The Legend of the White Buffalo Calf
Lady
Here's a story told in many different ways, impossible to forget.
Listen with your spirit open to the White Buffalo Calf Woman.
About 2,000 years ago, in the fall during the gathering of the seven
great Lokota bands, the chiefs discussed how their people would survive during the winter,
for their people were starving.
Thus the Sans Arc sent out two scouts into the Black Hills to
find a herd of buffalo and to locate a good campsite for their people to settle
for the winter. For miles they saw nothing, until suddenly and silently,
they noticed a huge image coming towards them. It was the form of a white
buffalo calf and as it came closer, its shape shifted to that of a beautiful
woman. She was wearing buckskins, leggings, and her hair on one side fell
loose while on the other side, her hair was braided using buffalo hair to tie
her braids. She also carried a fan made of sage.
One of the warriors had impure thoughts in his mind and rushed
to attack her. Suddenly, an ominous black cloud rose up and engulfed him.
When the cloud dissipated, he no longer had flesh or blood on his bones.
The other warrior seeing this, fell to the ground and began to pray. The woman told him to go back to his people and tell them that she was going to
bring them a sacred bundle. So he ran back to his camp, running in a zig zag so his
people would know that there was trouble. Telling his chief of what he had seen and
what he was told, the chief then instructed the women to take down several tepees and to
sew them into one and to line the floor with sage.
The next day, a cloud appeared from the sky and from the cloud
stepped a white buffalo calf. Walking toward the people the calf again
became a beautiful Indian woman.
She entered the teepee and walked to her left, all around the circle
of people. Then she walked to the corner and sat by the chief. She told the
people she knew that they were starving and that she had the sacred bundle with her. In the bundle was the sacred white buffalo calf pipe, a gift from the Buffalo Clan.
She showed the chief how to fill the pipe with sage and sweet grass and how to pray
to Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, in the times of disaster and hardship.
And so she prayed with the chief and smoked the piped with him.
Then she explained to them the seven sacred ceremonies. They were ceremonies
of purification, child naming, healing, adoption, marriage, the vision quest, and the
Nation's Ceremony, the sundance. The people then learned songs and the ways of the
traditions.
When it came time to leave, she spoke to the men of the tribe
and told them of their duty to provide and protect the tribe and that they were
her brothers. Then she spoke to the women and told them of their
duty to the family and to keep the Nation strong in numbers and that they would
always be sisters. Turning to the children she spoke to them of their duty
to learn and respect their elders and that they too were her brothers and
sisters.
She told them that one day she would return and that the birth
of a white buffalo calf would signal her coming. At the time she would
reclaim the sacred bundle and bring peace and harmony to the earth.
As she left the camp, she looked back to the people knowingly
and lovingly. And as she walked away into the tall buffalo grass, the
people could see that she had changed once again into a buffalo. And each
time the wind blew and moved the grass, she appeared to be a different color.
Black, red, yellow, and white, each of the colors of God's people.
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