History of Pipestone

http://people.carleton.edu/~levittl/omeka/Pipestone/Buffalopipe.jpg

Pipes are carved by a variety of Native people for ceremonial and artistic purposes.

Cultural and Religious History

Pipe ceremonies are key ritual practices in many Native American traditions, and certainly among both the Dakota and Ojibwe peoples. Among the Dakota, praying with a pipe is a focal point of religious practice; the story of the gifting of the Pipe by a spirit, White Buffalo Calf Woman, including her instructions to the people about how to pray with the Pipe, is one of the most commonly told among the community. Praying with the pipe is an element of practice at Sweat Lodges, during the Sun Dance, and in other Dakota/Lakota ceremonies and healing rituals.1 In a documentary produced by the National Park Service played at the Pipestone monument, William Mesteht of the Oglala Lakota tribe says, “Of all the items, the sacred items, the Lakota people have, [the sacred chanupa (pipe)] is the most central item in our culture."2 

White Buffalo Cow Woman who brought our sacred pipe will appear again at the end of this ‘world’. —Black Elk (Lakota)

Black Elk (1863-1950) was an Oglala Lakota holy man whose views on Lakota tradition, including the use of pipestone, were recorded by scholars John Neihardt and Joseph Epes Brown. Baptized in 1904, Black Elk was also a Catholic catechist (a teacher of the principles of Christianity) on the Pine Ridge reservation for many years. Black Elk taught that the sacred Pipe was part of a variety of Native cultures well before European contact. Despite his commitment to Catholicism, by the end of his life Black Elk is said to have told his daughter: “The only thing I really believe is the Pipe religion."3 Black Elk committed his teachings to print in several important books.4  

In The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux, Black Elk explains the origin of the sacred Pipe:

It is the will of Wakan-Tanka, the Great Spirit, that an animal turns itself into a two-legged person in order to bring the most holy pipe to his people; and we too were taught that this White Buffalo Cow Woman who brought our sacred pipe will appear again at the end of this ‘world,’ a coming which we Indians know is now not very far off.5

Black relates how a woman, later revealed to be a spirit, presents a sacred pipe to the Lakota people “very many winters ago.” Describing the centrality of pipe prayer for Lakota belief, White Buffalo Cow Woman tells the Lakota, “When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything.” Participants in a pipe ceremony, pray to “all my relatives” through the pipe, a category that encompasses all things.

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  1. Black Elk and Joseph Epes Brown, The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953). ↩

  2. William Mesteht, As appearing in "Pipestone: An Unbroken Legacy. The National Parks Service," (2009). ↩

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  4. Hilda Neihardt, Black Elk & Flaming Rainbow: Personal Memories of the Lakota Holy Man and John Neihardt. (University of Nebraska Press, 1999) :119. ↩

  5. Clyde Holler, “Black Elk’s Relationship to Christianity,” American Indian Quarterly, (Winter, 1984): 38. ↩

  6. Black Elk and Joseph Epes Brown, The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953): xix-xx. ↩