Lakota Religion

The faith of the Lakota, of the sacred pipe, the Sun Dance and the Black Hills.

c. 1700 CE → (older roots) · The northern Plains · Indigenous & Animist

Lakota religion centres on Wakan Tanka, the Great Mystery, and the sacred pipe brought by White Buffalo Calf Woman. Its seven rites include the vision quest, the sweat lodge and the Sun Dance, which the US banned from 1883 until 1934. Black Elk’s visions, published in 1932, made it widely known.

Key figures

• Wakan Tanka, the Great Mystery
• White Buffalo Calf Woman
• Black Elk

Texts

• Oral tradition
• Black Elk Speaks (1932)

Beliefs

• Mitákuye oyás’iŋ: all are related
• The sacred pipe joins people and the Great Mystery
• The Black Hills are the heart of everything

Rituals

• The Sun Dance
• The vision quest
• The sweat lodge (inipi)

Grew from

• Indigenous American Traditions

Connections in the atlas

• Sitting Bull
• Iktómi
• Bear Butte (Mato Paha)
• Little Bighorn Battlefield
• Spread of the Ghost Dance
• Thunderbird
• The Ghost-Dance Religion (Mooney report)
• The Maiden (Kore)
• Sacred dance and music (ritual)
• Ascent to heaven
• ▶ Prophets of the end
• James Mooney