Hawk spoke to her class on occasion and provided the invocation at the UNO spring commencement in 2000.

“Bob had an integrity and an inclusiveness of vision and he had the power to bring people together in a sacred and solemn way,” Zonana said. “He had a way to get a very large group to focus and take the moment seriously.”

Zonana added that the first time she met McClellan was at a sweat lodge, which she hesitantly attended. Her initial response to meeting him led her to feel as if she were in the presence of a really powerful person.

“The experience brought me down to earth, connected me to other people and made things simpler and more clear to me,” she said. “It wasn’t Bob who did this but the experience which centered me, brought peace, balance, clarity and simplicity.”

What Zonana found particularly fascinating about McClellan was the fact that he never made claims of any kind, was completely humble and unpretentious.

“From my experiences with Bob, I got to be better at everything I did,” she said, adding that even her students noticed a change. “I felt awake in a new way; cleansed as if I were starting fresh.”

During the last three decades of his life, Medicine Hawk shared native ways with children at numerous schools across southeast Louisiana, taught at Emerson Academy in Slidell and for 15 years was the opening lecturer at a world religion class held at Loyola University.

A legacy for students

According to Kathleen O’Gorman, associate professor of religion and education at Loyola, Medicine Hawk spoke to adults, mostly professionals such as law enforcement personnel, nurses, business professionals and music majors.

Since her class begins with the natural world, Medicine Hawk was the first speaker for each new session.

“He came to Loyola as a kind of presence and voice that was so clean, clear, almost detached; he had a way of speaking that disarmed people and made you stop in your tracks,” she said. “I asked him to do an Earth Day program for the class and he told me that everyday is earth day.

“The sadness for me with his loss is that my class will never be the same; he anchored it and the students constantly referenced what he said throughout the semester.”

O’Gorman added that McClellan was always consistent in what he said and did.

“His vision was so much of an alternative to what my students got from school and the world,” she said. “There are at least 300 cops, nurses and professionals who are carrying his vision in their lives and I know that they continue to reference him a lot.”

O’Gorman added that she was greatly upset when hearing of his passing. He had been at a special end-of-semester celebration less than a month before.

“I felt a deep sense of loss for the university because he touched hundreds of lives like no one else,” she said. “How do you put into words the legacy someone left to an institution?”

“My students were moved, educated, touched, inspired and challenged by him for 25 years. “I give thanks for Bob every day and what he gave to my students for 25 years,” she said. “He was not a professional educator but he did what he could to bring wisdom to people who needed it most and access to resources that were right at their fingertips.

“He was a born teacher.”

For more information on McClellan and his life work, check out www.earthmotherawareness.com. To give support to the project most dear to McClellan’s heart, check out www.cotef.org, Children of the Earth Foundation, which he supported and mentored from its inception.

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