Lakota Sioux creation story

[Lone4eagle]

Most of the Native American legends on the Internet have been so edited, leaving little of the original details left for to understand the story. For my research have only the website of a deceased Native American (Died: January 31st, 2009).
www.barefootsworld.net/

Notice found on website:

* Please consider Bob’s e-mail address at [e-mail] to be inactive as of January 31st, 2009. Please do not expect any e-email to be read. Please do not expect any replies.
*In accordance with Bob’s wishes, this website is being kept online, intact and in trust until his son is able to take over.
*If you need further assistance, please email [e-mail]


I am so thankful that his site is still being kept online, but who knows for how long.....it has always been a source of hard to find Lakota Sioux legends, ceremonies, traditions. I will get a few important things preserved here in this board.

[Lone4eagle]

Lakota Sioux creation story (best version)

www.barefootsworld.net/nativefables.html#creation2

Note:There is a record of a great flood in this legend, many primitive cultures do except the Lakota is similar to Noah's Ark (but without the ark).


"There was another world before this one. But the people of that world did not behave themselves. Displeased, Wakan Tanka (the Great Spirit) set out to make a new world, He sang several songs to bring rain, which poured stronger with each song. As he sang the fourth song, the earth split apart and water gushed up through the many cracks, causing a flood. By the time the rain stopped, all of the people and nearly all of the animals had drowned. Only Kangi the crow survived."

I want to comment on the legend, givind it a small portion at a time.

[Lone4eagle]

The "Story of Creation", legend of "White Buffalo Woman" are both related. White Buffalo Woman quotes this creation story. Actually she gives a prophetic warning about the water levels rising in the ocean.

"Look at this pipe," said White Buffalo 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 man. 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 the Earth.

[Lone4eagle]

The creation story goes on, the turtle shell was used by Native Americans for the calender.

"Kangi pleaded with Wakan Tanka to make him a new place to rest. So Wakan Tanka decided the time had come to make his new world. From his huge pipe bag, which contained all types of animals and birds, Wakan Tanka selected four animals known for their ability to remain under water for a long time. He sent each in turn to retrieve a lump of mud from beneath the floodwaters, First the loon dove deep into the dark waters, but it was unable to reach the bottom. The otter, even with its strong webbed feet, also failed. Next, the beaver used its large flat tail to propel itself deep under the water, but it too brought nothing back. Finally, Wakan Tanka took the turtle from his pipe bag and urged it to bring back some mud.
Turtle stayed under the water for so long that everyone was sure it had drowned. Then, with a splash, the turtle broke the water's surface! Mud filled its feet and claws and the cracks between its upper and lower shells. Singing, Wakan Tanka shaped the mud in his hands and spread it on the water, where it was just big enough for himself and the crow. He then shook two long eagle wing feathers over the mud until earth spread wide and varied, overcoming the waters."

*Note:The thirteen large squares counting full moons of the year. Moon phases were shown by 28 small squares around on the outside edge of shell. Turtle shell calendars count days of each lunar month.

[Lone4eagle]

So, Wakan Tanka used animal helpers from his huge pipe bag. It was the White Buffalo Woman who in Lakota Sioux legends, brings the sacred pipe. Here they are instructed, on how to do a pipe ceremony.

"To the other scout who had behaved rightly, White Buffalo 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, he told the people, what the sacred woman had commanded. The chief told the eyapaha, the crier, and the crier went through the camp circle calling:
"Someone sacred is coming. A holy woman approaches. Make all things ready for her."
So the people put up the big medicine tipi and waited. After four days they saw the White Buffalo 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 sunwise. 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."

White Buffalo Woman performs a sacred pipe ceremony, for the Lakota tribe....teaches them how to prepare the alter, circle.

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.
White Buffalo 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-owihankeshini, the fire without end, the flame to be passed on from generation to generation. She told them that the smoke rising from the pipe was Tunkashila's breath, the living breath of the great Grandfather Mystery.
White Buffalo 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 Great Spirit, up toward Father Sky, and down toward Mother Earth, 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 pipestem reaching into the sky, your body forms a living bridge between the Sacred Beneath and the Sacred Above. Wakan Tanka smiles upons 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."


*Note: The traditions of men making pipe and women decorating it. Instructions for the pipe makers, gives detailed explanation. Marriage ceremony with their hands wrapped around the Chanunpa, will hold a man and woman together for life.

"The White Buffalo 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 the Earth Mother," she told them. "What you are doing is as great as what 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 cloth is wound around their hands, thus tying them together for life."

"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, who is the Great Spirit's messenger and the wisest of all who cry out to Tunkashila. Look at the bowl. Engraved in it are seven circles of various sizes. They stand for the seven ceremonies you will practice with this pipe, and for the Ocheti Shakowin, the seven sacred campfires of our Lakota nation."

[Lone4eagle]

This portion of the creation story ends, people must learn to live together if they want to survive.

"Feeling sadness for the dry land, the Wakan Tanka cried tears that became oceans, streams, and lakes, He named the new land Turtle Island in honor of the turtle who provided the mud from which it was formed.
Wakan Tanka then took many animals and birds from his great pipe bag and spread them across the earth. From red, white, black, and yellow earth, he made men and women. Wakan Tanka gave the people his sacred pipe and told them to live by it. He warned them about the fate of the people who came before them. He promised all would be well if all living things learned to live in harmony. But the world would be destroyed again if they made it bad and ugly."

*Note: Wakan Tanka made men and woman from 4 colors of earth (red, white, black, and yellow). These are the traditional colors of the Medicine Wheel for the 4 winds (directions). This is also the 4 skin colors of people.

[Lone4eagle]

Here is a page which explains the 4 creation colors, the placement of each on the Medicine Wheel (Lakota/Plains traditions). Shannon Thunderbird is a Native American artist, researcher, from a Pacific NW tradition , but studied under spiritual teachers from tribes in the Great Plains. The colors of creation also have derived meanings, based on the teachings of the Medicine Wheel.

This is from ShannonThunderbird.Com
www.shannonthunderbird.com/medicine_wheel_teachings.htm
A print screen image is attached, of the spot on this page to scroll down to (web page is very long).

The placement of colors though might be strictly by reason of geographical logic....such as "the yellow race in the west and the black race in the east" rather than "the red race in the south and the black race in the west" but many Lakota place red race in the east.

Placement of colors is also because of teachings derived from the Medicine Wheel. Red is a color for the rising sun, but so is yellow. Yellow is also the color of the midday sun. Black is for water, the color after sunset in the west. To others it is heyoka (backwards) or a color of war. White most agree should be the cold north, then white used to the south symbolized blessings, virtue, the rains that fell from the sky, purity and all that was good.