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White Buffalo Calf Woman and the Sacred Pipe
according to Black Elk


by Theodore Walker, Jr.

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Black Elk's vision is rooted in a traditional religious wisdom given long ago to the Dakota-Lakota-Nakota Sioux Nations by "a sacred woman" known to many as the "Buffalo Calf Woman" or "White Buffalo Calf Woman" because she gave the nations "a pipe with a bison calf carved on one side" and transformed herself into "white bison galloping away and snorting" (BES, pp. 3-5).

[See BLACK ELK SPEAKS: BEING THE LIFE STORY OF A HOLY MAN OF THE OGLALA SIOUX AS TOLD THROUGH JOHN G. NEIHARDT (Flaming Rainbow) (Lincoln: Univeristy of Nebraska Press, 1988/1932) by John G. Neihardt.]

The pipe is a sacred pipe, and according to Black Elk, it is sacred because of its meaning. Among other things, Black Elk says it means there are many powers and spirits and all the spirits are "one Spirit" (BES, p. 2) and all the powers are "one Power" (BES, p. 5), and the "... sky a father and the earth a mother, and ... all living things with feet or wings or roots their children" (BES, p. 3).

"And because it means all this, and more than any man can understand, the pipe is holy" (BES, p. 3).

According to Black Elk, "all life" is holy and good, and "us two-leggeds sharing in it with the four-leggeds and the wings of the air and all green things; for these are children of one mother and their father is one Spirit" (BES, p. 1).

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[Return to chapter four: about Religion.]


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most recent update: 24 March 1997
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NOTICE OF COPYRIGHT: copyright 1997 Theodore Walker, Jr. This copyright covers all content and formatting (browser-visible and HTML text) in this and attached documents created by Theodore Walker, Jr. c@Theodore Walker, Jr.
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