Essay on Lakota Culture

NCSS: IV Individual development and Identity: f. identify and describe the influence of perception, attitudes, values and beliefs on personal identity

Connection to the Land and Lakota Spirituality

In taking this course I am interested in many aspects of Lakota spirituality and culture. One of the preconceptions or understandings I bring to these topics regards the relationship of Lakota people with the land, how nature shapes spiritual understanding and practice, and how changes in the relationship between the Lakota and the land might be related to changes in spiritual understanding and practice. In the following I will try to explain the nature of my prior understanding.  Historically, the Lakota lived in close contact with animals, plants, the land and weather. Throughout their cosmology, subsistence, and moral teachings, all kinds of animals, growing things, earth and weather make their appearance. Since the Lakota believe that all these things are sacred and contain spiritual power, I wonder if modern life and subsistence practices do not change in some way the wholeness of Lakota spirituality. Such an immense question could have many answers. However, my search is not so much for answers, as a better understanding of the question. In this world of compartmentalized knowledge, institutionalized perspective and definitive answers the academic has merely to choose a discipline, gather the information that discipline considers relevant and analyze it in a fashion the discipline considers valid. Undoubtedly, broader themes of human relation, perception and understanding are present in any exercise within an academic discipline; however the overriding goal of academic research is usually to formulate answers to research questions. It is desirable that these answers be valid in some universal fashion. This seems to be outside of Lakota tradition and the tradition of reflection papers. So, in the following paragraphs I explain how understanding has come about some of these ideas. Although I may write definitively about some things, I would ask the reader to think of these statements as demonstrations of my understanding rather than statements of fact. We are trained to write and think in this way.

            To my way of thinking and because of some of the things I have learned, everything around us does or can have both a spiritual and a physical influence. Western thought has tended to elevate spiritual influence as a force and dismiss the possibility that physical things can have anything but neutral or negative spiritual effect. One of the things Stolzman writes regards the contrasting of things of a wakan and ikceya nature (pg.71) and makes equal them to the Christian concepts of holy and profane.  It does not seem to me that his distinctions are in accordance with Lakota tradition. He seems to bring in ideas about idolatry and original sin to his understanding of Lakota teachings. In both traditions I am no fit judge, but I will explain how it seems to me. In class it was explained to us in class that all things are sacred if for no other reason than because all things are a manifestation of the creation. Although children under the age of 4 are considered becoming sacred, it could be understood that since they are alive they are sacred; if only for the very fact of their life. The coke bottle and the coke inside it are sacred because they were made from things under the ground and growing on the earth; and because it is important to a person coke can be used for offerings. The Lakota consider rock and the earth sacred because it is among the first creations and possess wisdom.  The example of the coke is particularly interesting. Christian thought might not even consider it to be spiritually significant and might find its sacred employment idolatrous. New Age thought might be dismissive of such a use because coke is not a traditional/historical element of Lakota culture. For me, I find this example very interesting as an explanation. Since coke is unhealthy, I don’t quite understand how it could be used in a sacred fashion. This idea brings up another point in our learning in class, it was explained to us that wakan tanka encompasses both good and bad things. Sacred in western traditions and understanding is generally associated with good things. Therefore, in many ways sacred and other tags we might use to express Lakota spiritual ideas are probably inadequate cognates for wakan. (This brings up the matter of language, which I will explore later.)

            Another aspect of the coke bottle example concerns its spiritual and physical essence in a different way. First, the bottle is made from things under the skin of Mother Earth, who is herself sacred. Although various things are done to these things to make the bottle, the essential sacredness remains. The liquid itself comes from things above and below the ground which are sacred and so then is the coke. As a practical person, I begin to question the worth of making distinctions between the physical essence and the spiritual essence of most anything. Christian traditions have particular goals in making a distinction between the sacred and profane. It does not seem to me that the Lakota are especially concerned with questions about a rock being essentially spiritual (a source of wisdom/power) or physical (density and molecules that may useful or not). Maybe there is deeper spiritual wisdom here, but since the rock is both physically useful and spiritually powerful, why separate the two? Perhaps this is where spirituality comes in; spiritually aware people perceive the whole manifestation of things.

            While this could be the point at which the debate ends, spiritual understanding is the whole instead of just some; I would like to rejoin an idea above. Namely that subsistence patterns have an influence on spirituality. An essentialist or idealist might view the historical Lakota subsistence pattern as more spiritually significant. All the things which are spoken of in Lakota traditions: animals, weather, the earth were more significant in their life. Food was obtained at their own hands. Shelter allowed some of the weather inside. The growth and the earth were always nearby. All this would be contrasted with modern life. Wages supply processed food. Shelter is comparatively immune to changes in weather and people now spend most of the time insulated from weather. The environment is now chiefly man made or managed. This is also the way it seems to me. Even though life styles exist on a huge continuum, sedentary, post-industrial life is abstracted from nature in virtually all ways. In our reading about various Lakota medicine people we learned that spiritual knowledge and wisdom can be gained in several ways: a vision, direct teaching from another person and contact with the spiritual beings of nature. It is hard to separate these ways in a logical fashion for many reasons. A vision can occur either as part of a ceremony or at another time. If it is part of a ceremony, the usual setting is in place that is isolated from human interference. From my understanding of Lakota ways of teaching, it is also done using examples from the world and in that setting. As to contact with the spiritual beings of nature, merely observing them and knowledgeable about them can lead to spiritual teachings. Therefore, to my mind, living in the civilized world is not conducive to spiritual growth in the Lakota way.

Costello quotes a letter written by Black Elk during his European travels, speaking about Europe he writes: “Here the country is different; the days are all dark. It is always smoky so that we never see the sun clearly.” (pg. 174). Although he is speaking of the sun’s physical manifestation, the sun is such a significant part of Lakota spirituality that its relative absence could be spiritually stifling. During this time in Europe the sky was smoky because of coal burning, which is only sufficiently dense in modern cities to blot out the sun. The many other things he saw in Europe can be imagined. In the “concrete jungle” there is also a very different understanding of the world. Things found in it usually fall into one of three categories: beautiful, useful or harmful. 

            Spirituality is such a complex thing that it cannot be understood in just one way. It is not as simple as a formula. Saying that because the Lakota eat beef and live in houses instead of eat buffalo and live in tipis their spirituality is diminished, is a convenient if irresponsible contrast. Lakota spirituality is many things, including a way of living and a way of understanding. In my opinion, while physical things are important, teachings and understandings are as well. Above I wrote a little about the role of language. In comparing different communities on Pine Ridge, Grobsmith finds that Lakota is the preferred language for ceremonial use. Even more interesting, Grobsmith found that communities that were more remote tended to raise children with Lakota as their first language and participate in traditional subsistence activities. Conversely, Lakota living in the cities tended to understand less about Lakota ceremonies, be less interested in them, and have little experience with traditional subsistence activities. From this research we learn that spirituality is broader than any one thing and encompasses the whole culture. In terms of the use of English as opposed to Lakota, Grobsmith writes: “Most often, Lakota speakers use English to express western divisions of time, quantities…school or job activities…not because there are no terms for these concepts in the native language, but because the native language expresses them differently.” (pg. 92) That, I think is the essential difference between understanding modern and historical Lakota tradition; they are just different.

Costello, Damain. Black Elk, Colonialism and Lakota Catholicism. Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY; 2005

Grobsmith, Elizabeth. Lakota of the Rosebud. Harcourt Brace, 1981.