Additional Dialogue || (links)
Digital Tribal Arts Quarterly. This is a PDF Document.
Details of a ceremony with an ancient sacred Pipe and a Japanese Sacred Sword of a sacred Shinto Society.
This is a PDF Document.
Preamble ||
There is no clear way to explain in the English language how the object we call Sacred Pipe first came to the people of this Turtle Island. It is very ancient and in those days the mystery life was lived and expressed in terms that cannot be explained in language: the traditional keepers and sacred elders forbid it. The object known as Sacred Pipe was ancient long before the Lakota Tribal Nation migrated from the ancient South to its present lands in the Plains territories. Over such a long history there is much that can be said, and much that is impossible to say. The real truth can only be revealed or understood from within Sacred Space itself. However, it is important that tribal people embrace their responsibility to the world community and say what it is possible to say. It is impossible, absolutely, for one tribe to know or contain the full history of this Sacred Teaching. When tribal people speak of the sacred and say "it is only this", they are mistaken. At the very least Sacred Pipe is Eight Sacred Things.
Most American Indian tribes remain silent on the details of their Sacred Rites and Objects. Because these people keep silence, many people think the noise and talks made by a vocal minority have some special affiliation with the truth. This is incorrect. An attentive and honest student of the sacred will understand this.
The FIRST American Indians to embrace the nature of the Sacred Pipe were almost certainly the Creek-Catabwa and their ancestors along the lower Mississippi River.
Asinii-opwaagan-ag || Sacred Tobacco Morning Fire
Sacred Pipe is a very ancient life-teaching. There are more than 500 tribal communities in North America. Of this large number, only a much smaller number of tribal people in the entire world have embraced this way of life we call the Sacred Pipe. The plains tribal people (Sioux, Lakota, Brule and so forth) received Sacred Pipe around 450 years ago, shortly before the arrival of the Europeans. The tribes to the east of the plains have been using Sacred Pipe for so long, that many of the stories of how long ago it first came into the lives of the people have been lost to general knowledge. My own culture, the Ojibway, or more properly, the Ahnishinabe, has had Sacred Pipe as the center of our Sacred Rites for thousands of generations. The oldest Sacred Pipes unearthed by archaeologists, as of this period in time, date back more than 10,000 years, and only in a very few regions of North America (mostly along the upper Mississippi valley).
I have been having a conversation over some years with a Japanese man who is also a teacher of the sacred of the Japanese sword. I do not wish to offend him by using his name without his permission. I told him I believed that Sacred Pipe and Sacred Sword were both what we would call in tribal languages "an instrument of air". I believe both instruments exist for the same purpose, but in different dimensions, for example. Sacred Pipe has such a long and passionate history among the northern Native American tribal communities. It is possible to talk about Sacred Pipe as an instrument of life and death. The old ancient keepers of sacred objects described their world in a language that is far different than English. Instruments of the sacred, to ancient people. Some of the very traditional tribal teachers believe that Sacred Pipe cannot be described using ordinary language, and so forbid most direct speech about it. I feel a strong sense of connection between what the great teachers of Japanese society have said to us regarding the Samurai sword. I sense that Sacred Pipe and Sacred Sword are both expressions of a sacred force that is alive in this world, which can be addressed directly. Though the work of Sacred Sword and sacred Pipe may seem different, their purpose and elemental truths seem similar, to me.
Sacred Pipe is not a faith-based religious object or practice ||
Sacred Pipe is a fundamental property and expression of what might be legally argued as a "Native American Religious Practice". However "religious" is not a natural tribal word. To most Native Americans religion is not faith-based; it has no hierarchy, and there is no central authority. Sacred Pipe is a way of life and a type of ceremonial behavior that is based, at its best, upon the cycles of natural life. Sacred Pipe recognizes a greater reality than the "me", but also accepts a mystery element in life wherein information about the sacred is to great for a single mind to hold. New information unfolds with every ceremony, with every step forward into understanding how and why you must try and communicate with the four elements and the greater mystery life beyond them. Sacred Pipe is a language used to address the four great elements, directly. There is no abstraction or mysticism implied in this idea.
I have been holding Sacred Pipe for nearly forty years as of this writing. For 25 of those years I have been traveling around North America and the world with what my tribal teachers have named "Four Directions Unity Bundle (A Sacred Pipe)". This group of tribal sacred objects includes sacred from many tribes. These sacred objects were presented (gifted) to this bundle by real tribal people who know about and supported this work, this idea. They understood that, in time, (such as now) I would begin to talk about my experiences, to talk about what they said to me. We want to do our part to preserve for the ancient future as much good information as we can find the time and clarity to produce.
There are differences between Sacred Pipe cultures. Not all tribes use or even understand....or even....accept the idea of Sacred Pipe. The existence and behavior of persons with Sacred Pipe are very well known in the Plains Tribal Nations. Sacred Pipe is also well established historically among the Woodland Tribal Nations immediately east and north of the plains. It is also very strong in the Oklahoma Indian Country, among the Apache, Comanche and their relatives. That's about it. In this narrow geographic range were tens of thousands of tribal villages whose spiritual and practical existence upon this mother earth were established around the ceremonies, rituals, rites, songs, dances, dreams and politics of Sacred Pipe. In the modern age sacred Pipe has migrated in a very strong way to some of the tribes in Oklahoma and in minor ways throughout tribal lands and communities.
Christian religions are, it seems, largely based on "faith". Tribal religions are based upon agreements and behavior with the original ancestors. There is no similarity between Christian faith-based religion and the precise ritual of the mystery life ceremonies and objects of Native American tribal society. For many generations the language, the negative language, of Christian faith has been used to describe tribal spiritual practices in a very critical and demeaning way. It is challenging, now, to use that same language of our enemies to try and bring forward a more accurate, objective and clear view of these ancient tribal teachings.
Society is slowly recognizing that the ancient systems embodied in tribal ritual created balanced communities, productive and honest lives, and a rich system of self-discovery and revelation. Unlike faith based religions which demand belief in something outside of and far away from yourself, tribal ritual is a process of self-knowledge and acceptance of spiritual responsibility for your life and your community and your real days and nights.
Theft, Imitation, and Acting Out of Tribal Ritual
In tribal society persons who hold Sacred Pipe on behalf of other people, for the waiting world, are bound by the laws and principles of the original tribal teachings, as interpreted by their tribal elders. Right now in modern society there is a stampede of people all across western society that have picked up objects that look like tribal pipes. If you do a search on the internet you willl find that everywhere you look someone is having a "Lakota Pipe Ceremony"
In the literature that exists about tribal people of the United States, the "story" about the coming of Sacred Pipe to the Lakota is arguably the best known. This particular story, while popular, has lead to a lot of confusion in people's minds about tribal religions. The Lakota are a small tribe, their little word is not a reflection of ALL tribal society, but is often talked about in a way that implies all Indians are like the Lakota. Because of their media and new age popularity, the Lakota model is the most often imitated and abused, even by by tribal people.
Spiritual Hackers. Sacred Rituals are copy protected. This does not mean that there is not an abundance of people right now acting out before a gullible public their imitation, their copies and projections about this ancient ceremony of the "red man".
It is very unusual to find someone who pretends to be a Catholic Bishop. It is not common to find someone who pretends to be a doctor, or a rabbi. Why are there so many people pretending with Sacred Pipe? In a free society, tribal people seem powerless to prevent this very odd and damaging behavior. In a free society people do what they want. Part of the blame, now, must rest with tribal communities who are reluctant to speak for the record and publically about sacred matters. The very traditions that are being stolen by a "new world order of arrogant chosen ones" require humilty, modesty, silence about the sacred elements of the life...these very qualities have prevented most tribes from organizing some standards and authority such as that enjoyed by the clergy, the medical profession and so forth. The abscence of professional standards is no accident.
The licensing system of Sacred Pipe is the permission, direction, and support of a circle of tribal elders who actually live or lived upon the earth and looked you in the eye and said you should do this work. Persons who hold any kind of tribal ceremony for the modern people and who DO NOT have this permission of tribal elders are behaving outside the law, outside of what is right. They are doing great harm.
In matters of the sacred ceremonies and objects, these matters are the property of the tribal elders and councils of their respective tribes. If you steal or copy Hopi or Zuni ceremonies a Federal Marshall may show up at your door. If you play make believe with Sacred Pipe no one will pound on the door or arrest you. The Lakota might put your name on a shame list or someone else might call you a bad name.
If you hold any kind of tribal object that does not have the breath of a living elder upon it, it is a dead object.
If a tribal elder has not looked into your face and given you the blessing of that tribal object, it is a dead object. Dead objects cannot be used for sacred work.
This is the true law of tribal sacred.
One can look at the outstanding security and protections that are used by the Pueblo (Kiva) tribes of New mexico and Arizona. The Tewa tribes have managed to keep control of their sacred rituals and objects. The tribes of Sacred Pipe have let that object out all over the place. These pipes have become like another stolen sacred object of the Ahnishinabe, the "Indian Dream-catcher" that are now sold in every culture on this earth. This little sacred object was made useless by mass production. Thank you dead world people. Many people talk about pipes as the "way of the Indians" without any distinctions as to how inaccurate, even insulting to many tribal people, such an assertion, such a sloppy use of language truly implies.
It is possible to get all dressed up and have nowhere to go. The Tribal Human Beings call the "sacred" for a good reason, for many good reasons. That which is sacred reveals the truth and the truth is something Sacred Pipe shows us how to find within ourselves. It is not a journey you can pretend to make.
You do not need someone pretending to hold the sacred to teach you this lesson. Sacred Pipe is a way of life. It is not a single event, but a process of unfolding and growing within a deep and very ancient teaching. We call this "the original instructions". Just because people come to a place and pretend they have done something, does not mean anything really happened. The US Senate is a good example of this theory.
At one web site recently I read how a woman who is "part Navajo" had "chosen" the Teton Sioux Tribe as her life path and was now doing "traditional pipe ceremoies" in new age centers in New York. Many things that are symptoms of a strange imbalance are in this story. Women are rarely (as in very rarely) ever given any authority or right to use Sacred Pipe before the public, tribal or otherwise. (There are good and honorable reasons for this). The Navajo have their own complex and beautiful religion. Their religion does not include in any way a tribal pipe, in any way. The final statement she makes is quite the revelation. Sacred Pipe is like the marines...you don't choose them, they choose you. You don't just wake up and hear an old drum and say, hey, wow, now I can carry the sacred rituals of the Teton Sioux. Isn't that cool? The Internet is filled with THOUSANDS of stories like this. Why are so many people lost inside this lie? Believe me, the numbers of people lost inside this lie are strangely numerous.
Sitting Bull's Sacred Pipe || Theft and Profit and other odd characters of the broken sacred
Another Blog entry that I find curious was written by a woman, identified as such, who had recently done a sweat lodge ceremony with one "carlo", a member of something called the Western Cherokee Tribe of Missouri, which is a 501c(3) organization and not a recognized tribe. carlo tells her he has Sitting Bull's famous Saccred Pipe. Sitting Bull is one of the most well known of all tribal men in history. She says they all smoked it together at the really great sweat lodge ceremony. Like the ones he conducts around the world.
Sitting Bull was a Holy Man of the Hunk Pappa Sioux. His Sacred Pipe would be the property, morally and legally, of those tribal elders. Some research on the internet revealed that at some time in the recent past a Mr. Fenn put up for sale the pipe of Sitting Bull. Attempts to verify this was the famous pipe concluded by admitting there was a possibility this pipe was in fact the Hunk Pappa's original sacred object.
Did carlo, a Western Cherokee(?) buy this pipe? He must be very rich. I would think if it was authenticated that it would bring a price in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Tribal pipes from entirely unknown original owners from this period have brought in many tens of thousands of dollars at art auctions. I would imagine a verifiable Sitting Bull pipe would set a record. As of this writing I am trying to find out what can be known of the whereabouts of this tribal object. I would imagine if the Sioux Nation knew it was being paraded around by "carlo" that there might be trouble ahead for somebody. In traditional tribal history, pretending to behave with such a sacred object could be punished by death. This story is strange to me. When it was put to the author of the blog that it was most likely impossible that this man would have this particular sacred pipe and be there with her with it, she was not convinced. Time will reveal more information on this strange story.
The author of the web posting linked above replied to my inquiry. An academic, he stated that Sitting Bull had several pipes like this. He further stated that Sitting Bull's family showed no interest in these objects, concluding also that these pipes were Sitting Bull personal property....and not "clan" or "society" property. So, he said, several of pipes like this one pipe ended up on the market. He says there are several of them, some in museums, some in private hands. He also said, directly, that "Sitting Bull's Pipe was not a ceremonial pipe". There is a lot of information in the "professors" short email. How he knows whose property and what the procedure was for Sacred Pipe in the Sitting Bull family is an interesting question? How could he know what he claims to know? Answer: he can't know these things. None of these academics or salesmen ever go and talk to the source. These are manufactured (made-up) facts by a phony intellectual who has zero direct knowledge of any tribal person on this sweet earth.
This little scene demonstrates the multiple personality world in which Sacred Pipe must live, somehow. Academics have never really embraced the real idea behind Sacred Pipe, the knowledge system behind it and the many formalities around certain pipes. They just don't get it, they don't see and they talk to fast to ever believe it. It begs the question about what rights and hopes did the Sitting Bull relatives believe they had when their elder died? When a white man finds a Sacred Pipe on a dead American Indian, what is the protocol?
The dead world. That is what Sitting Bull called the modern society. In the dead world a pipe is just an object. A valuable example of the naive emptiness of the savage mind. Yes, in the dead world you can steal the sacred of another man and refuse to believe in his sacred and therefore diminish him even further. Academics know so little and comprehend very little of what they think they know of tribal sacred matters. Being students of the information about the truth of life on earth, academics prefer to preen and dismiss any light not of their own making. Universities stopped embracing their sacred mission generations ago. Now they are agents of the corporate norm.In the corporate norm an artifact from a dead famous American Indian is dry toast without water.
Has Sacred Pipe in fact been murdered and tricked and put into the hands of so many pretenders and shouters and lost souls un-interpreted by so many academic midgets, that it is now dead? Can Sacred Pipe be rescued and salvaged and understood as it was in the original instructions? Is there hope that Sacred Pipe can prevail above this enormous noise made by crazy people in eight directions? Yes, I think it is possible. Sometime. Somewhere. For some people.
Tribal leaders at tribal nations like Hopi and Zuni have been very active and have had some good successes with regaining control of their sacred. They have been able to confiscate sacred items to their people from private collectors, museums and citizens from around the world. The tribal leaders whose tribes have responsibility for Sacred Pipe have yet to make similar efforts on behalf of the Sacred Pipes held in private collections, museums and by "carlo".
Why not? When Mr. Fenn put Sitting Bull Sacred Pipe on the market did the Hunk Pappa not know about it? Do they not have lawyers working for their tribe? Did they not have friends at Rosebud or Pine Ridge or somewhere that might help them? The Sioux collectively sure yell and shout about their sacred things. But shouting and yelling and holding your breath just does not work. I have tried it. YoYo for Sacred Pipe? Many tribes have historical claims on the many sacred objects held in the dead world. Some of us believe that step by step the tribes will get these objects back from the dead world....or maybe not. I wish more of them tried. This seems mostly a failure of the Hunk Pappa Nation to insert itself into the argument.
Every culture must endure the disavowal and discrediting of its belief system from oppressors. That is pretty much the entire history of the relationship of modern people to tribal people worldwide. Diminish them by showing their beliefs and objects are nothing. In the dead world Sacred Pipe has no friends, no elders, no home, no hope for a future because it is an object, a piece of personal property. Anyone who has studied intelligently the life of Native North Americans knows that property rights and issues of personal property were very different than what modern society recognizes and practices. The truth is the psychology of a traditional tribal person is not the same psychology as some academic stiff wearing a silk tie and driving a BMW to work. Though cultures must endure this behavior from the larger society does mean they should refuse to make a response. The ceremonies of the Four Directions Unity Bundle is a response. The Zuni's arriving with federal marshals to confiscate stolen sacred objects is a response.
Recently I have discovered that there are several people, American Indians apparently, but not Hunk Papa, claiming to be be holding "Sitting Bull's Pipe". One guy explained to his listeners that Sitting Bull made many pipes and gave them away in his travels. These stories are impossible to believe. yet, blog articles tell of the rapture, respect and honor that uninformed white people felt to be so close to such a man.
Perhaps it is to late for Sacred Pipe. So many lost people are holding these portable objects that it may be impossible to extract what is true from the lies and delusions that put these tribal objects within such easy reach. I am ashamed of human beings for this behavior. Ashamed of the self-deceiving fools who abuse the sacred and the uninformed modern people who have no clue at all as to where and who the truth really is.
In the end the only hope is that a person try to speak the truth from where they are standing right now. This will not stop the lies and pretending. However, it is the only defense possible in this dead world.
There are at least as many lost and lying tribal people as there are in any village or community...that is a large number. Strangely, a confused or deceptive American Indian has a willing audience, all over the world. Meanwhile the humble keepers of the truth are more modest and more cautious...and seem to have a smaller audience for their revelations. This is the nature of the strange broken world in which we must all live now.
Spinning Wheel || The Pearl
What has happened to western culture? Where is the point of damage that has permitted this grand hallucination to continue? Tribal communities are harmed by this grand delusion. The truth is tribal people have lost so much, that now even their religions and religious objects are being used by other people without their permission. While tribes struggle to preserve and sustain their portion of sacred knowledge and worry about the future, modern people in cities like Sedona Arizona tell everyone they live lives of great power and prosperity because they carry these stolen sacred rituals. It is far from a victimless crime. It is a tragedy that is a big problem hiding in the shadows of American spiritual culture.
True progress towards the truth, any truth, is impossible unless those who are present take full responsibility for their own behavior and the words that come out of their mouth. Real tribal rituals require the absolute truth from each person present. Truth can never be in balance when in the dark heart of a lost and desperate modern person there are so many lies. If the proper tribal elders have not given their consent (breath), then this truth is impossible to carry.
This is such a serious problem that it must perforce appear at the beginning and throughout any serious discussion of these ideas and rituals of Sacred Pipe. The nature of this abuse is so painful to Native American people that it makes it much harder for any of them to trust or open up to the outside world. It is a long preamble of disturbing noise that must be filtered before we can arrive at a clear understanding.
Reality |
In most of the tribal communities which embrace Sacred Pipe, the families and organized ceremonies of Sacred Pipe is a practice of quiet dignity, the fabric of a daily rhythm of life. Most tribal Native Americans are quiet, humble and very conservative about discussing or demonstrating any information about their tribal sacred practices and ideas.
It is a time to hope for more openness, maybe a little more trust and willingness to present itself. The present climate of misinformation and shallow information and downright lies which parades around about these subjects are reasons many tribal person refuse to open up and say anything.
Good information is important to the real survival of any culture. A culture cannot sustain itself based upon the misrepresentations, clueless posturing and projected acting out by which modern people receive information on a teaching as important as Sacred Pipe. It is a big cloud of mud and mist. Somehow this world of shadows must be understood and guarded against. This kind of shadow and darkness takes a lot of energy away from what could be a compelling and powerful dialogue between tribal spiritual and ceremonial leaders and the waiting world.
In the privacy of tribal ritual Sacred Pipe does not live in a mist or in the mud. There are some very loud tribal people who need to shut up and sit down, but otherwise Sacred Pipe enjoys a rich life among the tribal relations. It is only when we try (or refuse to try) to translate this into good relations with the modern world that these strange problems have arisen. This should be no surprise, but, surprise, to many tribal members it is a big surprise and something they want no part of. So the world waits for good information. Slowly, slowly, slowly it may arrive.
Nature of the Messenger
left || ceremonial keeping of ceremonial family and personal pipes at a long ceremony (pipes gathered in this way are never left alone).
These are personal and family ceremonial pipes. Pipes which are the property and work of councils and societies and other sacred groups are very different.
The truth is the sacred of the North American Indian is shrinking and endures damage every day. Those of us on this sacred path sometimes call it "the shrinking path".
I believe (hope) better information can help ease the stress and pain of this problem and perhaps lead to more promising and positive opportunities for students, supporters and tribal people themselves.
The Sacred Rites and Sacred of the Lakota |
Outrage and War || Lakota Pretense and Accusation
Over the years unidentified persons claiming to speak for the Lakota Sacred Pipe make accusations and declarations of "war" against those people they perceive who use Sacred Pipe in ways the Lakota do not approve of. These diatribes and rants claim that Sacred Pipe is the property of Lakota spiritual culture and that everyone else is a thief and a liar.
One can be sympathetic with the nature of the many abuses to the sacred that American Indians must endure. However, we have always felt information and education is better than war and rage. Some people seem to take these random hate documents as serious declarations from tribal leadership. They are not. The so-called declarations are made by angry people with their own private agenda. These declarations are not official documents in any way. They reflect passionate views on a serious problem shared by all tribal cultures, not just the Lakota.
Sacred Pipe and many other powerful ceremonies exist in the many tribal cultures other than the Lakota. The Lakota are only one small tribe in a great world of over 500 tribes. These Lakota can ONLY speak for themselves. Many tribal leaders and tribal elders support sharing and educating with the traditional sacred. Naturally, the abuses, lies and acting out are very disruptive and negative...this includes the nonsense of these "declarations" by unidentified Lakota persons.
Hypocrisy || More than 60 Sioux families live around the Pipestone Monument. These families make a substantial part of their living making "peace pipes" for the tourist market. Indeed, most of the "pipes" made for sale are in fact made by Sioux Indians.
Sacred Pipe is the Sacred teaching, not the Sacred Property. It is sacred teaching of many tribes other than the Lakota.
We could hope and hopefully will continue to try and educate the modern world about what is the truth and the balance about tribal sacred. Hopefully a good educational effort by tribal leadership could result in some improvements. We cannot substitute the misplaced and incorrect rage of Lakota Declarations for the abuse and acting out of the tribal sacred by modern people. Two negatives cannot produce a positive.
There is a right way to be in harmony with these sacred teachings. Rage is not part of that sacred process. Lies are not part of that sacred process. The Lakota Tribal Elders have never endorsed or written such angry and pointless declarations to anyone. Tribal Elders do not think this way.
We believe trying to build a productive base of good information is better than pointing fingers or offering to abuse people. Sacred of the tribal community is much, much larger than these angry outbursts by Sioux Indians. The Sioux can only speak only for themselves. They have no right or responsibility to lecture other tribes or other cultures on what they are doing. You cannot change the behavior of other people...you can only hope to change yourself.
The Lakota may need one day to ask how they have contributed to and been the main source of this tribal activist abuse of the sacred for so long? If you ever have an opportunity to read one of the many self-styled rants about theft of sacred ceremonies, you will find the people doing the illegal Sundances for modern people, the people making pipes for sale to the dead world, are usually other Sioux Indians. What they yell about the loudest is the abuses perpetuated by their own relations, even though they point the finger elsewhere.
To Many Written Words by To Many Intellectuals who who cannot see the American Indian Forest for all the Lakota Trees standing in the way |
Most of the public information available about Sacred Pipe and the ideas, religious practices and theories of the quantum of tribal sacred are derived from numerous books published in the popular press centering on historical rites of the Lakota.
I am not Lakota. In years past I had a few friends from Pine Ridge. When I was younger I was invited with my family to a few ceremonies on the Pine Ridge Lands. I have read much of what has been published where the subject might touch upon Sacred Pipe.
I do not speak for the Lakota. I am an Ojibway man and I speak from that place. However, I am a free man and a thinking man also. I have expressed in numerous places some of my thoughts about the Lakota and other Sioux Nation tribal ceremonies.
I am disappointed in the main stream media. For some reason so much of the published and video information about tribal people in the USA is about the Lakota. I do not think this voluminous amount of published information has helped them very much at all. It seems to have created an uncontrollable force of imitation and confusion rather than clarity or understanding.....or respect.
I am Ojibway and we have our own history with Sacred Pipe. From this perspectve I believe it is possible to look at Sacred Pipe as an idea that can be expressed this way :
That sacred pipe in the hands of all those people from wherever they may be and whoever they may be is the same sacred pipe. The Sacred Pipe that is in the hands of a fool, and the Sacred Pipe that is in the hands of the enlightened tribal elders is in fact the same pipe.
Having said that, it is possible to understand that specific sacred pipes have been and will be created by councils and tribal spiritual leaders to do specific work in the world. Many times within a "council" or "clan" or "society" Sacred Pipe is made to fulfill some misson, deliver a particular message or in support of some very specific work and group. Usually there is a very specific reason why pipes are made. Sacred Pipe of the Four Directions Unity Bundle contains a group of Sacred Pipes. One of those Sacred Pipes was made by an old and respected family of Pipe Makers near Pipestone Minnesota, and this family is from Rosebud on the Sioux Nation Lands.
Sacred White Buffalo Calf Woman Sacred Pipe is the property and life of the Lakota and their relations. They have the right, and exercise it often, to speak or not speak about that Sacred Object. I claim or desire no authority to speak for that Great Bundle. However, I do speak as Sacred Pipe from the Circle of understanding of my own elders and tribal teachers and have and will express my own views about Sacred Pipe. My words are my own and only I am responsible for them.
My sincere respect and hopes are ever with the tribal elders of these tribal nations and the familes who Keep and Protect of their Sacred. The Great Sacred Bundle the Lakota hold and protect may offer some hope for all of humanity in the future, and contributes to their own power to survive and endure, and this is a great thing.
My single independent thought (at the moment) about ||
White Buffalo Calf Woman Sacred Pipe
Black Elk has made what is arguably the most outstanding description of the White Buffalo Calf Woman Sacred Pipe. This is an original and universal world treasure of a Sacred Pipe that is the property of the Lakota Nation, presently in the 19th generation of is Guardians. Not many have since spoken as eloquently or as clearly before the waiting world about who is Sacred Pipe, where is Sacred Pipe and some insight into what is Sacred Pipe.
White Buffalo Calf Woman was a Sacred Woman who brought this Sacred Object to the Lakota. She was a mystery life woman, a Manitou, we Ojibway would say. We do not believe she was in particular "A Buffalo" but rather a Sacred Woman, who at the end of her gifting Sacred Pipe to one Lakota man, shape-shifted into a white buffalo. Most people tend to get stuck here when they think about this. In my view the operative reality is Sacred Woman and not white buffalo. There are so many people who get all wound up when they hear of a white buffalo. I think they miss the point. It is a question as to when society will recognize and show as much excitement for Sacred Woman as they do for a random and predictable white buffalo born to some white rancher.
The reader is directed to links and searches for the record left behind by Black Elk.
Today || Red Nation Pipes are Everywhere
Use of ceremonial, personally or collectively, Sacred Pipes is widespread among tribal people. It is ONLY highly and formally organized as an element of historical culture in a few northern regions. It is however a portable object and it has great appeal to tribal people and other kinds of people everywhere. Many tribes have some kind of smoking practice, such as the tube pipes of the Tewa Kiva. Now people who are serious tribal Native Americans, and a huge number of people with money from around the world, all hold some kind of object they believe is a Sacred Pipe. Thus, for the last 50 years or so these pipes are now in great abundance. They have found themselves inside the lives of tribal and non-tribal people everywhere. One would believe most of these people probably think doing this is ok. As free people they will not be arrested by the sacred pipe police if they buy a pipe from the internet or steal one from an old Indian family.
I call this situation "sacred pipe in the mud". In this great abundance of personal freedom salable tribal artifacts, proud tribal egos, and scarcity of effective spiritual resources, who can change this situation? The whole subject is shrouded in layer after layer of confusion, accusation, acting out, and cursed by intellectual analysis.
I have shown up at some homes and been shown pipes that I confiscated on the spot, from both tribal and non-tribal people. It can happen. It is not a path without consequences, though the odds of one modern person getting away with bad behavior has become the social status quo. This may demonstrate the possibility that the possession of something of the tribal sacred because you have money or friends is not always effective. There are a lot of macho tribal members, as well, who believe if some other guy has a pipe he is going to have one.
When I visited a modern mental institution, sometimes called the village of Sedona, Arizona, I encountered a crowded village full of pipe holders and "chosen ones" from every race, income level, and variable grasps on reality. Sorting out the foundation of what the tribal sacred elders (aneeg) have decribed as their INTENT regarding the use of these sacred objects and the gigantic posturing of a modern world filled with its own desire to have what it wants is the work of generations I suspect. It may even be to late.
Every Sacred Pipe in every place in the world is the moral property of the River Otter Clan and its clan relations, and the tribal elders that direct them. In traditional tribal cultures, such objects are not casual possessions by any means. Possession of such an object, in most cases, at this moment, is simply an act of gravity and a function of the movement of valuable material objects around in a materialistic society. The tribal contracts with the mystery life have their own order and method. Think on this.
Naturally the behavior and attitudes around so many uncontrolled objects is itself completely uncontrolled. This has become a great disservice, but also an important challenge to traditional tribal leadership. This confusion does not mean that the original instructions regarding Sacred Pipe are missing or lost.
There is No (Peace) Pipe
Words such as "squaw" or "buck" or "savage", terms like "peace pipe" , are descriptives coined and used by a society dismissive, and indifferent to the ideas of tribal societies. This kind of language has always been incorrect. It describes more an attitude than a description of what something actually is.
It is possible for eternal enemies to meet and share one moment with Sacred Pipe, not that most enemies have so much clarity and character to think of such a thing. Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, even Ronald Reagan could stand and receive a ceremonial pipe from the tribal clan and society Keepers of Sacred Bundles and Rites. They would have liked it.
I had a dream once where Buddha and Jesus were riding a big (brown) buffalo, Jesus was in front with Buddha holding on. It was very lucid and made sense to me. I have had dreams where Sacred Pipe was shared with Seth and Thoth-Amon in a chamber made of gold. I met once with Dalai Lama of Tibet and later dreamed he was studying one Sacred Pipe deep in a forest with 8 Chinese Foo dogs keeping him company. In Ahnishinabe culture this dream life of sacred objects is called a second dimension or level of attention, of life. From within this space the ancient original instructions were brought forth from within the ceremonial inquiries of tribal cultures. Sacred Pipe is an invocation and an evocation from within an integrated dream life. Those chosen or trained by councils, clans and societies (tribal elders and councils) are persons who have integrated this process. Such persons are rare, being only several in any particular generation. The tribal elders, the real Keepers of Sacred Bundles know this process and these facts very well. It from this space that they work.
The Lonely Sacred Pipe
Other than personal family pipes, the great Sacred Pipes are not just "pipes". A real Sacred Pipe is a "bundle", a gathering of objects and their associated songs, dances, prayers, silences, accompanying items (which can be numerous) and other mysterious and variable things. A pipe is not just a pipe. When you see someone show up with a pipe, you should keep an eye out for the pack mule that brings all the other things that live with that pipe.
Sacred Pipe has status as "person" and is not considered in tribal societies that embrace Sacred Pipes to be an "object".
If you pretend and lie and play make believe with the sacred nothing will happen. This is the protection. I know we cannot stop people from doing whatever they want to do. People want to play pretend with the sacred. Let them. Let us try and find repositories for a fair portion of the truth. That is a well that is deep and you may draw the sacred from this deeper well, even if you are not Lakota, even if you are not any kind of indian at all. That is the power you have.
There are no sacred truths that contain anger, rage, accusation or lies. What is sacred is sacred precisely because of this. The truth always feels right, feels good, a feeling you can trust, even when the answer is one you do not like, the truth feels right and beautiful.
The Chosen One || Shadow Dance
Being a portable object which can be purchased, stolen or even easily made, Sacred Pipe is now in many dark places. There are many people who crave attention. Many people have a strong desire to be a "chosen one", someone who is special. A lot of people pick up these tribal sacred objects because they are easy to pick up.
This hunger to be a chosen one is a what we Ahnishinabe call a "falling sickness". It is not natural behavior and almost certainly is not good behavior.
Grandfather uses Sacred Pipe and Sacred Work to teach us how to see as truly and clearly as possible the truth about yourself.....about yourself....not about the world, about yourself. The person who knows their own inner truth very well will not support or sustain the lies that come from taking action without enough information, with to much confusion inside your own soul. The work of the sacred is clarity.
This is ironic at a gigantic scale. When people who are confused about who they are attempt sacred ritual which has the purpose of revealing clearly what is real, then surprising things happen. Usually nothing. When the self-appointed chosen ones do these ceremonies nothing much happens. When the sacred people make the sacred work, something always happens, every time...clearly and with no doubts. This is the difference. As I have said, the sacred is copy-protected. You can steal and run the program but nothing sacred will come out of it.
Sacred Pipe Goes to Federal Prison
I have participated with various other tribal relations across the United States in helping American Indians who are in jails and prisons have some access to tribal religious activity and privileges.
When many years ago some American Indians began demanding access to some sort of religious time and services while in prison, most prisons had no idea how to accommodate them. Many refused. American Indians contacted attorneys and other support officials. A recent declaration of US Public Law stated that no federal agency or entity which receives funding from federal agencies could discriminate against or refuse to allow American Indians to observe their religious activities. This law, coming in the early 1990s, after centuries of murder and suppression over this very issue, was a quiet revolution in the official declarations between tribes and the US Government. This law was used to get sacred rites to American Indian inmates. It was very important.
All over the country handfuls of American Indians started bringing some religious rites of tribal people into the prison system. The first part of being able to make this work was in the work to help define to prison officials WHAT was needed. Remember that many tribal members have very diverse religious and spiritual requirements. Not all tribal members understand or use Sacred Pipe or other things like this. However, over time, most US Prison systems have accepted the following as fair attributes of tribal religious practice inside a prison:
- Sweat Lodge
- Sacred Pipe
- Tobacco Ties
- Eagle Feather
- Headbands sometimes
- Drums
I have worked to bring six Sacred Pipes into six different prison systems. I have also donated drums and other objects that are needed where I can. Others have done this also, but not in any great numbers. Many if not most tribes have no "official" officers to reach out to those enrolled members who may be in a prison or hospital. Tribes don't have a red cross or a chaplain program for traveling religious leaders. This is something tribes should think more about providing.
If I was a tribal community leader I would want to know that my enrolled members, my precious relations, were being taken care of if they were in prison or some other institution a long way from home. I hope in the future more and more tribal governments will take up this responsibility. So far most have not.
Although in the real world there is no ONE tribal religion, in US Prisons it has come down to Sacred Pipe and Sweat Lodge as being the most supported and demanded privilege of American Indians in most US prisons that is also supported by prison officials and recognized by them as "American Indian Religion".
Some of the most important work of Sacred Pipe in its long history may be taking place inside these prison walls.
I have experienced myself, and heard from the accounts of others, many strong and powerful stories and events have evolved from this work which started in the early 1990s in earnest. I have experienced some frightening behavior from prison officials when we try to arrive at their institutions to make this work.
Equal Access. In one prison I visited in Washington State, the Warden expressed some irritation at having to make "special arrangements" to accommodate a sweat lodge for American Indians. I told the warden at that time that we would sweat everybody in his prison, including his staff if he wanted us to. He backed down from that. However, it does raise questions. In a federal system receiving federal money they cannot discriminate in religious services. As a result, ANY inmate in a federal prison which has some form of American Indian spiritual practice, must allow anyone who wants to participate to attend.. This is also an interesting and powerful development.
A Passion for Jabberwocky || The relentless tide of uninformed opinions
Much of the enormous amount of published information on American Indians is incorrect. Curiously, the more incorrect the information appears to be, the more passionately it is promoted and advocated. American Indians remain extremely curious about this circumstance. What is it about American Indian culture that has created so many confused people?
People like to say things like "Red is the color of the East" in American Indian culture. Or make references to the the "spirituality of the American Indian". The truth is, the "colors of the creation" vary from tribe to tribe, individual to individual. People who assign these things are missing the point entirely. Most tribes do have a cultural teaching assigning colors. However, the ceremonies which sustain these behaviors encourage individual awakening. Each individual has a uniqe place in the great circle of life. each person views this life from their place. Tribal people do not copy each other. Each tribal person who embraces their tribal ceremonial sacred is encouraged to awaken their own personal vision and perceptions from within. The tribal teachers believe this awakening of the individual is more important that the bizarre conformity which uninformed writers continue to attribute to tribal culture. That is the point. perhaps modern society is itself so conformist that they imagine tribal people must be the same. they are not.
Many people seize upon a single so-called "sacred fact" and use it like a club to beat down on the world their tiny view of a vast universe of possibilities. They seem somehow over-excited to have "discovered" some sacred tribal teaching that they magnify it beyond all reason. This is profoundly true in the academic literature and pathologically true among internet writers on tribal subjects.
While the internet is offering much greater opportunities to hear the news of the world, it also remains a shameless source of abuse of truth. The student must understand that the way forward is filled with danger. One of the greatest dangers of analyzing sacred information is that of becoming "moon struck". This is a condition when a person mistakes the reflected wisdom (light) from other teachers as their own. This is a condition that entraps many modern people when they consider the subject of tribal sacred teachings.
Sacred Pipe Circles the World
From the beginning of the first encounters tribal people had with modern people, the pipes have been a dramatic presence. There are so many shades of pipe behavior, ritual smoking.
Though it has happened slowly, more and more actual American Indian people are moving out into the world with pipes. This trend is likely to continue well into the end of time.
Some of these pipes moving out into the world are confused, in the hands of people who are more assertive of what they perceive as their self-assumed right to have a pipe.
The old Indians were interesting to watch in how they behaved with objects like sacred pipes. Many times they would not in any way show or talk directly about sacred pipe. You could sometimes see it near them, or inside its house, but it was never opened or touched. A keeper of a pipe in time becomes the pipe he is keeping. If his charecter is sterling, the work he makes with this ancient object is likely sterling as well. There is at present no way to know who these people holding pipes really are. Sometimes they are people carefully nurtured into the keeping of sacred pipe by those tribal relations who have carried those original instructions through time. The number of people and places where this might happen are really very few. There are so many pipes in the hands of so many people at this moment.
I know that most people will live their whole lives and not know about these stories and these problems with the movement of sacred pipes in and out of tribal society. Perhaps most people do not need to know these things. Absent any prior knowledge or experience with sacred pipe rituals, the innocent may receive something from the experience that really helps them. We believe in the original instructions and intentions of what we call order and method are not present, what is likely to happen is not much.
A battery needs to be fully charged to operate perfectly. A good map includes what is known about what is hidden along the path. A good eagle needs two wings to fly. Sacred Pipe and the original instructions need to be combined with a polished and prepared keeper. How often does this happen? When we are dealing with a portable object, and one that is so easily available it is almost impossible to know where these pipes have come from and who these people are. We are left only with the evidence provided by our senses when we are present at such opportunities as the arrival of a ceremonial pipe.
It is common for people to have charms, talismans, good luck and feel good objects in their possession. This behavior appears to be as old as humanity itself. There is a difference between personal possession of a ceremonial object and the passing to another of a multi-generational bundle containing songs, dances, teachings, rituals and sacred history.
Our hope is that step by step the tribal teachers will send out the voices of those ancient keepers of the sacred truth. Much of the confusion which seems to exist today has been the result of silence from the people at the center of the sacred pipe.
As I listened to and worked with my teachers, it became apparent that sharing clear and accurate information was in fact a great need. Much of my work has been a desire to help in this struggle to create a body of good information.
Writing some of these words is not easy. The problems and anger, and posturing around sacred objects and their teachings has created an atmosphere that is more argumentative and defensive than it is forward moving. Perhaps this is what the old Indians mean by the correction way. Sometimes, before you can move forward you need to make corrections.
There is some danger is exciting the defensive, argumentative and paranoid minds of other people. There is some responsibility to speak clearly, yet say nothing at this time about some things. The old Indians are very sensitive to the concept of what can be shared now and what must not be talked about at this time. I have tried, struggled to say what is possible, now. I have struggled as well to understand what I cannot say at this time, and not say it. This document is a work in real time, reflecting the real life of the one who is telling this story.
Personal Power ||
Real personal power has nothing to do with controlling events or other people. Real power comes from understanding and knowing yourself. Inside your own being are great powers that remain unopened, unused, unsuspected.
The ceremonial life teaches us how to gather up the great energy of nature, of the four elements and the vitality in the creation and put it to work in our lives. Such a life has no interest in manipulating, controlling or exploiting others. This is the real rule or law of true personal power. It functions only from within a matrix of self knowledge and responsibility.
World Journey Of Four Directions Unity Bundle: This ceremony is in many ways an experiment. We are trying to understand if we can use the life force energy of Sacred Pipe, the energy of those teachers who supported and gifted this work, the compassionately self-aware life energy of those who share the ceremonies, and the opportunity of the moment when we are together and change everything...produce an enormous and productive field of positive energy...and change everything. If my desire was for personal power, this work would have failed long ago. I did learn, right at the beginning, that the work of the sacred people is to provide support, direction and focus and experience in making a sacred opportunity in that space for those people at that time. I can go half the way there by doing my part. Those people who are there at that time must do their part. Without these two parts being clean and directed, nothing useful can happen.
The needs of conducting a strong ceremony for a group of people who have never been in ceremonies like this are strong. They are to great for one person to understand or control. The work of sacred people is only possible when those people can connect to the life force of the earth and the four elements, the lights of the sky. This is called gathering Chi in some scholls of Tai Chi. Sacred people at the moment of ceremony open their senses to gathering the chi of these sacred objects, inside that moment. When this happens then something changes for everybody.
I have been inside of ceremonies like this that were only minutes long...others over many days. The old Indians hinted that this kind of behavior was an alternate way to use time and space. This is the thinking inside one Sacred Pipe.
(frequent updates)
Spiros Kakos
Invite as author
My vote of 5-stars
EditSaveCancelDeleteDeleteBlock this userReport abusive commentHide report window