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To the Native Americans, the birth of a White Buffalo is a
symbol of hope, rebirth and world harmony.
One
summer, long ago, the seven sacred council fires of
the Lakota Oyate, the nation, came together and camped. Every
day they sent scouts to look for game, but the scouts found
nothing, and the people were starving.
Among the
bands assembled were the Itazipcho, the Without-Bows, who had
their own camp circle under their chief, Standing Hollow Horn.
Early one morning the chief sent two of his young men to hunt
for game. They searched everywhere but could find nothing.
Seeing a high hill, they decided to climb it in order to look
over the whole country. Halfway up, they saw something coming
toward them from far off, but the figure was floating instead of
walking. From this they knew that the person was wakan,
holy.
At first
they could make out only a small moving speck and had to squint
to see that it was a human form. But as it came nearer, they
realized that it was a beautiful young woman, more beautiful
than any they had ever seen. She wore a wonderful white buckskin
outfit, tanned until it shone a long way in the sun. It was
embroidered with sacred and marvelous designs of porcupine
quill, in radiant colors no ordinary woman could have made. This
wakan stranger was Ptesan-Wi, White Buffalo Calf Woman.
In her hands she carried a large bundle and a fan of sage
leaves. She wore her hair loose except for a strand at the left
side, which was tied up with buffalo fur. Her eyes shone dark
and sparkling, with great power in them.
The two
young men looked at her open-mouthed. One was overawed, but the
other desired her and stretched his hand out to touch her. This
woman was Lila wakan, very sacred, and could not be
treated with disrespect. Lightning instantly struck the brash
young man and burned him up, so that only a small heap of
blackened bones was left.
To the
other scout who had behaved rightly, the White Buffalo Calf
Woman said: "Good things I am bringing, something holy to your
nation. A message I carry for your people from the buffalo
nation. Go back to the camp and tell the people to prepare for
my arrival. Tell your chief to put up a medicine lodge with
twenty-four poles. Let it be made holy for my coming."
This young
hunter returned to the camp. He told the chief, and the people,
what the sacred woman had commanded. So the people put up the
big medicine tipi and waited. After four days they saw the White
Buffalo Calf Woman approaching, carrying her bundle before her.
Her wonderful white buckskin dress shone from afar. The chief,
Standing Hollow Horn, invited her to enter the medicine lodge.
She went in and circled the interior sunrise. The chief
addressed her respectfully, saying: "Sister, we are glad you
have come to instruct us."
She told
him what she wanted done. In the center of the tipi they were to
put up an owanka wakan, a sacred altar, made of red
earth, with a buffalo skull and a three-stick rack for a holy
thing she was bringing. They did what she directed, and she
traced a design with her finger on the smoothed earth of the
altar. She showed them how to do all this, then circled the
lodge again sunwise. Halting before the chief, she now opened
the bundle. The holy thing it contained was the chanunpa,
the sacred pipe. She held it out to the people and let them look
at it. She was grasping the stem with her right hand and the
bowl with her left, and thus the pipe has been held ever since.
Again the
chief spoke, saying: "Sister, we are glad. We have had no meat
for some time. All we can give you is water." They dipped some
wacanga, sweet grass, into a skin bag of water and gave
it to her, and to this day the people dip sweet grass or an
eagle wing in water and sprinkle it on a person to be purified.
The White
Buffalo Calf Woman showed the people how to use the pipe. She
filled it with chan-shasha, red willow-bark tobacco. She
walked around the lodge four times after the manner of Anpetu-Wi,
the great sun. This represented the circle without end, the
sacred hoop, the road of life. The woman placed a dry buffalo
chip on the fire and lit the pipe with it. This was
peta-owihankeshni, the fire without end, the flame to be
passed on from generation to generation.
She told
them that the smoke rising from the bowl was Tunkashila's
breath, the living breath of the great Grandfather Mystery.
The White
Buffalo Calf Woman showed the people the right way to pray, the
right words and the right gestures. She taught them how to sing
the pipe-filling song and how to lift the pipe up to the sky,
toward Grandfather, and down toward Grandmother Earth, to Unci,
and then to the four directions of the universe.
"With this
holy pipe," she said, "you will walk like a living prayer. With
your feet resting upon the earth and the pipe stem reaching into
the sky, your body forms a living bridge between the Sacred
Beneath and the Sacred Above. Wakan Tanka smiles upon us,
because now we are as one: earth, sky, all living things, the
two-legged, the four-legged, the winged ones, the trees, the
grasses.
Together
with the people, they are all related, one family. The pipe
holds them all together.
"Look at
this bowl," said the White Buffalo Calf Woman. "Its stone
represents the buffalo, but also the flesh and blood of the red
man. The buffalo represents the universe and the four
directions, because he stands on four legs, for the four ages of
creation. The buffalo was put in the west by Wakan Tanka at the
making of the world, to hold back the waters.
Every year
he loses one hair, and in every one of the four ages he loses a
leg. The sacred hoop will end when all the hair and legs of the
great buffalo are gone, and the water comes back to cover Mother
Earth.
The wooden
stem of this chanunpa stands for all that grows on the
Earth. Twelve feathers hanging from where the stem - the
backbone - joins the bowl - the skull - are from Wanblee
Galeshka, the spotted eagle, the very sacred bird who is the
Great Spirit's messenger and the wisest of all flying ones.
You are
joined to all things of the universe, for they all cry out to
Tunkashila. Look at the bowl: engraved in it are seven circles
of various sizes. They stand for the seven sacred ceremonies you
will practice with this pipe, and for the Oceti Shakowin, the
seven sacred campfires of our Lakota nation."
The White
Buffalo Calf Woman then spoke to the women, telling them that it
was the work of their hands and the fruit of their bodies which
kept the people alive. "You are from Mother Earth," she told
them. "What you are doing is as great as what the warriors do."
And
therefore the sacred pipe is also something that binds men and
women together in a circle of love. It is the one holy object in
the making of which both men and women have a hand.
The men
carve the bowl and make the stem; the women decorate it with
bands of colored porcupine quills. When a man takes a wife, they
both hold the pipe at the same time and red trade cloth is wound
around their hands, thus tying them together for life.
The White
Buffalo Calf Woman also talked to the children, because they
have an understanding beyond their years. She told them that
what their fathers and mothers did was for them, that their
parents could remember being little once, and that they, the
children, would grow up to have little ones of their own.
She told
them: "You are the coming generation, that's why you are the
most important and precious ones. Some day you will hold this
pipe and smoke it. Some day you will pray with it."
She spoke
once more to all the people: "The pipe is alive; it is a red
being showing you a red life and a red road. And this is the
first ceremony for which you will use the pipe. You will use it
to keep the soul of a dead person, because through it you can
talk to Wakan Tanka, the Great Mysterious. The day a human dies
is always a sacred day. The day when the soul is released to the
Great Spirit is another."
She spoke
one last time to Standing Hollow Horn, the chief, saying,
"Remember: this pipe is very sacred. Respect it and it will take
you to the end of the road. The four ages of creation are in me.
I will come to see you in every generation cycle. I shall come
back to you."
The sacred
woman then took leave of the people, saying: "Toksha ake
wacinyanktin ktelo -- I shall see you again."
The people
saw her walking off in the same direction from which she had
come, outlined against the red ball of the setting sun. As she
went, she stopped and rolled over four times. The first time,
she turned into a black buffalo; the second into a brown one;
the third into a red one; and finally, the fourth time she
rolled over, she turned into a white buffalo calf. A white
buffalo is the most sacred living thing you could ever
encounter.
The White
Buffalo Calf Woman disappeared over the horizon. As soon as she
had vanished, buffalo in great herds appeared, allowing
themselves to be killed so that the people might survive. And
from that day on, our relations, the buffalo, furnished the
people with everything they need -- meat for their food, skins
for their clothes and teepees, and bones for their many tools.
Note: There are many versions
of this one legend, this is only one.
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