White Buffalo Calf Woman

A long time ago, the Lakota people were having a hard time. The hunting was bad. The buffalo had moved far away, and the people were hungry. The chiefs sent two scouts out across the prairie to see if they could find the herds.

The two young men walked for a long time and saw nothing. As they were coming up over a hill, they saw a figure walking toward them out of the distance. They could not at first make out what it was. As it came closer, they saw it was a woman, dressed in white buckskin, with her hair long and dark and shining. She walked easily on the grass, and she was carrying a bundle in her arms. She was beautiful in a way that did not feel like the beauty of an ordinary person.

One of the young men looked at her and felt awe. He stood still. He waited.

The other young man looked at her and felt only that she was beautiful, and his thoughts were the thoughts a man has for an ordinary beautiful woman. He told his friend what he was thinking. The first man said: "She is sacred. Do not have those thoughts. Do not speak to her like that."

The second man would not be turned. He went forward to her. He spoke to her in the way he had been thinking. A white cloud came down and covered the two of them. When it lifted, the woman was standing and the man was a heap of bones on the ground. Snakes were eating his bones.

The first young man fell to his knees. He covered his eyes.

The woman said: "Do not be afraid. I have come to your people. Tell your chief to put up a council lodge in the center of the camp and to gather the people. I will come tomorrow at sunrise."

The young man ran back to the camp and told the chief everything he had seen. The chief gave the order. The people put up a great council lodge. They cleaned the ground. They waited.

In the morning, as the sun came over the hills, the woman came walking into the camp. She was carrying the bundle. She came into the council lodge. The people of every age sat around the walls.

She walked around the lodge clockwise. She went to the chief, Hollow Horn, and stood in front of him.

She unwrapped the bundle. Inside was a pipe. The bowl was of red stone, the kind of stone that comes from one quarry far to the east, where the Great Spirit had pressed his blood into the earth. The stem was of wood, decorated with twelve eagle feathers.

She held the pipe up. "This is a sacred pipe. The bowl is of the earth. The stem is of all that grows. The smoke is the breath of life. When you smoke this pipe, you join the earth and the sky and your prayer carries up.

"Treat this pipe with care. Treat the earth with care. Treat the buffalo with care, for the buffalo will be your food and your shelter, and they will give themselves to you. Treat the women with care, because the people come from women. Treat the children with care, because the people come from children.

"There are seven sacred ceremonies that go with this pipe. I will tell you the first now and the others I will leave with you to learn through the years. They are the keeping of the soul of the dead, the rite of cleaning, the crying for a vision, the sun dance, the making of relatives, the becoming of a woman, and the throwing of the ball. Hold each of them. They will keep you in the right place between the earth and the sky."

She handed the pipe to the chief. He took it. He smoked it and passed it around the circle, in silence, the way she had told him.

Then she stood up. She walked out of the lodge and out across the prairie, the same way she had come. As she walked away, she stopped and rolled on the ground. When she stood up again, she had become a buffalo calf, white. She rolled again and became a black buffalo calf. She rolled again and became a brown one. She rolled a fourth time, became a red one, and walked off toward the horizon, growing smaller until she was gone.

That same day the buffalo came back. The herds appeared on the prairie in great numbers. The Lakota people had food.

The pipe she gave is still kept by the Lakota. It has been kept and passed down through the generations to a keeper who cares for it. When a white buffalo calf is born, the people remember her, and they say her teaching is with them again.