These stories are from the Lakota Nation...
They have been given to the people as an oral history by their ancestors and are believed to be true.





~ White Buffalo Calf Woman ~




Told by ~ John Fire Lame Deer ~

        One summer, untold lifetimes ago, the various bands of the Lakota Nation assembled for their yearly get-together.  The land was beautiful, the prairie was covered with wildflowers and the sun shone down on all - but there was no meat on the drying racks, nothing to eat but wild turnips, and the people were hungry.  Among the tribes gathered were the Itazipcho, the Without Bows, and their chief sent out two young men to scout for buffalo.
        These young hunters had to set out on foot because this was in the days before Indians had horses.  It was a hard task to find game then.  The two men searched a long time in vain.  They did not even see the hoof print of a single buffalo.  At last they came to the top of a hill form which they could see far and observe the whole prairie around them.  Way off in the distance they saw a little speck moving, a tiny white dot coming toward them.  They watched it getting bigger and bigger.  At first they thought it was a buffalo, but it turned out to be a beautiful young woman, more beautiful than any they had ever seen before.  A radiance seemed to envelop her.
        She had on a dress of dazzlingly white buckskin so wonderfully decorated with quillwork that it made the yound hunters wonder whether human hands could have fashioned it, or whether it was the work of the spirits.  The young woman wore her long blue-black hair loose, except for a strand on the left side which was tired together with buffalo hair.  She wore a bundle on her back and carried a fan of sage leaves in her hand.
        The young woman spoke to them.  "I bring good things to your people.  The Buffalo Nation sent me with a message to the Lakota Nation, a good message."
        One of the two young men was so overcome by her beauty that he stretched out his hand to touch her, wanting to make love to her.  But the woman was lila wakan, very sacred, and not to be treated in a disrespectful way.  As soon as the brash hunter touched her, he was immediately struck by lightning, or as some wise old men tell the story, a cloud descended on him, hiding him from view.  When it dissolved, all that was left of him was a heap of dry bones.
        Now there was only one hunters left, a young man who treated the beautiful woman with the proper respect and admiration.  She told him to go back to his people to prepare them for her coming.  She told him what she wanted done.  The people were to put up a large tipi with an owanka wakan - a sacred alter - inside it.  She also wanted them to place a buffalo skull and rack made of three sticks in the tent.
        The young hunter returned to his village. He went to the chief and told him what had happened, and the chief told the eyapaha , the herald, to instruct the people. So this crier went round the camp circles calling out, "A woman, a sacred woman, is coming with a message from the Buffalo Nation. Receive her fittingly." The people put up the great tipi and did all things according to the strange woman's wishes. At dawn of the next day all was ready . The herald once more made his rounds, commanding the people to gather in front of the tipi. They stood there waiting as the red ball of the sun rose over the horizon. They saw the beautiful woman approach in a sacred manner as if coming out of the rising sun. In her hands she carried the Holy Pipe. She was holding the stem with her right hand and the bowl with her left, and thus the pipe has been held ever since.
        The woman entered the tipi where the old men of the tribe greeted her. "Sister, we are glad that you came. We have had no meat for some time, and all we can offer you is water." They dipped some wacanga , sweetgrass, into a skinbag of water and gave it to her this way, and to this day the people of the plains will dip sweetgrass or an eagle wing in water and sprinkle it on a person to be purified during a ceremony.
        The White Buffalo Woman - by this name she has been known ever since - then showed the people how to use the pipe. She filled it with redwillow bark tabacco. Then she walked around the alter, sunwise, circling from east to west. This represented the circle without end, the road of all life. The woman then placed a dry buffalo chip on the fire and lit the pipe with it. This was the fire without end, and the smoke rising from the bowl was the breath of Wakan Tanka , the Great Spirit.
        The White Buffalo Woman then showed the people how to pray with the pipe, lifting it up to the sky, up to the Grandfather, and down toward the earth, the Grandmother, and then to the four directions of the universe. "With this Holy Pipe you will walk like a living prayer," the White Buffalo Woman told the people, "your feet resting upon the earth, the pipestem reaching all the way into the sky, your body forming a living bridge between the Sacred Beneath and the Sacred Above. Wakan Tanka smiles upon us, because now we are as one - earth, sky, all living things, the four-legged, the winged ones, the trees, and the grasses together with the humans - now we are all one family, related to each other. This pipe is what holds us together.
        The White Buffalo Woman then addressed the women, telling them that it was the work of their hands and the fruit of their bodies which kept the people alive. "You are from Mother Earth," she told them. "Your task is as great as that of the hunters and warriors, your work is as important as theirs." And therefore the sacred pipe is also something which binds men and women together in a circle of love. It is the one sacred object in the making of which both men and women have a hand. The men carve the bowl and the make the stem, the women decorate it with ornamental bands of colored porcupine quills. When a man takes a wife they both hold the pipe at the same time, and red cloth is wound around their hands, thus tying them together for life.
        The White Buffalo Woman then talked to the children, because they have an understanding beyond their years and also because, among the people of the plains, children are treated with the same consideration shown grown-ups. She told the little ones that all their fathers and mothers did was for them. That they, the children, were the most precious possession of the nation, that they represented the coming generations, the hope of the future, the circle without end. "Some day you will hold the pipe. Let it guide you always on the road of life. Grow up and then teach your children." This is what the White Buffalo Women told them. The White Buffalo Woman then wrapped the pipe in its bundle and gave it to the Old Man Chief of the Itazipcho for safekeeping.
        After she had done all this, the beautiful White Buffalo Woman took leave of the people, walking in the same direction from which she had come. As she was fading into the distance the people saw her turn into a white buffalo calf. It kept on walking until it disappeared over the horizon. Soon buffalo appeared in great herds, allowing themselves to be killed so that the people might live. And from that time on the Brother Buffalo furnished the people with everything they needed - meat for their food, skins for their clothing and tipis, bones for their many tools. Thus the sacred pipe was given to the people. The Lakota People believe that this pipe still exists, somewhere on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota, kept by the decendants of the Itazipcho chief of old, to whom the White Buffalo Woman had given it many lifetimes ago.

THIS STORY WAS TAKEN FROM "The Sound of Flutes and other Indian Legends" Transcribed and edited by RICHARD ERDOES Pictures by PAUL GOBLE




The Shortest Tale Ever Told
Told by ~ John Fire Lame Deer ~

        Grandmother Left Hand Bull was telling the story of the frog and the turtle. "And I will bet you," she said. "that this is the shortest legend ever told."
        Keha, the turtle, and Gnaske, the frog, were old friends. One day the frog and the turtle were sitting on a rock by the lake gossiping. Suddenly a storm came up, and a few raindrops fell. The turtle looked up anxiously to the sky, saying, "I don't want to get wet, that would give me the sniffles."
        "You are right," said the frog, "it wouldn't do to get wet. Let's hurry!" And with that, they both jumped into the lake.
There!.......

THIS STORY WAS TAKEN FROM "The Sound of Flutes and other Indian Legends" Transcribed and edited by RICHARD ERDOES Pictures by PAUL GOBLE



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