Talking Points:
The Thunder-Beings Speak
Imagine a hot, clear summer day on the Great Plains. Without warning, the sky suddenly darkens, flashes of light strike the tops of the cottonwood trees, setting them ablaze. At the same time sheets of hail, the size of golf balls batter the ground. Fire and ice from the same angry storm. To the Sioux Indians these were Spirit forms, hard to understand yet very powerful. They were wakan. These Thunder-beings who controlled the fire and the ice had both the power to kill and the power to heal. According to Black Elk, from this water all healing herbs grow.
When people of the twenty-first century experience violent storms, one of their first concerns is the interruption of power and the many inconveniences of having to do without electricity for a time. The wonder and magnificence of nature is often lost to the complaint of a “missed” television program or a scramble for candles so often misplaced after the last storm.
The Indians of the Plains, however, lived in a world of nature and experienced its tremendous power all the time. Campbell notes, “just being there, you feel the wonder and you become aware of something larger than the human personification of the energies that exist.”
Black Elk’s experience was not one of peace and soliloquy. As a youth he lived in fear of the Thunder-beings. Continually he would leave his sacred space with a restlessness and passion and return to his people to fulfill the many charges presented him. He would hear the Thunder-beings calling him, but did not know what they wanted. His family watched him hide whenever the storms came, leading them to believe that he had dreamed of thunder.
In Lakota belief, a person who dreams of thunder must perform a ceremony acting out his heyoka dream. The dreamer must obey the command of the Thunder-beings. As part of the obligation, the heyoka ceremony has the dreamer deliberately act like a clown and do things backwards to make people laugh.
The medicine men of his village encouraged Black Elk to enact the horse dance rather than a heyoka ceremony. This performance demonstrated the first part of his great vision. It was after the horse dance that Black Elk said “After this ceremony was completed, it seemed that I was happy to see my people and they looked renewed and happy. I was now recognized as a medicine man at age seventeen. Everyone had respect for me. The fear that I had had now all disappeared and when the Thunder-beings came I was always glad to see them come, as they came as relatives.
The security of a sacred place can be comforting. It serves as a warm retreat from the often harsh realities of our world. It is important to remember, though, that one MUST venture out into the world again as Black Elk did, to meet today’s challenges. One could think of it as temporary oasis, giving us the opportunity for reflection and renewal as we make our life journey.
Throughout his interviews with John Neihardt, Black Elk would reference the symbols and metaphors given to him in his vision, some more powerful than others. We continue our journey with perhaps the most powerful and most referenced in all his teachings, the Sacred Hoop.
This teenage girl seems to have found her sacred place on the bank of the Little Bighorn River. Entitled “The voice of the Water Spirits” photographer Joseph K. Dixon captured a tranquil and reflective moment of her day. The photo is dated between 1908 and 1913 and is provided by the Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, Call Number Z3182.
Can’glegska Wakan
Draw your Sacred Hoop
Draw your Sacred Hoop
After you have selected your sacred place and become familiar with the peaceful reflection and solitude it affords, you are ready to follow the next footprint left by Black Elk. You are now asked to Draw Your Sacred Hoop. Keep in mind that each of the symbolic metaphors given to Black Elk in his vision is open to various interpretations and that of the Sacred Hoop is no exception. One might say there are several interpretations of his vision hoop. There is the Sacred Hoop of Containment and Protection which will be discussed in this section; the Sacred Hoop of Harmony which is highlighted in the Talking Points of the Little Bighorn account; and finally, the Sacred Hoop as the Circle of Winters detailed in the next chapter. Before exploring each of these interpretations, consider the following words of Black Elk, telling of the Sacred Hoop presented to him in the great vision:
The Sacred Hoop
Four more riders, one from each quarter, came forth and presented me with a hoop, and with that hoop I was to make a nation and under that we were to prosper. The circle represented the old people that represented a nation. The center of it represented the prosperity of the nation. I was to raise a nation either in prosperity or in difficulty. In presenting the sacred hoop to me, the spirit from the west said: “Behold this sacred hoop; it is the people you shall have.” You realize that in the sacred hoop we will multiply. You will notice that everything the Indian does is in a circle. Everything that they do is the power from the sacred hoop, but you see today that this house is not in a circle. It is a square. It is not the way we should live. The Great Spirit assigned us a certain religion and etc. The power won’t work in anything but circles. Everything is now too square. The sacred hoop is vanishing among the people. We get even tents that are square and live in them. Even the birds and their nests are round. You take the bird’s eggs and put them in a square nest and the mother bird just won’t stay there. We Indians are relative-like to the birds. Everything tries to be round—the world is round. We Indians have been put here to be like the wilds and we cooperate with them. Their eggs of generations are in the sacred hoop to hatch out. Now the white man has taken away our nest and put us in a box and here they ask us to hatch our children, but we cannot do it. We are vanishing in this box.
In his great vision, Black Elk saw the eventual breaking of his people’s hoop, and in his lament he tells its painful meaning. The story does not end here. The rediscovery of his dream would have us mend the hoop, starting with our own personal circle.
The Sacred Hoop of Containment and Protection
Joseph Campbell tells us, the circle can be thought as the psychological expression of the totality of one’s self. Simply stated, circles shut out the outside and hold in the inside.
When you are in your sacred place, the next step is to draw an imaginary circle that contains only those elements of your life that are of most concern to you and which are at least to some degree, under your control. This exercise accomplishes two things: first it delimits the issues you need to address and are most on your mind; and second, it blocks out those more distant issues that are beyond your control. For our personal journey, the concept of the circle is one in which you are asked to define the limits of your immediate concerns, both positive and negative.
Your sacred hoop then, is in effect you. It gives you a oneness, a whole being. The focus now becomes inward. The hoop’s containment gives you a feeling of control. By definition we are now able to see exactly what you must