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By Bornali Halder
© 2002 by Bornali Halder
Url: http://www.lakotaarchives.com/lakphilospr.html
This article is based on an extensive review of literature relating to Lakota Sioux philosophy and is supplemented by material gathered during the author's 12 months of interviews and field research in South Dakota between 1998 and 1999 as part of anthropological doctoral research on Lakota Sioux environmental activism at the University of Oxford.Within a Lakota framework, the physical world is the visible manifestation of the invisible, spiritual world. The visible landscape is saturated with symbolic representations of the invisible, awaiting discernment from an intuitive and open body and mind. Discernment is possible because all things share of the same wakan, or sacred, substance, and all things ultimately have their coalescence in a spiritual totality known as Wakantanka. Because visible symbols speak of invisible truths, and because the Wakantanka inheres in all things, identifying symbols is imperative in the Lakota worldview. "Be open to everything you see, because Wakantanka speaks through everything," is a common refrain, even today.
This article and the ones that follow it in the Lakota Religion section presents a description of some of these symbolic representations of Wakantanka: numbers, shapes or patterns, colours, animals, plants, stones and astronomical phenomena. It also summarises the basic tenets of Lakota philosophy that still endure to the present day.
As early as 1869, Stephen Riggs described Dakota belief as such:
"The religious faith of the Dakota is not in his gods as such. It is an intangible, mysterious something of which they are only the embodiment, and that in such a measure and degree as may accord with the individual fancy of the worshiper. […] [T]he great object of all their worship, whatever its chosen medium, is the TA-KOO WAK-KON, which is the supernatural and mysterious. No one term can express the full meaning of the Dakota's Wakan. It comprehends all mystery, secret power, and divinity. […] All life is Wakan. So also is everything which exhibits power, whether in action, as the winds and drifting clouds, or in positive endurance, as the bowlder [sic] by the way side" (1869: 56-57).1
Fifteen years later, Alice Fletcher described the Oglala Lakota belief system in the following way:
The Indian's religion is generally spoken of as a nature and animal worship. The term seems too broadcast and indiscriminate. Careful inquiry and observation fail to show that the Indian actually worships the objects which are set up or mentioned by him in his ceremonies. The earth, the four winds, the sun, the moon and stars, the stones, the water, the various animals, are all exponents of a mysterious life and power encompassing the Indian […]" (1884: 276, n.1).2
The mysterious force she was referring to was Wakantanka. Wakantanka, a generic term according to Dorsey (1894: 431),3 flowed through and bound all things. It both composed and was composed of a variety of spiritual entities, all of which were wakan. Unlike the previously quoted writers, some commentators mistook the multi-faceted nature of Wakantanka and described a religion in which Wakantanka was 'chief' of an array of minor 'deities'. Lynd, for example, wrote that Wakantanka
"is not alone in the universe. Numbers of minor deities are scattered throughout space, some of whom are placed high in the scale of power. Their ideas of the Great Spirit appear to be that He is the creator of the world and has existed from all time; but after creating the world and all that is in it He sank into silence and since then has failed to take any interest in the affairs of this planet" (1864: 64-65).4
Several decades later, this idea was elaborated upon by the physician James R. Walker. Walker formalised this misunderstanding into a hierarchical formulation in which the different 'gods' were divided into classes of 'gods' under the over-arching 'chief' of Wakantanka:
| 1) WAKANTANKA | The Great Mystery. |
| 2) TOBTOB ('FOUR-FOUR'): | The sixteen 'gods' of the Wakantanka hierarchically ranked in groups of fours: |
| Rank One Superior wakan: | Wi (the Sun) Škan (the Sky) Maka (the Earth) Inyan (the Rock) |
| Rank Two Associate wakan: | Hanwi (the Moon) - created by Wi to be his companion Tate (the Wind) - created by Škan to be his companion Wohpe (the Falling Star) - companion of Maka Wakinyan (the Winged, or Thunder-being ) - created by Inyan to be his active associate |
| Rank Three Lesser wakan: | Tatanka (the Buffalo) Hununpa (the Two-legged - both the bear and man) Tatetob (the Four Winds) Yumni (the Whirlwind) |
| Rank Four 'Those similar to wakan': | Nagi (the Shade, or Apparition) Niya (Life or Breath) Šicun (the Potency) Nagila (the Shadelike) |
(After Powers 1975: 54; Walker 1917: 79-80; and Walker 1980: 50)5
Notes::
The Yankton Sioux writer, Ella Deloria, later criticised Walker's hierarchical classification of Oglala spiritual categories as the invention of "a systematic European mind" (Walker 1983: 24).1 Instead of 'gods' or 'deities', Deloria used the term 'medium' - "medium of the Wakan" (1944: 53).2 The ethnographer, Frances Densmore, used the term 'manifestation' - the sun, for example, was a manifestation of Wakantanka (1918: 85, n.2).3 A recent anthropologist, William Powers, described the aspects of Wakantanka that are personified into various natural phenomena such as the sun, moon, thunder and earth (1975: 45).4 Michael Melody called Wakantanka a composite entity - "a composite of different primal forces" (1977: 165).5 The Oglala, Luther Standing Bear, described Wakantanka as thus:
"Wakan Tanka breathed life and motion into all things, both visible and invisible. He was over all, through all, and in all […]. The Lakota could look at nothing without at the same time looking at Wakan Tanka, and he could not, if he wished, evade His presence, for it pervaded all things and filled all space" (1933: 197).6
Wakan is all that is mysterious, incomprehensible, wonderful, even dangerous in the sense that it must not be meddled with. It also signifies that which is ancient or very old because kan means aged. It is the sacred thread that binds all components of the universe, of life, together. Because all things share of the same wakan nature, all things are related and all things pulse with a powerful, wakan, vitality.
Wakantanka is glossed as the Great Mystery, or less accurately, the Great Spirit, because tanka is that which is very large or great. In everyday language, the Lakota today most often say 'Wakantanka', 'God', or 'Creator'. But in a ritualised setting such as in the sweat lodge or inside the sun dance arbor, the more formal terms are used: 'Tunkasila Wakantanka' (Grandfather Wakantanka), 'Ate Wakantanka' (Father Wakantanka) and various aspects of Wakantanka such as Wanbli Gleska (Spotted Eagle) or Unci Maka (Grandmother Earth).
Wakantanka is the ultimate, unified coalescence of a multiplicity of wakan aspects which compose it. Little Wound told Walker: "Wakan Tanka are many. But they are all the same as one" (Walker 1980: 70).7 Walker himself put it thus: "Wakan Tanka is one, yet It is many who are" (Walker 1917: 79).8 Wakantanka and wakan things have an eternal quality that goes beyond time and space, though they can be manifested as such.
The many wakan aspects that together form the Wakantanka include such anthropomorphized natural phenomena as Inyan (Rock), Maka (the Earth), Wakinyan (the Thunderbeing), Wi (the Sun), Skan (Sky) or Taku Skan-Skan (that which moves, or is in movement), Tate (Wind) and Tatetob (Four Winds). In ritualised contexts these aspects are frequently called upon, along with other aspects such as Iktomi (Spider, Trickster), Wanbli Gleska (Spotted Eagle), and Tatanka (Buffalo), depending on which wakan entity or spirit is in a special relationship with the medicine man or ritual participant. The gross or physical forms of these aspects - and every spiritual aspect has its physical form - are not worshipped, but the force residing in them that makes them wakan.
The Four Winds, for example, are Eya (West), Yata (North), Yanpa (East) and Okaga (South), and each has his tipi in one of the Four Directions that are appealed to during ritual. They are 'messengers' of Skan or Taku Skan-Skan and their movement in mythological time established the spatial and temporal divisions in the universe. Each of the Four Winds or Directions were spoken of to Fletcher as upholding the earth (Fletcher 1884: 289, n.1).9 Skan, the Four Winds and Wakinyan are all connected.
According to Riggs, Skan, Taku Skan-skan or Sky
"is too subtle in essence to be perceived by the senses, and is as subtle in disposition. He is present everywhere. He exerts a controlling influence over instinct, intellect, and passion. He can rob a man of the use of his rational faculties, and inspire a beast with intelligence, so that the hunter will wander idiot-like, while the game on which he hoped to feast his family at night escapes with perfect ease. […] His symbol and supposed residence is the bowlder [sic], as it is also of another god, the Tunkan" (1869: 64-65).10
It was Skan that was called the Great Spirit - the term that has sometimes been mistakenly applied to Wakantanka - and was said to have given motion to all that moves. His potency prevails in all things and is the presence of Wakantanka in the immediate present. The following conversation between Walker and Little Finger elucidates this:
"What causes the stars to fall? Taku Skanskan. Why does Taku Skanskan cause the stars to fall? Because He causes everything that falls to fall and he causes everything to move that moves. When you move what is it that causes you to move? Skan. If an arrow is shot from a bow what causes it to move through the air? Skan. […] Has the bow anything to do with the movement of an arrow shot from it? Taku Skanskan gives the spirit to the bow and he causes it to send the arrow from it. What causes smoke to go upward? Taku Skanskan. What causes water to flow in a river? Skan. […] Skan is Spirit and all that mankind can see of Him is the blue of the sky. But He is everywhere" (1917: 154-155).
It is Skan that gives each newborn baby his or her spirit, ghost and sicun, which, upon death of the physical body, returns to the stars.
Notes::
Wakinyan is the Winged or Thunder Being whose home is in the west, in hills claimed by some of my research participants to be the Black Hills of western South Dakota. Walker wrote:
"[H]is voice is the thunder clap and rolling thunder is caused by the beating of His wings on the clouds; he has an eye, and its glance is lightning. […] He flies through all the domain of the Sky, hidden in a robe of clouds, and if one of mankind sees His substance he is thereby made a heyoka, and must ever afterwards speak and act clownishly in an anti-natural manner" (1917: 83).1
A spiritual practitioner told me of his first experience of the Wakinyan:
"See, one year, [his wife] and I were coming back from a ceremony, about two-thirty, three o'clock in the morning, and it was kind of cloudy and lightning was flashing, and we were just coming down to a stop sign out here, coming from Rosebud onto the highway, and lightning flashed behind a cloud and all of a sudden I seen this huge bird standing in the sky and I instantly knew what it was - that's the Thunderbird, that's the original Thunderbird. And it was standing in - […] well, its head was behind the clouds, and its feet were below the horizon, but I would say, based on the perspective that I was looking at it, it could be anywhere from two to five miles high. It was real high up in the sky, and its wings were hanging down like this. It was in the north, and its head, I could see by the feathers in its neck, its head was turned toward the west. So lightning flashed and I saw it, and then of course it went dark. So I tapped [his wife] on the leg, and I said, "Look!" Lightning flashed again and there it was again. A second time. So then the third time the lightning flashed and she saw it completely, the same thing. And the fourth time the lightning flashed it wasn't there anymore. I could see its feathers, each individual feather in it. […] Then I saw another image of it again about two years later, but this time it was made up of cloud switches, again, very closely associated with the Thunderbirds, because they […] travel behind the clouds. But this Thunderbird was in flight and it was made up of clouds, and it was in the middle of the day. […] You can't have that [the Thunder] as a personal guide. You can have its messengers or its associates, but not it. It's too far beyond us" (1998).
The Wakinyan is associated with several natural objects, such as the swallow, the dragonfly. His favoured tree is cedar. Standing Bear wrote that whenever a storm threatened to overwhelm a camp, the "mothers and grandmothers in every tipi put cedar leaves on the coals and their magic kept danger away" (1933: 195).2 One man (a Thunder-dreamer or Heyoka) showed me a cedar tree near his house. He told me that whenever it stormed a heyoka can protect himself by sheltering under the cedar tree. He said that the tree protected him from harm (1998). Others talked of the imperative to enact dreams of Thunder in public or else dire consequences would befall them, usually death by lightning. The Lakota George Bushotter wrote:
"[Heyokas] used to dream about the Thunder-beings […] and in those dreams the Heyoka man or woman made promises to the Thunder-beings. If the dreamers kept their promises, it was thought that the Thunder-beings helped them to obtain whatever things they desired; but if they broke their promises, they were sure to be killed by the Thunder-beings during some storm. For this reason the Heyoka members worshipped the Thunder-beings, whom they honored, speaking of them as wakan" (in Dorsey 1894: 471).3
But because Wakinyan is a powerful thing, and to be associated with it means forever being held within its power, building up the courage to enact a vision can take many years, sometimes decades. When a person finally decides to do so, he or she must perform the Kettle Dance, a ritual that still takes place in small communities on the reservations and which involves plunging one's arms into boiling water and keeping them there until one has retrieved the head and other choice pieces of a ceremonial puppy.
Some Lakota have described the existence of four Wakinyan, each of whom resides in each quarter of the cosmological universe. Pond wrote:
"By some of the wakan men it is said that there are four varieties of the form of their external manifestation [the Wakinyan]. In essence, however they are but one. One of the varieties is black, with a long beak, and has four joints in his wing. Another is yellow, without any beak at all, with wings like the first, except that he has six quills in each wing. The third is scarlet, and remarkable chiefly for having eight joints in each of its enormous pinions. The fourth is blue and globular in form, and it is destitute of both eyes and ears" (1864: 41-42).4
Maka, the Earth, is spoken of in everyday discourse as Ina Maka (Mother Earth), but more usually in a ritual context as Unci (Grandmother) Maka to denote the earth's antiquity and thus wisdom. Maka also denotes a season, half a year, a year, winter or summer, and in this respect it is more commonly referred to as omaka.
Of Wi, or Sun, Walker wrote: "His domain is the spirit world and the regions under the world. […] Daily He makes His journey above the domain of the Sky and at night He rests with His people in the regions under the world and there communes with his comrade, the Buffalo" (1917: 81). As the earth is the symbol of fertility, so the sun is also the symbol of creativity because he carries within him the power to create and nurture life. This generative principle is extended to the buffalo, but also the eagle - two associative beings of the sun according to certain research participants.
Notes::
All living things have a spiritual as well as a physical aspect. More broadly, there is an invisible component to visible life. All living things - including humans, animals, birds and plants - have four spiritual aspects, described as niya, nagi, sicun and Skan or nagila. Tun is the wakan power inherent in all things that can transform an object between invisibility to visibility. Tun means to give birth to or to create and is the potentiality inherent in all things to become wakan, through ritual. Lynd described the four spirits in relation to humans, though they can be applied to all living things:
"The first is supposed to be a spirit of the body, which dies with the body. The second is a spirit which always remains with or near the body. Another is the soul which accounts for the deeds of the body, and is supposed by some to go to the south, by others to the west, after the death of the body. The fourth always lingers with the small bundle of the hair of the deceased, kept by the relatives until they have a chance to throw it into the enemy's country, when it becomes a roving spirit, bringing death and disease to the enemy in whose country it remains" (1864: 68, 80).1
Of niya, the Oglala educator, Arthur Amiotte wrote:
"This soul is very much a part of the body, for it is this that gives life to the organism, that causes it to live and to have its limited movement in the life process. […] [I]f a person's Niya leaves his body […] and re-enters the spirit world, the body is quite without motion and the Niya must be retrieved and reintegrated with the body" (1992: 164, 165).2
Niya is derived from woniya, spirit, life, breath. In relation to humans, niya is the life-breath of an individual. When the body is weak, it may be because the niya is weak or has departed the body, and thus can be restored to health through ritual means, such as taking an inipi (to live again; also inikagapi, to make live, breath or steam) or sweat. When the niya departs the body for good, the body decomposes.
Nagi is derived from wanagi, translated as ghost or shadow. It is the 'soul' that shadows the body through life and that often remains to linger on earth when the niya has left the body. Amiotte wrote that its nature is often capricious and unpredictable, "depending on the nature of the person or thing" it shadows (1992: 166). Elsewhere, he wrote that the personality of the individual inheres within his or her nagi (Amiotte 1987: 87).3 Powers wrote:
"The wanagi, particularly right after death, is dangerous because it grieves for its loved ones and will try to entice its family to join it. In order to appease the wanagi, the parents or loved ones will "keep" it for one year. Ghost keeping is accomplished by feeding the wanagi. Sacred men can learn things from it, particularly how to cure the sick" (1975: 53).4
After the wanagi have been released, they depart from the earth along the wanagi yata, or the wanagi tacanku - the 'Spirit Path' or the Milky Way. The stars in the Milky Way are caused by the glow from the wanagi's campfires. Brown wrote that at the end of the Spirit Trail the wanagi are met by an old woman known as Maya owichapaha who judges the souls. Those who she judges worthy travels on to the land of the spirits (wanagi yata) whilst the unfortunates are pushed over the bank to remain forever roaming the earth and causing some degree of mayhem to the living, or else go through some form of cleansing so that their purified forms can enter the wanagi yata (1953: 29, n.13).5 Other writers wrote that it is Skan, who imparted each thing with a soul at its birth, who judges the souls upon death, and that it is Tate who sits are the edge of the Milky Way (for example, Walker 1917: 86-87).6 Standing Bear said that no soul, "not even the wicked", are excluded from the spirit world (1933: 197).7 Few of my own research participants spoke of a spiritual judicial process, saying simply that the spirits of the dead return from whence they came - the spirit realm; but this does not mean there are no Lakota today who do not believe in the existence of a judgement procedure.
One of my research participants described the Milky Way and the soul's journey after death in this way:
"The Milky Way is considered the Spirit Road. It's the way the spirits gather and get on that road and travel. After one year, after you die, the one year after your spirit is released [through the Releasing of the Soul ceremony] then you're up, you're gone on a four-day journey. Now, down here on earth as common people we understand what a day means - we understand it from a clock, twenty-four hour time, that's a day. Or if it's daylight, we can understand it from sun-up to sun-down. And from the night to the next day. Okay, that to us is a day. But in a spiritual language sense, four time units could be forever or [clicks his fingers quickly] instant. We don't under… we don't know that part. All we know is that the first day of the journey, we go to every place that we've been to while we were alive on earth. From the place we died we travel all over until we come back to the place again. In the second phase of the journey, we [spirit] go through a period of darkness. That's where, our belief is that, we [human relatives and friends of spirit] do a lot of praying, do a lot of praying for our loved ones [spirit] to clear that darkness because if that doesn't happen, that person [spirit] could be stuck in the darkness. The third is we're cleared to move into another dimension of life. And the fourth is he's accepted into where the souls of other people are at. We know that, so that when we're going to drink water or eat food, anything like that, we always set some out, because we know a lot of our people went into the second phase and got stuck in the darkness. So we have to feed the spirits. So that's a way of… the belief that… because God created us like this" (1998).
Notes::
Amiotte described the third aspect of spirit as such:
"The Sicun is that mysterious spiritlike power which all things possess. For the plant it may be its lifegiving fruits, seeds, leaves, or roots or their chemical results as medicines. For animals it may be their unique traits, or the knowledge they have of plants or of celestial and earthly phenomena or behavior, that man desires for himself to help to survive. In some animals, it is their possession of the eternal and unfettered wisdom of the gods which man desires to know" (1992: 170).1
Sicun is received through the intervention of and intercourse with the spirit realm. According to One Star, a person or thing may have several sicun, but will always have one at the very least. The sicun can be the spirit of something (in Walker 1917: 158).2 Medicine men may acquire several sicun in the course of their lives, each one endowing them with greater spiritual power, and each one acquired through an appropriate ceremonial manner. In order to help people ward off ill health or malevolent energies or spirits, medicine men invest them with some of their own sicun, thus losing a little bit of their own power in the process. Sicun are imparted by the Wakantanka or wakan spirits into things and people. Such potency can be contained, protected and hidden in an appropriate pouch, bag or other vessel. This entire package is a wasicun, which Walker glosses as 'fetish', though says is not the same as a piyaha or medicine pouch used to cure diseases and such like (1917: 87-88).
Bushotter called sicun guardian spirits, or tawasicunpi. He wrote:
"Each Teton may have his special guardian spirit. If such spirits are remembered they confer great power on their favorites. The latter may be surrounded by foes and yet escape, either by receiving great strength, enabling them to scatter their enemies, or by being made invisible, disappearing like a ghost or the wind. Sometimes it is said that one is rescued by being turned into a small bird that flies off in safety. This refers to those who 'ihanbla' (have intercourse with spirits) or who have guardian spirits (tawasicunpi) as servants" (in Dorsey 1894: 475).3
Ihanbla is to dream; hanbleceya is to cry for a vision. This is an important medium through which sicun are acquired. As such,
"[w]hile all things possess Sicun, those who have received more of it by crying for a dream are supposed to be particularly blessed, and hence responsible that it will always be used for the benefit it can bring to the people so that the proper relationship of all life will be maintained" (Amiotte 1992: 171).
Nagila, or little ghost, is closely associated with Skan. To some degree, it "is that part of Takuškanškan which is in all of us" - that dwells in all things (Amiotte 1987: 87).4 "Less personal and more magnanimous than the other souls, the Nagila is responsible for wholeness - much like the web or sacred cord that binds and holds together all components" (Amiotte 1992: 171).
Notes::
The phrase mitaku'oyasin, all my relations, is a frequent refrain in Lakota ceremony. It expresses the belief that all things, visible and invisible, are related as spiritual kin and bound together by the binding force that is Wakantanka. Within the sacred hoop of life everything is a part of a dynamic, universal and living whole. Because of this, categories of things are not completely bounded as Lakota philosophy allows for a blurring of rigidly maintained distinctions. Though each living form has its own unique identity - each has its own niya, nagi, sicun, nagila and tun - there is a fluidity or transparency between them all. In such a way, the singularity of life is actually multiple and the multiplicity of life is in essence singular, and the force that unites all aspects of life together is spirit.
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