Lakota Journeys Among the Stars

Tipis, Death, Birth, and Leadership

Relationship Between Sky and Land

• Seven Little Girls (Pleiades)– Tied to Harney Peak

• The Race Track– Tied to Black Hills

– Site of a race between 4 and 2 legged

• Bear’s Lodge– Tied to Devil’s Tower

Spring Journey to the Black Hills

• Sacred Hoop– Everything contained

inside

• Between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice

Sacred Journey

Transformation of the Landscape

• Sun, Buffalo and Earth’s Fertility

• Sun Dance enlivens the Earth– Body of the Buffalo

Sun Dance of the Lakota

Freedoms: of Religion and Movement

• Calculating the first Spring Journey– 1000-100 BC[E]

– Precession

– Correlating dawn at Spring Equinox with Celestial Pipe ceremony• Summer Solstice with

Devil’s Tower Constellation

Orientation of the Tipi

• Foundation of 3 poles– Inner shape of a star

• Centered on star• 7 directional poles– E, W, N, S, above,

below, center

• 2 poles outside open to sky– Breath spirit in and

out

• Similar to Sun Dance

Religion as Orientation

• Orientation is the triumph over chaos, and the basis of all respect for the natural world

• Mirroring• ”When the Lakota build a tipi, they are building a

world. When they dance the invisible tipi alive at the Sun Dance, they are renewing the world, and at the same time, they are rebuilding themselves. Whether star, tipi, world, Sun Dance or human being--the irreducible elements are the same for microcosm or macrocosm.”(18)

Horizon Astronomy

Sky and Land

Heliacal risings and settings

Relationship of Sun to constellations

Connected with specific places

Lakota Journey After Death

• Milky Way is path of the Dead– Example of Fallen Star

• Mother material; Father spiritual– Body returns to Mother Earth (Grandmother)

– Spirit returns to Father Sky (Grandfather)

– Both sacred realms

Celestial Hole in the Sky

• Center of the Big Dipper is a former star– Hole made by Fallen

Star’s mother

– Blue Woman

• 4 stars of dipper called “man carriers”

The Point of a Funeral

• The spirit of the dead person is guided by the mourners

• Along the three stars of the handle of the Big Dipper to the Sacred Hoop – Associated with a round

dome-shaped structure or sweat lodge used in the Lakota ceremony of purification.

The Land of the Dead

• After ceremony spirit travels along Milky Way

• Leads to place in SW sky– which is a place of happy

reunions with friends and family, ceremonial singing, food and water, and loss of obsessions and insults

• Black Elk’s journey– “Happy Hunting Ground

s”

• Day of the Dead

The Hand Constellation, or, How the Chief Lost his Arm

• Chief’s selfishness upsets the balance of cosmic order

• Disappearance of Hand constellation in early spring is sign of the loss of Earth’s fertility– Followed by the Self-Sacrifice of Lakota at Sun

Dance– Reappearance of the Hand confirms Self-

Sacrifice

Lakota Mandala

• Two Tipis joined at apex

• Whirling– Energetic exchange

between Sky and Earth

• 3 Dimensional– Directions

– Heart

Lakota Midwifery

• Coming back

• Diet of pregnant woman– Charlotte Black Elk; each week a fast and 4

meat groups• Underwater, underground, on earth, above earth

• First Kick Ceremony

Lakota Midwife

• Expert in medicines

• Prayed to Blue Woman, or Birth Woman– Spirits enter the body through the sky hole

– Reincarnation• Baby inspected for marks

– Navel kept by midwife• Put in beaded pouch associated with Salamander (boy) or

Turtle (girl) Constellations

• “The cord between mother and child is broken at birth, but the cord between the spirit world and children, that connection must be established and then never broken.”

Nagi, or Soul

• Chooses parents

• Baby’s nagi faces inward to divine spirit

• Needs to be persuaded to stay in body– Eating good, playing hard

– Nagi becomes more attached to body

– Sudden loss of Nagi results in death• Return to the Land of the Dead

Summation

• Intimate connection between Sky and Earth• Why the Black Hills are sacred for Black

Elk• Religion as Orientation (Indigenous)– Basis of respect for cosmos– Disorientation (Immigrant) is cause of

disrespect