Lakota Sioux Animal Symbolism::

Lakota Sioux Animal Symbolism II

The Lakota associated the badger with curing and warfare because of the animal's claws and digging powers, as well as its vicious and tenacious fighting abilities. Because of these observed qualities, the badger has been closely associated with the bear. However, because of the badger's relatively small size its powers for curing have been seen to be directed to medicines for children. However, some Lakota consider badger medicine to be stronger than bear medicine because the badger digs deeper and further into the ground.

As with the badger, the skunk was also associated with mysterious earth powers and with a courageous, tenacious 'no-flight' quality. As Schoolcraft observed: the skunk is noted for its slow, self-possessed movement and therein lies the animal's power that so many Lakota chiefs wanted to possess, that they tied the skins of skunks to their heels to symbolise that they never ran away (in Mallery 1893: 77).¹

The grey wolf has claimed the attention of Plains Indian warriors more than most other animals. They have observed that the grey wolf is a fast runner of great endurance and as such Lakota war party scouts often wore wolf hides so as to be 'fleet of foot'. Wolves are wanderers and therefore have knowledge of everything. As such hunters have often prayed to wolves when they wanted to locate game. Wolves give advice. They teach songs in dreams and visions and teach humans how to howl as a wolf. The wolf's howl has special powers. For example, one legend recounts the story of a wolf who teaches a warrior a song and when the warrior howls wind is created. Another howl produces fog. The wind confuses the enemy and the fog lends invisibility to the war party. One of my own research participants told me the following story about how a wolf taught the Lakota a particular song about the Black Hills:

"One man, a long time ago, went to the Black Hills when it was getting time [for a ceremonial gathering]. He went up there and he started to clean the area. He started to chop some of the wood down and made an inipi, a sweat lodge there, and he made a little pit for the fire, he got everything ready. He was up there for a few days, and when he got finished he was a little bit tired that day, so he sat down beneath a pine tree. […] [H]ere comes a wolf. [The wolf] comes to the edge of the cliff and went by the inipi, and went to the cliff, and he looked out on the prairie, then he goes [The narrator sings a song in Lakota]. He was really throwing his voice to the sky, the wolf, and all of a sudden, down in the valley, [the man] heard the same types of sound, and that harmony also. Boy, he liked that sound. So the next time [the wolf] made that sound, this Lakota man, he's starting to memorise it. [The Lakota man] started to memorise that song, and finally he got it down pat. 'That's mine,' he said. The wolf went and turned around, walked back into the forest. Then [the man] went to the edge of the cliff […] and he looked out and he saw people coming from over there, on horseback pulling travois and some walking, carrying bags, and some over there in a wagon, in all directions people were coming now. And so that man, when they all came, of course they have the inipi ceremony, gotta get all the people ready, put them on the hill [vision quest]. […] Then when they all were together in the evening campfire, [the man] says, 'Hey, I heard a song, and when I saw all of you coming I made a song about you, with the wolf's sound,' he said. So he says, '[The man sings in Lakota about the Black Hills].' […] So he sang that to them and that's what he kept - he kept it in families down the generations, and now it is known in English as the Black Hills Song. So it was a song that has memory of the Black Hills - we were there, we have it in our songs, and that's an ancient, ancient song, but it came from the first sounds of that wolf" (1998).

The wolf has great mythical significance because it was an agent of change that enabled the transformation of the buffalo to the Lakota: at the beginning of time, Iktomi used the wolf to go down beneath the surface of the earth and entice the Pte Oyate (Buffalo Nation - the ancestors of the Lakota) to come out onto the earth. The Lakota also admired the wolf pack's solidarity and cooperation and took these strengths to be a model for their own societies.

Once again it is important to realise that for the Lakota power was not inherent within the physical animal itself, but the physical animal embodied a spiritual power - the physical body was really a "crystallised projection" (Brown 1997: 26), a material manifestation of the abstract power of Wakantanka.²

The fox was observed to be as persistent as the wolf, but gentler and less aggressive. According to Standing Bear: "The fox had knowledge of underground things hidden from human eyes, and this he shared with the dreamer, telling him of roots and herbs that were healing and curing; then he shared his powers of swiftness and cleverness as well as gentleness" (1933: 215)³.

For Black Elk, no animal is insignificant. He said that, "One should pay attention to even the smallest crawling creature for these too may have a valuable lesson to teach us, and even the smallest ant may wish to communicate to a man" (Brown 1953: 28).⁴ He gave the example of how the tiny 'buffalo bugs' told scouts the direction in which buffalo could be found for they were sensitive to the earth's vibration (Ibid.: 28-29). Black Elk claimed that the Lakota should also be thankful to the tiny wood grub because it bores out the 'breath-passage' of the wooden pipe stems (Ibid.: 29). The rabbit is associated with agility, humility, quietness and gentleness. As such some people don rabbit skins.

Dorsey wrote,

Goats are very mysterious, as they walk on cliffs and other high places; and those who dream of goats or have revelations from them imitate their actions. Such men can find their way up and down cliffs, the rocks get soft under their feet, enabling them to maintain a foothold, but they close up behind them, leaving no trace" (1894: 497-498).⁵

Because of its association with both earth and water, the turtle was associated with feminine power. Indeed, during the Buffalo Ceremony, or the purifying rites preparing a girl for womanhood, the Lakota conductors of the ceremony would advise the girl, "The turtle is a wise woman, she hears many things and says nothing" (Walker 1917: 147).⁶ Wissler wrote:

"The symbolic basis for the representation of the turtle [...] is found in the belief that the turtle has power over the functional diseases peculiar to woman, and also over conception, birth, and the period of infancy. The eating of the living heart of the turtle is regarded as a positive cure for menstrual disorders and barrenness" (1904: 241-242).⁷

Meeker pointed out the association of the turtle with the totality of the earth: "Only the initiated know that the turtle is the earth, and that we inhabit the shell on his back" (1901: 163).⁸ Brown (1997: 30-31) wrote:

"These associations linking the turtle with the earth, the waters, and feminine powers in general help to clarify the frequent use of the turtle amulet. This amulet contained the navel cord of the newborn child, for it is this cord which nourishes, or connects man to the feminine earth-source of sustaining power. It has been explained further that since the turtle, like the lizard, is difficult to kill, "it was fitting that their protective power should be enlisted as guardian of the individual's substance. […] The vigilant protection of one's entity was essential to the Sioux sense of well-being" [Hassrick 1964: 270].

Turtles are also a sign of long life, fortitude and steadfastness.

Snakes are also considered powerful by the Lakota. Some snakes are more powerful than others as their bite may kill. It is considered bad luck to dream of them for they can enter the human being through any orifice and this is a sure sign of death. One man, a Buffalo Dreamer and Dancer, would not sit on the earth without a blanket or rug underneath him because, he told me, the snake might sneak up, enter, possess, and even kill him (1998).

Notes::

• 1 - Garrick Mallery. 1893. Picture-Writing of the American Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology, Annual Report 10. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution.
• 2 - Joseph Epes Brown. 1997. Animals of the Soul: Sacred Animals of the Oglala Sioux. Revised Edition. Rockport, Massachusetts: Element Books.
• 3 - Luther Standing Bear. 1933. Land of the Spotted Eagle. Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin Co.
• 4 - Joseph Epes Brown, ed. 1953. The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
• 5 - James O. Dorsey. 1894. A Study of Siouan Cults. Bureau of American Ethnology, Annual Report II. 351-544. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution.
• 6 - James R. Walker. 1917. "The Sun Dance and Other Ceremonies of the Oglala Division of the Teton Dakota." Anthropological Papers. 16 (2): 51-221. New York: American Museum of Natural History.
• 7 - Clark Wissler. 1904.
• 8 - Louis L. Meeker. 1901. "Siouan Mythological Tales." Journal of American Folk-lore. 14: 161-164.