The Native American culture has such rich history and advanced forms of spiritual connections to the cosmos, their, ancestors, and to nature. The focus will be on the Lakota tribe mostly from the Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions book. Their spiritual connection to nature is outstanding and their rituals such as the smoking of the pipe and the journey Lame Deer takes for his initiation into the tribe as a man. Incorporating theories about myth and ritual from Eliade and Bell, there can be a deeper reading of the way the Lakota tribe connects to the cosmos through their lifestyle. Every act is sacred and the visions of the medicine men are important aspects of how the tribe connects to their ancestors and participate in festivals to invoke them. The Lakota tribe have numerous rituals that connects them to the sacredness of the transcendence and immanence of the world.
Moreover, one of the most important rituals that defines the Lakota tribe’s connection to nature is the initiation. Lame Deer describes his experience from being a boy to becoming a man, which includes a journey which entails an out of body experience where the ancestors name him and is connected to nature by understanding an eagle with the gift of speech. “I took the sacred pipe in my other hand and began to sit and pray: ‘Tunkashila, grandfather spirit, help me. But this did not help. I don’t know what got into me…I started to cry. Crying, even my voice was different. I sounded like an older man, I couldn’t even recognize this strange voice” (Erodes 5). In this aspect, the reader understands that Lame Deer starts out as a boy who is in a empty pit on a hilltop with materials his family gave him. Forty pieces of his grandmother’s flesh, a rattle to comfort him when he is scared and other items. When he sees the bird for the first time, it frightens him and he understood it was a sacred bird giving him a message from the cosmos. In addition, he also begins to notice he sounds older which indicates he is transforming into a man because of the initiation process. What occurs after is the out of body experience that confirms his new title as medicine man and the making of a boy into a man that is ready to contribute to his tribe. “All at once I was way up with the birds…I could look down even on the stars, and the moon was close to my left side. It seemed as though the earth and stars were moving below me… ‘You are sacrificing yourself here to be a medicine man…I understood my great-grandfather wanted me to take his name” (6). As Lame Deer looks down upon the earth, there are voices of his ancestors that confirm he is to become a medicine man and follow the principles that come along with that responsibility. An image of his great-grandfather also appears to confirm his new name; Lame Deer, a newly initiated medicine man of the Lakota tribe. In this initiation ritual, he starts out as a terrified child on a long journey to become a full member of his tribe. However, the experience made him stronger and the direct connection to the earth, the cosmos and his ancestors allowed him to transform into a medicine man that has taken on responsibilities for his community. He will use his pipe differently and can use the hilltop when receiving visions about his tribe, while also learning about the proper herbs and roots to perform healing rituals for his community. Lame Deer has a profound interconnection with the sacred cosmos and nature and uses this to become a great medicine man for his tribe.
Additionally, this initiation ritual has been discussed by scholars and in Catherine Bell’s Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, she describes the initiation ritual as a rite of passage. The rite of passage are stages where an individual in a community goes through a trial or festival to be admitted as an adult into the community. “In this ritual process, the person leaves behind one social group and its comitant social identity and passes through a stage of no identity or affliction before admission into another social group that confesses a new identity” (Bell 95). Lame Deer leaves the social group of the children and he is alone for four days and nights no longer as a boy but not yet a man. When the transformation occurs, he is part of a new social group with other medicine men. Bell also mentions the example of the Mukanda who imitate boys into their communities to become men by painful circumcision. There are vast amounts of ways people can be initiated into their religious communities, and in the case of Lame Deer, it was a four day journey to a hilltop to relieve his visions and medicine man name. “Sioux men are not afraid to endure hunger, thirst and loneliness, and I was only ninety-six hours away from being a man. The thought was comforting. Comforting too, was the warmth of the star blanket which old man Chest had wrapped around me to cover my nakedness” (Erode 1). The rite of passage is essential for Lame Deer to follow the footsteps of his ancestors as there is no other way to become a medicine man in his tribe. He even compares his experience to the white European family- they sit and watch television together as he endures pain and hunger to make his tribe and ancestors proud.
Aside from the importance of the rite of passage and becoming a medicine man, a ritual performed by the Lakota tribe that connects them to nature is the smoking of the pipe. For instance, Lame Deer describes the significance of the pipe by stating that it connects the earth and sky, and it interacts with the spirit world. It is a connection between the physical earth and spiritual realm. “That smoke from the peace pipe, it goes straight up to the spirit world. But this is a two-way thing. Power flows down to us through that smoke, through the pipe stem. You feel that power as you hold your pipe; it moves from the pipe right into your body…it is alive. Smoking this pipe would make me feel good and help me to get rid of my fears” (Erode 2). The pipe for the Lakota tribe is not simply a stress reliever, it connects them to the spirit world and it goes through everything on earth, the animals, plants and other people. The world is interconnected and it breaks free of the concept of dualisms. The mind, body and spirit are all connected instead of mind over body and good over evil. The earth is more complex and sacred in the Lakota tribe and the ritual of smoking the pipe brings that connection to the earth and cosmos closer.
Additionally, the sun dance is another ritual that is deeply valued in the Lakota tribe and one of the last few rituals they were allowed to do after being persecuted by the European settlers and forced to live a different lifestyle. The people in the tribe inflict pain upon themselves by having the rawhide thong fastened to a skewer tearing the flesh. There is pain as the skewer pierces and rips the skin apart and the individual who has taken part in the ritual is left with a bleeding chest as they endure the pain. The purpose of the sun dance is for the tribe to reconnect with the earth and the spirits surrounding, similarly to the smoking of the pipe ritual. Lame Deer explains why this occurs, “The way I look at it our body is the only thing which truly belongs to us…Everything in nature has been created by the Great Spirit, is a real part of Him. It is only our own flesh which is a real sacrifice—a real giving of ourselves…Well, the sun dance ie all the people communicating with all the mysterious powers. It is the hanblechia of the whole Sioux nation” (Erode 208-209). It is better for the individual to go through the sacrifice than another animal because that would be giving the animal back to the Great Spirit, that is why the Lakota use their bodies for the ceremony because it belongs to them. “There are so many things to do, or not to do during a sun dance that we always put one medicine man in charge of the ceremony to see that everything was done right, that all things used were new and specially made. This man was the intermediary between the people and the mysterious power” (Erode 214). In the sun dance, everyone has a role to complete the ritual and connect the earth to the spirit world. It is carefully planned and organized so there is proper connection to the cosmos.
Furthermore, for Eliade would describe the sun dance ritual as a ceremony to connect with the spiritual realm and bring to to earth in real time, similar to the Akitu Festival. In the Akitu Festival, Marduk comes annually to fight Tiamat and bless the land, and the festival must be done every year for him to arrive. The sun dance is similar, it must be done and planned carefully during a specific time because it is how the tribe is going to connect to the spiritual world. Without all the preparations and the medicine man as the intermediary between the people and the mysterious power, there wouldn’t be a proper connection to the spirit world with the earthly world. This is what enhances their visions and brings contact with their ancestors which sometimes affect the decisions they make based on the vision the medicine man has. For Eliade in Myth and Reality, the sun dance is positively a connection to the cosmos and bringing it to the here and now on earth. “We will only say that, despite the differences between the mythico-ritual systems of the North American tribes…in both cases the Cosmos must be periodically recreated and the cosmogony comes scenario through which the renewal is accomplished is related to the new harvest and the sacramentalization of food” (Eliade 47). He describes a sacred cabin from the sun dance that allows the people to connect to the spiritual realm by having a tall pole reach the heavens and by doing this, the tribe also is getting access to blessings of more food and harvest. “A little way west of the pole they made a square of earth…the sacred place.It contained a measure of power given by the Great Spirit to be used for the people…the cross symbolized the four directions of the wind. Nobody was allowed to step between the pole and the owanka wakan” (Erode 216). The tribe is aware the sacred spaces of the earth and where to put their creations in order to contact the spirits. Every part of their ritual has to do with the connection to the cosmos and their religion, like the Dogon society read in Sproul. People believe they were uneducated primitive groups that did activities that made no sense, but in reality, it has everything to do with their religion. They understand why they do each activity and its significance to the tribe. It is such a beautiful way to be in touch with nature, their bodies and the spiritual world, giving them ideas on how to live in a sacred way.
One ancient ritual in the Native American tribe is the Ghost dance. An old native American man was lost in touch with his religion and wanted to be able to share the stories with his children, therefore, he asked Lame Deer to tell him the story so he can pass the tradition along to his future generations. It is based on a Ute holy man that had a revelation when exposed to the cosmos “That Ute holy man came back to earth with a sacred knowledge. He had been taught things in that new land—a few songs and a dance. By singing and dancing the dead Indians could be made to return to the earth together with the buffalo…my ghost dance is a dance of peace” (Erode 238-239). This is the beginning of some storytelling Lame Deer does to demonstrate the significance of the ghost dance and its origin. It is a resistance to violence and promotes peace and bringing back the deceased people and buffalo to the earth. This sacred dance is equally important to the smoking of the pipe and the sun dance. Some of the ghost dance songs portrayed the practice of hunting but also a deeper meaning of the connection of the earth and cosmos. “They are butchering cows there/They are killing cows/So make your arrow straight/Make an arrow, make an arrow//…The song meant: if you want to go to the new earth you have to make an arrow, and it has to be straight…for this reason bows and arrows were made for the dance and hung up on a pole in the center of the dance ground” (Erode 241). For the earth to be renewed, the ghost dance must have a pole in a sacred space with bows and arrows hanging from it because that is how they invoke the Great Spirit. The Sioux goes through a sacrifice of the body, putting up teepees, and the sacred pole that provides the axis-mundi as the bottom touches the earth and the top reaches to the heavens.
Following the chief of the Lakota tribe, Sitting Bull was greatly involved with the protection of his tribe. In the YouTube documentary “Sitting Bull Chief Lakota (Full) Native American” it is explained that he signed a treaty with George Armstrong Custer, the Sioux were to have rights to the sacred Black Hills. Unfortunately, the treaty was not kept and war broke out. The documentary even showed images of the skulls of buffalo, and one of the soldiers even killed three hundred a day (YouTube). Not only was the land of the Native Americans being taken over, the buffalo were being slaughtered at an enormous rate for sport, leaving the Indians horrified by the destruction of the sacred animal. Everything in their land is connected by the spirits and their creator the Great Spirit, therefore, a mass slaughter of the buffalo is a terrible crime and disrespect to nature and to the spirits. They are meant for food, shelter and clothes, not to be slaughtered unnecessarily.
While in battle, Sitting Bull would show the ultimate sign of bravery for the Lakota tribe by sometimes walking to an area while the bullets of the enemy were still shooting and sitting down to smoke the pipe for a few minutes. Some of his fighters would stop and join him as they smoked and avoided gunshots until they were finished and went back to their horses (YouTube). As mentioned earlier, the smoking of the pipe is a ritual that the Lakota do often because the smoke touches everything in nature and comes in contact with the spirits, also coming into contact with the Great Spirit. So not only was the smoking of the pipe a sign of bravery, it is also demonstrating to the harmful enemy that they are in touch with the powers of the Great Spirit and the mysterious powers of the land. However, it became harder for the Lakota to continue their practices because of the weapons the enemy had such as guns and the exposure to new diseases that killed many Native Americans. Sitting Bull died because it was feared that he would join the last ghost dance movement, since it was against the law and they were converting Native Americans to Christianity by force. It was believed that their way of living was primitive and they needed a “modern” understanding of religion to become more civilized. Yet, what was going on in reality was the elimination of the traditions and religion of the tribes and the ghost dance was the resistance to the changing of their home. They have participated in so many rituals dedicated to their land and the cosmos, that it was not okay for that to be taken away.
On June 14th 1876, the Lakota tribe had a sun dance ceremony, Sitting Bull was to see in a vision how to deal with the atrocious war and while he was praying at the sun dance, the other tribe members cut fifty pieces of flesh from both of his arms (YouTube). After that, he danced in the sun as part of the ceremony, which is known to cause trances in people and sincerely feel the pain and blood in their body while feeling the world and the cosmos. According to the documentary, Sitting Bull had a vision and he could see the Teepees with a few Indians upside down. The message behind this was explained by Sitting Bull’s great grandson who was explaining the historic events to his children. The people upside down signified that there was going to be an enormous battle, but all the Calvary soldiers would die (YouTube). This gave the Lakota hope for victory since the Great Spirit was on their side and providing visions of the defeat of the soldiers. What was added by Sitting Bull’s great grandson is that in his vision during the sun dance, the spirits warned him that when the soldiers die to not take any of their materials or to risk losing the battle (Little Bighorn battle). Therefore, the great grandson concluded that they were not victorious as the vision said because the Lakota did not listen to Sitting Bull or the spirits and took the possessions of the fallen soldiers. Sitting Bull was an outstanding warrior and was deeply connected to the religion of the Lakota tribe. As the chief, he was a primary example of a powerful warrior who received visions from the Great Spirit and knew when to do what during smoking the pipe or being in a trance during the sun dance. Sitting Bull was a very important person that impacted the resistance to the soldiers.
In essence, Lame Deer and Sitting Bull were two very influential people during the invasion of the soldiers to take their land. As leaders of the Lakota tribes, medicine men and warriors, they understood what the Great Spirit wanted them to do and acted accordingly. By being connected to the sacred spirits, it impacts how the tribe lives on earth, the amount of buffalo they hunt, and the rituals to provide a new earth after every sun and ghost dance. The Lakota tribe has been through such drastic changes as the Black Hills was taken from them and were attacked by soldiers with advanced weapons of mass destruction. Their rituals play a major role in maintaining a connection to the Great Spirit and reach the heavens through their sacred ceremonies