The Lakota White Buffalo Calf Woman

Narrative: A Cross-Literary Analysis

By: (Tina) Theresa Hannah-Munns

Advisor:Dr. Leona Anderson

andDr. Neal McLeod

200223487RLST 499-O10Honours Essay

August 29, 2005.

In a western historical-critical context, such (literary) variation (of the White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative) would immediately create a demand to know which story was true, and—as critical work on the Gospels testifies—the discovery of discrepancies in such stories leads in this culture to the conclusion that none of them are true. But does anyone seriously propose that the same kind of concern for the literal truth of a text characterizes a traditional oral culture? Are we to assume that each storyteller regards his version alone as true and the others as false? In a traditional culture, it is not that the hearers of different versions of the story do not realize that they are different. It is that they assume that the truth conveyed is symbolic, not literal. Within a traditional context, the hearing of two different stories of the White Buffalo Calf Woman does not create cognitive dissonance, but insight into storytelling and the nature of religious truth. One might say that each story is regarded as true in its own way, or as having some truth of its own…. The primary point of the story of the White Buffalo Calf Woman is not that she came on such-and-such a day and said and did such-and-such, but that we are related to her, through this story, in a meaningful way. Even the dullest member of a traditional culture would probably grasp this point.

Clyde Holler in Black Elk’s Religion: The Sun

Dance and Lakota Catholicism.1

THM2

Table of Contents

IntroductionThree Primary Sources 6

The Researcher’s Voice 6

Literature Review 8

Contextual Profiling 14

Methodological Voice 19

The Lakota White Buffalo Calf Woman Narratives Three Primary Sources

Lame Deer (Erdoes) 20

Lone Man (Densmore) 25

Fingers (Walker) 29

Cross-Literary Analysis Opening Setting and Implications 33

The Use (Or Lack) of Lakota Terminology 36

How White Buffalo Calf Leaves 40

ConclusionThe Meeting of Two Worlds: Process Meets Product Interpretation 43

The Voice of the Researcher In Process 47

End Notes 50

Bibliography 63

THM3

The Lakota White Buffalo Calf Woman (WBCW) Narrative: A Cross-Literary Analysis

300-1000 years ago, (lived the) First keeper (of the White Buffalo Calf Woman’s Pipe and Bundle that contains it, as given in this narrative), Chief Standing Hollow Horn, also known as Standing Walking Buffalo. Then “Thinking While Walking, Many Wounds, Strikes Fire, Red Earth, Sunrise, Buffalo Path, and Red Hair. For a few generations, it was kept by members of the Elk Head family. Old Man Elk Head died in 1916 at the age of ninety-one. Then Red Eagle and, after him, Mrs. Bad Warrior and Eli Bad Warrior became the keepers. The Pipe then passed to Stanley Looking Horse who, a few years ago, relinquished it to his son Arvol, the present keeper.

–Archie Fire Lame Deer, John Fire Lame Deer’s son.2

Many versions of the Lakota ‘White Buffalo Calf Woman’ narrative have appeared

in print and almost all of these versions are interpreted in diverse ways. The result is a

body of material that is confusing at best and at worst has led to misleading

interpretations for those trying to sort through the multiple layers of meaning embedded

within the study of the Lakota Native American traditions. A cross-literary analysis of

three popular versions of the White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative will help sort through

this confusion, and hopefully, help to clarify the reading of these texts. To this end, this

paper focuses on three versions of narrative: Lame Deer’s 1967 storytelling version (his

second version told in 1972), the teaching version from Lone Man, and James R.

Walker’s academic interpretation. Three specific points of variation in these texts will

anchor our discussion of the insider (emic) and outsider (etic) perspectives that permeate

these primary sources and the academic literature about Lakota peoples. These three

points are: the opening setting and implications; the use, or lack, of Lakota terminology;

and how White Buffalo Calf Woman leaves. Reference will be made to select secondary

sources as they pertain to these three points as well as to the primary narratives. The

juxtaposition of primary sources and the reference, where relevant, to secondary sources

is not intended to discover an original, or truthful, version.3 My intent is to elucidate the

discourse on the Lakota belief system through the medium of the White Buffalo Calf

THM4

Woman narrative and to articulate some of the ways in which the voices of the insider

(emic) and outsider (etic) have played a role in our understanding of the Lakota peoples.

In academic circles, the etic voice has dominated the discourse, sometimes helping

us to understand Lakota traditions, but more often it has obscured, erased, and

misconstrued these traditions. The result is that this etic voice has constructed the Lakota

as an ‘other’ that is unrecognizable, except in scholarly circles. This ‘other’ keeps us

from fully understanding the Lakota peoples within their own identity.

The voices (and worldviews) of both the ‘subjective’ insider and the ‘objective’

outsider will be brought into dialogue in order to understand how knowledge that leads

to misinterpretation and many times results in the discriminatory practices of stereotyping

and the portrayal of the Lakota as the ‘exotic other’ is produced.4 Through analysis of the

intentions and voices that relate within the academic research process of collecting and

disseminating these narratives, the insider and outsider perspectives will be shown to be

important considerations in becoming aware of the complex consequences of our

research actions. It is with this awareness that we can map our own interpretative path

through the confusing array of printed versions of the White Buffalo Calf Woman

narrative, and open us to the valuable contextual clues available in both the storytelling

process and the story itself.

Introduction

The whole (White Buffalo Calf Woman Pipe) Bundle is lovingly and reverently cared for. It is kept on a tripod and every day is turned to face to the Sacred Four Directions. The Calf Pipe is brittle and fragile now and can no longer be smoked, but I have been privileged to hold it and pray with it, and I have felt its great power fill my whole being. I know that Wakan Tanka’s spirit is in that Pipe. Only in times of hunger, distress, and danger to the Lakota Tribes is the Bundle opened and the Pipe unwrapped to be shown to the people and prayed over.

–Archie Fire Lame Deer5

THM5

The Three Primary Sources of the Lakota White Buffalo Calf Woman Narrative From the variety of White Buffalo Calf Woman narratives available to us, the

following three versions of the story have been selected: Lame Deer, Lone Man, and

James Walker’s. Lame Deer’s narrative was chosen because of its popularity. Numerous

references to it show us that it continues to pass Lakota teachings to both Native

American peoples, especially to those within the Lakota culture, and to scholars

interested in learning about the Lakota. Lone Man’s version was chosen because of its

early dating and its similarity to Lame Deer, as well as the inclusion in it of Christian

influences. Both of these narratives represent an emic voice, although the etic voice is

also present in the recording and interpretation of them. James R. Walker’s interpretation

is an example of an early representation of an educated outsider, who comes into contact

with the Lakota culture. The importance of this latter narrative lies in the way in which it

is privileged in the study of the Lakota culture, and the cultures of other Indigenous

groups in the contemporary academic world. These stories will be included in full text,

excluding the introduction and concluding comments.

The Researcher’s Voice – The Person Behind the Scholarship

While researching the various interpretations of this one sacred narrative of the

Lakota peoples, it was obvious that the intentions, the background, and the perspective of

the narrators are an important factor in our understanding of the story. I found that I had

to be careful to recognize the various voices interrelating within the context of the

research process itself, with subtle contextual clues pointing to the ability to better

recognize and analyze details within the Lakota narrative, thus avoiding the historical

practice of trying to theoretically tie all the data’s loose ends up without the factual

means available. Rather than trying to reach universal truth claims,6 or to construct

theoretical relationships of spiritual relationships, this paper will show the complexity of

the research process as it is today. Two cultures are meeting and trying to communicate

THM6

with each other from differing worldviews and with different values.7 In order to assist a

deeper understanding of the Lakota peoples within this paper, I myself must make my

contextual situation within the research process known.

For most of my life I have walked two cultures. Being an Irish EuroCanadian

scholar allows me to fit into the mainstream culture at University of Regina, even though

I am a registered and active student at First Nations University of Canada (FNUC). I fit

into the FNUC culture since I am a mother in a blended cultural family, and have been

acculturated in urban Indian living for over twenty years. I have also been ceremonially

acculturated in the nēhiyāwak (Cree) worldview for over five years. My lineage (lineage

in oral traditional knowledge systems is like literary sourcing in academia) includes two

strands: as a woman askapāyos (elder’s helper, a form of initiate) for Senator Margaret

Keewatin, who is also my adopted mother from the Okanese First Nations; the other

strand is through my partnership with Rick Favel from Kawakatoose First Nations, head

askapāyos (elder’s helper) and knowledge keeper for many of Southern Saskatchewan’s

lodgemakers and medicine practitioners, such as Piapot, Ironeagle, Ochohow, Shingoose,

Bigknife, Manty, Kay, and more. Yet, my elementary-level experiences of learning8

within these two lineages show how much more I have to learn, both in academia and in

Indigenous knowledge systems.

Though I am nēhiyāwak in training, I am not Indian. I walk a third space with one

foot in two worlds and write from this position. I write for myself; as a scholar and as an

Irish woman who has indigenous roots in Europe. I also write for the future of my

children who carry their blended lineages as anchors of identity. Yet, none of my roots

are in the Lakota, Dakota, or Nakota cultures where the White Buffalo Calf Woman

narrative belongs, making me a scholar with the background of an outsider. Because of

this, I consult and rely on two Dakota elders from Standing Buffalo First Nations, Velma

Goodfeather and Ken Goodwill, to help me avoid projecting my own bi-cultural

assumptions onto the material. I hope that this is achieved, and if not, the fault lies with

this writer exclusively.

THM7

Narrative Literature Review

The focus of this section is to introduce some of the issues important to the

understanding of the Lakota oral tradition of storytelling and the emergence of these

stories in print. First I introduce the Lakota process of storytelling and the European

process of collecting the stories of other cultures, specifically those of ‘oral traditions’

around the world. This overview leads to the review of printed literature for this paper.

The Lakota are academically categorized as belonging to ‘oral traditions,’9 which

emphasize the practice of storytelling as a teaching tool that promotes the process of

interpreting knowledge for oneself in relationship with the environment. This designation

of oral tradition in turn relates to the category of ‘other’ in contrast to textual traditions.

Important to this latter category is its emphasis on individual details contained within the

narrative, and individual stories, which are in this context understood as isolated products

that stand on their own. These isolated stories are subsequently interpreted as complete

units, representative of entire traditions. Marriott & Rachlin deconstruct this process,

noting that in oral traditions the emphasis is on the telling of the tale as the primary

subject matter and is as important as the narrative itself. They tell us further that most

scholars, primarily folklorists, have not paid attention to this point and thus missed

important cultural information of both the story and its telling.10 Echoing on this point,

Jack Goody informs us of the importance of relationship11 as is emphasized in the

Lakotas belief that learning is achieved only within interaction with the environment.12

Here the personal interpretive process highlights the individual’s interpretations for

her/himself while remaining respectful of other peoples’ explanations.13 Rather than any

one individual having knowledge, knowledge is seen as a process that constantly grows

and expands in relationship as one matures and ‘comes into season’ (with the elders being

the wisdom keepers of the culture). For example, storytelling is a process: three seasons

of every year, members of oral traditions, such as the Lakota, learn through hands-on

activities that further the group’s interests and well-being. Some of these activities pass

on spiritual philosophies and knowledge of life’s cycles through the practice of rituals. As

Rappaport points out,14 many of the spiritual narratives are kept for winter. In the winter,

as O’Flaherty highlights, the evenings are longer and it is time for the more philosophical

THM8

teachings through storytelling practices.15 Thus interpretation of knowledge in oral

traditions is anchored in both time and place, in process rather than in a single set time

and place, and these conditions allow for knowledge to be dynamic and process

orientated rather than static and absolute. Storytelling is a practice of the social group,

different from the individualistic style of philosophical discussion,16 since the orators

interact with their audience and their situational environment17 in sharing the process-

oriented stories of their ancestors, as well as sharing the newer stories of personal and

communal experiences more recently acquired, knitting together all into community. For

example, Black Elk shares the fact that the seven rites attributed to White Buffalo Calf

Woman were commonly believed to be of this kind of knowledge formation18; one or two

of the rites are said, in most narratives, to be given directly from White Buffalo Calf

Woman19, while the other five were told by White Buffalo Calf Woman to be given later,

in ways that would be recognizable as coming from her. Yet, this insider (emic) detail is

lost in the academic interpretations, such as:

The rites of the Hunkapi, the ‘Making of Relatives,’ is also considered by the Oglala to be one of the seven rites originally promised by the White Buffalo Cow Woman. The history of these rites is complex, since obviously there have been intrusions of borrowed ritual elements. Among these are the presence of the special ‘Ree twist tobacco,’ and rites involving symbolism based on botanixal processes in the fertilization of corn. In spite of these intrusions, there are well integrated core concepts based on lore concerning bison. This is in complete accord with ancient Lakota patterns.20

This example shows how the stories become academic products separated from the

knowledge contained in the process of connection between the narratives themselves, as

revealed in traditional storytelling procedures and protocol.21 Severed from context, they

lose their meaning and their ability to transmit knowledge. Though the traditional stories

are based on a conclusive result, such as the White Buffalo Calf Woman bringing the

Lakota the Pipe, the stories are anchored in the process of relationship between elements

within the environment, including narratives about the spiritual entities and Lakota

peoples themselves in relationship with each other, or about the relationships with the

landscapes and objects in their environment. Between new and old, process and product,

the narratives share the communal identity22 of belonging to a complete cultural

THM9

knowledge system, specifically that of the Lakota peoples.23 We as scholars are only

beginning to understand what Holler states succinctly:

the fundamental orientation of an oral culture is to storytelling for the transmission of culture and to ritual for theological and philosophical expression. Each tribe had its own religion (sic), its own origin myth, and its own stories. Each holy man had his own vision, which directed both his storytelling and his ritualizing. Each holy man tells the old stories differently, in accord with his vision.24

Traditions of story collecting in Europe date to early times. European oral traditions

were absorbed and the cultural units that produced these narratives have been lost. The

stories came to be seen as novelties which captured the interest of individuals who

organized them into collections of folktales, legends, and myths. These collections of

cultural narratives were seen as a way of ‘salvaging’25 the relics: they were not collected

for the cultures that produced them, but for the curiosity of the emerging dominant

culture.26 The explorers and missionaries who participated in the colonial expansion into

the Americas were already well-versed in collecting stories of this type as artifacts,

recording their observations and the knowledge contained in the stories as relics. They

wrote down as many of the Native American narratives as they could and located them

within systems of categorizations that came from the collections of European folklore

traditions. Like many of the cultures represented in European folk literature, some of

these cultures also died out, such as the groups in the Canadian east coast. The Native

American oral cultural knowledge thus became textual Euroculture curio-pieces, and this

body of relics continues to be drawn on to categorize the different tribal nations,

including the Lakota sacred narratives, as definitively ‘other.’

These writings were not seen as sacred texts, let alone texts that contained any type

of knowledge. Rather they were seen as primitive, naive, and full of imaginary notions, as

noted by Colin Taylor.27 Even when the writings were published and demand for them

increased, these sacred narratives were often not taken seriously within academia until

various social science departments became established. Within the parameters of social

science methodology, these narratives many times fostered a particular and separate

THM10

identity for Native Americans which in turn could be pitted against Euro-identity in the

cononial ‘us versus them’ context. As George Tinker, an Osage nation scholar, writes:

Racialized colonialism survives in academic texts just as clearly as it services in New Age commodification… a means for carving out careers based on the intellectual domination of aboriginal peoples in North America, posturing themselves as the experts about the cultures of the colonized victims.28

But the Native Americans did not die out nor were they assimilated fully. Due to

assimilation efforts of the residential school systems, followed by the later influence of

public education, more Native Americans became educated; the elders and leaders of the

various Native American linguistic groups, including the Lakota, started to counsel their

people to become versatile in the ways of the colonizer’s education while, at the same

time, retaining their language, voice, and culture.29 Now publications by Native

Americans proliferate, along with the minority voices of groups of Indigenous peoples

from around the world.30 With the expansion of the Internet, the voices of Indigenous

peoples have more audience, calling in chorus for the ‘re-education,’31 the reassessment

of the Euroculture’s understanding pertaining to Native Americans and their cultural

knowledge systems. This proliferation of Lakota and Indigenous voices has also created a

backlash of racialized and discriminatory writings promoted on the Internet, along with

the more subtle yet invidious perpetuation of the assimilation process that twists the

narratives and their symbols to resemble the Euroculture’s own narratives.32 For example,

concepts of a father god and the demonization of women are two themes that emerge in

various current interpretations of Native American stories. Some of these interpretations

are promoted by voices from within the Native American communities themselves who

have been influenced by the mainstream media industries and New Age cultures. If we

look at some versions of the White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative itself, we find, for

example, her taking on attributes of the father god and punishing the Lakota people if

they do not choose correctly. The result of all these different influences merging into one

story is that the oral, written, and published narratives are intertwined in a web of

confusion and isolated from the contexts of their specific cultural identities.

THM11

The above examples just give us a taste of the confusion we encounter when

researching different versions of one Native American sacred narrative. It would be easy

to simply choose one and label it as definitive and analyze its contents as if it contained a

complete authentic truth that opens up a complete and specific understanding of a cultural

worldview. Many scholars have attempted this in the past as will be shown in this paper.

It is of primary importance for us to account for knowledge conveyed in these narratives

in its full diversity, and in so doing we must become aware of the political consequences

that result from interpreting and disseminating other peoples’ cultural knowledge.

In short, the different versions of the Lakota White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative

must be acknowledged. As scholars, we must interact and relate to the different versions

in order to understand them. Sometimes recategorization is necessary since our old tropes

and labels are not always useful in accessing Indigenous knowledge and its structures.

For example, sometimes this narrative is labeled as a myth and sometimes as a legend.

Although there are no set definitions for identifying myths and legends, both are

generally acknowledged as having certain characteristics that set them apart. Mythic

narratives are often understood to relate to the deeds of supernatural, transcendent powers

that create or intercede with the world in which we humans live, 33 as O’Flaherty, as well

as Campbell points out, while legends tend to focus on humans that utilize transpersonal

powers of dynamic proportions,34 as compared to the average person.35 Though most

scholars refer to the White Buffalo Calf Woman as a legend, it is both; she shows herself

as human but is a spiritual being that embodies herself as a buffalo/human shape shifting

entity, recognized by the Lakota and most other Native American peoples36 as a spiritual

entity.37 Out of respect for the Lakota’s self-definitions of the characteristics within this

story, in this paper I use the term narrative since many Native American peoples refer to

it as a ‘sacred narrative’38 or ‘sacred story’.39

Two out of the three chosen versions of the White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative,

Lame Deer and Lone Man, see this story as sacred, with both adding an emic voice to

their versions. Lame Deer is Lakota and recognized as being from the Rosebud

Reservation. 40 Though Lame Deer lived most of his life on the Rosebud reservation, his

son, Archie Fire Lame Deer, states that he was born on the Cheyenne River reservation.

His father is known as a “Mnikowoju, belonging to the ‘Planters by the Water’ who lived

THM12

at Cheyenne River”, while those belonging to the Rosebud Reservation were Brulẻ,

known as ‘Burned Thighs.’41 Lame Deer, who is most often quoted, especially with the

high volume of versions on the Internet,42 represents a more contemporary version of the

Ptesan Wi (White Buffalo Calf Woman) narrative.

While Lame Deer is more contemporary, Lone Man was first introduced by

Densmore at the start of the twentieth century.43 There are many similarities between the

well-known Lakota Black Elk’s versions and Lone Man’s. Lone Man (Isna’lawica’,

1850-1918), an Oglala Lakota, fought in the Little Big Horn battle; his version of the

White Buffalo Calf Woman was recorded during an interview with Frances Densmore

through the interpretation of a man named Robert High Eagle.44

While Lame Deer and Lone Man give emic voice to the narrative, James R. Walker

was a physician assigned to the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1896 who observed and

utilized Lakota traditional ways of healing to supplement his knowledge in dealing with

the tuberculosis epidemic that was sweeping through the reservation.45 Walker stayed at

Pine Ridge until his retirement in 1914, which is when he started to write academically.

Walker is known to have had a close relationship with George Sword, a Lakota writer

who was influenced by his friendship with Walker, and vice versa. Within Sword’s own

writing, his characters developed into “more psychologically realistic” personas unlike

any found in other traditional stories collected around this time period. 46 This influence

of Sword’s writing is important in understanding changes within Sword’s own

interpretative outlook as translator for Walker’s interviews with the Lakota people. The

White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative was transcribed in the final year of Walker’s stay

on the reservation, after “Walker and Sword speculated on connections among

ceremonies, customs, and stories, and they sought out various individuals who might

possess such knowledge.”47 Dooling states in the afterward to his collection of Walker

narratives that “the Lakota versions of Sword’s stories have been lost, possibly even

destroyed.”48 There is no material available to support Walker’s translation, or more

likely his adaptation, of his White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative, as will be shown

below.

The secondary sources and the scholarly discourse are from published manuscripts

and Internet resources. I included Internet resources since both insider and outsider

THM13

perspectives are represented in this medium; as will be shown, the ‘credible’ scholarly

sites sometimes contain more imaginary or factually incorrect information than the

personal sites. Some personal sites are included since many Native Americans utilize this

media in order to have their voices heard, especially in light of the limited access they

have to educational and publication resources. Many Native Americans are showcasing

their writings on the net, either to promote Indigenous knowledge as its own complete

system, to support humanitarian efforts, or to work towards publication. Also, there are

now more e-zines (electronic magazines) and journal databases available that can be

critically utilized. Some of these versions of the White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative add

interesting details to the stories of Walker, Lame Deer, and Lone Man, and will be

referred to periodically in my analysis of the former. A more substantial analysis of the

individual versions found on the Internet, along with the evolutionary direction the

interpretations are taking, would prove beneficial to the study of Lakota culture, but is

outside the scope of this paper.

Contextual Profiling – The Cross-cultural Use of the Lakota White Buffalo Calf Woman Narrative

Almost all of the variants of the White Buffalo Calf Woman narratives revolve

around the same plotline and contain many of the same details. Very few of the versions

rewrite the story of the White Buffalo Calf Woman. The insider (emic) view of the

Lakota storytellers mold their interpretations around their audience and the situation of

the telling, with details that show us their intentions contained within the narrative body

itself. While the emic intentions reveal the process of storytelling, the researchers etic

intention is usually to produce a paper or teach a class, both products that are the end

results of our research. These differing intentions produce different foci defining how

knowledge is used, with both present (in different degrees) within published material.

Many of the versions on the net promote different intentions, with the emic and etic

voices competing rather than interacting, occupying isolated positions in space, only

fused together under the search engine commands of the viewer’s request. The net

produces a completely different dimension to the isolation of stories, with some Lakota

trying to communicate their knowledge of life processes that originated with the White

THM14

Buffalo Calf Woman’s visit and her gift of the Pipe, while academic sources highlight the

origins of the pipe as the product of the Lakota narrative. The narrative itself is isolated

as a Lakota product becoming exclusively focused on the origin of the Lakota pipe, rather

than seeing the multiple teachings included along with the pipe’s origins.To understand

why the White Buffalo Calf Woman oral narrative is so diversely popular in print,49 both

Native American versions and academic versions will be analyzed through the use of

emic/etic analysis and by understanding the process of ‘Othering’.

Emic-analysis is the insider’s perspective, the Lakota’s “reception, organization and

use of information gained through contact with the world.”50 In emic-analysis, the pivotal

element is to understand culturally specific knowledge from within a culture’s own

worldview, with full awareness that the construction of meaning, values and symbols is

interpreted differently between cultures. The impact of specific symbols, for example,

can be understood only when the symbol is in relationship with the specific cultural

context it arose from.51 These internal interpretations have been seen in academia as

being subjective and unscientific, and to some extent continue to be viewed (in this way).

At this junctive, some comment on objectivity and subjectivity in the context of

academic research is in order. Currently there is much debate on the subjectivity of

science, the foundational method of academic scholarship, revolving around the way in

which science embeds particular Eurocultural values and definitions.52 According to

Michael Talbot and others within the field, quantum physics has rendered this objectivity

as defunct. Talbot explains the there is an “absence of division between the physical

world and our inner psychological reality”53 resulting in the observer effect where the

intentions of the observer influence the observed. An example of this is given in the

movie, “What the Bleep Do we (k)now!?,” where one scientist explains how one

generations truth becomes another generations fallacy; at one point we thought the world

was flat which was later disproved when the world was discovered to be round, and then

spherical.54 At each of these historical time frames, the interpreters had their perceptual

worldview of truth, which science has described as objective. Currently, the recognition

that there can be no true objectivity obtained is part of our intellectual understanding, but

not always present in our practice of perceiving ‘others.’ In other words, objectivity is the

worldview that dominates Euroculture’s emic-analysis of the world.

THM15

While emic-analysis is the view we share in group, when one views another culture

from the outside, this is an etic-analysis. If I encounter a strange religion as an Irish

woman, I filter my experience through the Christian upbringing that influences my

Eurocultural development.55 This natural process of seeing others through the

interpretive lens of my past experience is only damaging when the process prevents any

new contextual information from entering the paradigm of my cognitive processes. For

example, the colonial powers of the Eurocultural societies viewed other cultures from the

outside that consists of a specific form of etic-analysis called imposed etics.56

Observations are then translated through their privileged Eurocultural value systems and

intentions, backed by the political power of the colonial process. During this time, there

was no impelling need to understand the cultural context from which the observed subject

arises.57 Since most research and observation of Native American traditions have been

recorded in such ethnocentric terms, processes and structures only in order to aid

Eurocultural processes, emic-analysis is needed to help facilitate a fuller, and possibly

deeper, understanding between cultures. When this occurs, a “derived etic” results, which

brings “together the researcher’s own emic, and the alien culture emic, and seek(s) the

features they have in common while holding respectful regard for the differences.”58

While emic/etic-analysis is the theory, or the intention behind the interpretations, it

is not dialectic in practice. This theory contains a continuum of relational degrees

between the polarized extremes.59 Some Lakotas are heavily influenced by Christianity

through their enforced experienced with the residential school systems and have more of

an etic voice than the emic sense of their biological background.60 This theory only helps

to flesh out the intentions unstated behind the various interpretations of the White Buffalo

Calf Woman narrative, but does not make aware the political implications of the

privileged etic voice that disseminates the emic sourced material.

It is within the printed narrative that the concept of the ‘othering’ practice becomes

a tool to recognize the formation of stereotypes through the misinterpretation of the emic

voice the evolutes into even harsher discriminatory practices. Together, imposed etic

interpretations and the process of ‘othering’ promote the Euroculture’s worldview as the

social norm, seen as both superior and universal.61 Othering is the process that every

culture utilizes to form a group identity and to understand others, but becomes insidious

THM16

when the authoritative power lies with the privileged (the culture in power to define and

set ideologies, both for themselves and for others).62

Examples of emic/etic-analysis and the process of ‘othering’ are best seen within

the scholarly etic practice of applying the term ‘religion’ to Indigenous cultures. While

the term religion is a construct designed and favoured by the academic world, the Native

American groups seem to prefer the term spirituality to represent the process orientation

of their traditions. In the etic-analysis of the eurocentric concept of religion offered by

many Native American authors, such as Paula Gunn Allen and Rupert Ross, religion is

seen as a once-a-week event where spirituality found in group dynamics is replaced by

the reading of the Bible.63 The English definition is: a “particular system of faith and

worship”; “human recognition of superhuman controlling power and esp. of a personal

God or gods entitled to obedience and worship – effect of such recognition on conduct

and mental attitude”; and “thing that one is devoted to or is bound to do.”64 The

nēhiyâwak (Cree) have many words for prayer, with two being the most widely

understood: one form of prayer is ayamihâwin, or prayer that comes from a book, or

known as the môniyâwak (white people’s) way; another is kâkîsimow, or to plead, to

make oneself humble, as associated with the pipe ceremony.65 My derived etic-analysis

on this subject is that religion is a construct defining the social affiliations of like-minded

individuals who come together to create the environments of ritual. Religion is a category

of institution that is imposed on Indigenous peoples around the world.66 Because the

rituals of Indigenous peoples are observable events, thus open to be researched and

written up, the value of rituals from within the Euroculture’s worldview is projected onto

the rituals of Indigenous people.67

Rituals can be interpreted as the ecological conditions and activities that can be

viewed as a whole by observers, but without the spiritual components of psychological

attributes (such as prayer, intent, memory, and consciousness, to name a few) that make

rituals into ceremonies.68 In other words, rituals are the outside emulations and

manifestations of the ceremonial and psychological relationships of inner connections to

the higher processes of life.69

THM17

Since life seems to be a process open to interpretation, which is a psychological

capacity, spirituality can be seen as the inner identity that consists of psychological

attributes compared to the social attributes in the institution of religion:

(spirituality is seen as a) natural process akin to physical growth or development. Its chief impetus thus comes from within, sometimes in the form of a sensed capacity or yearning, other times out of a deeply negative feeling of emptiness and conflict.70

Traditional oral cultures71 incorporate the social in all its dimensions within every

action and institutional setting,72 with religion viewed as an unnecessary categorization

for their culture as defined by the Eurocultural insistence of it being a distinct and

separate social institution. It is on this difference of definition that the debate over

traditional spiritual knowledge not being a religion remains strongly supported by

traditionalists within Native American groups.73

An imposed etic-analysis makes no room for interpretation of the observable

activities and phenomena to have their own identity and definitions, except for seeing

either similarities, even if they are imposed, or differences, which are usually expanded

into stereotyped tropes of classification, such as ‘primitive religion’74 or ‘nature

religion’75. This is when ‘othering’ becomes most treacherous. Complications arise in the

analysis of the othering process since there are many forms of this discriminatory tool:

one is that of othering that usually allows only generalized and universal data to be

handled (such as pan-Indianism in academic material and produced by academic

methodology76); othering that implies that the process of knowledge is aimed toward

understanding, while specific data is clumped together to create an intimidating amount

of work to retrieve certain data among a generalized body of comparisons and contrasts,

such as White Buffalo Calf Woman being White Shell Woman and Mother Mary and

other goddesses and/or female deities from other cultures, etc.; the othering process that

connects various Native American knowledge and stories in imaginative connections in

order to achieve an interpretations that allow no logical understanding of Lakota culture

to be obtained from the knowledge, but to see the Lakota as being structurally similar to

Christian beliefs (as will be shown in Walker’s interpretation of the White Buffalo Calf

Woman narrative); another form of othering occurs when data is left out without any clue

THM18

for the reader to know that the extra data is needed in order to achieve understanding

(such as the diverse goals and worldviews of different Native American groups within the

trope of Native American Traditions, or in a pan-Indian worldview); one of the most

toxic forms of othering involves a hidden, political agenda covertly at work behind the

data collection process and is presented with the intention of evoking an ‘us versus

them’77 perspective in the readers (such as the propaganda at war times or during the

frontier phase of colonialism), thus hiding the political interests behind the academic

process; and lastly, on a more subtle and seductive level, appropriates admirable qualities

into stereotypes of unachievable identity through romanticizing the data (as in the

‘warrior’78 or the ‘women as beasts of burden’79 stereotype), so that the average

individual from within the culture being studied can only fall short of the expectations the

Eurocultures hold for them. With so many differing ways that academia have

manipulated other culture’s knowledges, this analysis is only a small part of a much

needed intensive investigation into the scholarly discourse that utilizes Indigenous

knowledges, especially concerning Native Americans.

Methodological Voice – The Scholar’s Path and Destination Throughout this cross-literary analysis of the various versions of the Lakota White

Buffalo Calf Woman narrative, the voice of the deconstructionist will be heard through

the structure of emic/etic-analysis of three specifics points of variation within the

structure of the story itself: first, the historical setting and implications that open the

White Buffalo Calf Woman storyline; second, the use (or lack) of Lakota terminology

and details throughout the whole narrative; and third, how White Buffalo Calf Woman

leaves the encampment. Being a woman scholar researching a powerful female narrative

is enough evidence of my feminist involvement; innately my thoughts and interpretive

skills on this subject will be included. Patriarchal inclusions are evident in many of the

versions of the White Buffalo Calf Woman. There is much to be analyzed here on this

specific point and requires an in-depth focus of feminist analysis that is larger than can be

accommodated in this paper, but can be an area of further research. More importantly for

this paper is a deconstructionist tendency resulting from my living in a bi-cultural

lifestyle, which tears at the walls set up by past and present miscommunications through

THM19

faulty intentions and practices. Lastly, the constructionist in me aims to see the bridging

capabilities between the two cultures and the capacity for knowledge and understanding

to empower both cultures80; through exhibiting the multi-dynamic knowledge base found

within the varying versions of the Lakota White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative, both

worldviews hopefully will see that interaction can achieve communication that allows for

deeper understandings of each other. This can only be achieved through allowing

diversity to have its rightful place in defining knowledge at a higher level, with no

particular cultural knowledge requirements being dismissed. Now that we are fully

equipped with the issues and intentions of reading and interpreting the narratives, let us

get to reading the three versions in full text.

The Lakota White Buffalo Calf Woman Narratives

In myth it is the woman who brings the sacred pipe and the seven sacred rites and thereby guarantees that the people will live long with relations. She and the buffalo are one—that is, there is an equation between nourishment and reproduction, symbolized in the manifestation of the buffalo that is at the same time female. The men in the myth defer to the woman’s wishes, and the penalty for disobeying is death—the extinction of the people—so dramatically expressed in the episode when the hunter who lusts for the White Buffalo Calf Woman, the source of life and hope, is enveloped by the fog of ignorance and reduced to a pile of bones.

Marla Powers in Oglala Women81

Told by Lame Deer at Winner, Rosebud Indian Reservation, South Dakota, 1967.82

One summer so long ago that nobody knows how long, the Oceti Shakowin, the seven sacred council fires of the Lakota Oyate, the nation, came together and camped. The sun shone all the time, but there was no game and the people were starving. Every day they sent scouts to look for game, but the scouts found nothing.

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 went on foot, because at that time the Sioux didn't yet have horses. They searched everywhere but

THM20

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, with two round, red dots of face paint on her cheeks. 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 Woman. In her hands she carried a large bundle and a fan of sage leaves. She wore her blueblack 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 openmouthed. One was overawed, but the other desired her body 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. Or as some say that he was suddenly covered by a cloud, and within it he was eaten up by snakes that left only his skeleton, just as a man can be eaten up by lust.

To the other scout who had behaved rightly, the 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

THM21

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 Woman showed the people how to use the pipe. She filled it with chan-shasha, red willowbark 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 petaowihankeshini , 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 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 pipestem 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 fourlegged, the winged ones, the trees, the grasses. Together with the people, they are all related, one family. The pipe holds them all together."

THM22

"Look at this bowl," said the 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.

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."

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 mother earth," 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 White Buffalo Woman had many things for her Lakota sisters in her sacred womb bag; corn, wasna (pemmican), wild turnip. She taught how to make the hearth fire. She filled a buffalo paunch with cold water and dropped a redhot stone into it. "This way you shall cook the corn and the meat," she told them.

The White Buffalo 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

THM23

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 Wakan Tanka, the Great Mystery Spirit. The day a human dies is always a sacred day. The day when the soul is released to the Great Spirit is another. Four women will become sacred on such a day. They will be the ones to cut the sacred tree, the can-wakan, for the sun dance."

She told the Lakota that they were the purest among the tribes, and for that reason Tunkashila had bestowed upon them the holy chanunpa. They had been chosen to take care of it for all the Indian people on this turtle continent.

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 am the four ages. 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 wacinyanitin 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 female buffalo calf. A white buffalo is the most sacred living thing you could ever encounter.

The White Buffalo Woman disappeared over the horizon. Sometime she might come back. As soon as she had vanished, buffalo in great herds appeared, allowing themselves to be killed so the people might survive. And from that day on, our relations, the buffalo, furnished the people with everything they needed, meat for their food, skins for their clothes and tipis, bones for their many tools.

*****

“The White Buffalo Calf Pipe (PTEHIN’ĆALA ĆANOŊPA)” as told by Iśna’la-

THM24

wića’ (Lone Man) and interpreted by Mr. Robert P. Higheagle before 1918. 83

In the olden times it was a general custom for the Sioux tribe (especially the Teton band of Sioux) to assemble in a body once at least during the year. This gathering took place usually about that time of midsummer when everything looked beautiful and everybody rejoiced to live to see nature at its best – that was the season when the Sun-dance ceremony took place and vows were made and fulfilled. Sometimes the tribal gathering took place in the fall when wild game was in the best condition, when wild fruits of all kinds were ripe, and when the leaves on the trees and plants were the brightest.

One reason why the people gathered as they did was that the tribe as a whole might celebrate the victories, successes on the warpath, and other good fortunes which had occurred during the year while the bands were scattered and each band was acting somewhat independently. Another reason was that certain rules or laws were made by the head chiefs and other leaders of the tribe, by which each band of the tribe was governed. For instance, if a certain band got into trouble with some other tribe, as the Crows, the Sioux tribe as a whole should be notified. Or if an enemy or enemies came on their hunting grounds the tribe should be notified at once. In this way the Teton band of Sioux was protected as to its territory and its hunting grounds.

After these gatherings there was a scattering of the various bands. On one such occasion the Sans Arc band started towards the west. They were moving from place to place, expecting to find buffalo and other game which they would lay up for their winter supply, but they failed to find anything. A council was called and two young men were selected to go in quest of buffalo and other game. They started on foot. When they were out of sight they each went in a different direction, but met again at a place which they had agreed upon. While they were planning and planning what to do, there appeared from the west a solitary object advancing toward them. It did not look like a buffalo; it looked more like a human being than anything else. They could not make out what it was, but it was coming rapidly. Both considered themselves brave, so they concluded that they would face whatever it might be. They stood still and gazed at it very eagerly. At last they saw that it was a beautiful young maiden. She wore a beautiful fringed buckskin dress, leggings, and moccasins. Her hair was hanging loose except at the left side, where was tied a tuft of shedded buffalo hair. In her right hand she carried a fan made of flat sage. Her face was painted with red vertical stripes. Not knowing what to do or say, they hesitated, saying nothing to her.

She spoke first, thus: “I am sent by the Buffalo tribe to visit the people you represent. You have been chosen to perform a difficult task. It is

THM25

right that you should try to carry out the wishes of your people, and you must try to accomplish your purpose. Go home and tell the chief and headmen to put up a special lodge in the middle of the camp circle, with the door of the lodge and the entrance into the camp toward the direction where the sun rolls off the earth. Let them spread sage at the place of honor, and back of the fireplace let a small square place be prepared. Back of this and the sage let a certain frame, or rack, be made. Right in front of the rack a buffalo skull should be placed. I have something of importance to present to the tribe, which will have a great deal to do with their future welfare. I shall be in the camp about sunrise.”

While she was thus speaking to the young men one of them had impure thoughts. A cloud came down and enveloped this young man. When the cloud left the earth the young man was left there—only a skeleton. The Maiden commanded the other young man to turn his back toward her and face in the direction of the camp, then to start for home. He was ordered not to look back.

When the young man came in sight of the camp he ran in a zigzag course, this being a signal required of such parties on returning home from a searching or scouting expedition. The people in the camp were on the alert for the signal, and preparations were begun at once to escort the party home. Just outside the council lodge, in front of the door, an old man qualified to perform the ceremony was waiting anxiously for the party. He knelt in the direction of the coming of the party to receive the report of the expedition. A row of old men were kneeling behind him. The young man arrived at the lodge. Great curiosity was shown by the people on account of the missing member of the party. The report was made, and the people received it with enthusiasm.

The special lodge was made, and the other requirements were carried out. The crier announced in the whole camp what was to take place on the following morning. Great preparations were made for the occasion. Early the next morning, at daybreak, men, women, and children assembled around the special lodge. Young men who were known to bear unblemished characters were chosen to escort the Maiden into the camp. Promptly at sunrise she was in sight. Everybody was anxious. All eyes were fixed on the Maiden. Slowly she walked into the camp. She was dressed as when she first appeared to the two young men except that instead of the sage fan she carried a pipe—the stem was carried with her right hand and the bowl with her left.

The chief, who was qualified and authorized to receive the guest in behalf of the Sioux tribe, sat outside, right in front of the door of the lodge, facing the direction of the coming of the Maiden. When she was at the door the chief stepped aside and made room for her to enter. She

THM26

entered the lodge, went to the left of the door, and was seated at the place of honor.

The chief made a speech welcoming the Maiden, as follows: “My dear relatives: This day Wakaŋ’ Taŋka has again looked down and smiled upon us by sending us this young Maiden, whom we shall recognize and consider as a sister. She has come to our rescue just as we are in great need. Wakaŋ’ Taŋka wishes us to live. This day we lift up our eyes to the sun, the giver of light, that opens our eyes and gives us this beautiful day to see our visiting sister. Sister, we are glad that you have come to us, and trust that whatever message you have brought we may be able to abide by it. We are poor, but we have a great respect to visitors, especially relatives. It is our custom to serve our guests with some special food. We are at present needy and all we have to offer you is water, that falls from the clouds. Take it, drink it, and remember that we are very poor.”

Then braided sweet grass was dipped into a buffalo horn containing rain water and was offered to the Maiden. The chief said, “Sister, we are now ready to hear the good message you have brought.” The pipe, which was in the hands of the Maiden, was lowered and placed on the rack. Then the Maiden sipped the water from the sweet grass.

Then, taking up the pipe again, she arose and said:“My relatives, brothers and sisters: Wakaŋ’ Taŋka has looked down, and smiles upon us this day because we have met as belonging to one family. The best thing in a family is good feeling toward every member of the family. I am proud to become a member of your family—a sister to you all. The sun is your grandfather, and he is the same to me. Your tribe has the distinction of being always very faithful to promises, and of possessing great respect and reverence toward sacred things. It is known also that nothing but good feeling prevails in the tribe, and that whenever any member has been found guilty of committing any wrong, that member has been cast out and not allowed to mingle with the other members of the tribe. For all these good qualities in the tribe you have been chosen as worthy and deserving of all good gifts. I represent the Buffalo tribe, who have sent you this pipe. You are to receive this pipe in the name of all the common people. Take it, and use it according to my directions. The bowl of the pipe is red stone—a stone not very common and found only at a certain place. This pipe shall be used as a peacemaker. The time will come when you shall cease hostilities against other nations. Whenever peace is agreed upon between two tribes or parties this pipe shall be a binding instrument. By this pipe the medicine-men shall be called to administer help to the sick.

Turning to the women, she said:

THM27

“My dear sisters, the women: You have a hard life to live in this world, yet without you this life would not be what it is. Wakaŋ’ Taŋka intends that you shall bear much sorrow—comfort others in time of sorrow. By your hands the family moves. You have been given the knowledge of making clothing and of feeding the family. Wakaŋ’ Taŋka is with you in your sorrows and joins you in your griefs. He has given you the great gift of kindness toward every living creature on earth. You he has chosen to have a feeling for the dead who are gone. He knows that you remember the dead longer than do the men. He knows that you love your children dearly.”

Then turning to the children:“My little brothers and sisters: Your parents were once little children like you, but in the course of time they became men and women. All living creatures were once small, but if no one took care of them they would never grow up. Your parents love you and have made many sacrifices for your sake in order that Wakaŋ’ Taŋka may listen to them, and that nothing but good may come to you as you grow up. I have brought this pipe for them, and you shall reap some benefit from it. Learn to respect and reverence this pipe, and above all, lead pure lives. Wakaŋ’ Taŋka is your great grandfather.”

Turning to the men:“Now my dear brothers: In giving you this pipe you are expected to use it for nothing but good purposes. The tribe as a whole shall depend upon it for their necessary needs. You realize that all your necessities of life come from the earth below, the sky above, and the four winds. Whenever you do anything wrong against these elements they will always take some revenge upon you. You should reverence them. Offer sacrifices through this pipe. When you are in need of buffalo meat, smoke this pipe and ask for what you need and it shall be granted you. On you it depends to be a strong help to the women in the raising of children. Share the women’s sorrow. Wakaŋ’ Taŋka smiles on the man who has a kind feeling for a woman, because the woman is weak. Take this pipe, and offer it to Wakaŋ’ Taŋka daily. Be good and kind to the little children.”

Turning to the chief:“My older brother: You have been chosen by these people to receive this pipe in the name of the whole Sioux tribe. Wakaŋ’ Taŋka is pleased and glad this day because you have done what it is required and expected that every good leader should do. By this pipe the tribe shall live. It is your duty to see that this pipe is respected and reverenced. I am proud to be called a sister. May Wakaŋ’ Taŋka look down on us and take pity on us and provide us with what we need. Now we shall smoke the pipe.”

THM28

Then she took the buffalo chip which lay on the ground, lighted the pipe, and pointing to the sky with the stem of the pipe, she said, “I offer this to Wakaŋ’ Taŋka for all the good that comes from above.” (Pointing to the earth:) “I offer this to the earth, whence come all good gifts.” (Pointing to the cardinal points:) “I offer this to the four winds, whence come all good things.” Then she took a puff of the pipe, passed it to the chief, and said, “Now my dear brothers and sisters, I have done the work for which I was sent here and now I will go, but I do not wish any escort. I only ask that the way be cleared before me.”

Then, rising, she started, leaving the pipe with the chief, who ordered that the people be quiet until their sister is out of sight. She came out of the tent on the left side, walking very slowly; as soon as she was outside the entrance she turned into a white buffalo calf.

*****

“The legend of the giving of the pipe to the Lakotas” as told by Finger, March 25, 1914, which Walker calls, “Wohpe and the Gift of the Pipe.”84

In the long ago the Lakota were in camp and two young men lay upon a hill watching for signs. They saw a long way in the distance a lone person coming, and they ran further toward it and lay on another hill hidden so that if it were an enemy they would be able to intercept it or signal the camp. When the person came close, they saw that it was a woman and when she came nearer that she was without clothing of any kind except that her hair was very long and fell over her body like a robe. One young man said to the other that he would go and meet the woman and embrace her and if he found her good, he would hold her in his tipi. His companion cautioned him to be careful for this might be a buffalo woman who could enchant him there forever. But the young man would not be persuaded and met the woman on the hill next to where they had watched her. His companion saw him attempt to embrace her and there was a cloud closed about them so that he could not see what happened. In a short time the cloud disappeared and the woman was alone. She beckoned to the other young man and told him to come there and assured him that he would not be harmed. As she spoke in the Lakota language the young man thought she belonged to his people and went to where she stood.

When he got there, she showed him the bare bones of his companion and told him that the Crazy Buffalo had caused his companion to try to do her harm and that she had destroyed him and

THM29

picked his bones bare. The young man was very much afraid and drew his bow and arrow to shoot the woman, but she told him that if he would do as she directed, no harm would come to him and he should get any girl he wished for his woman, for she was wakan and he could not hurt her with his arrows. But if he refused to do as she should direct, or attempt to shoot her, he would be destroyed as his companion had been. Then the young man promised to do as she should bid him.

She then directed him to return to the camp and call all the council together and tell them that in a short time they would see four puffs of smoke under the sun at midday. When they saw this sign they should prepare a feast, and all sit in the customary circle to have the feast served when she would enter the camp, but the men must all sit with their head bowed and look at the ground until she was in their midst. Then she would serve the feast to them and after they had feasted she would tell them what to do: that they must obey her in everything; that if they obeyed her in everything they would have their prayers to the Wakan Tanka answered and be prosperous and happy; but that if they disobeyed her or attempted to do her any harm, they would be neglected by Wakan Tanka and be punished as the young man who had attempted to embrace her had been.

Then she disappeared as a mist disappears so that the young man knew that she was wakan. He returned to the camp and told these things to the people and the council decided to do as she had instructed the young man. They made preparation for the feast and in a few days they saw four puffs of black smoke under the sun at midday, so they prepared for a feast and all dressed in their best clothing and sat in the circle ready to be served and every man bowed his head and looked toward the ground. Suddenly the women began uttering low exclamations of admiration, but all the men steadily kept their eyes toward the ground except one young man and he looked toward the entrance of the camp. He saw a puff of black smoke which blew into his eyes and a voice said, “You have disobeyed me and there will be smoke in your eyes as long as you live.” From that time, that young man had very sore eyes and all the time they were as if biting smoke was in them.

Then the woman entered the circle and took the food and served it, first to the little children and then to the women and then she bade the men to look up. They did so and saw a very beautiful woman dressed in the softest deer skin which was ornamented with fringes

THM30

and colors more beautiful than any woman of the Lakota had every worked. Then she served the men with food, and when they had feasted she told them that she wished to serve them always; that they had first seen her as smoke and that they should always see her as smoke. Then she took from her pouch a pipe and willow bark and Lakota tobacco and filled the pipe with the bark and tobacco and lighted it with a coal of fire.

She smoked a few whiffs and handed the pipe to the chief and told him to smoke and hand it to another. Thus the pipe was passed until all had smoked. She then instructed the council how to gather the bark and the tobacco and prepare it, and gave the pipe into their keeping, telling them that as long as they preserved this pipe she would serve them. But she would serve them in this way. When the smoke came from the pipe she would be present and hear their prayers and take them to the Wakan Tanka and plead for them that their prayers may be answered.

After this she remained in this camp for many days and all the time she was there everyone was happy for she went from tipi to tipi with good words for all. When the time came for her to go, she called all the people together and bade the women to build a great fire of dried cottonwood, which they did. Then she directed all to sit in a circle about the fire and the shaman to have an abundance of sweetgrass. She stood in the midst of the circle and when the fire had burned to coals she directed the shaman to place on it the sweetgrass. This made a cloud of smoke and the woman entered the smoke and disappeared. Then the shamans know that it was Wohpe who had given the pipe and they appointed a custodian for it with instructions that it was to be kept sacred and used only on the most solemn and important occasions. With due ceremony they made wrappers for the pipe so that it is wakan. The shamans instructed the people that they could make other pipes and use them and that Wohpe would be in the smoke of any such pipe if smoked with proper solemnity and form.

Thus it was that the Beautiful Woman brought the pipe to the Lakotas.

Cross-Cultural Narrative Analysis

THM31

The Lakota Concept of Power” – “The stand these people took toward the rest of mankind was to regard themselves as superior, but before the awesome forces of nature they presented themselves as humble and weak supplicants, yearning to gain – through a vision or a dream – some of the powers which daily they observed around them. The Lakota perceived an all-pervading force, Wakan, the power of the universe, which was manifested in the blue of the sky or in the brilliant colours of the rainbow. Then there was the terrifying crash and reverberation of the thunder and associated destructive power of the lightning. All these, together with the wind and hail to name but two, were viewed as potential sources of power which, if symbolically harnessed, could be used to personal best effect. Thus, most of these powers were appealed to in the Sun Dance and Spirit Keeping ceremonials. The totality of the creative force of the Lakota universe was Wakan-Tanka, the Great Mysterious. Although it was recognized that Wakan-Tanka could at the same time be both one and many, it was only the shamans who attempted a systematic classification with the Tobtob Kin, a system not fully comprehended by the common man. The shamans also said that Wakan-Tanka could communicate with humans through the Akicita Wakan, or Sacred Messengers. Those who had had visions sometimes drew what they had experienced, and both realistic and conventionalized representations of such messengers and spirits are found on accoutrements, such as shields and warshirts; the key to their interpretation lies in an understanding of the Tobtob Kin.

-Colin Taylor in Native American Myths and Legends.85

Opening Setting and Implications: Recognizing the Emic and Etic Voices

When examining narratives, especially narratives considered sacred by different

cultural groups other than our own, the intentions behind the writing must be made

conscious in order to understand the context of individual elements of the narration itself.

These written records of the White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative come into being in a

research process: there are storytellers, translators, researchers and assistants all

THM32

contributing to how the story appears in print. Versions told to Lakotas by Lakota

storytellers are different than these versions told by Lakota storytellers to scholarly

researchers looking for specific results, as recorded, thus interpreted and adapted, for the

research process and their audience. The narrator’s intent must also be examined in their

choice to participate in the research process itself, and to whom they desire their

knowledge to be received. Also important is acknowledging that the language of

transmission is the colonizer’s voice and is secondary to the Lakota language for these

three individuals, who are translating into English as a second language either by

themselves or through a third party acting as a translator.

Lame Deer’s version seems to be intended both for insiders and outsiders, with a

balance of both emic naming and definitions intended to promote a derived etic in his

audience. His version opens with the emic details of the Lakota as a whole society – the

‘Oceti-Shakowin,’ in English translated as the ‘seven sacred council fires of the Lakota

Oyate, the nation.’ From this general frame of reference he moves to the particular, again

using the internal choice of terminology from within his own culture, the ‘Itazipcho,’

translated as the ‘Without Bows’ band, also known as the ‘Sans Arc.’86 This is the

French-imposed label that also means ‘Without Bows’ and shows how the Lakotas, along

with many other Indigenous groups, still live with the colonizers labels for the group.

Lame Deer is very cultural-specific in providing the proper emic terms, rather than

using the imposed-etic categories that Lone Man uses in his narrative, or possibly that

Densmore attributed to his words; like the ‘Sans Arc’ designation, ‘Teton’ and ‘Sioux’ are

also French labels.87 In James Walker’s version of Finger’s storytelling, a simple

reference to ‘Lakota’ is used, which does not allow the reader to gather any information

that can facilitate any understanding of the people on their own terms, or give any details

into the setting in which this narrative occurred. The Lakota consists of thousands of

peoples of diverse band affiliation that have distinctive variances in their traditions that

are not acknowledged in most academic sources. Versluis writes of how Lakota

individuals are responsible in interpreting tradition incorporating the additional input they

receive from their own visioning experiences. 88 This means that, in the Lakota

perspective, thousands of interpretations revolve around this sacred narrative. Walker’s

non-distinctive use of ‘Lakota’ assumes that Wohpe is universally acknowledged by all

THM33

Lakotas to have brought the Pipe. Another factor is that readers may imagine that

thousands of people are relying on being fed by these two scouts efforts, and this is not

the intention of either Fingers nor Walker. Walker’s lack of detail, along with his lack of

tone or narrative setting, can be assessed through etic analysis as highlighting his

intention as a researcher only to record, transcribe, and translate what he deems valuable

– a sign of imposed-etic interpretation that excludes any narrative clues of context that

would mirror the social context found in the oral tradition.89 Walker as a researcher seems

totally unaware of the storytelling process that is central to Indigenous knowledges,

apparently unconscious of his own filters and the nuances found within the researching

process.

Unlike Walker, Erdoes records Lame Deer’s emic details: “They went on foot,

because at that time the Sioux didn’t yet have horses.” Here is an attempt to retain Lame

Deer’s particular conversational style. In Lame Deer’s version, the context of starvation

and hardship sets the mood for the readers to desire intervention for these people, much

like within his own oral tradition; intervention is proffered in a certain way so that the

audience can interpret the message using the narrator’s choice of words, plus in this case,

the researcher’s tools that access the reader’s social filters. An example of this is when

the reader interprets intervention as the need for salvation, as Christian filters would

understand; maybe a miracle is expected as in a New Age or Catholic sense of the word.

Even knowledge of the Hindu concept of karma, a retribution law well known throughout

the contemporary world, can be active as a filter in interpreting the White Buffalo Calf

Woman narrative so that the readers can achieve understanding through their own

expectations of what will come next - her presence as understood through the title of the

narrative. The reader is confronted with conflicting interpretive lens through which to

perceive this narrative and these also must be recognized as part of the discursive

process.

Though Lame Deer gives emic labels with their translations, this does not give an

intellectual tone to the storyline but adds to the setting of belonging—belonging

associated to a specific band that is related to the larger construct of a nation.90 Lone

Man, on the other hand, sets up a very analytical mood by giving various emic

interpretations to why the Lakota would be gathering and when. The reader is not

THM34

expected to be situated in the storytelling experience but is being taught in a eurocentric

fashion. In short, the intent is to educate, and this story is directed only to the objectives

of the western researching process in which it arises from.91 Densmore’s intent as

researcher is to educate an outsider audience (EuroAmericans) and Lone Man tells this

narrative in response to his interests, which is not really aimed at the storyline. This latter

is not unusual as Drew Hayden Taylor points out within his play, “alterNatives.”92 Lame

Deer can be seen as an example from the storytelling tradition, while Lone Man can be

seen as a result of the academic tradition, an emic addition to the etic direction of the

process which then produces a derived etic. Lone Man’s version can be utilized to form a

derived etic that can then be contrasted with the etic process that uses the emic

information and then isolates it out of context, producing an imposed-etic, as in Walker’s

use of the academic tradition.

This last statement may sound harsh, but is a reality within the history of academic

research development. Walker’s academic tradition is anchored in the early twentieth

century tradition of scientific research; Walker’s background is that of a physician who

believes in the scientific principles of his culture and time period. The practice of

isolating the data to be studied from the cultural context within which it is found was the

practice of his time period. Unfortunately, without the cultural context for the facts to

have anchorage, imposed-etics is always a result. Densmore, and thus Lone Man’s

narrative, is within an academic framework that sees ethnography balancing science, and

includes emic-analysis almost as much as etic-analysis. A form of derived etics is

achieved, but not at a level where both emic and etic qualifications of knowledge systems

will be respected, thus bridging dialogue between two differing cultural constructs

towards deeper understanding and knowledge of both.

Out of the three main narratives chosen, Lone Man gives the most emic

interpretation of the Lakota cultural worldview within ‘the olden times’ while Lame Deer

gives emic definitions of his people and shares the storytelling tradition of transmitting

traditional knowledge. Lone Man tries to give various reasons for his ancestors’

behaviour, their belief in the customs, and offers historical clues to the pre-colonial

environment of his people. An example of this is the details of the Sans Arc leaving the

gathering and moving westward. Other versions give historical clues as well,93 all leading

THM35

to support knowledge already known in academic circles,94 or new clues for further

research outside of the scope of this paper. Lone Man offers this clue, but does not really

state that the Sans Arc are in immediate hardship like Lame Deer does; he implies they

simply were not finding the means yet to store up their winter supply, which will result in

hardship if they are unable to do so.

The Use (or Lack) of Lakota Terminology: Politics of Language

While Lone Man gives the most emic interpretations of Lakota culture, Lame

Deer’s use of Lakota terminology makes known to the reader the spiritual worldview of

the traditionalist.95 After his emic-titling of the people’s social and political position in

the world, Lame Deer moves into a very detailed storyline rich with the Lakota linguistic

cues of their ceremonial construction of prayer: White Buffalo Woman is Ptesan-Wi96;

Ptesan-Wi’s eyes shone with “great power in them”; she could not be disrespected, which

is a threat to communal living and implicates a death thrust towards the sacred principle

of life – the process of life itself97, which is to be of the highest respect-thus Lame Deer’s

emphasis on ‘lila wakan’ as very sacred; his use of the word ‘medicine’ in reference to

the lodge, a ceremonial reference to the power of animation - the process of life; Lame

Deer’s use of proper names as used in ceremony and in their prayers – eyapaha (the

crier), owanka wakan (sacred altar), chanunpa (the sacred Pipe), wacanga (sweet grass),

chan-shasha (red willow-bark tobacco), Anpetu-Wi (the great sun), peta-owihankeshini

(fire without end), Tunkashila98 (Great Grandfather Mystery99, more recognizably labeled

as Waŋka’ Taŋka100 in common usage); and his many references to inner teachings and

perspectives on how the Lakota’s interpret their environment, both seen and unseen.

All three of these narratives are intended for audiences that are outside of the

Lakota’s culture: Walker’s interpretations101 are for his fellow Euro-descendent

(wasicu102) readers; Lone Man for the researcher, Densmore, and the wasicu; and Lame

Deer for the wasicu, but more importantly, for those Lakota individuals who have been

lost, or moved, from the Lakota ceremonial ways.103

It is important to emphasize that not all Lakota follow the continuing traditional

ways of their culture to the same degree as romanticized by the stereotypes imposed on

the Lakota peoples. Secularism and Christianity104, in addition to the appropriation of

THM36

Indigenous knowledges by the New Age Movements105, have had their impact in

diversifying an already diverse cultural group that is then pan-Indianized into a larger

cultural whitewash under the label of ‘Native American Indians.’106 It is understandable

that past scholarship necessarily had simple classification systems in order to ponder

aspects of the unknown Lakota culture; as time moved on these classification systems

became expanded, but did not let go of the stereotyped tropes of the older systems.

Knowledge of the Lakota have become more specific while the categorical handling of

knowledge has become more abstract, thus leaving the old tropes open in the new system

and allows for both stereotyping and universalizing to continue forward. A specific

example of this is the contemporary literature’s continued use of Walker’s ‘Wohpe’ as a

source for their research on the White Buffalo Calf Woman in their Lakota discourses.107

Fingers told Walker the story of Wohpe’s gifting of the Pipe to the Lakota’s in 1914 and

this narrative has been perpetuated in Dooling’s use of Walker’s work at the end of the

century.108 Even though Dooling critiques Walker’s methods, his theories, and his

findings in both a preface and an afterward, many researchers will only reference the

stories themselves to support their discourse objectives.109 This is a process I myself am

perpetuating by continuing to reference Walker in my critique as an example of

Eurocentric scholarly practice. Once in print, the words are not easily taken back and

Walker’s theory becomes immortalized throughout western history, even though little

emic knowledge is transmitted into the subject being studied, that of the Lakota peoples,

and instead, imaginative assumptions perpetuate.

Walker’s direct misappropriation of Indigenous cultural knowledge110 has a rippling

effect that implicates both academia and the Lakota peoples: As scholars, our European

etic-imposed values and assumptions keep us from accessing knowledge available within

the Lakota cultural knowledge systems that could possibly enable us to understand our

world in a more soteriocentric fashion; and, for the Lakota, the use of Walker’s material

complicates any individual’s attempt to form a strong identity through tracing their

ancestral philosophical teachings in order to promote stronger personal and collective

identities and, through their own narratives, advance the psychological benefit of

understandings themselves as belonging to the Lakota cultural group.111 Currently, many

THM37

Native Americans understand themselves as ‘others,’ limited by the othering process

produced by a privileged etic. Some may see themselves as different, and to a larger

extent, inferior, to what is portrayed as ‘normal,’ as defined within our Euroculture. For

instance, even in this ‘post-colonial time’ in history, 112 it is this process of othering that

allows the medical and economic institutions to perpetuate colonial practices through the

denial of access to, and different treatment of, Native American clients (and other less

politically-advantaged groups) than to clients of EuroAmerican descent. Examples

include inadequate healthcare and discriminatory economic practices, all rationalized by

the idea that Native Americans are responsible for their own medical and economic

deficiencies. This results in harsher conditions of suffering and poverty which Native

Americans seek ways of escaping (sometimes in ways that then are stereotyped against

Native Americans, with the label of deviant added to the propaganda). The victim of

colonial processes is re-victimized and blamed for their own social problems within the

Euro-political frameworks, while the real perpetrators are smoke-screened behind the

confusion of the problems of the majority.

By starting with the terms and definitions found within the Lakota language itself,

scholars can control the construction of the othering process, while not complicating the

differences themselves into abstract schemas to fit our desire for logical results, like

Walker has done.113 Finger, and maybe even his lineage, believes that Wohpe gave the

Lakota peoples the Pipe and this is to be respected as their belief. But as scholars to

perpetuate that Wohpe is the White Buffalo Calf Woman is to perpetuate a lie and go

against our agenda of obtaining knowledge and understanding. Nowhere in this narrative

does Finger state that ‘the Beautiful Woman’ is White Buffalo Calf Woman. Among all

the different emic and etic variations of the White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative, no

other author or narrator mentions Wohpe without sourcing Walker.114 Yet many variations

exist with the basic plotline and details associated with Lame Deer and Lone Man, two of

many emic voices coming into written form compared to the one voice of Finger through

Walker’s adaptation (not translation as proved by Dooling).115

Another key point that clarifies the degree of emic interpretation is the use of

‘medicine wo/man’116 as compared to ‘shaman’. Even medicine wo/man is not without

critique, being that there are many roles assigned to these people (including women)

THM38

found within the constructs of Indigenous societies throughout the world; in the

nēhiyâwak traditional way, there are lodgemakers, counselors, supporters, initiates,

people who pick medicine but do not apply it, and many more that can be seen in the

academic construct as ‘medicine wo/man’.117 But medicine wo/man is seen as a better

label than the term shaman, which has no roots in the Lakota or any of the North

American Indian societies. This emic term is taken out of its emic context within the

worldview of a tribe in Siberia, appropriated by the colonizer and academia, and then

imposed on the Indigenous populations around the world. While Walker uses the word

shaman, Lone Man uses the words medicine man, and Lame Deer has no use for any

such designation since the process of his storytelling of the narrative itself is medicine.

Besides these clues at emic/etic distinctions, there is one last key to the emic

interpretation in the use of ‘our’ in Lone Man’s narrative: ‘It is our custom to serve our

guests with some special food.’ Both Lame Deer and Walker do not use this inclusive

language, but for two distinct reasons; Walker is objectively distant from the subject

while Lame Deer is in intricate relationship with the storytelling process of relaying

knowledge to both an emic and etic audience of the 1970s. This audience has a more in-

depth relationship with various cultures and the voices of Native Americans have been

sought for their knowledge, as compared to the appropriation of their knowledge in the

start of the century, or before the later application of appropriation into the New Age

Movement systems.118 These are points that need to be addressed by scholars; not only

cultural context, but the context of the time of publication is important in understanding

the complexity of the issues surrounding Indigenous narratives as they come into print.

How White Buffalo Calf Woman Leaves: The Process of Sharing the Story… Or Not?

The context of cultures and the context of the research process (and publication)

intermingle and form a complex web of data that requires a detailed study unto itself;

Within this study, it is sufficient to point out that Lone Man and Finger share their stories

to the wasicu, within the research process of the wasicu, and during a time of colonial

imperialism and upheaval for the Lakota peoples. Lame Deer, on the other hand, shares

his story at a different moment in time and as part of his journey as a Lakota heyoka

(contrary spirit)119 and wapiya (medicine man).120 Yet, to further complicate the context

THM39

of the storytelling process is the duplicate sharing of the same narrative by the same

storyteller with differing versions resulting; Lame Deer’s first version in 1967 is different

than his version shared in 1972.121 How does the process of research affect the storyteller

who is revealing the details to be studied by the researcher, and how does later renditions

incorporate the storyteller’s life experiences between the tellings? These are questions

that need further research as well.

Needless to say, complex relationships are working behind the scenes of this

narrative as well as incorporated in the conclusion of this Lakota historical event. The

process of storytelling exposes the details of the White Buffalo Calf Woman bringing the

Pipe to the Lakota peoples during a time of hardship, a time of threat to their survival as a

group. White Buffalo Calf Woman gives the Pipe as a process of healing through the use

of spiritual power122 in a concrete form, the Pipe itself and its use in ceremonies, and in an

abstract form through the telling of this narrative123 that revives the relationships between

White Buffalo Calf Woman, the Pte Oyate(Buffalo Nation),124 and the Lakota Oyate

(Lakota Nation) in contemporary times.125

For the Lakota people in this storyline to understand this connection, White Buffalo

Calf Woman shows her wakan powers and transforms herself into a buffalo,126 more

specifically, a white buffalo; the white buffalo being considered rare127 and difficult to

approach.128 The white buffalo, like any white animal in its rarity, is considered the

‘Chief’ of its kind,129 in this case the Tatanka Oyate (another term for the Buffalo

Nation).130

Being both a woman and a buffalo with the power to shape shift between the

realities, is proof of her sacredness. Both buffalo and women are associated with life131

within the Lakota worldview and both the White Buffalo Calf Woman and the Lakota

women themselves can be seen as having transforming capabilities.132 White Buffalo Calf

Woman leaves the encampment as a buffalo cow, a ‘pte’, and the storyteller bundles the

narrative through words and the process itself and then leaves the interpretative process

in the trust of the audience.133

As researchers, it is the multiple bundles, or versions, of how White Buffalo Calf

Woman leaves, that challenge our own Eurocultural knowledge formation systems: Lone

Man (and Lame Deer in his 1972 version) has her simply leaving and turning into a white

THM40

buffalo calf134; Walker has a big ceremony with smoke as her way of disappearing135; and

in Lame Deer’s 1967 version,136 which is the most popular in contemporary literature,137

has Ptesan Win (White Buffalo Woman) rolling over and becoming pte san wan (a white

buffalo)138 on the fourth transformation.

While most of the emic voices state that White Buffalo Calf Woman transforms

herself directly into a white buffalo calf as she left,139 some narrators never mention her

transformation at all.140 To confuse the research situation further is to include Black Elk’s

second version,141 which changes from his first, much like Lame Deer’s did except in the

opposite way. While Lame Deer returned to a simpler ending on his second publicized

telling, Black Elk’s second became more complex with what appears to be three changes

in White Buffalo Calf Woman’s form, but may actually be four due to a misinterpretation

of Black Elk’s words around the second transformation of White Buffalo Calf Woman

transforming into a red-brown buffalo calf.142 Interesting to note is that both of Black

Elk’s versions were published before Lame Deer’s.

Now this assortment of data would perplex and frustrate Walker’s classification

systems if he were alive, yet the Lakota peoples themselves see the differing versions of

their one sacred narrative as part of the one historical process, with each version being an

interpretation among many, of the historical event. As Black Elk states, “This they tell,

and whether it happened so or not I do not know; but if you think about it, you can see

that it is true.”143 While the large body of versions shows the same symbol of the white

buffalo as wakan, Walker has the Beautiful Woman leaving in the smoke of a ceremonial

fire. There is no tangible symbol that is emphasized in this version that is perpetuated

through the Lakota symbology that would share Walker’s connections with an emic

audience, both to the participants within the storyline nor to contemporary Lakota

listeners. No tangible connection or symbol is within Walker’s version to highlight the

relationship of the White Buffalo Calf Woman to the Pipe. His use of imposed etics is

most prominent in this concluding scene; a big good-bye scenario with a fire built at the

end of the narrative, which runs contrary to ceremonial fires kept lit throughout the ritual

process and representing the never-ending fire that is without end.144 The ritual described

at the end of Walker’s version is of an imposed Christian structure, with the

‘shaman’/priest officiating over the proceedings.145

THM41

While Walker has no tangible evidence that refers to his connective use of Lakota

symbols, he, like all the other versions, has the Pipe as the central pillar to the narrative

itself. The Pipe was, and is, to be used with all ceremonies the Lakota Oyate do, as

individuals and as a nation, with at least one of the seven rites acknowledged as coming

directly from the White Buffalo Calf Woman herself.146 White Buffalo Calf Woman

foretold the rest of the ceremonies would come just as she foretold of her return.147

White Buffalo Calf Woman, in a few versions, states that upon her return she will

stay 148; some prophesize her return in seven generations from the 1800s.149 Other

versions accord further mythological connections to be explored 150 while most state that

the birth of a white buffalo calf would be born prior to her arrival so that the Lakota, and

all of humanity, have some warning before the White Buffalo Calf Woman’s impending

arrival.151

It is the birth of Miracle, a white buffalo calf born in 1994, followed by numerous

other births of white, non-albino buffalo calves (including one this summer in British

Columbia that died shortly after it was born) that have inspired the literary traffic of

White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative versions and interpretations.152 Prophesy has

renewed the narrative process, along with a renewal of the symbolic process that this

narrative points to. This narrative is being transformed, by and for the Lakota peoples

themselves153 and for humanity at large. Just as Sitting Bull wore painted buffalo hair on

the side of his head to remind him of the White Buffalo Calf Woman’s return,154 each

birth of a white buffalo calf moves the Lakota’s attention, and by extension all of

humanity’s, towards the ‘visible tracks’155 the White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative

points to.

Conclusion

With visible breath I am walking.A voice I am sending as I walk.In a sacred manner I am walking.With visible tracks I am walking.In a sacred manner I am walking.

White Buffalo Calf Woman’s Song156

THM42

The Meeting of Two Worlds: Process Meets Product Interpretation

Each line of the White Buffalo Calf Woman’s song includes actions, with the

symbols of her ‘visible tracks’ implying movement. These actions are considered to be a

living example of how the Lakota, and in extension all of humanity, can enjoy a grateful

life in relationship with all living things. The nouns in this song, and in the Lakota

language, are based in the actions of the verbs, unlike our Euroculture’s reliance on our

noun-based objectification, as represented in our languages.157 The action is the priority

and the object is secondary to the process; product points to process and process defines

the object, with power required to generate movement, in this case, the “representative

series of four containing forms: walking, breathing, singing, and footprints.”158 The

symbols that need to be analyzed are both the representational symbols and the symbolic

processes that these point to.

Maybe this is the point that could have altered Walker’s analysis; instead of Walker

making Skan into a father god in the likeness of the Christian transcendent God, he could

have paid more attention to when and how the old men were explaining about power, the

process of Skan (also known as To). 159 This reflects to us Walker’s eurocentric analysis

of linear process resulting in a product that can be categorized in his framework.

Speculation is all we have in trying to interpret Walker’s frame of reference when

he wrote down what he ‘heard’ about Lakota mythology. Yet, miscommunication can

only be cleared through the transformation of our etic and derived etic analysis with the

emic analysis of the Lakota people themselves. The current derived etic we can achieve

together can lead to more accumulated forms of knowledge that incorporate both the

linear forms found within the academic production of data and the Indigenous practice of

applying interpretation within all that they do.160

As DeMallie & Parks point out, the White Buffalo Calf Woman “myth narrates

what to the Lakota people was the single most important manifestation of the sacred, the

one that founded the Lakota world and gave the people their orientation in time and

space.”161 The importance of the narrative lies in the Lakota attributing to the Pipe “all

that was most basic to their human condition.”162 The Pipe is both ‘orthodoxy’163 – that of

regulating social order through right opinion – and ‘orthopraxis’164 – where the Pipe

encodes right practice through its use in Lakota life and its rituals while reviving the

THM43

relationships and ongoing communication between contemporary people and the spirits

found within past history, and those that have gone on to the spirit world from the frame

of our linear history.165

It is in history where the Pipe is filled and raised and the White Buffalo Calf

Woman’s narrative is told (and now read in print), with these actions opening the

channels of communication that allow the spirits into contemporary history, to rest for a

while and to listen to the people they are communicating with:

Everything as it moves, now and then, here and there, makes stops. The bird as it flies stops in one place to make its nest, and in another to rest in its flight. A man when he goes forth stops when he wills. So the god has stopped. The sun, which is so bright and beautiful, is one place where he has stopped. The moon, the stars, the winds he has been with. The trees, the animals, are all where he has stopped, and the Indian thinks of these places and sends his prayers there to reach the place where the god has stopped and win help and a blessing.166

The participants are not moving towards a finite goal or end product, but seeking

aid and meaning through communication, within relationship, gaining knowledge and

ability to handle the processes of life, “in process of becoming.”167 This is achieved in the

movement of process; to bring the higher relational energy into real time-and-place168

situations, not to try to return to an ideal, utopian time in the past, to an original point of

creation169 (a product that can be packaged). It is into tomorrow that the past is applied in

order to bring all of time into the present moment that is seen as powerful.

It is this process thinking that merges time (both cyclical and linear), place, and

interpretation into Indigenous knowledge systems and contributes to the process of

creation animating the process of life. This is hard to understand within the Euroculture’s

paradigm that looks for primal cause and primal effect, and logical step-by-step answers

we call data or ‘absolute truth’.170 The narrative in print becomes a Eurocultural product

and contributes to the dogmatic stagnation of the narrative into a product of the academic

and publishing industries, packaged and labeled as a ‘true’ reflection of Lakota culture. In

Native American societies, in particular that of the Lakota, the telling of the narrative of

the “White Buffalo Calf Woman causes her to appear again and renews her original

purpose.”171 This is the animated power that is lacking within the printed narrative. As

THM44

Lame Deer interprets in his later version, while White Buffalo Woman was leaving she

was singing:

'Niya taniya mawani ye,’ which has been translated as ‘With visible breath I am walking.’ This has a deeper meaning if one thinks about it for a while. First, niya taniya means not only breathing and breath, but also being alive and life itself. It means that as long as we honor the pipe we will live, will remain ourselves. And the thought of ‘visible breath’ can be taken as the smoke of the pipe, which is the breath of our people. It also reminds us of the breath of the buffalo as it can be seen on a cold day. It underlines the fact that for us the pipe, man and the buffalo are all one.172

Lame Deer was attempting to attune his audience to the process of understanding

as listeners rather than giving us finite answers. Lame Deer wanted to forward the

process of knowledge as transforming and empowering his listeners from the storytelling

process as ‘medicine.’173 As Densmore points out in his description of Lone Man’s

spiritual development, it is not by going back to original creation as linear logic assumes,

but, rather, one should place one’s self in the presence of the cyclical nature of the

creative process:

The same precise attention to immediate detail characterized the process whereby people interpreted observations that did not immediately reveal their significance. By thinking about new events in relation to traditional beliefs and tales, the Lakotas maintained an important cultural dynamic. Interpretation could relate present and past in ways that challenged intelligence and imagination. For the Lakotas, reckoning one’s place in space meant careful watchfulness over all that existed there or impinged upon existence there: and such attentiveness created habits of intelligence and feeling.174

The Lakota attentiveness to and intelligence for the details, as in the academic

setting, is obtained, but expands their vision to be inclusive of the environment around,

including the social context and history in process (which is occurring within the social

science disciplines of academia). In our eurocentric thought, we see details but want to

isolate them into products that will fit into our linear schemas that connect to larger

THM45

frameworks of understanding. It is these products that fit neatly into pre-packaged

frameworks and theories of classifying tropes that have no concrete connections to how

they operate (the verbs activating the energy of movement) in real life and with real

people. As Walker states:

While no Indian has been able to give me that complete mythology in a systematic way, I have gotten a quite complete system of it in piece-meal, which I am attempting to systemize in a manner approved by older Indians who are probably good authority on it as exists.175

We do not need to ‘rediscover’176 or ‘systematize’ another culture’s narratives and

belief structures; the Lakota are perfectly able to do so for themselves in their own

manner and method. DeMallie & Parks highlight a similar point of interpretation of

Walker’s understanding of the Lakota worldview:

While the tales narrating the origins of the rituals that maintain the relations between the Lakota people and the spirits bear the stylistic marks of the Lakota concern for history and realistic detail, many of their references to the initial creation are highly imagistic and open to interpretation. This fact confused Walker and kept him seeking for something else. Yet, once we understand the functioning of the more realistic narratives, we can go back to the poetic references and see that there is no real conflict among these fragmentary references to creation.177

In the academic research process, space must be allocated for the impermanence

and fluid existence of process,178 a characteristic either foreign or uncomfortable to

Walker as the following example and critique shows:

The documents on the structure of society reveal disagreement among informants about the details of the organization of their society and about the past developments of subgroups. This is a good reminder that the neat structures which Walker… and we today—look for may not accurately characterize the traditional Lakota view of their society. The Lakota perspective seems to have been much more flexible, allowing for disparate views that correlated with family, political, and other interests. Again, this is a reflection of the dynamism that is such an important characteristic of Lakota life.179

THM46

Another point worth mentioning about researching a process-dynamic culture

such as the Lakota is that the traditional and the contemporary interact,180 creating

cyclical and trans-temporal interpretations that are easily summarized and de-animated

through reductionist explanations that move backwards in time. Contemplation, ritual,

and visioning animates the traditional, as in the example of Archie Fire Lame Deer’s

concluding remarks: “This is the story of Ptesan Win and the Pipe, as my grandfather told

it to me when I was a boy. I have seen White Buffalo Calf Woman in visions. Four times

she has appeared to me, each time with a bunch of sage in her arms.” This personal

statement shows how Lakotas anchor the traditional in the contemporary in order to

forward a combined understanding of tomorrow and for the process of life for future

generations. 181

The Voice of the Researcher In Process

While in the research process, sometimes it is easy to get lost in the tremendous

amount of data and the issues surrounding the Lakota White Buffalo Calf Woman

narrative. Then I recalled the high-flying eagle, a symbol of having a ‘bird’s eye view’

that balanced my perspective when I became too close to the subjective matter. By

keeping to the process of retaining my ‘high-flying’ perspective, I realized a parallel form

of objectivity that permitted me to concur that the many questions and leads into further

study will remain unfulfilled in this paper. These have been raised in the process of

producing this paper, insight for both me and hopefully for my readers for further actions.

We are bound together through this one interpretation of one small derived-etic viewpoint

into the Lakota Indigenous knowledge system and our objectivity (etic-analysis) has been

challenged in the process. Yet objectivity, like the bird’s eye view, is a necessary

component that is never disengaged in research; it is required to anchor subjectivity

(emic-analysis) and allow a balance to occur in interpretation. This balance propagates a

deeper understanding of the human condition, allowing diversity to interact while

working towards dialogue between cultures.182 It is time for us to begin to listen to the

emic-analysis that Indigenous scholars are promulgating within Indigenous studies

THM47

departments around the globe in order to understand the life processes as highlighted by

their own emphasis on their particulars rather than imposing our own.183

Many questions arise: How many narratives hide from our definitive attitude

towards knowledge? What other Native American linguistic groups have stories of a

White Buffalo woman?184 How many groups believe in, and to what degree of

importance, is prophesy in the narratives of Native Americans? How is the Internet

evolving/devolving the prophetic message of the White Buffalo Calf Woman? How are

patriarchal, Christian, and New Age thought influencing the interpretation of the

narrative from both within and outside of the Lakota culture? What data and details are

we missing because we are not ‘listening’ properly, paying attention to what is said, or

busy packaging our own knowledge products labeled as Lakota? The questions are

endless.

Rather than tying the loose ends up, I am opening this conclusion as a call for new

beginnings within our research processes that allows for more inclusive methods of

research, including the validation of narrative processes. This call is for a new way of

understanding, of clearing up past misconceptions in interpretation caused by the

imposed etic practices such as Walker used, and for a new goal, viz. the desire for deeper

knowledge and understanding of the processes in all aspects of our relationship with our

observations of being human. Indigenous knowledge systems seem to grasp Margaret

Mead’s assertions about individual’s identity formation:

The individual comes into being only through social differentiation and is a product of society, not its pre-existent component. Not until he (sic) can adopt towards himself the attitude of the ‘generalized other’ constituted by his environment does the human being become a conscious individual. Ritual contributes significantly to this developing consciousness, since the self is a process in which the conversation with others has been internalized.185

It is time that we move beyond the othering process and into a new dynamic of

relationship with knowledge and with all of humanity. In walking both the nēhiyāwiwin

(Cree) learning process and in an academic career, I realize the ritualized environment of

internalizing academic instruction while maintaining my own process-thought

THM48

orientation; I experienced firsthand the paradoxical contemplation of mythic knowledge,

as Leeming & Page succinctly states:

a myth belongs to a culture with a particular experience and to the storytellers who reveal it. From the very beginning we are several steps removed from the myth and its meaning. This is true, of course, whether we are speaking of Greek myths or Native American myths. It must be stated at the outset, then, in connection with this book and its authors, that few if any non-Indians can convey a full understanding of Native American mythology. Yet dreams and myths are stories created by human beings like ourselves, and all of us, whatever our individual or cultural experiences, share the larger human condition and the need to make sense out of the world around us, our history, and our nature. To avoid discussing Native American mythology, however limited our non-Indian understanding, would be to ignore a significant aspect of the human experience.186

It is this human experience that is prominent in all of our lives in the University of

Regina right now, especially concerning our dealings with First Nations University of

Canada, our partners in the academic setting. As a student of religious studies, and as a

Canadian, I agree with the following statement and challenge other academics to

contemplate the implication:

If it is worth our while to be aware of the myths of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and northern Europeans, it is just as important for us to be aware of the myths of the land in which we live. It might be said that until we know the ancient collective dreams of what we like to call 'our land' and ‘our nation,’ we cannot know ourselves or be in any full sense a part of that land.187

By moving into a derived etic position of recognizing our Canadian status in

context with Indigenous relationships, we as academics can move into a process that

eliminates our interpretive need to rely on imposed etics and their resulting

discriminatory practices, such as othering. The many versions of the White Buffalo Calf

Woman narrative can show us our own product orientation that is interceding with the

Indigenous knowledge process orientation. Two cultural groupings are meeting together

in dialogue everyday on issues concerning mutual attention. To bridge the

miscommunications found within the discipline of religious studies can help maintain our

relations with the Lakota and other Indigenous peoples, allowing the ‘sacred hoop’ of

THM49

Black Elk’s vision to be repaired so that we can all move towards a balance of

product/process orientation that will produce soteriological knowledge through a derived-

etic and cross-cultural understanding of each other as neighbours within the context of

today’s society.

End Notes

THM50

1 Holler, Clyde. (1995). Black Elk’s Religion: The Sun Dance and Lakota Catholicism. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University, 213-214.2 Lame Deer, Archie Fire & Richard Erdoes. (1992). Gift of Power: The Life and Teachings of a Lakota Medicine Man. Sante Fe: Bear and Co, 206.3 Gibbon, Guy. (2003). The Sioux: The Dakota and Lakota Nations.Cornwall: Blackwell, 151. “Rather than focusing on rediscovering the authentic version of a story, it is far more rewarding to view the story as a text whose meanings are not fixed but emerge in practice through time.”4 See Said, Edward. (2003). Culture and Resistance: Conversations with Edward Said (and David Barsamian). Cambridge: South End.5 Archie Fire Lame Deer, & Erdoes, 205-206.6 Gibbon, 151. In speaking about the diversity of interpretation of the White Buffalo Calf Woman, it is highlighted that no “singular interpretation can adequately convey all the meanings that have emerged in its telling by different narrators since it was first told (and dreamed) hundreds of years ago. Nor should it be surprising that interpretations of oral narratives are regularly and often bitterly contested and debated, even within a single community.”7 Ibid, “As a cultural strategy of communication and as a social activity, then, Sioux stories are not to be judged on how ‘authentic’ they are in some traditional sense, but on performance, intent, appropriateness, and effectiveness.”8 Five years of intensive nēhiyāwak ceremonial training is like being in grade 4 in a Euroculture elementary school. The typical training for an average askapāyos is a minimum of twenty-five years, with an equivalency of a doctorate degree in university, but still must continue on, if wanting to have the credibility that our doctorate degree holds. Thirty to forty years and more is recommended, with many of the very old men not starting to take the leadership roles until well into their fifties or sixties, even if they started training in their teenage years. 9 This label, ‘oral traditions’ is a category set up to differentiate the ‘other’ traditions, ones that do not depend on the printed text to disseminate knowledge. The cross-cultural study of ‘oral’ and ‘textual’ traditions is a large discourse within the study of religion, and the issues are complex. See Whitehouse, Harvey. (2000). Arguments and Icons: Divergent Modes of Religiosity. New York: Oxford University. I chose to use this label to emphasize the ‘oral’ emphasis on practice and the ‘textual’ traditions reliance on the printed product. Neither of these cultures are so simplistic, with each culture having both products and processes, but each give value and emphasis to either product or process over the other.10 Marriott, Alice & Carol K Rachlin. (1975). Plains Indian Mythology. New York: New American Library, ix. 11 Bauman, Richard, ed. (1992). Folklore, Cultural Performances, and Popular Entertainments: A Communications-centered Handbook. New York: Oxford University, 18.12 The concept of environment here includes the context of land, time, situations, dreams, visions (which includes ritual experience), people, and more, all actively interrelating with each other.13 Bauman, 18. 14 Ibid, 250-252; See also Taylor, Colin F, editorial consultant. (1994). Native American Myths and Legends. Vancouver: Cavendish, 41; Gill, Sam D. & Irene F. Sullivan. (1992). Dictionary of Native American Mythology. New York: Oxford University Press, 289; and, O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. (1988). Other People’s Myths. New York: MacMillan, 1.15 O’Flaherty, 56; see also Taylor, Colin, 6.16 Bauman, 12; even storytelling has ritualistic elements and “knits the social group together and validates its identity” through repetition. See Torrance, 6.17 Ibid, 21-28. Chapter called, “Interaction, Face-To-Face,” by Starkey Duncan, Jr.18 Ibid 17.19 Brown, Joseph Epes. (1992). Animals of the Soul: Sacred Animals of the Oglala Sioux. Rockport, Mass: Element, 77.20 Ibid, 77-78.21 I am setting up a dialectical relationship to emphasize the differences in values and emphasis that cause miscommunication when oral and textual traditions try to understand each other. As mentioned before, both the Lakota educators and the Euroculture’s academics use both products and processes, but the Lakota values the processes the products represent, while academia values the products that result from processes. It is a balance and prioritizing of both that I am trying to obtain, thus my emphasis on process as being what we as scholars need to balance our production value system. 22 Torrance recognizes that components of ritual are part of the knowledge process: “Far from affirming the undifferentiated cohesion of society, initiation ceremonies and other rites of passage suggest a relationship not of static invariance but of reciprocal transformation. Even in its tribal manifestations, then, religion (sic) presupposes… not only instinctive ‘pressure’ for the maintenance of a closed society but, at least in potential, the psychic ‘motion’ of personal aspiration toward a community forever being achieved.” – See Torrance, Robert M. (1994). The Spiritual Quest: Transcendence in Myth, Religion, and Science. Berkeley: University of California, 9.23 Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and Traditional Knowledge Systems (TKS) are actively being dialogued internationally. For guidelines on research ethics and IKS see Ermine, Willie et al. (2004). The Ethics of Research Involving Indigenous Peoples: Report of the Indigenous Peoples’ Health Research Centre to the Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics. Regina: Indigenous Peoples’ Health Research Centre. www.iphrc.ca/text/Ethics%20Review

%20IPHRC.doc Last viewed July 26, 2005; Anon. (2000). Guidelines for Respecting Cultural Knowledge. Anchorage: Alaska Native Knowledge Network.24 Holler, Clyde, 213; see also Kishani, Bongasu Tanla. (2001). “On the interface of philosophy and language in Africa: some practical and theoretical considerations,” African Studies Review, v44 i3, 27- 45. 25 Salvaging ethnography, a method in anthropology that started with Bronislaw Malinowski, believed that they must “study and record cultural diversity threatened by westernization”; See also Kottak, Conrad Phillip. (2000). Cultural Anthropology, 8 th ed. . Boston: McGraw Hill, p40; Religious scepticism in the 19th century created an effort to “salvage religion by making it palatable to atheists” to begin with, but later was applied to recreating new religious movements that appropriated freely from Native American cultures, or influenced those within these cultures. Quoted from Koral, Euny Hong. (1999). “‘The Broken Estate’ and ‘When the Kissing Had to Stop’,” Salon E-zine, July 1. www.salon.com/books/review/1999/07/01/wood_leonard/print.html Last viewed July 26, 2005.26 A prominent example of this is from the Druids of my own ancestry; many books write of the piece meal remainders of knowledge and stories that are then put together imaginatively in order to reconstruct a history for this group. See McCoy, Edain. (2000). Celtic Myth and Magick: Harnessing the Power of the Gods and Goddesses. St. Paul: Llewellyn; and Nichols, Ross. (1990). The Book of Druidry. London: Thorsons; another example is the pantheons of the Roman and Greek empire, and the connections of stories between the gods, goddesses, and humans. In studying these groups of deities, many associations are given from individual stories set into Eurocultural categories of definitions.27 Taylor, Colin, 10.28 Tinker, George E. (2004). Spirit and Resistance: Political Theology and American Indian Liberation. Minneapolis: Fortress, 79. 29 Chief Dan George, in his “Lament for Confederation” in 1967, said that he will use the tools and skills of the “white man’s success” to build his peoples into the strongest members of Canadian society. Many Indigenous groups of the plains call education the modern day buffalo of old, a symbol utilized by FNUC. See a variety of Chief Dan George’s work in Armstrong, Jeannette C. & Lally Grauer. (2001). Native Poetry in Canada: A Contemporary Anthology. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2-12.30 Some examples are: Australia’s Kim Scott, Doris Pilkington, Glenys Ward, Sally Morgan and Jimmy Chi; New Zealand’s Hinemoana Baker (Ngati Raukawa, Ngati Toa Rangatira, Te Ati Awa, Kai Tahu, Ngati Kiritea), James George (Nga Puhi), Briar Grace-Smith (Nga Puhi, Ngati Wai), and Robert Sullivan (Nga Puhi); Siberia’s Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer; as well as Indigenous writers from South America, Norway, Celtic groupings in European countries, and more.31 An example of the magnitude of this call is simply doing a google search of “Indigenous Peoples call for re-education” amounting to 8,120 hits, just from one search drive. Searched July 28, 2005.32 Using the WHITE BUFFALO CALF WOMAN narrative as an example, see Michael. (?). White Buffalo Calf Woman and World Redemption. www.world-action.co.uk/buffalo1.html Last viewed July 28, 2005; see also Richter, Matthew. (1997). The True Meaning of the Pipe and the White Buffalo Calf Prophesy. www.iwchildren.org/Story/trio.htm Last viewed July 28, 2005. 33 “The gods are the final others, the defining others in all myths, and the myths tell us that the gods come among us most often in the form of those other others,” O’Flaherty, 3; see also O’Flaherty, 28 for difference between mythic and legendary ‘otherness’; see also Campbell, Joseph. (1988). The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday, 22; and Sienkewicz, Thomas J. (1996). Types of Myth. http://department.monm.edu/classics/Courses/CLAS230/MythDocuments/types_of_myth.htm Last viewed July 28, 2005, along with many other great resources on the web that uses simplified charts and bullets to lay out what is complicated in book publications.34 An excellent chart that shows the difference, and the similarities between myth and legend is found in Dundes, Alan, ed. (1984). Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Berkeley: University of California, 9; See also, Brunvand, Jan Harold. (1968). The Study of American Folklore: An Introduction. New York: W.W. Norton, 87: “Legends are sometimes referred to as folk history,” and states that legends use to refer only to those characters that lived historically, such as the Christian saints, but now can be classified into four groups, based on “their primary concern with religion, the supernatural, individual persons, or localities and their histories.” 35 Another theory from Marriott & Rachlin, xi, states: “Legendry falls into two sections: the how and why, or explanatory stories, such as are told questioning children, and the accounts of men and women who actually have lived, but who, since their lifetimes, have become larger than life.”36 Here I am generalizing on the assumption of my own personal experience with the nēhiyâwak worldview; like Jesus or Buddha, White Buffalo Calf Woman is seen as an atayohkanak, a spirit that can have two-way communication with humans. I know of some Ânishnâbe (Saulteaux) and Dēnē who have expressed similar views.37 See Densmore, Frances. (1992; reprinted from 1918). Teton Sioux Music and Culture. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 63.38 Dundes, 1.

39 Dooling, D.M., ed. (2000). The Sons of the Wind: The Sacred Stories of the Lakota (from the James R. Walker Collection). Norman: University of Oklahoma.40 Peterson, Robyn (Douglas). (2001). Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions. www.wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/lamedeer.html Last updated April, 2001: Last viewed July 26, 2005.41 Archie Fire Lame Deer & Erdoes, 33.42 When a google search is conducted, “Lame Deer version of White Buffalo Woman,” 18 000 hits are recorded.; a yahoo search brings up only 6 800 hits, while the dogpile search produces 11 hits. Last searched July 28, 2005. 43 Densmore, 63.44 Hintamaheca. (2005). No title but posting on ThunderDreamers.com. http://www.thunderdreamers.com/cgi-bin/cutecast/cutecast.pl?forum=3&thread=158 Site maintained by Joseph Marshall III: copyrighted by Joseph Marshall III and Wolftrail Productions, 2002. Last viewed August 11, 2005.45 Dooling, 138.46 Ibid. 47 Ibid, 139.48 Ibid, 138.49 The distinction must be made that we are not looking at oral traditions per se, but oral tradition through printed material. The Lakota versions of the White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative, told to other traditional Lakota people do not appear in print but continue to be part of the internal renditions of the storytelling process. 50 Berry, J.W. & P.R. Dasen, eds. (1974). Culture and Cognition: Readings in Cross-Cultural Psychology. London: Methuen, xiii.51 Baron, R.A., et al. (2005). Exploring Social Psychology, 4th ed. Toronto: Pearson, 123.52 See Agbakoba, J.C. Achike. (2005). “Ideology, Empirical Sciences, and Modern Philosophical Systems,” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, 10, 116-125, http://hiphi.ubbcluj.ro/JSRI/html%20version/index/no_10/jcakikeag-articol.htm Last viewed July 28, 2005.53 Talbot, Michael. (1991). The Holographic Universe. New York: Harper Perennial, 80.54 Arntz, William & et al. (2004). What the Bleep Do we (k)now !?. Beverly Hills, CA: Twentieth Century Fox.55 Many people no longer view themselves as ‘Christian’ but the Christian perspective permeates our secular world and institutions as underlying assumptions deeper than even the scientific perspectives.56 Baron et al, 123.57 See Berry &Dasen, 10 where discussion of Levy-Bruhl’s concern with logical and perceptual processes lead him to recognize that specific cultural knowledge have “collective representations” that instill value and order into all their perceptions.”58 Segall, Marshall H. & et al. (1999). Human Behaviour in Global Perspective: An Introduction to Cross-Cultural Psychology. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 40.59 Taking myself as an example, I am both emic and etic within the discussion of First Nation’s cultural worldview. If we were to discuss the nēhiyāwak ceremonial way, I have a derived etic of this condition; as a white woman I am both an etic to the discussions of race, but an emic in discussing my participation within the cultural climate of experience, and, to confuse matters further, my tribal lineage also places my process orientation within and without my participation in the indigenous knowledge schema. If I was to further contemplate my voice, such as being etic to the Lakota traditions, the list would continue even further, as well as my now having also been educated within the higher levels of academia.60 There is a multiplicity of voices that result in being ‘Lakota.’ There are some Lakota who have been heavily influenced by Christianity, some by New Age thought, and some by education. Any of these Lakotas may have varying degrees of knowledge and experience with the traditional Lakota practices and thought formation, with varying interpretations of the world around them to match this diversity. This is not an easy subject to broach, and not a subject that can be regarded as concerning absolute truth.61 See Berry, J.W. & et al, eds. (1988). Indigenous Cognition: Functioning in Cultural Context. Boston: Martinus Nijhoff. This entire book is on specific cultural examples of the othering process through emic/etic-analysis, specifically focussed on the techniques found within the discipline of Western psychology, which is just as applicable in the other social science departments.62 Ibid, 1.63 See Allen, Paula Gunn. (1989). Spider Woman’s Granddaughters: Traditional Tales and Contemporary Writing by Native American Women. New York: Fawcett Columbine, and, Allen, Paula Gunn. (1986). The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Boston: Beacon; see also Ross, Rupert. (1996). Returning to the Teachings: Exploring Aboriginal Justice. New York: Penguin, and, Ross, Rupert. (1992). Dancing with a Ghost: Exploring Indian Reality. Markham, ON: Octopus.64 Sykes, J.B. ed. (1982). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, Based on the Oxford English Dictionary and its Supplements. Oxford: Clarendon, 877.

65 Wolvengrey, Arok., compiler. (2001). nēhiyawēwin: itwēwina (Cree: Words), Vol 1&2. Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center. This is a widely accepted academic source, but is not widely accepted within the nēhiyāwak communities themselves.66 Torrance, 4, states that religion “insofar as it too is an institution of acculturation, it appears to be a self-contained system that leaves the spirit little to ask for. In this light, religion is less a manifestation of the individual quest than an alternative to it,” thus, the process of seeking in a quest such as the White Buffalo Calf Woman prophesized as to the coming rituals that must be recognized as coming from her for the Lakota’s benefit versus the Euroculture’s example of not having to seek since one already has the product. Product thinking of linear, logical thought of the Eurocultural values comes into contact with, and misinterprets the process thinking of cyclical patterning found in Indigenous knowledge systems. As Torrance discusses on page xii, because a process is “a formative process (compared to a static category, such as religion) leading to varied and inherently unpredictable outcomes, the spiritual quest is a universal fully compatible with the diversity that is inevitably its product.” 67 For detailed analysis of ritual see Erndl, Kathleen M. (1993). Victory to the Mother: The Hindu Goddess of Northwest India in Myth, Ritual, and Symbol. New York: Oxford: see also Gennep, Arnold Van. (1960). The Rites of Passage. Chicago: University of Chicago. To analyze the study of ritual see Bell, Catherine. (1992). Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford.68 This again is my derived etic-analysis from being bi-culturally educated within the Eurocultural and nēhiyâwak frameworks.69 Taylor, Colin, 52; see also Torrance, 6. Ritual as Hocart states, is “a co-operation for life.” In its repetitiveness, ritual is of “human reality striving towards realization” – by looking back consciously, “the enactors of ritual thereby reach beyond as well,” making ritual a “potent agency of organic and social development.”70 Wulff, David M. (1997). Psychology of Religion: Classic and Contemporary, 2 nd ed . New York: John Wiley & Sons, 5-7. 71 Traditional oral cultures are known as collectivistic cultures in psychology because of their identity with group dynamics compared to the individualistic cultures such as ours. 72 See Baron et al, 26.73 See the excellent example of the emic (insider) perspective on this debate in: Panther-Yates, Donald. (2001). Remarks on Native American Tribal Religions, a speech given on March 5 th , at Russell Union 2080, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia. http://www.wintercount.org/remark.doc Last viewed July 28, 2005.74 Within the titles of many prominent authors, this attitude can be seen. See Campbell, Joseph. (1986). Primitive Mythology: The Masks of God. New York: Penguin; Eliot, Alexander. (1993). The Global Myths: Exploring Primitive, Pagan, Sacred, and Scientific Mythologies. New York: Meridian; and Levi-Strauss, Claude. (1966). The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago.75 See the debate of the New Age nature spirituality, and traditional nature spiritualities being religious movements, thus meaning ‘nature religions,’ in Taylor, Bron. (2001). “Earth and Nature-Based Spirituality (Part 1): From Deep Ecology to Radical Environmentalism,” Religion, 31, 175-193. www.religionandnature.com/ bron/arts/Taylor—Religion31(2).pdf Last viewed July 28, 2005; Taylor, Bron. (2001). “Earth and Nature-Based Spirituality (Part 2): From Earth First! And Bioregionalism to Scientific Paganism and the New Age,” Religion, 31, 225-245. www.religionandnature.com/ bron/arts/Taylor--Religion31(3).pdf Last viewed July 28, 2005.76 See Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. (2002). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books.77 Ulrich, Melanie. (2003). Definitions of Othering (From Various Online Sources). http://cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/rww03/othering.htm Last updated April, 2003: Last viewed August 16, 2005.78 Gibbon, 204.79 Ibid, 72-75 and “drudge-like ‘squaw’”, page 204.80 See McLeod, Neal. (2002). “nēhiyāwiwin and Modernity,” Plains Speaking: Essays on Aboriginal Peoples and the Prairies. Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 35-53.81 Powers, Marla N. (1986). Oglala Women: Myth, Ritual, and Reality. Chicago: University of Chicago, 203.82 Erdoes, Richard and Alfonso Ortiz, eds. (1984). American Indian Myths and Legends. New York: Pantheon, 47-52.83 Densmore, 63-68.84 Walker, James R. (1991). Lakota Belief and Ritual, ed. by Raymond J. DeMallie & Elaine A. Jahner. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 109-112.85 Taylor, Colin, 45.86 Benge, Barbara. (2004). Lakota Page: The Great Sioux Nation. http://members.aol.com/bbbenge/page6.html Last updated July 30, 2004: Last viewed August 5, 2005.87 Ibid. For example, Benge mentions that the title, Sioux, “was given to them by the French who had corrupted the name Natawesiwak from the Chippewa (Ojibiwa), referring to them as ‘enemy’ or ‘snakes’.” 88 Versluis, Arthur. (1992). Sacred Earth: The Spiritual Landscape of Native America. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 83: "When one is granted a spiritual gift like a vision one is alone, except in extraordinary revelations -- as when White Buffalo Woman came to the Sioux. The community provides support, a place for spiritual practice, and the

teachings that lead one to spiritual illumination -- but an individual still is ultimately responsible for his own spirituality, for his own fate. This is evident when one is alone in virgin nature, fasting and lamenting one's human frailties, seeking divine illumination. The tribe supports the seeker, whose vision and (ritual) try nourishes and supports the tribal spirituality."89 The Lakota oral tradition have insider belief in having a form of pre-contact writing in which to mark the passage of time and act as mnemonic devices, originally on hides in the forms of dress, ritual objects (such as counting sticks), and housing, then later as winter counts: see Larson, Robert W. (1997) Red Cloud: Warrior-Statesman of the Lakota Sioux. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 5, states that “The winter counts were the closest thing to a written language that the Sioux and some of the other Plains tribes had. They were pictographs, drawn on deerskins or buffalo hides, that pictured one major event in the life of the Sioux for each year. Although some of these winter counts dated back to the 1700s, they were more commonplace during the nineteenth century. While collectively these pictographic records revealed the kinds of experiences the Sioux regarded as important, their depiction of only one event per year obviously limited their value. Nevertheless, each winter count provided at least a snapshot of life during a given time”; see also Walker 1982, 112; and Gibbon, 158. Gibbon, on page 157 also makes note of a ‘moon-counting stick’.90 To view a derived etic understanding of Lakota history, see Calloway, Colin G. (2003). One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis and Clark. Lincoln: University of Nebraska; see also the small booklet, Praus, Alexis. (1962). The Sioux, 1798-1922: A Dakota Winter Count, Bulletin Number 44. Bloomfield Hills, Michigan: Cranbrook Institute of Science.91 I myself have been accused and caught myself in this procedure of asking leading questions when I am among, or helping, nēhiyāwak elders. It is an emic-centered process that breaches the protocols of many of the First Nations’ and Native American protocols on learning, where listening is seen as more important than questioning.92 Taylor, Drew Hayden. (2000). alterNatives. Toronto: Talonbooks, 128. Angel and Bobby are remembering how they made money off of the anthropologists who came to their reserves looking to collect stories: “They wanted to know the legends of our people. But the old people were too busy to waste time on these guys, so they came to us, a bunch of bored kids hanging around their camp. For every legend we told them, they would give us fifty cents, as long as we promised they were authentic, handed down to us by our ancestors.”93 In a version told by Elk Head, then keeper of the sacred Pipe, in 1907, he mentions that “the Lakota had formerly lived beside the lake far to the east. After a terrible winter, they began migrating westward.” Bierhorst, John. (1985). The Mythology of Native Americans. New York: William Morrow, 179-180; See also Hazen-Hammond, Susan. (1999). Spider Woman’s Web: Traditional Native Tales About Women’s Power. New York, Perigree, 76, where reference to White Buffalo Calf Woman’s arrival was “when the People still lived far to the east of here, along the shores of a great Lake.”; See also Howe, Oscar. (1988; reprinted from 1941). Legends of the Mighty Sioux. South Dakota: Workers of the South Dakota Writer’s Project Work Projects Administration, 50-51: with no reference to her being associated with the buffalo, let alone a white buffalo, she brings the pipe and tells the people to move camp the next day and move westward to a new land that is “beyond the Father of Waters” and abundant with both animals and other tribes of people.94 See Larson, pages 5 and 20; see also Gibbons, pages 52 and 133.95 See Lame Deer, John Fire & Richard Erdoes. (1972). Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions. New York: Simon and Schuster, 251-255. Ibid. This second version of the White Buffalo Calf Woman contains additional teachings and insights into the traditional Lakota worldview; see also Lame Deer, John Fire, and Richard Erdoes. (1972). White Buffalo Calf Woman. www.roxirulz.com/whitebuffalo.asp Last viewed May 23, 2005.96 Other versions that use Ptesan-Wi as White Buffalo Calf Woman’s emic name are: Lame Deer, John Fire. (1967). White Buffalo Calf Woman Brings the First Pipe. Web page designed by Paula Giese. www.kstrom.net/isk/arvol/lamedeer.html Last viewed May 23, 2005; Leeming, David & Jake Page. (1998). The Mythology of Native North America. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 35-39; Lame Deer, Archie Fire & Richard Erdoes; and Cooper, Julie Spotted Eagle Horse. (2001-2005). “The Legend of the White Buffalo Calf Woman,” BellaOnline: Native American. http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art17027.asp Last viewed July 18, 2005.97 See Bopp, Judie et al. (1989). The Sacred Tree: Reflections on Native American Spirituality, 3 rd ed . Twin Lakes, MI: Lotus Light.98 Leeming & Page, 51-52.99 Black Elk refers to ‘Grandfather’ in Neihardt, John G. (1961). Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. Lincoln: University of Nebraska.100 Versions that use the title ‘Wakan Tanka’ in them include: Ebsen, Roger. (1997). Spiritwalk Readings: White Buffalo Calf Woman. www.spiritwalk.org/whitebuffalowoman.htm Last revised December 8, 2002: Last viewed July 18, 2005; and Steltenkamp, Michael F. (1993). Black Elk: Holy Man of the Oglala. Norman: University of Oklahoma, who quotes Black Elk, Elk Head, Ben Marrowbone, Brother Graf, and Father Buechel.101 From here forthwith I will be labeling Finger’s narrative as Walker’s because very little of his voice is carried over into print, as mentioned in the previous discussion about the process of storytelling and academic discourse.102 See the index in Hassrick, Royal B. (1964). The Sioux Life and Customs of a Warrior Society. Norman: University of Oklahoma.103 John Fire Lame Deer breaches this topic throughout his book, anchored within the experiences of his own life; See also Marriott & Rachlin, ix-x. It is mentioned that artistic expression was mainly oral and much of its literature is lost

due to the changes to traditional Indigenous languages and the fact that many cannot speak their mother tongue, and even more have a limited and broken vocabulary because of the removal of children to boarding schools. Many “simply were not interested in the old ways and never learned them. Thus, much became lost and much became fragmented when a generation died.”104 Most of the references that source Black Elk are attracted to the Catholic overtones to much of his storytelling, including his interpretation of the White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative and of his interpretation and references to the Pipe; See also Turner, Dr. Ray. (2004). The White Buffalo Prophecy: The Legend of the White Buffalo Calf Woman. www.whitebuffalopress.com/wbuffalo1.htm Last viewed August 16, 2005; Redhawk, William. (1995). Buffalo Calf Woman: White Buffalo Calf Woman (Ptecincala Ska Wakan) The Gift of the Sacred Pipe. www.siouxme.com/buffcalf.html Last updated May 20th, 2004: Last viewed August 16, 2005; Zauhar, Dr. Frances Murphy. (2000). Black Elk Page: Summary of Black Elk. www.facweb.stvincent.edu/academics/english/E1251/251blackelk.html Last viewed August 16, 2005.105 See Richter’s website for his before, during, and after White Buffalo Calf Woman’s arrival and her past life and prophetic life extensions which are the same, but not referenced as sources, as Wambli Ska, Ben. (1999-2000). White Buffalo Calf Woman. www.benwhiteeagle.com/Story3_1.htm Last viewed August 16, 2005; Anon. (?). White Buffalo Calf Woman: White Buffalo Calf Woman Goddess of Peace and the Mother of Life. www.goddessgift.com/goddess-myths/goddess_white_buffalo_calf_woman.htm Last viewed August 16, 2005 – categorizing her into a goddess is an imposed etic rather than a derived etic and is seen as insulting to the Native American belief systems.106 Most ‘First Nations’ and ‘Native Americans’ that I personally know believe that each linguistic group should be called by their own names and not generalized into an ‘other’ category. Whether in ceremony, in discussion, or just overhearing conversations among nēhiyāwak, the overall generalized term is still ‘Indian’ and many elders, for example Harvey Ironeagle, seeing that all other labels promote the elimination of treaty rights, which benefits the Euro-political system and allows them to negate their responsibilities to their promises. See Blaeser, Kimberly M. (1996). Gerald Vizenor: Writing in the Oral Tradition. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 41, “A great deal of space in Vizenor’s writing is given to examining the negative effects the ‘invented Indian’ has had and continues to have on the lives of Native Americans.” This ‘invented Indian’ is a trope created by our Eurocultural othering process that allows us to have simple understandings of the other cultures that we really do not desire to know about but have to account for.107 See Hollabaugh, Mark. (1997). Lakota Celestial Imagery: Spirit and Sky. http://faculty.normandale.edu/~physics/Hollabaugh/Lakota/CWSConference.htm Last updated March 1st, 2003: Last viewed August 16, 2005; Joseph Epes Brown utilizes Walker’s theories, with one example found on page 75 in describing how a white buffalo hide is handled; Marla Powers, 5, gives a summary of Walker’s connecting the legend of Wohpe (Falling Star) with the White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative in a feminine-empowered dynamic of spirituality found in Lakota thought. She refers to his work continuously throughout her book as seen by a quick glance at the index section can confirm, as well as unreferenced through the assumptions brought out through the writer’s voice; A similar process was checked and openly recognized within Julian Rice’s work – In his earlier work he takes Walker’s argument that Wohpe is White Buffalo Woman and the daughter of Skan, who is Wakan Tanka. His later work then heavily critiques Walker’s claims, especially the claim that Lakota spirituality is similar to the Greek pantheon and Walker’s Christian patterning found in his cosmogony. He also notices Walker’s tendency of using the “Hindu-Buddhist many-in-one model” that is superimposed onto the westernized modeling of God as king. He expands his critique to cover the affects caused when other writers respond to his attitudes, such as Ella Deloria: “Walker is imputing a kind of European royalty…the point I rebel against is rather this idea of the servant and the served.” The two works referenced here are Rice, Julian. (1998). Before the Great Spirit: The Many Faces of Sioux Spirituality. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 133, and, Rice, Julian. (1991). Black Elk’s Story: Distinguishing Its Lakota Purpose. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 109.108 My critique forwards Walker’s work, even as I criticize because this work can be either overlooked or argumented away in order for the preceding scholar’s objective to be met.109 As I was researching for this paper early in the process, I came across Dooling’s book and was only going to copy the White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative. Luckily, I had to research for an annotation of the book and I came across the critique in both preface and afterward.110 As previously quoted, see Tinker, 79: "Racialized colonialism survives in academic texts just as clearly as it services in New Age commodification. As Vine Deloria Jr., Ward Churchill, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, and others have demonstrated persistently, academics have made Indian people a means for carving out careers based on the intellectual domination of aboriginal peoples in North America, posturing themselves as the experts about the cultures of the colonized victims. Their craft is, as Ojibwe scholar Gerald Vizenor insists, a trope of power, that is, power over the colonized other.”111 See Torrance, 9. “Selfhood is achieved by identification with the group, not distinction from it.”112 See Linda Tuhiwai Smith, 1, the very first lines that open her book with this insight: From the vantage point of the colonized, a position from which I write, and choose to privilege, the term ‘research’ is inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonialism. The word itself, ‘research’, is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world’s vocabulary. When mentioned in many indigenous contexts, it stirs up silence, it conjures up bad memories, it raises a smile that is knowing and distrustful.”; See also the various essays on this point in Olupona, Jacob K., ed. (2004). Beyond Primitivism: Indigenous Religious Traditions and Modernity. New York: Routledge.

113 See also Walker, J.W. (1917). The Sun Dance and Other Ceremonies of the Oglala Division of the Teton Dakota. New York: Order of the Trustees of the Museum of National History. 114 See the previous note about Walker as source; Hassrick, 220, where Wohpe is acknowledged as “the Beautiful One” as she was leaving, whereas the sourced references were to Epes Brown, Densmore, and Dorsey, and no mention of Walker at all. 115 Dooling’s argument of adaptation rather than translation, 138-139.116 I included this term wo/man as an alternative to always assuming Native Americans only have medicine men. Sometimes I include this term as a reminder, while at other times I reiterate individual interpretations of the voice of the person under discussion.117 See Powers, William K. (1986). Sacred Language: The Nature of Supernatural Discourse in Lakota. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 191: "Wapiye wakan (curing woman) frequently are the wives of wicasa wakan (sacred man, or medicine man) and assist their husbands in various kinds of curing ceremonies such as Yuwipi. These sacred women, as long as they are past menopause, are also entrusted with overseeing sacred objects used in the ceremonies. A number of keepers of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe at Green Grass, South Dakota, including the present one, have been women."118 See Ebsen’s website with Spiritwalk; See also King, Matthew. (?). Lakota Prophecies. www.crystalinks.com/lakota.html Last viewed August 17, 2005; Anon. (?). The Prophecy of the White Buffalo Calf Woman. www.healinghandsoflight.homestead.com/Sacred_White_Buffalo.html Last viewed August 17, 2005; Medicine Eagle, Brooke. (?). It’s a Miracle!!!. www.medicine-eagle.com/6_5.html Last viewed August 17, 2005.119 This is a special group of traditionalist spiritually chosen to do the ritualistic elements, in simplistic terms, ‘backwards’ or ‘contrary’, while following specific teachings of certain spiritual principles not popularly known to most traditionalists. There is not much within print on this discourse, and I have very limited understanding of the nēhiyāwak (Cree) wīhtikōhkānak (contraries), let alone the Lakota heyoka.120 See Archie Fire Lame Deer & Erdoes, 62.121 This process is similar to what occurred when Black Elk told the narrative of the Pipe to Neihardt and to Epes Brown as will be discussed later.122 Rice 1998, p 23. "Lakota spirituality does not seek to achieve a delicate balance in a person or in the world. For Black Elk, healing means mustering as much power as possible to overwhelm the force of any threat. To heal individual sickness or a people's will to live, Black Elk seeks to restore depleted energy so that his patience can move and think faster than their enemies, so that they can trust their ability to prevail.”123 Ibid, “Manifesting this force is of paramount importance in ceremonies and narratives. The energy transfer it to be holders and listeners sustains them in every circumstance, so that they do not just learn about spiritual energy. Instead, they actually feel it as something real in their bodies."124 Price, Catherine. (1996). The Oglala People, 1841 -- 1879: A Political History. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 49: "The Lakotas could certainly hunt antelope, deer, elk, and other small game instead of the Buffalo, but whether they choose to do so is not the crucial issue from a Lakota perspective. More important is the belief that the Lakotas ancestors were born from the Pte Oyate (the Buffalo Cow Nation); that White Buffalo Cow Woman brought the sacred pipe to the people; and that they, tatanka (the male buffalo relatives), and Maka Ina (Mother Earth) are united in this sacred, harmonious relationship."125 Ibid, “One cannot exist without the other. Should the Buffalo disappear entirely, the tightly woven threads that bind together the Lakotas, the land, and Buffalo in this sacred relationship would begin to unravel.”126 The tangible and the abstract are intertwined in Lakota semiology, with the buffalo being tangible sustenance, as well as psychological and spiritual sustenance. See Rice 1998, p 80: “ust as man does not live by meat alone but from the energy in the meat, so the energy in particular symbols was a practical benefit to maintain the Lakota will to live. The culture emphasizes manifestation, a release of energy from symbol strong enough for people to feel. When the White Buffalo Calf Woman presented the Lakota people with the sacred pipe, the pipe contained the power she imparted to it. People beholding this pipe partake of its power, and Black Elk says that bad people are not permitted to see it at all... When people wish to have their own pipes blessed, they touch them to the original pipe in a special ceremony, but the sacredness also passes less directly and with attenuated force into words about the pipe -- depending, of course, on the purity of the narrative stem.”127 Praus, 19: Here is an example of a winter count entry for 1858 -- "A White Buffalo Killed." Description attributed: "Albino buffaloes were rare and difficult to kill because they generally remained in the center of the herd. They were considered a gift from the Great Spirit and were the center of complex procedures and ceremonies. Many professional buffalo hunters who killed thousands of buffaloes never saw a white one. The High Dog, Swift Dog, Jaw, and Jaw Variant counts, in either text or pictograph, record the same event."128 Taylor, Colin, 51. “In most of the complex ceremonials, the buffalo was recognized as the life-giving gift of the higher powers. The mythology associated with the rare white buffalo epitomizes the revered animal mythology. White buffalo were particularly swift and wary and for this reason, together with their rarity, they were difficult to secure. When a white buffalo was killed, the fatal arrow was purified in smoke from burning sweetgrass, and before the animal was skinned the knife was similarly purified; no blood was to be shed on the hide. Only men who had dreamed of animals were allowed to eat its flesh and only a woman who was noted to have lived a pure life could tan it.”

129 Brown 1992, p75. "The association of these rare white robes with the White Buffalo Woman is evident.... (as well as) the fact that ‘the white buffalo is rare and generally remains near the center of the herd.’ This makes it difficult to approach, and therefore it is considered as the Chief or sacred one of the herd. This robe, consequently, is highly prized by the Indian. In accord with the special position of the sacred robe, elaborate ritual details were observed, both in obtaining the animal and preparing the hide.”130 Rice 1989, 163.131 Marla Powers, 71.132 Ibid, 212: “the successful Oglala woman glides along a most precarious continuum, back and forth from behaving as the ideal wife and mother whose role it is, as in the old days, to carry out the dictates of the White Buffalo Calf Woman—to reproduce and to nurture future generations of Oglala people, makes and females. But she will also have the capacity to occupy the same position as a male with respect to community, district, and tribal activities and programs, recognizing that the men will not compete with her for female roles and responsibilities.” Both a feminine analysis of the White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative itself, and its role in the identity of Lakota women would be great research projects in the future.133 Rice 1989, 163. “In leaving as a ‘pte’ ‘buffalo cow’ she demonstrates the temporality of her own embodiment as well as the continuity of generous provision associated with the Tatanka Oyate (the buffalo people). So too, the storyteller will conclude a manifestation to transmit an essence. Fools Crow’s words form a bundle like the woman carried.”

134 Milne, Courtney and Sherrill Miller. (1998). Visions of the Goddess. Toronto: Penguin, 21: “she then left the camp, transforming herself into a white buffalo”; Miller’s website includes Floyd Hand’s version – “As she walked away she turned into a young white buffalo”; Lame Deer & Erdoes, 255 – “As the people watched, the beautiful woman turned into a white buffalo. It kept on walking toward the horizon until it finally disappeared. This too is good to think about, easy to understand.” This is a much simpler ending compared to his first version in 1967; Taylor, C.J. (1993). The Secret of the White Buffalo: An Oglala Legend. Montreal: Tundra Books, White Buffalo Calf Woman “rose and walked out of the tipi. The people separated to let her pass. They watched as she moved through the village and into the fields. Suddenly she began to run, and as she ran, she was transformed into a magnificent white buffalo”; Neihardt, 5, “Then she sang again and went out of the teepee; and as the people watched her going, suddenly it was a white bison galloping away and snorting, and soon it was gone”; and, DeMallie, Raymond J. (1984). The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk’s Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 285, “As she went out of the tipi everyone say a white buffalo kicking up her hind legs and leaving in a hurry, snorting as she went.”135 Ebsen website – attributed to Black Elk, but more a combination of Walker and Neihardt’s Black Elk rendition: “As she leaves, a cloud forms… and as it clears, they see a white buffalo.”136 See Bastian, Dawn E. & Judy K. Mitchell. (2004). Handbook of Native American mythology. Santa Barbara, Ca: ABC-Clio. (Lame Deer version) “Going in the same direction from which she had come, she stopped and rolled over four times”; Martin website is like Lame Deer’s 1967 version; and Miller’s website. 137 Bonvillian, Nancy. (1996). Native American Religion. New York: Chelsea House, 45. Her version includes Lame Deer’s 1972 versions ending with the four shape shifting changes, but her entire version is made up of the components and details of many different storyteller’s versions, picked over for details that Bonvillian personally chose to include to make up her interpretive version; See also LaPointe, James. (1976). Legends of the Lakota. San Fransisco: Indian Historian, 26, “The akicita (order keepers) opened a way for her eastward. The immaculate woman walked away with dignity, as the audience watched in awed silence. After walking some distance, she sat down. When she arose, a transformation was seen. Once again there was a little brown calf trotting along. And then there was a series of changes: The little calf rolled over, and there arose a nearly mature calf. In turn the calf now changed into a fully mature cow. And then, before going out of sight, the people say a shaggy, bony cow barely moving.” (interpreted as the life cycle); and Weiser, Kathy R. (2003-2005). Native American Legends: Legend of the White Buffalo. www.legendsofamerica.com/NA-WhiteBuffalo.html Last viewed July 18, 2005. “She walked a short distance, she looked back towards the people and sat down. When she arose they were amazed to see she had become a black buffalo. Walking a little further, the buffalo laid down, this time arising as a yellow buffalo. The third time the buffalo walked a little further and this time arose as a red buffalo. Walking a little further it rolled on the ground and rose one last time as a white buffalo calf signaling the fulfillment of the White Buffalo Calf prophecy.” (four colors of man and directions).138 Rice, 110.

139 McLauglin, Marie L. (1916). Myths and Legends of the Sioux. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/modeng/public/MclMyth.html Last updated by Judy Boss in 1999: Last viewed August 19, 2005: White Buffalo Woman “turned again to a buffalo cow and fled away to the land of the buffaloes”; and Archie Fire Lame Deer & Erdoes, 205. “When her work was done, she told the people, ‘I must leave you, but follow me to the top of that hill over there, and you shall no longer be hungry.’ And the Holy Woman walked toward the East. “Awed and thankful, the people followed her at a respectful distance. When she reached the hill she transformed herself into a white buffalo calf and slowly disappeared. Then the people knew for certain that she had been sent by Wakan Tanka.”

140 Joseph Chasing Horse’s version on Miller’s website states, “she left the way she came”; and South Dakota Writer’s Project Work Projects Administration. (1988; reprinted from 1941). Legends of the Mighty Sioux. South Dakota: Self-published, 51. No shape shifting, just simply “left the lodge and disappeared.” There is no reference throughout this version to White Buffalo Calf Woman, only to “a beautiful woman’, but not connected to Fingers’ version and his interpretation of events.141 Brown, Joseph Epes, ed. (1989). The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 9. (original date 1953).142 Hirschfelder, Arlene & Paulette Molin. (1992). The Encyclopedia of Native American Religions: An Introduction. New York: Facts on File, 319. “the holy woman walked sunwise (clock-wise) direction around the tipi, then left. While walking away, she stopped and sat down. When she stood up, the people say that she had been transformed into a red and brown buffalo calf. The calf continued on, stopped, lay down and arose as a white buffalo. The white buffalo repeated the same actions, becoming a black buffalo. This buffalo bowed to each quarter of the universe and then vanished from view.” (Black Elk version); See also Stanton, Jeff. (1995). White Buffalo Calf Woman. http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/kaleidoscope/volume6/page8.html Last viewed August 18, 2005. “Once the teachings were completed, she told the tribe to follow her to a near-by hill, and they would no longer be hungry. She then walked east, and as she came to the top of the hill, she transformed into a white buffalo calf. Before she disappeared from their sight, she changed color twice, first to brown and then to a reddish color”; and Bleeker, Sonia. (1962). The Sioux Indians: Hunters and Warriors of the Plains. New York: William Morrow & co, 34-35. “A short distance from the tipi the maiden stopped. She lay down on the ground and turned into a buffalo calf. A while later, as the astonished people watched, she lay down again, rolled over, and arose as a white buffalo…. As the people continued watching, the white buffalo lay down once more, rolled over, and became a dark buffalo.”143 Neihardt 5.144 See Lame Deer’s version included here; It is as if Walker is trying to connect the act of smudging with the larger ceremonial fire, but this argument is outside of the scope of this paper. 145 A feminist analysis is needed in all of these versions, such as why the shamans were officiating but the women were the fire builders, or in Lone Man’s version as ‘women are weak’. 146 Brown 1992, p74. “Actually, only one of the seven central rites of the Oglala plus the rite of the pipe were said to be directly revealed by this legendary Culture Heroine. Nevertheless, she foretold and sanctioned the successive appearance of the remainder of the rites to be received through the individual vision experience.”147 Prophetic-orientated version – Joseph Chasing Horse – See Giese, Paula. (1995-1996). White Buffalo Calf Woman Brings The First Pipe As Told by: Joseph Chasing Horse. www.kstrom.net/isk/arvol/buffpipe.html Last viewed August 17, 2005; See also www.gbso.net/Skyhawk/html/woman.html Last updated June 19th, 1996: Last viewed August 17, 2005; and www.impurplehawk.com/legend.html Last viewed August 17, 2005; and also, Stanton website. “Looking Horse says that now is the time for healing of the sacred hoop to begin and is also time for the Lakota ‘to take their rightful place in leading the people toward peace and balance once again.’” (June 21st, 1996 – day of prayer for world peace and the return of the holy lands to the Indian nations in the Black Hills of South Dakota).148 Stanton website. “Within the teachings, it is said that Ptesan Win told the people, ‘I will return again some day, and then it will be for always. Then there will be a new life and a new understanding.” 149 Milne & Miller, 21. “She told them this was the third of seven revelations for the Oglala Sioux…. In the late 1800s, Black Elk, the great Lakota holy man, prophesied the return of the White Buffalo Calf Woman in seven generations, when she would restore tranquility to a troubled world. In August, 1994, in Janesville, Wisconsin, a white buffalo calf was born, reinforcing the belief in the return of White Buffalo Calf Woman to unify nations and bring harmony to the world.” 150 Brown, 9. “Remember, in me there are four ages. I am leaving now, but I shall look back upon your people in every age, and at the end I shall return. (Black Elk). The accompanying footnote states: “According to Siouan mythology, it is believed that at the beginning of the cycle a buffalo was placed at the west in order to hold back the waters. Every year this buffalo loses one hair, and every age he loses one leg. When all his hair and all four legs are gone, then the waters rush in once again, and the cycle comes to an end.” This would make a wonderful cross-cultural contrast with the Asian divisions of time.151 Prophesy and the birth of Miracle and the other white calves is topics covered on the Michael website; see also Miller’s website – Joseph Chasing Horse’s version – “And when she promised to return again, she made some prophesies at that time…One of those prophesies was that the birth of a white buffalo calf would be a sign that it would be near the time when she would return again to purify the world”; and see Pickering, Robert B. (1997). Seeing the White Buffalo. Denver: Denver Museum of Natural History, 3. “Some Plains Indians consider the return of the White Buffalo Woman as comparable to the second coming of Christ. Could the little white buffalo calf born on an August night in the Heiders’ pasture be the fulfillment of the prophecy? It was this possibility that excited the Indian community.” (Miracle born late summer of 1994).152 Bastian & Mitchell. “The prophecy of the White Buffalo Woman’s return appeared to be fulfilled by the appearance of a female buffalo calf on August 20, 1994, on a farm near Janesville, Wisconsin. Named Miracle, she was considered to be the first white buffalo calf (she is not albino) born since 1933. Like the buffalo in the story, she has changed color four times. Another sacred white buffalo calf, Wahos’I, was born on August 7, 2001, in Vanderbilt, Michigan. And four white buffalo calves were born on a ranch in Westhope, North Dakota, between August 17 and September 2, 2002. Miracle’s birth focused the world’s attention on the story of the White Buffalo Woman and inspired modern

interpretations of it.”153 Ferguson, Diane. (2001). Native American Myths. London: Collins & Brown, 103. “according to traditional Lakota Sioux, only one white buffalo calf is born every four generations, appearing, like a saviour, in times of great trouble.”154 Ostler, Jeffrey. (2004). The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee. New York: Cambridge University, 129. “Sitting Bull often wore a ‘bunch of shed buffalo hair painted red, fastened on the side of his head’ as a reminder of the coming of the White Buffalo Calf Woman. This indicated more than a simple nostalgia for an irretrievable past. For Sitting Bull, the story of the coming of the White Buffalo Calf Woman continued to have meaning.”155 Rice 1998, p 80. "Power is wakan, but its expression requires a physical body. Black Elk includes the woman's song as she approaches the elders assembled to receive the pipe. The song emphasizes manifestations, her ‘visible breath,’ the voice she is ‘sending,’ the ‘sacred manner’ of her walking, and the ‘visible tracks’ she leaves." 156 McKinney, Smokey. (1994). White Buffalo Calf Biblio-Historical References. http://nativenet.uthscsa.edu/archive/nc/9411/0018.html Last viewed August 17, 2005.157 For example, in nēhiyāwiwin (the Cree language), animation and verb association is the defining basis of the nouns.158 Rice 1989, 44, in reference to the aforementioned quoted song159 Taylor, Colin, 41. “There seems to be something within the unique environment of the Great Plains which causes a people to live with such vivid intensity and an awareness and wonder of the things around them. The Plains Indian was so much in daily association with his environment and so dependent upon it, that not only animals but plant life and even some inanimate objects were believed to have a spiritual existence. There was an awareness of a great power – the energy or moving force of the universe – which, in the sacred language of the Lakota shamans, was called Skan or To and the blue of the sky symbolized its presence. This was distinct from physical power and it could act in different ways for good or evil. It was against this background that ritual and ceremonial of the Plains tribes was set – the harnessing of this power to best effect, both at the individual and tribal level.”160 An example to bridge this understanding is shown in Archie Fire Lame Deer & Erdoes 1992, 201. “The Pipe itself is not sacred. It is the way in which we use it and the prayers we say when smoking it that makes it holy. A Pipe is a manmade, material thing until it has been used in a ceremony, prayed over, and blessed. Then a Pipe becomes sacred. Then you can feel a Pipe’s power and its spiritual vibration as you hold it in your hand.” Both the Pipe (product) and its use (process) are needed.161 DeMallie, Raymond J. & Douglas R. Parks, eds. (1987). Sioux Indian Religion: Tradition and Innovation. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 52.162 Ibid.163 Torrance, 6.164 Ibid.165 DeMallie & Parks, 52. “Thus the story reveals the basis for the strong Lakota preference for narratives depicting relationships between human beings and spirits in historical terms.”166 DeMallie & Parks, 54, quoting Alice Fletcher. 167 Torrance, 15. “The subjective thinker has no finite goal towards which he strives and which he could reach and be finished: ‘No, he strives infinitely, is constantly in process of becoming.”168 DeMallie & Parks, 53. “Because of this intense concern with how the sacred manifests itself in real places and in times remembered in definite tribal histories, stories that explain how the world first came into being and then achieved its current form held a less important place than those that tell how a particular, definite relationship between human beings and spirits came about and is perpetuated in ritual. Another way of stating the same thing is to say that the Lakota emphasis was far less on an original genesis than it was on the ongoing genesis which is the basis of sacred history. Creation is never over and done with. There is no clockmaker divinity in this tradition. The sacred intersects with human history, establishing what we might call the relational myth of origin.”169 See James G. Frazer and many other theorists of his time for theories about returning to the ‘primordial past.’170 Torrance, 15. “Since human life is by nature ‘steady striving and a continuous meanwhile,’ the religious aspirant will renounce the mirage of absolute truth in this world for the road leading toward it.”171 Rice 1989, 44; see also Lame Deer & Erdoes, 255. “This too is good to think about, easy to understand. The buffalo was part of us, his flesh and blood being absorbed by us until it became our own flesh and blood. Our clothing, our tipis, everything we needed for life came from the buffalo’s body. It was hard to say where the animal ended and the man began.”172 Lame Deer & Erdoes 1972, 254-255.173 In oral traditions, storytelling is a ritual process and is considered as having oral healing properties. The details of the rituals (the story) point to the process (storytelling that activates the powers/ behind the rituals, the meanings interacting to create transformation and empowerment which is the purpose or intention of healing and the Lakota, and other Native Americans, belief in medicine. This can be seen as parallel with the Euroculture’s belief in scientific medicine, with ritual medicine being described as scientific within their process orientation.174 DeMallie & Parks, 55-56.175 Walker 1991, 30.176 Gibbon, 151.177 DeMallie & Parks, 54.

178 Torrance, 16.179 Walker, James R. (1982). Lakota Society. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, xiii. 180 DeMallie & Parks, 56.181 Archie Fire Lame Deer & Erdoes, 205; see also Torrance, 9: “In the solidarity of tribal society our accustomed antithesis of individual and group would no doubt be inconceivable.”182 Doty, William S. (2000). Mythography: The Study of Myths and Rituals, 2 nd Ed . Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama, 466. Mythic analysis “will be shaped by what is available—whether with respect to contextual information about myth or ritual, or with respect to the skills available to the mythographer (few analysts of Native American myths are fluent in the relevant languages, as a case in point), the politics/praxis of the analysis, and intended audiences.”183 Lame Deer & Erdoes, 251. “If an Indian tries to talk about it (the pipe), he is easily lost. Our minds are not good enough to understand all of it. It is so sacred that it makes me want not to tell all I know about it. No matter how old I am, how long I thought about it, how much I’ve learned, I never feel quite ready to talk about the pipe.”184 See Brass, Eleanor. (1978). “White Buffalo Woman,” Medicine Boy and Other Cree Tales. Calgary: Glenbow Museum, for a nēhiyāwak (Cree) story that is nothing like the Lakota narrative.185 Torrance, 14.186 Leeming & Page, x. 187 Ibid,ix-x.

Bibliography

Agbakoba, J.C. Achike. (2005). “Ideology, Empirical Sciences, and Modern Philosophical Systems,” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, 10, 116-125, http://hiphi.ubbcluj.ro/JSRI/html%20version/index/no_10/jcakikeag-articol.htm Last viewed July 28, 2005.

Allen, Paula Gunn. (1989). Spider Woman’s Granddaughters: Traditional Tales and Contemporary Writing by Native American Women. New York: Fawcett Columbine.

(1986). The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Boston: Beacon.

Anon. (2000). Guidelines for Respecting Cultural Knowledge. Anchorage: Alaska Native Knowledge Network.

Anon. (?). The Prophecy of the White Buffalo Calf Woman. www.healinghandsoflight.homestead.com/Sacred_White_Buffalo.html Last viewed August 17, 2005.

Anon. (?). White Buffalo Calf Woman: White Buffalo Calf Woman Goddess of Peace and the Mother of Life. www.goddessgift.com/goddess-myths/goddess_white_buffalo_calf_woman.htm Last viewed August 16, 2005.

Armstrong, Jeannette C. & Lally Grauer. (2001). Native Poetry in Canada: A Contemporary Anthology. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press.

Arntz, William & et al. (2004). What the Bleep Do we (k)now !?. Beverly Hills, CA: Twentieth Century Fox.Baron, R.A., et al. (2005). Exploring Social Psychology, 4th ed. Toronto: Pearson.Bastian, Dawn E. & Judy K. Mitchell. (2004). Handbook of Native American mythology. Santa

Barbara, Ca: ABC-Clio.Bauman, Richard, ed. (1992). Folklore, Cultural Performances, and Popular Entertainments: A

Communications-centered Handbook. New York: Oxford University. Bell, Catherine. (1992). Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford.Benge, Barbara. (2004). Lakota Page: The Great Sioux Nation.

http://members.aol.com/bbbenge/page6.html Last updated July 30, 2004: Last viewed August

5, 2005.Berry, J.W. & et al, eds. (1988). Indigenous Cognition: Functioning in Cultural Context. Boston:

Martinus Nijhoff.

Berry, J.W. & P.R. Dasen, eds. (1974). Culture and Cognition: Readings in Cross-Cultural Psychology. London: Methuen.

Bierhorst, John. (1985). The Mythology of Native Americans. New York: William Morrow. Blaeser, Kimberly M. (1996). Gerald Vizenor: Writing in the Oral Tradition. Norman: University of

Oklahoma, 41.Bleeker, Sonia. (1962). The Sioux Indians: Hunters and Warriors of the Plains. New York: William

Morrow & co.Bonvillian, Nancy. (1996). Native American Religion. New York: Chelsea House.Bopp, Judie et al. (1989). The Sacred Tree: Reflections on Native American Spirituality, 3 rd ed .

Twin Lakes, MI: Lotus Light.Brass, Eleanor. (1978). “White Buffalo Woman,” Medicine Boy and Other Cree Tales. Calgary:

Glenbow Museum.Brown, Joseph Epes. (1992). Animals of the Soul: Sacred Animals of the Oglala Sioux. Rockport,

Mass: Element.editor. (1989). The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux.

Norman: University of Oklahoma.Brunvand, Jan Harold. (1968). The Study of American Folklore: An Introduction. New York: W.W.

Norton. Calloway, Colin G. (2003). One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis and

Clark. Lincoln: University of NebraskaCampbell, Joseph. (1988). The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday, 22.

(1986). Primitive Mythology: The Masks of God. New York: Penguin. Cooper, Julie Spotted Eagle Horse. (2001-2005). “The Legend of the White Buffalo Calf Woman,”

BellaOnline: Native American. http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art17027.asp Last viewed July 18, 2005.

DeMallie, Raymond J. (1984). The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk’s Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt. Lincoln: University of Nebraska.& Douglas R. Parks, eds. (1987). Sioux Indian Religion: Tradition and Innovation. Norman: University of Oklahoma.

Densmore, Frances. (1992; reprinted from 1918). Teton Sioux Music and Culture. Lincoln: University of Nebraska.

Dooling, D.M., ed. (2000). The Sons of the Wind: The Sacred Stories of the Lakota (from the James R. Walker Collection). Norman: University of Oklahoma.

Doty, William S. (2000). Mythography: The Study of Myths and Rituals, 2 nd Ed . Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama.

Dundes, Alan, ed. (1984). Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Berkeley: University of California.

Ebsen, Roger. (1997). Spiritwalk Readings: White Buffalo Calf Woman. www.spiritwalk.org/whitebuffalowoman.htm Last revised December 8, 2002: Last viewed July 18, 2005.

Eliot, Alexander. (1993). The Global Myths: Exploring Primitive, Pagan, Sacred, and Scientific Mythologies. New York: Meridian.

Erdoes, Richard and Alfonso Ortiz, eds. (1984). American Indian Myths and Legends. New York: Pantheon.

Ermine, Willie et al. (2004). The Ethics of Research Involving Indigenous Peoples: Report of the Indigenous Peoples’ Health Research Centre to the Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics. Regina: Indigenous Peoples’ Health Research Centre. www.iphrc.ca/text/Ethics

%20Review%20IPHRC.doc Last viewed July 26, 2005.Erndl, Kathleen M. (1993). Victory to the Mother: The Hindu Goddess of Northwest India in Myth,

Ritual, and Symbol. New York: Oxford.Ferguson, Diane. (2001). Native American Myths. London: Collins & Brown.Gennep, Arnold Van. (1960). The Rites of Passage. Chicago: University of Chicago. Gibbon, Guy. (2003). The Sioux: The Dakota and Lakota Nations.Cornwall: Blackwell.Giese, Paula. (1995-1996). White Buffalo Calf Woman Brings The First Pipe As Told by: Joseph

Chasing Horse. www.kstrom.net/isk/arvol/buffpipe.html Last viewed August 17, 2005.Gill, Sam D. & Irene F. Sullivan. (1992). Dictionary of Native American Mythology. New York:

Oxford University Press.Hassrick, Royal B. (1964). The Sioux Life and Customs of a Warrior Society. Norman: University

of Oklahoma.Hazen-Hammond, Susan. (1999). Spider Woman’s Web: Traditional Native Tales About Women’s

Power. New York, Perigree.Hintamaheca. (2005). No title but posting on ThunderDreamers.com.

http://www.thunderdreamers.com/cgi-bin/cutecast/cutecast.pl?forum=3&thread=158 Site maintained by Joseph Marshall III: copyrighted by Joseph Marshall III and Wolftrail Productions, 2002. Last viewed August 11, 2005.

Hirschfelder, Arlene & Paulette Molin. (1992). The Encyclopedia of Native American Religions: An Introduction. New York: Facts on File.

Hollabaugh, Mark. (1997). Lakota Celestial Imagery: Spirit and Sky. http://faculty.normandale.edu/~physics/Hollabaugh/Lakota/CWSConference.htm Last updated March 1st, 2003: Last viewed August 16, 2005.

Holler, Clyde. (1995). Black Elk’s Religion: The Sun Dance and Lakota Catholicism. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University.

Howe, Oscar. (1988; reprinted from 1941). Legends of the Mighty Sioux. South Dakota: Workers of the South Dakota Writer’s Project Work Projects Administration.

King, Matthew. (?). Lakota Prophecies. www.crystalinks.com/lakota.html Last viewed August 17, 2005.

Kishani, Bongasu Tanla. (2001). “On the interface of philosophy and language in Africa: some practical and theoretical considerations,” African Studies Review, v44 i3, 27- 45.

Koral, Euny Hong. (1999). “ ‘The Broken Estate’ and ‘When the Kissing Had to Stop’,” Salon E-zine, July 1. www.salon.com/books/review/1999/07/01/wood_leonard/print.html Last viewed July 26, 2005.

Kottak, Conrad Phillip. (2000). Cultural Anthropology, 8 th ed. . Boston: McGraw Hill. Lame Deer, John Fire. (1967). White Buffalo Calf Woman Brings the First Pipe. Web page

designed by Paula Giese. www.kstrom.net/isk/arvol/lamedeer.html Last viewed May 23, 2005.

& Richard Erdoes. (1992). Gift of Power: The Life and Teachings of a Lakota Medicine Man. Sante Fe: Bear and Co.

& Richard Erdoes. (1972). Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions. New York: Simon and Schuster. & Richard Erdoes. (1972). White Buffalo Calf Woman. www.roxirulz.com/whitebuffalo.asp

Last viewed May 23, 2005.LaPointe, James. (1976). Legends of the Lakota. San Fransisco: Indian Historian.Larson, Robert W. (1997) Red Cloud: Warrior-Statesman of the Lakota Sioux. Norman: University

of Oklahoma.Leeming, David & Jake Page. (1998). The Mythology of Native North America. Norman:

University of Oklahoma.Levi-Strauss, Claude. (1966). The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago.Marriott, Alice and Carol K. Rachlin. (1975). Plains Indian Mythology. New York: New American

Library.

McCoy, Edain. (2000). Celtic Myth and Magick: Harnessing the Power of the Gods and Goddesses. St. Paul: Llewellyn.

McKinney, Smokey. (1994). White Buffalo Calf Biblio-Historical References. http://nativenet.uthscsa.edu/archive/nc/9411/0018.html Last viewed August 17, 2005.

McLauglin, Marie L. (1916). Myths and Legends of the Sioux. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/modeng/public/MclMyth.html Last updated by Judy Boss in 1999: Last viewed August 19, 2005.

McLeod, Neal. (2002). “nēhiyāwiwin and Modernity,” Plains Speaking: Essays on Aboriginal Peoples and the Prairies. Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center.

Medicine Eagle, Brooke. (?). It’s a Miracle!!!. www.medicine-eagle.com/6_5.html Last viewed August 17, 2005.

Michael. (?). White Buffalo Calf Woman and World Redemption. www.world-action.co.uk/buffalo1.html Last viewed July 28, 2005.

Milne, Courtney and Sherrill Miller. (1998). Visions of the Goddess. Toronto: Penguin.Neihardt, John G. (1961). Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala

Sioux. Lincoln: University of Nebraska.Nichols, Ross. (1990). The Book of Druidry. London: Thorsons.O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. (1988). Other People’s Myths. New York: MacMillan.Olupona, Jacob K., ed. (2004). Beyond Primitivism: Indigenous Religious Traditions and

Modernity. New York: Routledge.Ostler, Jeffrey. (2004). The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded

Knee. New York: Cambridge University.Panther-Yates, Donald. (2001). Remarks on Native American Tribal Religions, a speech given on

March 5 th , at Russell Union 2080, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia . http://www.wintercount.org/remark.doc Last viewed July 28, 2005.

Peterson, Robyn (Douglas). (2001). Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions. www.wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/lamedeer.html Last updated April, 2001: Last viewed July 26, 2005.

Pickering, Robert B. (1997). Seeing the White Buffalo. Denver: Denver Museum of Natural History.

Powers, Marla N. (1986). Oglala Women: Myth, Ritual, and Reality. Chicago: University of Chicago.

Powers, William K. (1986). Sacred Language: The Nature of Supernatural Discourse in Lakota. Norman: University of Oklahoma.

Praus, Alexis. (1962). The Sioux, 1798-1922: A Dakota Winter Count, Bulletin Number 44. Bloomfield Hills, Michigan: Cranbrook Institute of Science.

Price, Catherine. (1996). The Oglala People, 1841 -- 1879: A Political History. Lincoln: University of Nebraska.

Redhawk, William. (1995). Buffalo Calf Woman: White Buffalo Calf Woman (Ptecincala Ska Wakan) The Gift of the Sacred Pipe. www.siouxme.com/buffcalf.html Last updated May 20th, 2004: Last viewed August 16, 2005.

Rice, Julian. (1998). Before the Great Spirit: The Many Faces of Sioux Spirituality. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico.

(1991). Black Elk’s Story: Distinguishing Its Lakota Purpose. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico.

Richter, Matthew. (1997). The True Meaning of the Pipe and the White Buffalo Calf Prophesy. www.iwchildren.org/Story/trio.htm Last viewed July 28, 2005.

Ross, Rupert. (1996). Returning to the Teachings: Exploring Aboriginal Justice. New York: Penguin.

(1992). Dancing with a Ghost: Exploring Indian Reality. Markham, ON: Octopus.Said, Edward. (2003). Culture and Resistance: Conversations with Edward Said (and David

Barsamian). Cambridge: South End.

Segall, Marshall H. & et al. (1999). Human Behaviour in Global Perspective: An Introduction to Cross-Cultural Psychology. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Sienkewicz, Thomas J. (1996). Types of Myth. http://department.monm.edu/classics/Courses/CLAS230/MythDocuments/types_of_myth.htm Last viewed July 28, 2005.

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. (2002). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books.

Stanton, Jeff. (1995). White Buffalo Calf Woman. http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/kaleidoscope/volume6/page8.html Last viewed August 18, 2005.

Steltenkamp, Michael F. (1993). Black Elk: Holy Man of the Oglala. Norman: University of Oklahoma.

Sykes, J.B. ed. (1982). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, Based on the Oxford English Dictionary and its Supplements. Oxford: Clarendon.

Talbot, Michael. (1991). The Holographic Universe. New York: Harper Perennial.Taylor, Bron. (2001). “Earth and Nature-Based Spirituality (Part 1): From Deep Ecology to Radical

Environmentalism,” Religion, 31, 175-193. www.religionandnature.com/ bron/arts/Taylor—Religion31(2).pdf Last viewed July 28, 2005.

(2001). “Earth and Nature-Based Spirituality (Part 2): From Earth First! And Bioregionalism to Scientific Paganism and the New Age,” Religion, 31, 225-245. www.religionandnature.com/ bron/arts/Taylor--Religion31(3).pdf Last viewed July 28, 2005.

Taylor, C.J. (1993). The Secret of the White Buffalo: An Oglala Legend. Montreal: Tundra Books.Taylor, Colin F, editorial consultant. (1994). Native American Myths and Legends. Vancouver:

Cavendish.Taylor, Drew Hayden. (2000). alterNatives. Toronto: Talonbooks. Tinker, George E. (2004). Spirit and Resistance: Political Theology and American Indian

Liberation. Minneapolis: Fortress.Torrance, Robert M. (1994). The Spiritual Quest: Transcendence in Myth, Religion, and Science.

Berkeley: University of California.Turner, Dr. Ray. (2004). The White Buffalo Prophecy: The Legend of the White Buffalo Calf

Woman. www.whitebuffalopress.com/wbuffalo1.htm Last viewed August 16, 2005.Ulrich, Melanie. (2003). Definitions of Othering (From Various Online Sources).

http://cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/rww03/othering.htm Last updated April, 2003: Last viewed August 16, 2005.

Versluis, Arthur. (1992). Sacred Earth: The Spiritual Landscape of Native America. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions.

Walker, J.W. (1917). The Sun Dance and Other Ceremonies of the Oglala Division of the Teton Dakota. New York: Order of the Trustees of the Museum of National History.

Walker, James R. (1991). Lakota Belief and Ritual, ed. by Raymond J. DeMallie & Elaine A. Jahner. Lincoln: University of Nebraska.

(1982). Lakota Society. Lincoln: University of Nebraska. Wambli Ska, Ben. (1999-2000). White Buffalo Calf Woman.

www.benwhiteeagle.com/Story3_1.htm Last viewed August 16, 2005.Weiser, Kathy R. (2003-2005). Native American Legends: Legend of the White Buffalo.

www.legendsofamerica.com/NA-WhiteBuffalo.html Last viewed July 18, 2005.Whitehouse, Harvey. (2000). Arguments and Icons: Divergent Modes of Religiosity. New York:

Oxford University.Wolvengrey, Arok., compiler. (2001). Nēhiyawēwin: itwēwina (Cree: Words), Vol 1&2. Regina:

Canadian Plains Research Center.Wulff, David M. (1997). Psychology of Religion: Classic and Contemporary, 2 nd ed . New York:

John Wiley & Sons.Zauhar, Dr. Frances Murphy. (2000). Black Elk Page: Summary of Black Elk.

www.facweb.stvincent.edu/academics/english/E1251/251blackelk.html Last viewed August

16, 2005.