This is a written version of an illustrated  talk I presented in May, 1997, at the Dakota History Conference sponsored by the Center for Western Studies at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

    “One star never moves and it is wakan. Other stars move in a circle about it. They are dancing in the dance circle,”  Ringing Shield, May 1903 (Walker, 1991, pp. 114-115).  That comment by a Lakota elder about Polaris was the genesis for this paper.  The Lakota, or Sioux, lived for over 100 years on the great plains of what is now Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.  Much of the interpretation of their life from about 1750 through December, 1890, has focused on their interactions with their great plains environment.  What has often been missing from the “standard” treatments of their culture has been an investigation and exploration of their relationship to the celestial world beneath which they roamed the plains.  The purpose of this paper is to explore this celestial dimension in the context of their culture.  It will not be possible to examine all of the different kinds of celestial images that were important to this people, nor to fully discuss their meaning.  Rather, this is an overview and a survey of those areas that might be fruitful grounds for further exploration.

    The Lakota Nation is broken into three distinct cultural and linguistic groups.  The eastern Sioux speak the Dakota dialect, the central Sioux speak Nakota, and the western Sioux speak the Lakota dialect.  The dialect name has become the common name for the people as well.  These language groupings are also known by their common names, the Santee, Yankton, and Teton.  The four Santee groups, two Yankton groups and the Tetons were said to comprise the seven “council fires.”  The Teton Sioux or Lakota are the focus of this paper.  The Teton are further subdivided into seven subdivision, the best known of which are the Oglála (“To scatter one’s own”), Sicáhgu or Brulé (“Burned” in French), Huhkpapa (“They camp by the entrance”) and Mnikowoju (“They plant by the water”).

    Several excellent histories give details of the history of the Lakota.  While late twentieth century scholars have taken issue with some of his interpretations and his lack of direct references, nonetheless George Hyde’s work on the Lakota serves as a primary survey of their nineteenth-century life (Hyde, 1961, 1975, 1993).  Other books give a late twentieth century interpretation of these events and people (D. Brown, 1962;  D. Brown, 1970; Hassrick, 1964; Utley, 1984).

    In any research into ethnoastronomy, it is important to consider the sources from which the data is collected.  The focus of this paper is on nineteenth century Lakota celestial thought, and hence, nineteenth century sources must be utilized.  The most readily available written material was complied by a man who became a trusted friend of the Lakota.

    James R. Walker, a physician at the Pine Ridge Reservation from 1896 to 1914, decided to work with traditional Lakota healers instead of against them.  This cooperative spirit lead to a relationship of trust between Walker and the medicine men, and the Lakota shared their stories, beliefs, and rituals with Walker.  His journals are primary sources on the late nineteenth century Lakota.

    Walker’s compilations are the primary source for this paper.  This limits the scope of this exploration to the insights given by the people Walker interviewed late in the nineteenth century.  Generally, contemporary Lakota have a high regard for Walker and the veracity of the accounts he recorded.  Vine Deloria, Jr., for example, gives high praise for Walker and his methods, but notes the informants were all “late” in Lakota history and little is known about the origins of Lakota beliefs about the stars.  He further claims that Walker asked the “wrong” questions for the information to be of value to archaeoastronomy (Deloria, 1982).  I would disagree with this assertion because I believe Walker has left a wealth of information, which, if combined with other historical materials , could yield rich insights.  Another valid criticism of Walker is that he tended to rely on just a few translators.

    There is an important epistemological point to be made.  There is no such thing as one Lakota “system” of “orthodox” belief.  Unlike Christianity, for example, which has dogmatized its beliefs into a set of doctrines, the Lakota are much less rigid.  Lakota belief can even be very “fluid” and exhibits diversity (DeMallie, 1987, p. 43).  One cannot say, “This is what the Lakota believe about the stars.”  It is possible to say what a specific Lakota person says about the stars.  This means Walker’s interviews and stories will enable us to understand what the Lakota at Pine Ridge believed about the stars.  Although we may not be able to directly understand the origins of those beliefs, these accounts are a starting place.

    The goal of this paper is to explore the celestial images of the Lakota and attempt to understand their meaning.  First, I will give specific examples of celestial images including comets, meteor showers, and the sun and moon.  Second, I will examine the Lakota concept of wakan, or the incomprehensibleness of the universe.  Finally, I will suggest that it is necessary to understand wakan in order to understand the meaning of the celestial images.

    Many examples of celestial images from the nineteenth century Lakota that have been preserved on winter count hides and ledger books.  Von Del Chamberlain (1984) has compiled an excellent list of Plains Indian winter count hides and ledger book entries that specifically refer to astronomical events.  Garrick Mallery, a late nineteenth century expert on winter count hides, explained the use and function of the winter count hide:

The Keeper of the Count was responsible for the perpetuation of the history… with this counsel of the old men of his tribe, he decided upon some event or circumstance which should distinguish each year as it passed, and marked what was considered to be its appropriate symbol or device upon a buffalo robe kept for the purpose.  The robe was at convenient times exhibited to other Indians of the tribe, who were thus taught the meaning and the use of the signs as designating several years.  (Maurer, 1992, p. 275)

Meteors

    In 1822 a brilliant meteor blazed across the sky.  This was recorded on September 20, 1822, at Fort Snelling in Minnesota (Hyde, 1975, p.318; Chamberlain, 1984).  A Lakota couple supposedly saw this and several months later named their new son Red Cloud in recognition of the event (Mahpiya Luta).  This is only one example of a meteor making an impression on the Lakota.  In November, 1833, the Leonid meteor shower put on a spectacular display.  Estimated rates are 100,000 to 240,000 per hour (Rao, 1995).  The Lakota noticed this spectacular celestial display:

In November, 1833 when Spotted Tail was ten, the stars fell. The entire sky was streaked with fire as myriads of meteorites flashed across the heavens, and the fright-ened Indians thought that the world was coming to an end.  (Hyde, 1961, p. 29)

    Walker offers an insight into the impression such meteors made and the meaning of the concept Wakan.  He reports a conversation with Finger, an Oglála Lakota holy man who spent an entire night instructing Walker in the sacred ways of the Lakota (Hirschfelder and Molin, 1992, p. 88).  This passage also indicates how Walker approached his task of determining the meaning to the Lakota of these concepts and events:

It came about in this way:  I was at the house of Finger in the evening, and when starting for the agency, all were out in the gloaming, and a very brilliant meteor fell. Finger exclaimed in a loud voice, " Wohpe . Wohpe-e-e-e.”  He then harangued for a short time and the women built a fire and when it had burned to coals, Finger burned a quantity of sweet grass on it, evidently with forms and ceremonial mutterings.
[Walker continues by discussing a subsequent meeting with Finger.]  I left the Agency on the first of April, so had no opportunity of reviewing the matter with Finger or of submitting it to others of the Oglála for their discussion

    The information I got from Finger clears up much that was obscure, especially relative to Taku Škanškan. Perhaps you will remember that I said that I could not give a translation of Škan, which is the shamanistic term for Taku Škanškan and that according to the best information I had, Škan meant the sky I so translated it with the approval of several Indians, including George Sword, though each and all declaring that Škan was the sky, and was also a spirit that was everywhere and that gave life and motion to everything that lives or moves.   Every interpreter interpreted Taku Škanškan as “What Moves-moves,” or that which gives motion to everything that moves.   From the information given by Finger it is evident that his concept of Taku Škanškan, or Škan is a vague or nebulous idea of force or energy.  Recalling attempts of other Oglála to define the word I am sure that they had the same kind of a concept of Škan.  I am now surprised that this did not appear to me before talking with Finger.

    Taku Škanškan could also be translated as the “energy of the universe.”  Beuchel translates the phrase “a power working, moving things secretly” (Beuchel, 1983, p. 476).  In Finger’s mind, the concept is closely related to the Wakan.  Walker was not only aware of who his sources were, but also who his interpreters were.  Although he himself learned some Lakota, he relied on native interpreters to convey the meanings of the elder’s words.  In the following passages, Walker relates several Lakota concepts:

    Finger's discussion of Wakan Tanka agreed with that given in that part of my paper on the Sun Dance as submitted to you [i.e., Walker, 1917], except relative to Škan and the relative existence of the four superior Gods.  For instance, he gave Inyan, the Rock, as the first in existence and the grandfather of all things.  Maka, the Earth as next in existence and the grandmother of all things.  Škan next in existence after the Earth because He gave life and motion to all things:  Wi, the Sun, as the last in existence but as the most powerful and august of Wakan Tanka, being Wakan Tanka Kin, The Wakan Tanka.  He also said that the Associate Wakan Tanka, Wi (the Sun), Wi Han, The Moon; Tate, The Wind, and Wakinyan, The Winged, and Wohpe were as the other self of the four Superior Gods; that is, that Wi and Wihan are as one:  Škan and the Wind are as one; The Rock and The Winged are as one; and that the Earth and Wohpe are as one; that while there are eight personalities that are Wakan Tanka, four Superior and four Associate, they are all as one and there is but one Wakan Tanka.  This is The Great Mystery known only to the wisest shamans.

Discussing Wi and Škan, Finger said that while The Sun was the superior and most powerful of the Gods, yet He derived His power from Škan; that many of the Lakotas believed Wi and Škan to be one and the same personalities; but the Wi was a Wakan Tanka visible in the sky only half the time while Škan was the Nagi Tanka, the Great Spirit, everywhere at all times and invisible except his color which was the blue seen in the sky at all times.

    Walker is appropriate in recognizing that a simple translation of wakan will not do and he attempts to understand the interrelatedness of the ideas Finger expressed.  In this section he suggested the translation of “Great Mystery” for Wakan Tanka.  In a concluding comment, Walker acknowledges his own limitations.  It is interesting that he says his paper is “constructive.”  Apparently he was very aware he was putting his own thoughts into the report:
I am fully alive to the sense that my paper is based entirely upon information given by others, and that it is in part constructive; that I may have been misinformed either intentionally or because of the difficulty in getting correct translations of the language of my informants.  But the intention of the paper is to give such information as I have received.  (Walker, 1983, pp. 9-10)

Comets
    The Lakota also noticed comets and apparently distinguished them from meteors.  Two hides in the collection of the State Historical Society of North Dakota illustrate comet art (Maurer, 1992, pp. 274-275; Chamberlain, 1984).  The Blue Thunder winter count hide from the Upper Yanktonai Nakota band depicts events from 1785 to 1913.  It clearly shows an early nineteenth century meteor pictograph and also a comet.  A second hide, the Swift Dog, from the Huhkpapa Lakota, chronicles their history from 1797-98 to 1911-12.  The third to last entry depicts Comet Halley’s 1910 apparition.  Maurer notes the Hu hkpapa remembered the years 1911-1912 as the “time when children had measles and a bright comet appeared in the sky.”  This illustrates the important point that common Gregorian civil calendar dates may not always coincide with dates given for a particular pictograph.

Sun and Moon
    A discussion of the role of the sun and the moon in Lakota life would encompass an entire book.  For example, one could study how they reckon time.  We take it for granted that the solar and lunar cycles can provide a calendar.  Although the Lakota use solar and lunar cycles, they have a very different concept of time than Americans or Europeans.  Times of the day, for example, are reckoned by how the sun or moon appear or are moving across the sky.
Winter count hides were the visible representations of Lakota history and functioned as an annual calendar (Chamberlain, 1984).  Although the Lakota use repeating cycles of nature to give names to the passage of time, I believe they have a very linear, continuous, view of time.  Their history seemingly would never end, at least as long as the buffalo were on the earth.  In attempting to understand the Lakota concept of time, I find the following assessment to be useful:
In Lakota culture time was not conceived of as a causal force; history was not directed nor did it embody that notion of progress and change which is so fundamental to European culture.  Instead, the universe was perceived as existing in harmonious balance.  As Ella Deloria once put it, ‘You see, we Indians lived in eternity.’ (DeMallie, 1987, p. 31)

    I have come to think of the Lakota as being suspended in time.  There was no indication their situation would ever change until the white man (wasichu) began “putting down roots.”
Living in an eternity where the sun was a persistent feature in the sky led to giving it a place of importance, and there is one ritual where the Sun’s central role is best exhibited.  The paramount ritual in Lakota life, then and now, is the Sun Dance.  Beginning with Walker, many scholars have written volumes about the Lakota Sun Dance.  Again, it is not possible to include a lengthy discussion of this important ritual in this discussion.  It is, however, important to say that the Sun Dance is not Sun worship.

    The Sun Dance is practiced by many of the Plains Indians and the Lakota call it Wi Wahyag Wachipi, or “Dance looking at the Sun.”  It is one of the seven sacred rites of the Lakota as explained by the legendary Lakota elder Black Elk (Brown, 1989).  The purpose of all seven rituals is to strengthen the tiyospaye (“community” or “extended family”) and sense of mitakuye oyasin (“You are all my relatives”).

    The Sun Dance ritual includes fasting, purification, and dancing.  At the center of the dance circle is a sacred tree around which the participants conduct themselves.  Sometimes, even in modern times, the Sun Dance includes piercing of the flesh of male dancers who wish to provide a personal sacrifice. The sun is all-powerful.  When a dancer participates in the Sun Dance, it is a participation in the sacred and mysterious.  The Sun Dance serves primarily as an agent to strengthen the dancer’s sense of self and spirituality, and strengthen connections to the community (tiyospaye).  In a contemporary reference, the Lakota at the Sun Dance are described as practicing a kind of sun watching reminiscent of the southwestern pueblo peoples:
The old-man-who-counts watches the sunset, cutting notches in his stick, even though with calendars this is no longer necessary.  The old man watches until the sun sets on a well-known landmark.  When finally it reaches the appropriate place, the time has come to make the sacred lodge. (Amiotte, 1987, p. 78)

    I am uncertain how wide-spread this sun watching practice is.  The mention of it, however, is a good reason to undertake further research into Lakota sun watching. This is the only reference to Lakota calendar sticks that I have found.  This may be a late-nineteenth century or early twentieth century practice that became practical, and necessary, after confinement to the reservations and the Lakota no longer traveled great distances.  However, at the Northern Plains Tribal Art Show in Sioux Falls, on September 28, 1996, Arthur Amiotte told me sun watching was practiced at the time of the Winter Solstice.  He mentioned that although nomadic, the Lakota did return to the same location each year for their “winter camp” and hence there would be familiar horizon landmarks.  Amiotte also said he knew of no Lakota calendar sticks in existence today.  In addition to Walker’s nineteenth-century records (Walker, 1917), an excellent modern, personal account of Lakota Sun Dancing is Thomas E. Mails’ Sundancing at Rosebud and Pine Ridge (1978).

    The sun and moon often appear together in Lakota images.  I found an example of a heyoka warrior’s body ornamentation (Walker, 1991).  The heyoka was a contrary who used his spiritual powers to satisfy the Wakihya h or thunder beings of the west.  On the great plains summer thunderstorms (and winter blizzards) approach from the west. The heyoka would dress warmly in hot weather, and wear few or no clothes in the dead of winter.   The heyoka were considered wakan, and are an example of “that which is different.”(Hirschfelder and Molin, 1992, p. 119)   This particular drawing from a ledger book shows both a sun and moon symbol on the warrior’s body.  In a sense the sun and moon are opposites or contraries, and hence they are a sort of celestial “joke” when they appear together on the Heyoka.

    Of course, the sun and moon are together during an eclipse.  Solar eclipses were noted by the Lakota.  An 1888 winter count hide pictograph by Short Man (Figure 2) reports A hpa wi wah te, literally, “the sun died” (Walker, 1992, p. 151)  However, a note dating of this eclipse on January 1, 1889, is problematic.  Using TheSky 2.03 (Level III), I determined the dates of solar eclipses visible from western South Dakota from 1883 to 1892.  Using “SunTimes for Windows” (Zephyr Services, 1995), I checked the sunrise and sunset times for the eclipse dates.  Although there was an eclipse on 22 December 1889, the sun was not up in that area during the eclipse.  The closest eclipse dates to 1888 to which Short Man could have alluded are 16 March 1885, 6 June 1891, and 10 October 1892.  It also could be that the hide dates given for the event are slightly off.  An event that occurred, for example, in the winter of 1888-1889 could be recorded in either 1888 or 1889 (Chamberlain, 1984).
 

    Having discussed some examples of Lakota celestial images, I will now attempt an interpretation of these images in terms of the Lakota concept Wakan. The Lakota did not exist apart from nature, but were very much a part of it.  In this sense, the traditional ecological  focus of the Lakota’s relationship to the land and the animals, especially the bison (tatahka), that inhabited the land is correct.  There has, however, been little interpretation of the meaning of the celestial events and phenomena that have been discussed in the previous section of this paper.  It is my thesis that to understand the meaning of these celestial events and images one must attempt to understand wakan as the nineteenth century Lakota understood it.

    I will draw on sections from Walker’s conversations with Lakota elders to interpret the meaning of wakan itself.  The most common translation of wakan is “sacred” or “holy.”  For example, the best translation of the name of the Mdewakahto hwah band of the Santee or Dakota Sioux in Minnesota is “People of the Sacred Lake.”  In the basement of the Episcopal Cathedral in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, there is a small chapel used by a Lakota Christian congregation.  Carved on an altar are the words Wakan, Wakan, Wakan, alluding to the Christian Trinitarian formula, “Holy, Holy, Holy.”  The best approach to understand wakan is to understand the usage of the word and it is important to recognize the cultural context from which this concept takes its meaning.

    The Lakota are a profoundly spiritual people.  Although they exhibit one of the most genuine senses of humor and light-heartedness of any American Indians, they are very serious about their relationship to wakan tahka (often translated “Great Spirit” or “Great Mystery”), the created world, their fellow human beings, and their inner self.  Their view of the world is very different from that of the white men who first encountered them in the early nineteenth century.  Thus, I believe, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to summarize in a few words a concept like wakan.

    Father Eugene Buechel in his Lakota-English Dictionary gives several connotations to the word:  “sacred, consecrated, special, incomprehensible, possessing or capable of giving an endowed spiritual quality which is received or transmittable to beings making for what is specially good or bad” (Buechel, 1983, p. 525).  This latter meaning is reflected in the term wicasa wakan, which Buechel translates “priest, formerly the Indian shaman.”  The common usage slightly mistranslates that phrase as “medicine man.”  In the film Dances With Wolves, Doris Leader Charge, who was the Lakota dialog consultant for the film, rendered it “Holy Man.”  The Black Hills (Paha Sapa) are a place that is wakan.

    However, wakan has meanings that transcend the human existence of the Lakota on the great plains.  James Walker offers valuable insights into the meaning of this concept to the nineteenth century Lakota.  In the following lengthy excerpts from his writings, he uses Lakota elders’ explanations of the meanings.  As always, it is important to realize these are the opinions of the people he interviewed.  First, he quotes from Good Seat:

 Wakan was anything that was hard to understand.  A rock was sometimes wakan.  Anything might be wakan.  When anyone did something that no one understood, this was wakan.  If the thing done was what no one could understand, it was Wakan Tanka.  How the world was made is Wakan Tanka.  How the sun was made is Wakan Tanka.  How men used to talk to the animals and birds was Wakan Tanka.  Where the spirits and ghosts are is Wakan Tanka.  How the spirits act is wakan.  A spirit is wakan…
…The sun, the moon, the morning star, the evening star, the north star, the seven stars [i.e., Pleiades], the six [sic] stars [i.e., Big Dipper], the rainbow--these are all wakan… (Walker, 1991, pp. 70-72)

     At first glance, it seems as if everything was wakan for Good Seat.  In one sense that is true, because so much of the Lakota world is extraordinary and “Wakan was anything that was hard to understand.”  But notice that the wakan or “mysterious” things Good Seat describes are things people cannot create or control.  Good Seat’s list of these objects, animals, and phenomena are things that have kept the best scientists and theologians busy for centuries.  That is, they are extraordinary.  Wakan things are those experiences, events, or objects that are worthy of wonder.  Something that is wakan does not reach the analytical mind, but rather catches the spirit of a person and causes him or her to reflect.

    Following his transcription of Good Seat’s conversation, Walker adds his own interpretation concerning the meaning of wakan.  Again, in this summary, he draws on his conversations with many Lakota, allowing them to interpret one another:

 Long ago, the Lakotas believed that there were marvelous beings whose existence, powers or doings they could not understand.  These beings they called Wakan Kin (The Wakan).  There were many of the Wakan, some good and some bad.  Of the Wakan who were good, some were greater than others.  The greater were called Wakan Wankantu (Superior Wakan).  The others were called Taku Wakan (Wakan Relatives).  They were not relatives the same as a father or a brother but like the Lakota are all relatives to each [other].  The bad Wakan were not relative either to the good or to each other…

 The old Lakotas also believed that each thing except the Wakan and mankind had something like a spirit.  This something they called a nagila (spiritish).  These nagipila (spirits-ish) were wakanpila (wakans-ish).  Ordinarily, the people call a wakanla, wakan.  Wakan Tanka (Great Wakan) and Wakan kin mean the same.  In former times the term Wakan Tanka was seldom used but now it is used more often than Wakan kin.  The younger Oglalas mean the God of the Christians when they say Wakan Tanka.  When a shaman says Wakan Tanka, he means the same as Wakan Kin as used in former times.  This means all the Wakan and the Wakanpila, both of mankind and of other things, for the old Oglalas believed that these were all the same as one.  This is kan (incomprehensible, an incomprehensible fact that cannot be demonstrated).

 When an Oglála is amazed by anything he may say that it is wakan meaning that it is wakanla (like wakan).  It appears from the above information that "divine" is the proper interpretation of wakan. (Walker, 1991, pp. 72-74)

    It is important to note that these characterizations are based on traditional Lakota beliefs from the nineteenth century as recorded by such white men as Walker.  To give the meaning of wakan as “divine” shows a decidedly Christian influence.  Encounters with whites, and in particular Christian missionaries, has had an effect on modifying the traditional mid-nineteenth century beliefs. Indeed, two important Lakota sources were Christian:  George Sword was an Episcopal deacon and Black Elk was a Roman Catholic catechist.  Such experiences may influence the interpretive comments from twentieth century Lakota elders.  Good Seat hints at this when he said, “I am an old man.  I know what my father said.  I know what his father said.  In the old times, the Indians knew many things.  Now they have forgotten many things.  The white men have made them forget that which their fathers told them” (Walker, 1991, p. 70).  Walker alludes to this modification when he comments “The younger Oglalas mean the God of the Christians when they say Wakan Tanka.”  Hence, the missionaries used Wakan Tanka to convey the Christian idea of God and usually translated the phrase “Great Spirit.”

    We who are white and born into a western way of thinking may have a difficult time understanding these meanings of wakan.  In a white American (or European) way of thinking, there are distinctions between the natural and supernatural, between the secular and sacred, between the human and the divine.  These distinctions are blurred or even non-existent in the Lakota mind.  Such dichotomies do not exist.  The important distinction for the Lakota was between the ordinary and the extraordinary.  More than anything what characterizes the universe for the Lakota is its incomprehensibleness, its uniqueness, and its wonder.  Thus, I believe the best interpretations of wakan are “incomprehensibleness,”  “that which is different” and “worthy of wonder.”  The best interpretation of wakan tahka might be “the great incomprehensibility.”  The Lakota were able to share in this wonder, mystery and incomprehensibleness through their rituals  (DeMallie, 1987, p. 28) and their partnership with the natural world.  Interestingly enough, although Lakota belief shows many variations, the rituals are generally more uniform.  This may be because the rituals are a collective, community effort, serving to strengthen kinship ties.

    Having discussed the meaning of wakan, I will now briefly explore how this important Lakota concept influenced their understanding of the stars.  Walker records a conversation with Ringing Shield from May, 1903, in which the stars are said to be wakan:

A wise man said this.  The stars are wakan.  They do not care for the earth or anything on it.  They have nothing to do with mankind.  Sometimes they come to the world and sometimes the Lakotas go to them.  There are many stories told of these things.  No medicine can be made to the stars.  They have nothing to do with anything that moves and breathes.  A holy man knows about them.  This must not be told to the people.  If the people knew these things, they would pull the stars from above.  There is one star for the evening and one for the morning.  One star never moves and it is wakan.  Other stars move in a circle about it.  They are dancing in the dance circle.

There are seven stars.  [Seven stars is a Lakota name for the Big Dipper.] This is why there are seven council fires among the Lakotas.    Sometimes there are many stars and sometimes there are not so many.  When there are not so many, the others are asleep.  The spirit way is among the stars.  This moves about so that bad spirits can not find it.  Wakan Tanka keeps the bad spirits away from the spirit way.  The spirit way begins at the edge of the world.  No man can find it.  Taku Skanskan is there and he tells the good spirits where to go to find it.  The winds will show a good spirit where to go to find the beginning of this trail.  The bad spirits must wander always on the trail of the winds.  The stars hide from the sun.  They must fear him.  So mankind should not try to learn about them.  It is not good to talk about them.  It is not good to fight by the light of the stars.  They must be evil for they fear the sun (Walker, 1991, pp.  114-115).

    This passage is packed with both insights and contradictions.  First, consider the North Star.  The Lakota name for Polaris is Wicahpi Owahjila -- “Star that always stands in one place.”  What is especially interesting about Ringing Shield’s words is that the pole star is wakan because it does not move.  This suggests that wakan connotes “that which is different” about Polaris compared to the other stars.  Then Ringing Shield goes on to mention the morning star and evening star.  He equates the seven stars of the dipper with the seven council fires of the Lakota.  These statements about the stars may seem to be in conflict with the statement that “mankind should not try to learn about them [the stars]. It is not good to talk about them.”  He says, in essence, “Don’t even think about the stars,” yet he, and the Lakota as a whole, have names for stars, legends about the stars, and record celestial events and phenomena on hides!  In a similar discussion Little Wound says “The stars are Wakan Tanka, but they have nothing to do with the people on earth.  Mankind need pay no attention to the stars” (Walker, 1991, p. 70).
There is a contradiction, or at least an ambiguity, here.

    If mankind should not even talk about the stars, or pay any attention to them, why should celestial events be recorded on hides, or appear on a heyoka, or become a part of story to be retold?  I believe what Ringing Shield and Little Wound were saying was that the stars and their motions, or non-motions, are a part of the “great incomprehensibility” and hence mankind cannot fully understand them or their meanings.  None the less, the sun, the moon, and the stars permeate Lakota thought and culture.  Why?

    It is simply because meteors, comets, the sun, the moon, and the stars are wakan that they were noted, recorded, and re-lived in stories and ritual.  The stars are worthy of wonder, they are mysterious, they are incomprehensible.  As fruitless as it may seem, reaching for the stars brings the great mystery a little closer to earth.  Although the celestial images preserved on winter count hides, in ledger books and on clothing serve an ornamentation function, they too are a part of the belief and ritual of the Lakota.  Each Lakota ritual serves a purpose.  Ritual reflects and transmits belief and tradition.  Thus, Lakota celestial art is an integral part of the beliefs of the people who constructed  it.  And, the center of Lakota belief is the incomprehensibleness of the world in which they live.  The stars, although extraordinary and wakan, are a integral part of that world.

    There are at least three areas for future research that would reveal more insights into the Lakota and their astronomy.  First, I have briefly discussed meteor showers, eclipses, and comets.  It would be helpful to continue the work of Von Del Chamberlain (1984) and to correlate the same events observed by various Native Americans on the great plains as recorded in ledger books and on winter count hides.  Art historians might be able to shed some light on the Lakota’s use of five-pointed stars.  It may be that they began to use this symbol after encounters with the American flag.  Second, I have observed aurora while camping in the Badlands National Park (about latitude 43 N).  Are there any instances of aurora in Lakota art or stories?  How did they interpret them?  Finally, Amiotte’s reference to calendar sticks and horizon sun watching is very intriguing.  An examination of this aspect of Lakota astronomy would allow for comparison with the pueblo people of the southwest.  A sensitive and respectful inquiry might reveal more about any use of these sticks today and the relative importance of sun watching for calendrical or ritual purposes.

    More importantly, understanding wakan and how it relates to the stars must be the focus of any research into Lakota astronomy.  That is, understanding their culture is the key to understanding their astronomy and their use of celestial images.  There is a danger that meaning could be “read into” Lakota ideas.  It is possible to avoid this by employing an approach from the “historical-critical method” of biblical hermeneutics and allow Lakota sources to interpret and explain other Lakota sources.  There are ethnographic materials other than those of Walker which might reveal other insights.  Also, it would be very interesting to ask contemporary Lakota elders and wicasa wakan to comment on the monologues Walker recorded.  However, it is important to recognize such commentary would represent the views of late twentieth century Lakota, many of whom have been strongly influenced by both Christianity and the twentieth-century ideas of Black Elk.

    The passion to be a part of “living the sky,” to use Ray Williamson’s term, was a central facet of Lakota life.  Raymond DeMallie offers a final assessment that may help explain the ambiguity the Lakota have about the stars and their wakan nature:

In the nineteenth-century Lakota system of belief, the unity of Wakan Tanka embraced all time and space, together with the entirety of being, in a universe where the place of human beings was minor but well-defined.  Because this universe was most fundamentally characterized by incomprehensibility, it was beyond humanity’s power ever to know it fully, and perhaps it was this futility that made the quest for understanding of the wakan the driving force in Lakota culture (DeMallie, 1987, p. 32).

    Ultimately any attempt at understanding the Lakota’s use of celestial images in their culture must also come to terms with their understanding of wakan.  It may for us, as for the Lakota, be futile to come to any final conclusions that can satisfy a twentieth century analytical, scientific mind.

Dr. Von Del Chamberlain, former director of the Hansen Planetarium, Salt Lake City, brought to my attention his important work on Plains Indians calendars.  I am deeply indebted to my good friend, and Lakota mentor, Dr. Martin Brokenleg , Augustana College, Sioux Falls, for his patience with my endless questions.  To Martin I say, “Mitakuye Oyasin!”

Arthur Amiotte, “The Lakota Sun Dance:  Historical and Contemporary Perspectives,” in Sioux Indian Religion, ed. by Raymond J. DeMallie and Douglas R. Parks, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1987, pp. 75-89.  ISBN 0-8061-2166-1.

Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1970, ISBN 0-8050-1730-5.

Dee Brown, The Fetterman Massacre, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1962, ISBN 0-8032-5730-9.

Joseph Epes Brown, ed., The Sacred Pipe:  Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglála Sioux, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1989.  ISBN 0-8061-2124-6.

Eugene Buechel, S.J., Lakota-English Dictionary , ed., by Paul Manhart, S.J., Red Cloud Indian School, Holy Rosary Mission, Pine Ridge, South Dakota, 1983.

Roberta Carkeek Cheney, The Big Missouri Winter Count , Naturegraph Publishers, Happy Camp, California, 1979, ISBN 0-87961-081-6.

Von Del Chamberlain, “North American Plains Indian Calendars,” Archaeoastronomy:  Supplement to Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol. 15, No. 6, 1984, pp. S1-S54.

Vine Deloria, Jr., “Sundancing and Stargazing,” Archaeoastronomy , Vol. V, No. 3, July-September, 1982, pp. 33-35.

Raymond J. DeMallie, “Lakota Belief and Ritual in the Nineteenth Century,” in Sioux Indian Religion, ed. by Raymond J. DeMallie and Douglas R. Parks, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1987, pp. 25-43.  ISBN 0-8061-2166-1.

Royal B. Hassrick, The Sioux, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1964, ISBN 0-8061-2140-8.

Arlene Hirschfelder and Paulette Molin, The Encyclopedia of Native American Religions, Facts on File, New York, 1992, ISBN 0-8160-2017-5.

George E. Hyde, A Sioux Chronicle, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1993, ISBN 0-8061-2483-0.

George E. Hyde, Red Cloud’s Folk, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1975, ISBN 0-8061-1520-3.

George E. Hyde, Spotted Tail’s Folk, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1961, ISBN 0-8061-1380-4.

Thomas E. Mails, Sundancing at Rosebud and Pine Ridge , Center for Western Studies, Augustana College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 1978, ISBN 0-931170-01-X.

Garrick Mallery, Pictographs of the North American Indians, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Annual Report 4, 1886, pp. 1-256.

Evan M. Maurer, Visions of the People:  A Pictorial History of Plains Indian Life, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 1992.  ISBN 0-295-97229-7.

Joe Rao, “The Leonids:  King of the Meteor Showers,” Sky & Telescope, Vol. 90, No. 5, November, 1995, pp. 24-31.

Robert M. Utley, The Indian Frontier of the American West 1846-1890, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1984, ISBN 0-8263-0716-7.

James R.  Walker, Lakota Belief and Ritual , University of Nebraska Press, 1991, ed.  by Raymond J.  DeMaille and Elaine A.  Jahner, ISBN 0-8032-9731-9.

James R. Walker, Lakota Myth, University of Nebraska Press, 1983, ed. by Elaine A. Jahner, ISBN 0-8032-9706-8.

James R. Walker, Lakota Society, ed. by Raymond J. DeMaille, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1982, ISBN 0-8032-9737-8.

James R. Walker, The Sundance and Other Ceremonies of the Oglála Division of the Teton Dakota, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 16, Part 2, 1917, Lakota Books, Kendall Park, New Jersey (reprint).
 
 

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By phone: 952-487-8461

Last updated: 1 March 2003