Chapter 1 Healers, Dreamers, Pipe Carriers: Communication with the Sacred
At a certain point in the ceremony while I am singing, I start to cry. They are not tears of sadness or joy, but recognition. I cry because I have the feeling, and I know "they" are there. Wounye' Waste' Win: Good Lifeways Woman, Lakota
If we look back far enough, we see that most cultures in the world had something similar to what in English is called a shaman, a specialist in communication with the spirit realm. Common threads in the fabric of shamanism everywhere in the world include the belief that an ordered spirit world exists, that all in creation, including man, have a soul that lives after death, and that communication with these spirits -- plant, animal, and human -- provides important information to the living. All remaining forms of shamanism, which has also been called "the original religion" and "the world's first and oldest religion," share certain ideas. All shamans believe that through drugs, specialized ritual, self-denial, or a combination of these a sacred altar can be created, a mysterious place and time in which direct communication with the spirit realm can be accomplished. In Latin this is called an axis mundi, or a central axis to the universe, where the various layers or dimensions of creation and reality are brought close together.
In some parts of the world shamanism remains a major force in the daily practices and beliefs of aboriginal peoples. In the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa, the hints of ancient shamanism remain in artifacts, cave paintings, and even regional variations of major religious denominations. Halloween is a good example of this blend of the Christian with the pre-Christian in our own Euro-American culture. The spirits of the dead -- skeletons and ghosts, our ancestors by impersonation -- come back on this special day to beg for their share of the harvest. The day is still celebrated, complete with the admonition of the spirits to abide by the ancient policy "trick or treat."
Sensing and Understanding the Sacred
The Sun Dance, in some form or other, is virtually universal to tribes on the northern plains. It is a ceremony in which men and women pledge one to four days of abstinence from food and water. They dance in the hot sun from morning until dark, even throughout the chilly night. Among the Lakota, the dancers may further vow to be staked through the skin of their chest or back to the Sun Dance tree (the stakes and cords representing human ignorance), or they may drag a buffalo skull or offer small pieces of flesh from their upper arm. These flesh offerings from the upper arm are generally a sacrifice made by women, although men may make it as well. The Cheyenne and Crow do not include flesh offerings in their Sun Dance. Suffering is a vital part of a successful Sun Dance. If a few of the dancers are fortunate, they may collapse and experience a vision.
A vow is made a year before the dance in return for a spiritual favor or in petition for a favor, which may include such things as the healing of a sick family member or the safe delivery of a new child into the world. Although personal reasons for Sun Dancing vary, the community aspect of this ceremony is to pray for new life, that the (feminine) world might be green and bountiful with the male influence of rain. The outer arbor or shade of the Sun Dance lodge is round, made of pine or cottonwood boughs, or even plastic tarp, but always in the center is a tall cottonwood tree, specially selected by a party of male scouts, often including four virgins who count coup on the tree with sacred axes dipped in red earth paint to bless the tree. It is then cut, lowered to shoulder height, and carried back to the Sun Dance camp. Offerings, consisting of rawhide cutouts of a man and buffalo bull, as well as pieces of cloth into which tobacco has been tied, are tied into its upper boughs. These represent participating families' wishes for themselves and the collective world.
It is difficult to know how Plains Indians, whether Lakota, Cheyenne, or Crow, feel when they see the Sun Dance tree or attend a doctoring ceremony. To them the cottonwood tree is the cosmic tree, its limbs in the clouds, its spiritual roots spreading deep into Mother Earth and to the four directions. This tree is the center of the sacred universe during the ceremony.
Some anthropologists might say that is a procreative or phallic symbol. Certainly this is true in the sense that it is a central ceremony devoted to praying for the health and future generations of the people. This symbolic "fertility" is further enhanced by the rawhide cutouts of the man and buffalo bull tied into its branches of living green. The successful completion of the Sun Dance as a succession of smaller rituals including the selection and setting up of the tree, sweat lodges of purification, the specific songs, ritual gift giving, flesh offerings, and so on, in turn affects the people and their immediate future.
Spiritual beliefs and definitions are also set in a specific language. This language then shapes symbolic concepts that are shared with those who speak that language. It is difficult in a book like this to translate spiritual languages, and the broad concepts they represent, from one language to another. It must be remembered that all conversations and scenes related by the tribal peoples in this book were experienced in that tribal language.
The symbols of the pipe, drum, sweet grass, eagle feathers, and parts of or representations of animals like buffalo, wolf, or elk carry deep-seated, shared meaning acquired by Native Americans from birth. It is critical for the traveler into the world of medicine women to understand that Indian culture shares numerous internal symbols, concepts, and ideas that these people have been exposed to from the earliest stages of their life. As a Hopi friend wisely said, "Our children feel and hear the drum before birth." The drumbeat is likened to the heart of the people and, because it is useful in restoring vitality, remains a part of Lakota healing rites. The touch of an eagle feather carries a spiritual residue from the eagle that transmits a healing force. A dream of a bear might call a man or woman to be a healer or, more specifically, to become an herbalist. Of course, these dreams are not in English, or in symbols shared universally with the dominant society.
Each time a story is told in oral form only the intention, nuance, and mood of that rendering is captured. Each story retold during a cold winter night, whether from tribal tradition or family history, reflects what the teller wishes to highlight in that one telling. It is difficult if not impossible for those not raised within a culture to participate meaningfully in those ceremonies or understand them entirely. In the Indian community it is the shamans, the special holy men or women who understand and can interpret the deep meaning of these ceremonies because of their specialized training and ritual practice.
Power As in all belief systems, faith in a spiritual reality beyond this physical world is essential. Plains Indians often speak of the "power" of their religion. "Power," in the modern, physical world, could be defined simply as the ability to get things done. Power has the same meaning for Plains Indian people in their perception of the spirit world. As Neva Standing Bear Paxton, a Lakota spiritual leader in the Denver native community, says, "When I am asked about my religion, I talk about being Episcopalian, but for my spirituality, I go with my Indian ways."
In this context Neva suggests that "religion," which to her is Episcopalian, is a system of thought and rituals that, though they may be concerned with salvation, are relatively powerless to affect changes in the conditions of this world, including the restoration of a person to physical health. When Neva wants to do this she turns to the old traditional Lakota system and its very different understanding of spiritual power.
Power may occur on any number of levels, from the power to sense danger to the power to call spirits into a ceremony to doctor a patient.
The manifestation of power can come through a shaman's diagnosis, "treatment," or prediction of the outcome of an illness. A modern shaman may address other problems, such as locating a missing person or solving family problems such as alcoholism. No matter what the problem may be, the holy person must accurately predict the future and tell the patient what is needed in order to achieve this cure or avoid future problems. This is risky business, and not only because it places the shaman or "soul" traveler in potential spiritual danger when he or she flies into the spirit realm to recall a lost aspect of the soul but also because the shaman may have to challenge the spirit helpers of a "witch" who has created this trouble for the patient. Eventually the shaman may diminish his or her own spiritual powers through a lifetime of use and dissipation. It is also treacherous in that the journey may take the shaman into a strange world of trials and danger where he or she may be hurt. It is also dangerous because in a tribal society the shaman's reputation rests on the accuracy of his or her "predictions." Positive results also reassure the faithful and remind them of the mysterious and tremendous powers of creation.
Shamanism Many religious scholars believe man's primeval form of "spiritual contact" comes through some form of transformation in which a spirit takes over the body of the trained and initiated holy person or shaman. This transformation may be brought on by fasting or be drug-induced, or the practitioner may be catapulted into the sacred or entered by spirits through the use of ritual. With practice, the shaman may also achieve this state spontaneously. In this state, the shaman may, as in the following story related by Madonna Swan about a Bear spirit helper, acquire the posture, movement, and voice of another being.
