Symbols: Meat for the Soul in Cheyenne Myth and Lakota Ritual

JU L IA N C. R IC E Florida Atlantic University Symbols: Meat for the Soul in CheyenneMyth and Lakota Ritual Among native North American religions, those of the Lakota (Sioux) and Cheyenne have transformation symbols which especially resemble a developmental process found in such mystical systems as Hinduism, Bud­ dhism, Sufism, Christianity, and the Kabbalah.1 Fortunately, a great deal of clear, detailed English transcription of their ritualized drama and fiction isextant.2 It isperhaps ironic that more contemporary Americans are likely to be familiar with the intricacies of a relatively remote form of mysticism than with an equally mature and complex expression, still living on this continent. It is equally ironic that readers who praise ambiguity, open endings, and “process” should be unaware that their theories were taken for granted by “aboriginal” storytellers and listeners. The Lakota and the Cheyenne value symbols highly, not simply for what they mean or point toward, but as the means by which the soul grows and changes. In Western culture, Christ is an incarnation of the ineffable 1The major source of information on Lakota rituals, in this study, is Black Elk, The Sacred Pipe, recorded and ed. Joseph Epes Brown (Baltimore: Penguin, 1971). Subsequent references will be cited by parenthetical page numbers in the text. 2Most of the Cheyenne stories, interpreted here, are found in George Bird Grinnell, By Cheyenne Campfires (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1971). Subsequent refer­ ences will be cited by parenthetical page numbers in the text. The other major source of information on Cheyenne myth and ritual is Peter J. Powell, Sweet Medicine: The Con­ tinuing Role of the Sacred Arrows, the Sun Dance, and the Sacred Buffalo Hat in Northern Cheyenne History, 2 vols. (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1969). 106 Western American Literature in human form, and serves as the channel through which Grace enters the world. He is also the Word, or symbolic language, which communicates the wordless. His words and deeds are the agents of transformation for those who are born again by their miraculous healing power. In the Christ story and the Christian tradition, many subsidiary symbols tell the story of the soul’s transformation, but the words and deeds of Christ are the central symbol. With the Lakota and Cheyenne, certain symbol-generating sym­ bols, as agents of transformation, also take precedence. For the Lakota, the sacred pipe dominates most of their rituals. Among the Cheyennes, the Buffalo cap and the Medicine Arrows are the most sacred symbols. These gifts are conferred, like the preaching of the Word, by sacred persons, who represent the ongoing creation of the human soul, individually and col­ lectively. Arrows convert game into food. “Meaningless” raw material becomes the means of creating new life. Arrows are therefore a symbol of the reli­ gious experience that converts an unconscious person into the spiritual food which can nurture and enlighten others. The learning of archery forms the symbolic conclusion of a number of Cheyenne stories. It is the final gift of the prophet, Sweet Medicine, or Sweet Root Standing. The name suggests the source of all creative development, both the male and female principles, and especially the idea of spiritual nourishment, since the “sweet root” stimulates the flow of mother’smilk. The teller of stories about Sweet Root sprinkled sacred sage upon a hot coal and purified his body in the smoke before beginning. Purification, so that one’s thoughts, deeds, and words express only the essential, is common to Indian rituals, where fire is often the means of consuming the superfluous. Certain sacred movements then represent the Creation of man and the earth. The Creator isnow considered to be the witness to this repetition of his work, so that an abstracted con­ sciousness is present in the psyches of those who are enacting the Creation.3 Like many culture heroes, Sweet Root is an orphan. The creative soul is free of conventional authority and identity. He is raised by a poor old 3The effects of being a witness to the continuing Creation, rather than an autono­ mous actor within it, are described by Joseph Campbell’s interpretation of non-attach­ ment in the Hindu Vedas, “The individual, through...