Nathan Chasing Horse, who had part in Dances with Wolves, accused in trial that spotlights influence of ‘medicine men’
After learning she was of Lakota descent around 1996, Melissa Leone, who was adopted, hungered to connect to her Native American tribe.
“I was grabbing a hold of any and all connections that felt good or safe,” she said.
Leone thought she found that after a relative recommended she talk with a self-described medicine man named Nathan Chasing Horse. As a child, Chasing Horse had acted in the 1990 Oscar-winning movie Dances with Wolves. As an adult, he traveled North America performing healing ceremonies.
In 2005, Leone, then a mother of a seven-year old daughter, attended a ritual in which Chasing Horse said he was connecting with ancestral spirits. “It was like he turned the lights on in a dark room,” Leone said. “It all just felt like I belonged. He had this ability to charm you.”
