Lakota Star Theology::

Lakota Star Theology

The stars are the woniya or breath of Wakantanka. The constellations are the Wakantanka's "sacred utterances - holy speech, whose specific meanings are transmitted through stories and ceremonies in the oral tradition" (Goodman 1994: 215).¹ It is Skan who imparts the spirit of stars into each person at birth, and it is the stars to whom each person returns upon death.

Lakota ethnoastronomy is not known by most people today - very few people could tell me much of Lakota star lore, beyond the most basic of concepts that have become known since the recent publication of Sinte Gleska University's star study (see Goodman 1992).² It seems the situation was similar around one hundred years ago when Walker's research participants told him that knowledge of the stars was esoteric knowledge held only by sacred men:

"A wise man said this. The stars are wakan. They do not care for the earth or anything on it. They have nothing to do with mankind. Sometimes they come to the world and sometimes the Lakotas go to them. There are many stories told of these things. No medicine can be made to the stars. They have nothing to do with anything that moves and breathes. A holy man knows about them. This must not be told to the people. If the people knew these things, they would pull the stars from above" (Ringing Shield in Walker 1980: 114).³

A few years earlier, Bushotter had written: "No Teton dare look at the stars and count even 'one' mentally. For one is sure to die if he begin to count the stars and desist before finishing" (Dorsey 1889: 136-137).⁴

According to Walker's mythological texts, the stars were created by Skan to be his companions and messengers, and to shed light upon Tate's night-time journeys through space. Skan created the stars, wicahpi, from the nagila or spirit of the waters, and he placed them high above his own blue dome. At that time there were no directions, so Skan fixed one star in place and made him 'chief' so that, from his fixed position he might order and direct the others on their journey so that they did not get confused and lost. This star was North Star (Walker 1983: 219-220).⁵ Skan's own daughter was Wohpe - the beautiful star woman who was sent down from the heavens to commune with Tate, the Four Winds and, later, Okaga, South Wind (Ibid.: 183, 301).

Interaction between the earthly and stellar worlds is common in the mythology. Black Elk told Neihardt the story of Falling Star. Two women were looking out at the stars one night and, seeing one big and one small star, they each wished that they could marry them. Two men appeared on earth and whisked the two women away to the land of the stars. Both couples marred. One day, one of the women, heavily pregnant, fell down to earth and gave birth to a son, named Falling Star by the magpie who found him. The meadowlark raised him, and soon the boy had a series of heroic adventures (DeMallie 1984: 395-397).⁶

The seven council fires or divisions of the Sioux are said to mirror the seven stars that make up the Big Dipper. Indeed, the Lakota as a people have their origins in the stars, through their ancestor the buffalo who, as the Pte Oyate, were sent from the stars to the regions under the world.

Speaking of the sacred hoop, an Oglala man told me:

"The sacred hoop primarily […] comes from a system of stars. The seven sisters, Orion, Sirius, […] Gemini the Twins and Capella make a star hoop in the sky, [and] the star hoop lines up with the sundance grounds on June 21st directly above […]. The sun will sit in the middle of that circle on June 21st - the summer solstice - […] and it will be in direct alignment with the sundance grounds. They used to sundance at Devils Tower but they can Sundance anywhere you want to. […] [T]he sun's lined up with this hoop and from this hoop is where we came from, it's where we get all our power, our spiritual power, our spiritual understanding. So God's making a hoop up in the sky, we make a hoop on the ground" (1998).

Expressed within this quotation is the Lakota concept of mirroring, whereby all that happens on earth is happening in the spirit realm or 'above'. The symbol that represents this basic belief is kapemni or twisting - two cones or vortices of light or energy whose apexes are joined (Goodman 1992: 15-16; Figure 4).

A spiritual practitioner from Rosebud elaborated upon the kapemni principle for me:

The sites in the Black Hills all correspond to constellations up in the sky. […] The term vortex [is a] twisting motion. If you took a string and twisted it […], it would turn, and so when we say a prayer here then that energy spirals upward and because we initiate that action there's a reaction from above, and it comes twisting down and they meet. And so that's what those sites do with those constellations is that […] there's a constant corresponding relationship between the stars and those sites in the Hills. So that potential's constantly there. But if we go there and pray then we send […] our prayer energy up through the… […] So, it's like, if we created a little whirlwind right here, and it was just nothing but pure air moving, and say we wanted to send some sweetgrass smoke, we'd put that sweetgrass down there and let that spiral pick that sweetgrass smoke up and carry it for us. That's what we do when we pray. We're adding to what's already there. And of course when we load a pipe or make tobacco ties or do a sweat lodge ceremony we probably increase the motion of that twisting energy" (1998).

Several sacred sites in the Black Hills are corresponded to particular star constellations during the ceremonial spring and summer period. For example, the Racetrack, Ki Inyanka Ocanku, that encircles the Black Hills has its mirror in a hoop of stars composed of Capella, the Pleiades, Rigel. Sirius, Procyon, Pollux, Castor and Auriga B; Pleiades (Wicincala Sakowin or Seven Little Girls), are linked to Harney Peak; and the eight stars of Gemini align with Devils Tower (Goodman 1992: 6-9).

When various constellations moved into their alignments with their corresponding earthly site, a ceremony was held at the site. In fact, it was a spiritual and cultural imperative to perform a ceremony at a particular place and time if the stars had revealed it so. At the same time, the spirits were conducting the same ceremony in the spirit realm, or 'above', as one of my own research participants stated:

"Some of the places in the Black Hills, especially the Needles, Harney Peak, Greenhorn Butte, Bear Butte - those all have star locations in the sky, to match evenly down. And at some phases when they're directly overhead is the time for ceremony. We say that some of those specific times we have to do those things in the right time - in space and in time. So sometimes people go over to the Bear Butte, at the right time, to be able to do their ceremonies in the right time and correctly, and also in the other side, over on Grey Horn Butte side, which is Devils Tower. […] It had also been the dictate of the sky to be able to tell us when things were ready also, just as much as on earth the black cherries meant something, and certain days, and so the sky meant certain things on certain omaka, certain times of the year that we had to do something in the Bear Butte area, also on the other side. And also in the center [Harney Peak and Pe Sla] - there are certain ceremonies that were done there that had to be done" (1998).

So, when the sun moved into the Lakota constellation of Cansasa Ipusye, the bands of Western Sioux gathered at their winter camps during the spring equinox and performed the Pipe Ceremony. As the sun moved in the Pleiades or Wicincala Sakowin constellation, the Lakota gathered at Harney Peak to perform the Yate iwakicipi or Welcoming back the Thunders ceremony. The sun moved through the Sacred Hoop and Tayamni constellation and the people gathered at Pe Sla - Slate or Reynolds Prairie in the centre of the Hills - to perform Okisataya wowahwala, or Welcoming back all life in peace. The annual Lakota sun dance was held at Devils Tower during the summer solstice, when the sun was in the Lakota constellation of Mato Tipila, or Bear's Lodge. After the conclusion of the annual sun dance at Devils Tower, the tribes gathered at Bear Butte for their grand council meeting. Thus it was that such ceremonies, which were performed in tandem with those that were being performed 'above', replicated and re-created life itself.

Notes::

• 1 - Ronald Goodman. 1994. "On the Necessity of Sacrifice in Lakota Stellar Theology as Seen in 'The Hand' Constellation, and the Story of `The Chief Who Lost His Arm'." Ray A. Williamson and Claire R. Farrer, eds. 215-220. Earth and Sky: Irisions of the Cosmos in Native American Folklore. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
• 2 - Ronald Goodman. 1992. Lakota Star Knowledge: Studies in Lakota Stellar Theology. Rosebud, SD: Sinte Gleska University.
• 3 - James R. Walker. 1980. Lakota Belief and Ritual. Edited by Raymond J. DeMaIlie & Elaine A. Jahner. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
• 4 - James O. Dorsey. 1889. "Teton Folk-lore Notes." Journal of American Folk-lore. 2: 133-139.
• 5 - James R. Walker. 1983. Lakota Myth. Edited by Elaine A. Jahner. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
• 6 - Raymond J. DeMallie, ed. 1984. The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.