It was widely noted for its attempts to provide a balanced Indigenous perspective , focusing on Lakota traditions and the internal spiritual struggles of their people as they faced an "unrelenting tide of change".
The Wheelers are wheelmakers by trade. When Jacob marries Thunder Heart Woman (the sister of Loved by the Buffalo), he introduces modern innovations like rifles and forged metal to her people, signaling the end of their "unsullied world".
The title and the episode itself lean heavily on "wheel" imagery to represent the cycle of life and the collision of technology:
Are you interested in a covered in the subsequent five episodes, or "WESTWARD HO!": Part Five - "INTO THE WEST" (2005)
Simultaneously, we follow a young Lakota boy who is destined to become the medicine man Loved by the Buffalo . He receives disturbing spiritual visions of the "white man" arriving and the buffalo disappearing—a prophecy of the cultural erasure to come. The "Wheel" Symbolism
This episode introduces the "dualistic structure" that defines the series, cutting between two distinct cultures half a continent apart:
