1. The Black Hills
Tracing the Sacred Landscape of the
Lakota by the Night Sky

2. “Devil’s Tower”

3. Lakota religious resurgence

4. Climbing the Tower

5. Religion at Devil’s Tower

6. Sacred Hoop
• Red clay valley which
surrounds the Black
Hills corresponds with
a large circle of stars
– Cosmomagical thinking
– Microcosm duplicates
Macrocosm

7. The Stars
• “The stars were called, „The holy breath
of the Great Spirit,‟ the woniya of
Wakan Tanka. Thus, when the Lakota
observed the movement of the sun
through their constellations, they were
receiving spiritual instruction. Their
observations when interpreted by
Lakota Oral Tradition and their star and
earth maps, told them what to do,
where to do it and when.” (1)

8. Connection of Stars and Land
• Specific star constellations associated with
features of the landscape
– For example Harney Peak is associated with the
Pleiades (Seven Little Girls)
– Sun moves into the Pleiades in the Spring and
directs the people to move there

9. Ceremonies
• Ceremonies performed at these places by
Lakota people are also performed
simultaneously in the sky by spirit beings
• Results in a “hierophany”
– Drawing down of power from the sky to attune
the group to Wankan Tanka

10. Freedom of Religion
• Associated with the freedom of movement
on the Great Plains
• Red Cloud’s last speech in 1903
– Need for freedom of country and buffalo
– Not just economic but religious

11. Buffalo
• Embodiment of the power of the sun
• Following the buffalo meant following the
sun
• Harmony between human beings and powers
of the universe

12. Why write this book?
• For Lakota young people and for non-Indians
• “…so that they (through learning how the
Lakota experience the earth’s sacredness)
will be inspired to seek out and recover their
own traditional ways of knowing the earth--
not as dead matter spinning in empty space--
but rather, as our very mother, a living and a
holy being.” (2)

13. Fallen Star
• Messiah, Saviour, Holy One
• Oral Tradition received on 4 levels
– Physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual
– Childhood, youth, adult, elder

14. Dried Willow Constellation
• Red Willow bark used
in Pipe
• Gathered in Spring
before Thunders
• As Sun enters Dried
Willow marks the end
of Winter
– Horizon Astronomy

15. Big Dipper
• Associated with the wooden spoon used by
shamans/medicine men to carry live coals of
fire
• Live coal of macrocosm is the Sun
– As it moves into Dried Willow constellation it
lights the cosmic pipe

16. Rekindling Life in Spring
• “It was a cosmic ritual to rekindle the sacred
fire of life on earth. The higher powers,
using the stars and the sun, performed a
celestial Pipe ceremony to regenerate the
earth. This cosmic ritual was mirrored by the
People still in their winter camps, performing
the same ceremony at the same crucial time,
participating thereby in the renewal of
temporality, in the regeneration of the new
and living earth.” (7)

17. Other Constellations
• Seven Little Girls
(Pleiades)
– Tied to Harney Peak
• The Race Track
– Tied to Black Hills
– Site of a race between 4
and 2 legged
• Bear’s Lodge
– Tied to Devil’s Tower

18. Spring Journey to the
Black Hills
• Sacred Hoop
– Everything contained
inside
• Between Spring
Equinox and Summer
Solstice

19. Sacred Journey

20. Freedoms: of Religion and Movement
• Calculating the first
Spring Journey
– 1000-100 BC[E]
– Procession
– Correlating dawn at
Spring Equinox with
Celestial Pipe ceremony
• Summer Solstice with
Devil’s Tower
Constellation