Yellow Bird: White buffalo signals hope and peace
Monday, June 9, 2008
Filed Under:
Opinion
"Another white buffalo calf was born Saturday at the National Buffalo Museum and Culture Center in Jamestown, N.D., making it third white buffalo calf born there. These white buffalo currently live in the Jamestown museum’s pasture.
White buffalo calves have a special spiritual meaning for American Indian people. So, many Indian people hail the birth as a spiritual event.
Why are white buffalo calves significant to many Indian people? There are several versions of the meaning of the birth of a white buffalo calf. One of the most common indicates that the white buffalo calves represent a deity that came to the Lakota to provide teaching.
Here is some of the story told by Joseph Chase Horse, Lakota, from Rapid City, S.D.: Two warriors were hunting when they came upon a “large body” that rolled four times and turned into the White Buffalo Calf woman. She was beautiful, and one of the warriors had bad thoughts about her. A black cloud consumed him leaving only one warrior.
The beautiful woman told the warrior to return to his people and tell them she would return, bringing with her a Sacred Bundle; and she would also teach the people.
She brought them the Sacred Pipe and seven sacred ceremonies — the sweat lodge or purification, naming, child naming, healing, marriage, vision quest and the Sundance ceremonies. She gave them instructions on ways to live and said they would always be caretakers and guardians of the land. She said she would return one day for the Sacred Bundles.
The Lakota people still have the Sacred Bundle called White Buffalo Calf Pipe, and they practice the seven ceremonies. The keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe is Arvol Looking Horse from Cheyenne River, S.D."
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Dorreen Yellow Bird : White buffalo may herald hope and peace
(The Grand Forks Herald 6/7)
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