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“We are all related”: The Lakota Tradition
THE PEOPLE: The Lakota (Teton), of which the Oglala are prominent representatives, have
been studied extensively. They are part of a larger "Sioux" confederation known traditionally as
The Seven Fireplaces. This larger group includes the Dakota (Santee) and the Nakota (Yankton).
Moreover, there are many Lakota authors, educators and spokespeople in all walks of
life. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are known universally as significant players in the drama of
the West. Today, Nicholas Black Elk, whose experiences, knowledge and wisdom were recorded
in Black Elk Speaks and The Sacred Pipe remains a lively focus of admiration, devotion,
scholarship and controversy. Lakota individuals like Vine Deloria have been at the heart of the
legal battle for Indian rights. Others like Leonard Crow Dog have fostered the restoration of
Lakota ceremonial life. Many Lakota people live in the Denver area and are active in enhancing
Native community life and in building bridges between cultures and traditions.
THE LAND: The sacred land of the Lakota is the area around the Black Hills in South Dakota.
This is the center of the Lakota universe, a center circumscribed by a band of red clay known as
the Sacred Hoop. As we shall see, the Lakota traditionally lived in this vicinity, entering to
special sites in the Hills for important ceremonial occasions and purposes. The Lakota origin
stories speak of emergence into this world from a cave in the Hills. The tradition life way was
focussed on hunting and gathering. They maintained a special relationship with the Buffalo.
Acquisition of the horse allowed them to range widely over the northern Great Plains, where they
became known as expert horsemen, skilled hunters and fierce warriors.
Nevertheless, the "Sioux" represent for many Americans, the archetypal "Indian," the
nomadic buffalo hunter ranging on horseback over the vast open spaces of the Great Plains.
There are various things wrong with this image, but at least it offers a beginning point for
appreciating a basic fact about Native American traditions: they are wedded to particular
geographies, to specific lands and to the livelihood offered by those particular places. To get an idea
how this works, we will look at two aspects of Lakota ceremonial life: the rites of the Sacred Pipe
and Lakota ceremonial astronomy.
The Lakota and their confederates appear to have been agricultural people at some point.
But even after the Lakota (also known as Teton, "Prairie Dwellers") moved from what we now call
Minnesota onto the Plains between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, they were far from aimless
wanderers. The Lakota, among others, were centered on a striking set of geographical features
(Paha Sapa, the Black Hills) assembled inside a circular band of red clay known as the Sacred
Hoop (Cangleska Wakan). According to their origin story, the Lakota people emerged from the
underworld to live on the Earth's surface to follow and hunt the Buffalo, to move out from the
world's center, ranging freely over this open and rolling country.
Ronald Goodman's correlation of Lakota oral traditions and astronomical observations
suggests that the Lakota have been in this neighborhood for upwards of 2000 years (12). During this
time they developed a sophisticated, tripartite system which co-ordinates Black Hills/Sacred Hoop
geography, the annual cycle of certain constellations (counterparts in some ways to constellations in
the Greco-Roman system but interpreted differently; a con-stella-tion = a group of stars) and their
annual movements throughout the territory. The system was activated by a set of place-specific
ceremonies.
By carefully observing a number of mythically identified constellations which are linked to
specific geographical features in the Black Hills. For example, the constellation Wincincala
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Sakowin (Seven Little Girls) has an earth surface counterpoint at Harney Peak, the highest spot in
the Black Hills. Ki Inyanka Ocanku (The Race Track) corresponds to the Sacred Hoop around the
Black Hills. It marks the path of a race between the four-leggeds and the two-leggeds back in the
beginning time to determine which would be hunted and which would be eaten.
Matotipila (The Bear's Lodge) corresponds to the same named point on earth (a.k.a., Devil's
Tower). The seven starred Wicakiyuhapi (The Dipper) is also known as the (Sun) Carrier, as Oceti
Sakowin (The Seven Fireplaces), and as Cansasa Ipusye (Dried Willow). This last term is also the
name of the sacred wooden spoon that is used to carry a hot coal used to light the Sacred Pipe.
("Dried willow" is the inner bark of the red dogwood used as the main ingredient of the mixture
smoked in the Sacred Pipe.) When the sun moves into this constellation at the spring equinox, it
marks the end of winter and the beginning of spring.
Each constellation with its corresponding landmark specifies a time when a particular
annual ceremonial action is to be performed. Each time marks the location to which the people will
travel. The high point of the ceremonial calendar is the Wiwanyag Wachipi (Sun Dance) performed
at the Bear's Lodge on the full moon closest to the summer solstice, when the sun is at its most
powerful.
THE CEREMONIES: Lakota ceremonial life centers on the Seven Rites of the Sacred Pipe.
We will look at these ceremonies and their role in Oglala life and identity. We will also examine
Lakota story traditions about the origin of the world, of the People and their coming to be in the
Black Hills area.
This ceremonial system binds the Lakota together as a single people. Traditionally they
spent most of their time in small bands or camps composed largely of extended family. Their
hunter-gather lifestyle required a certain itinerancy based on the movement of game and other
seasonal factors. Survival depended on co-ordinating their activities with these world-shaping
powers. Even if some Lakota could not make it to Bear's Lodge, they still could participate in the
people's collective solidarity by coordinating their sun dance performance with the others.
There are seven rites of the Sacred Pipe. (A "rite" is a specific ceremonial action.) They
form the most sacred core of Lakota ceremony although there is a rich variety of ancillary ceremony
in the Lakota tradition.
The Sun Dance is the only rite of the Pipe with a specified time. The others are occasional,
fitting the needs of a people on the move. In addition to the Sun Dance, there is the Sweat Lodge
(Inipi), the Vision Quest (Hanblecheyapi), the Keeping of a Soul, the Making of Relatives
(Hunkapi), Preparing a Girl for Womanhood (Ishna Ta Awi Cha Lowan), and the Throwing of the
Ball (Tapa Wanka Yap) (Brown).
Each of these rites serves to meet some specific need in the community for life-giving (holy)
power. Their effect is to orient individuals and groups to the deeper mysteries of Lakota life, to meet
specific needs of those individuals or groups, and to express and maintain the tradition itself. When
someone has a special problem or need, illness or trouble of some sort or even just a need for
physical or spiritual strength, he or she seeks out a sweat lodge leader and participates in a sweat.
These are very common. When someone is looking for guidance in deciding something major, or
for a young man trying to find a vocation, the individual asks to be "put on the mountain," to
participate in a Vision Quest. A young woman who has reached the age of childbearing will be
initiated into the ways, rights and responsibilities of life in the community as an adult woman.
The Rites of the Pipe came to the Lakota people as a gift. The Pipe itself was brought by
White Buffalo Calf Woman, a mediatrix also known as Wohpe, or Fallen Star. She taught the
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people how the Pipe was to be made and cared for as well as the basis for the rites themselves. Here
is Nicholas Black Elk's account of the gift as told be Joseph Epes Brown:
With this [holy] pipe you will walk upon the Earth; for the Earth is your Grandmother and
Mother, and She is [holy]. Every step that is taken upon her should be as a prayer. The bowl
of this pipe is of red stone; it is the Earth. Carved in the stone and facing the center is this
buffalo calf who represents all the four-leggeds who live upon your Mother. The stem of the
pipe is of wood, and this represents all that grows upon the Earth. And these twelve feathers
which hang here where the stem fits into the bowl are from Wanbli Galeshka, the Spotted
Eagle, and they represent the eagle and all the wingeds of the air. All these peoples, and all
the things of the universe, are joined to you who smoke the pipe--all send their voices to
Wakan-tanka, the Great Spirit (Brown 5-6).
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the Sacred Pipe in Lakota tradition. It is
the spiritual core of Lakota life. It is the most powerful weapon against a range of evils from social
and interpersonal problems to physical and mental illnesses and even to such things as alcoholism
and drug addiction. It continues to bind together a people scattered by government relocation
programs and the need for schooling and wage work. The Pipe also has enabled dialogue with and
adaptation to non-Indian persons and circumstances, but it has enabled it to occur on Indian terms
and not only on outsider terms. Much of this ceremonial life was prohibited by Federal law until the
mid-seventies when the NARFA (Native American Religious Freedom Act) was passed by the U.S.
Congress.
THE POWERS: Lakota tradition speaks of what is wakan (holy) and of Wakantanka, the
"Great Mystery" or "Big Holy." It also tells of White Buffalo Calf Woman who brought the gift
of the Pipe and of the Four Winds, the Grandfathers and the Thunder Beings. The experience of
these powers shapes the Oglala sense of space and time and the world order in which they live.
Brown, Joseph Epes. The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala
Sioux. Norman and London: U of Oklahoma P, 1953.
Randolph F. Lumpp, Ph.D.
Regis University
Copyright 2010