Sacred Shapes, Numbers and Colours::

Sacred Numbers

One will have observed from the above discussion how four is a common form of numerical classification for the Lakota. Sword described to Walker the significance of the number four:

"In former times the Lakota grouped all their activities by four's. This was because they recognised four directions: the west, the north, the east, and the south; four divisions of time: the day, the night, the moon, and the year; four parts to everything that grows from the ground: the roots, the stem, the leaves, and the fruit; four kinds of things that breathe: those that crawl, those that fly, those that walk on four legs, and those that walk on two legs; four things above the world: the sun, the moon, the sky, and the stars; four kinds of gods: the great, the associates of the great, the gods below them, and the spirit kind; four periods of human life: babyhood, childhood, adulthood, and old age; and finally, mankind had four fingers on each hand, four toes on each foot, and the thumbs and the great toes of each taken together are four. Since the Great Spirit caused everything to be in four's, mankind should do everything possible in four's" (Walker 1917: 159-60).¹

My own research participants told me of the four sacred Lakota virtues: bravery, generosity, respect and wisdom. Ceremonies are frequently divided into four, for example, both the vision quest and sun dance traditionally take four days, and the sweat lodge ceremony is most often divided into four parts. The pipe is offered to the Four Directions and then Skan, Maka and frequently Spotted Eagle (Wanbli Gleska). One Oglala man told me that the sacred significance of four can be seen in the inipi ceremony is this way: "When we sweat [during inipi] the spirit of the sun is in the spirit of the fire, the spirit of the sky is in the water, the spirit of the earth is what we sit on in the lodge, and the spirit of the Creator is in the rocks. So those are the first four primal elements that we go by […]" (1998). In the past, an Oglala camp might be divided into four circles, with the centre forming the hocoka.

Powers described the four divisions of time in more detail:

(After Powers 1975: 49-50)²

The above tabulation also reveals the symbolic significance of four by four - sixteen, and may explain why Walker so systematically and hierarchically classified the Oglala supernatural world into sixteen 'gods'.

Lakota philosophy also conceives of seven as a socio-spiritual classificatory device. There are the seven divisions (Oceti Šakowin) of the Sioux: Teton, Yankton. Yanktonais, Mdewakanton, Wahpeton, Sisseton and Wahpekute. There are the seven bands of the Teton: Oglala, Sicangu, Hunkpapa, Minneconjou, Sihasapa, Oohenunpa and Itazipco. Seven sacred rites were passed on to the Sioux by the White Buffalo Calf Woman: Sweat Lodge, Vision Quest, Keeping of the Soul, the Sun Dance, Making of Relatives, Girl's Puberty Rite, and Throwing of the Ball. In ritual, the pipe is offered seven times: to the Four Directions, Skan, Maka, and a messenger such as the Spotted Eagle. There are seven directions: north, south, east, west, zenith, nadir, and cante (heart, implying where one is now).

Black Elk elaborated upon the importance of the product of four and seven:

"I should explain to you here that in setting up the sun dance lodge, we are really making the universe in a likeness; for, you see, each of the posts around the lodge represents some particular object of creation, so that the whole circle is the entire creation, and the one tree at the center, upon which the twenty-eight poles rest, is Wakan-Tanka, who is the center of everything. Everything comes from Him, and sooner or later everything returns to Him. And I should also tell you why it is that we use twenty-eight poles. I have already explained why the numbers four and seven are sacred; then if you add four sevens you get twenty-eight. Also the moon lives twenty-eight days, and this is our month; each of these days of the month represents something sacred to us: two of the days represent the Great Spirit; two are for Mother Earth; four are for the four winds; one is for the Spotted Eagle; one for the sun; and one for the moon; one is for the Morning Star; and four for the four ages; seven are for our seven great rites; one is for the buffalo; one for the fire; one for the water; one for the rock; and finally one is for the two-legged people. If you add all these days up you will see that they come to twenty-eight. You should also know that the buffalo has twenty-eight ribs, and that in our war bonnets we usually use twenty-eight feathers" (Brown 1953: 80).³

Notes::

• 1 - 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.
• 2 - William K. Powers. 1975. Oglala Religion. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
• 3 - 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.