This document discusses the Lakota people's spiritual beliefs and practices related to the sky and landscape. It describes several constellations that are tied to sacred sites in the Black Hills and their role in ceremonies like the Sun Dance. It also summarizes Lakota beliefs about life, death, and reincarnation, explaining how the Milky Way represents the path of the dead and the role of constellations in guiding souls. Additionally, it covers topics like the orientation of tipis to the stars and Lakota practices of midwifery.

1. Lakota Journeys Among the Stars
Tipis, Death, Birth, and Leadership

2. Relationship Between Sky and
Land
• Seven Little Girls
(Pleiades)
– Tied to Harney Peak
• The Race Track
– Tied to Black Hills
– Site of a race between 4
and 2 legged
• Bear’s Lodge
– Tied to Devil’s Tower

3. Spring Journey to the
Black Hills
• Sacred Hoop
– Everything contained
inside
• Between Spring
Equinox and
Summer Solstice

4. Sacred Journey

5. Transformation of the Landscape
• Sun, Buffalo and
Earth’s Fertility
• Sun Dance enlivens
the Earth
– Body of the Buffalo

6. Sun Dance of the Lakota

7. Freedoms: of Religion and
Movement
• Calculating the first
Spring Journey
– 1000-100 BC[E]
– Precession
– Correlating dawn at
Spring Equinox with
Celestial Pipe
ceremony
• Summer Solstice with
Devil’s Tower
Constellation

8. Orientation of the Tipi
• Foundation of 3 poles
– Inner shape of a star
• Centered on star
• 7 directional poles
– E, W, N, S, above,
below, center
• 2 poles outside open
to sky
– Breath spirit in and
out
• Similar to Sun Dance

9. Religion as Orientation
• Orientation is the triumph over chaos, and the
basis of all respect for the natural world
• Mirroring
• ”When the Lakota build a tipi, they are building a
world. When they dance the invisible tipi alive at
the Sun Dance, they are renewing the world, and
at the same time, they are rebuilding themselves.
Whether star, tipi, world, Sun Dance or human
being--the irreducible elements are the same for
microcosm or macrocosm.”(18)

10. Horizon Astronomy
Sky and Land
Heliacal risings and
settings
Relationship of Sun
to constellations
Connected with
specific places

11. Lakota Journey After Death
• Milky Way is path of the Dead
– Example of Fallen Star
• Mother material; Father spiritual
– Body returns to Mother Earth (Grandmother)
– Spirit returns to Father Sky (Grandfather)
– Both sacred realms

12. Celestial Hole in the Sky
• Center of the Big
Dipper is a former
star
– Hole made by Fallen
Star’s mother
– Blue Woman
• 4 stars of dipper
called “man
carriers”

13. The Point of a Funeral
• The spirit of the dead
person is guided by the
mourners
• Along the three stars of
the handle of the Big
Dipper to the Sacred
Hoop
– Associated with a round
dome-shaped structure or
sweat lodge used in the
Lakota ceremony of
purification.

14. The Land of the Dead
• After ceremony spirit
travels along Milky Way
• Leads to place in SW sky
– which is a place of happy
reunions with friends and
family, ceremonial
singing, food and water,
and loss of obsessions and
insults
• Black Elk’s journey
– “Happy Hunting
Grounds”
• Day of the Dead

15. The Hand Constellation, or, How the
Chief Lost his Arm
• Chief’s selfishness upsets the balance of
cosmic order
• Disappearance of Hand constellation in
early spring is sign of the loss of Earth’s
fertility
– Followed by the Self-Sacrifice of Lakota at Sun
Dance
– Reappearance of the Hand confirms Self-
Sacrifice

16. Lakota Mandala
• Two Tipis joined at
apex
• Whirling
– Energetic exchange
between Sky and
Earth
• 3 Dimensional
– Directions
– Heart

17. Lakota Midwifery
• Coming back
• Diet of pregnant woman
– Charlotte Black Elk; each week a fast and 4
meat groups
• Underwater, underground, on earth, above earth
• First Kick Ceremony

18. Lakota Midwife
• Expert in medicines
• Prayed to Blue Woman, or Birth Woman
– Spirits enter the body through the sky hole
– Reincarnation
• Baby inspected for marks
– Navel kept by midwife
• Put in beaded pouch associated with Salamander (boy) or
Turtle (girl) Constellations
• “The cord between mother and child is broken at birth,
but the cord between the spirit world and children, that
connection must be established and then never broken.”

19. Nagi, or Soul
• Chooses parents
• Baby’s nagi faces inward to divine spirit
• Needs to be persuaded to stay in body
– Eating good, playing hard
– Nagi becomes more attached to body
– Sudden loss of Nagi results in death
• Return to the Land of the Dead

20. Summation
• Intimate connection between Sky and Earth
• Why the Black Hills are sacred for Black
Elk
• Religion as Orientation (Indigenous)
– Basis of respect for cosmos
– Disorientation (Immigrant) is cause of
disrespect