Lakota, the Concept of Wakan or Holy
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White Buffalo Calf Woman, your Twin Deer Mother
Apr 18, 2019, 10:34:05 PM4/18/19
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Lakota, the Concept of Wakan or Holy
1. wakan as "mystery" (***walking, to and fro, the wave or frequency)
2. tanka" as "something great" (***talking, the dew, the story of wisdom and knowledge, the breath of life, our talking)
3. Wakan Tanka (***Great Spirit Father 17),
4. Tunkashila (***Grandfather 15),
5. Wakanpi or Wakan Tanka are (***Wakanpi or many who are holy belonging to all of us or pi meaning we are. This is often reference to Great Spirit Father 17, however we are within each other and belong to each other, mitakuye oyasin or all my relatives of the relativity spacial fields, thus the spiritual light is in sight, dreaming bright, star light, cosmic bite.)
6. Taku SkanSkan (**life force, the Great Give-a-way)
7. wicasa wakan is man holy or medicine man, a term for a Lakota priest or spirit medicine..
8. pejuta wicasa is healing or medicine man or doctor.
9. tonwan or ton (***spiritual assistance or power)
10.**** iyeska or interpreter of stories, visions and dreams
11, Wasicun comes from the Lakota for "he takes the fat", from wašiƞ (cooking fat) + cu, from icu (“to take”). old Lakota word for medicine bundle, referring to the bundles of goods.
* (start)
Lakota: Concept of Wakan
To try to describe the Lakota (Sioux) concept of "wakan" would be much like trying to put down a few paragraphs and accurately and amply sum up "God." It can't be done. Wakan is so faceted in nature it would be impossible to describe it all in words, but the following is an attempt to convey just a inkling of what it is all about.
Lakota Great Spirit
In the world of the Lakota, the word wakan means many things, yet nothing that is easily understood. Even among the Lakota themselves a great deal of thought and study is necessary in a quest to understand the concept of wakan.
Those who travel among the Lakota hear them speak of their beliefs in wakan by many names: Wakan Tanka (***Great Spirit Father 17), Tunkashila (***Grandfather 15), **Taku SkanSkan (life force, the Great Give-a-way)
* (end)
** (start)
THE GIVEAWAY
The Lakota have an ancient phrase-- skan, taku skanskan – which we commonly translate as “life force”. Literally, it means “something in movement, spiritual vitality”. It might be helpful for us to consider life force in these terms, that is, as the vital movement of our existence.
The Giveaway ceremony we hold on one of the days of our Hero’s Journey passage acknowledges the importance of the circulation of energy, spiritual vitality and material to the well-being of our bodies and being. Any thought, behavior or material substance that stays with us beyond its time begins to
weigh-down and diminish our existence. Even as it may have uplifted us upon its arrival.
In choosing the gift you will offer to the Giveaway, please be guided by your soul’s desire to be vitally alive. Take the risk letting go of something of value that has stood still for too long in your possession. Something that has gifted you abundantly with its beauty, meaning and significance. Something that may
likewise move another. Let your choosing take you to the edge of your comfort zone, unlike choosing a book, for example, that might be easily replaced. Something that creates a void in your life, space for some new vitality that is seeking to find its way to you. You may also want to wrap it up in a particular way that has meaning for you as well, so also give some thought to what you will use as a covering for your gift.
** (end)
* (start)
Great Spirit, Grandfather. The traveler might ask "Are these names for one being or for many?" The answer would have to be both.
To the Lakota, those which made everything are Wakan Tanka. Though wakan have separate meanings unto them selves, Wakan Tanka can be loosely interpreted as "wakan" as "mystery" and "tanka" as "something great." And being the "creators," the Wakan Tanka also are Wakanpi, those things above mankind. They are never born and they never die. The Wakanpi, spirits, have power over everything on earth and control everything mankind does. There are benevolent Wakanpi that will bestow the wishes man asks of them, and evil Wakanpi that are to be feared. and
Man uses songs, ceremony and gifts to honor and appease, all under the auspices of the holy man or shaman, wicasa wakan. Prayers offered to the wakan beings as a whole are addressed to Wakan Tanka, but prayers offered to a specific being should address the being by name.
Music is a good vehicle of prayer, and it is said the Wanka Tanka always give attention when they hear the drums and rattles. While the good wakan beings are fond of prayers that reach them on the smoke of sweetgrass, the evil wakan beings fear the smoke of sage. All the Wakan Tanka are pleased with the smoke of the Lakota pipe.
White culture sometimes refers to the Lakota medicine man as a "medicine man," or as the Lakota say, wicasa wakan, when he is performing ceremonies, and believe he is making medicine when doing so. This is incorrect because the Lakota call something a medicine only when it is being used to tend to the sick or injured, and so the proper term would be pejuta. So a man of medicine among the Lakota, a, which is not to be confused with wicasa wakan, which is a holy man, or shaman. A wicasa wakan is wise, one who knows and has power with the spirits and can communicate with them. He knows the songs and the ceremonies and can interpret visions. He can tell people what the spirits expect of them, predict the future, speak to nature...to everything on earth. So one, the pejuta wacasa, tends to the physical being, while the other, wicasa wakan, tends to the spiritual.
When a holy man uses an object in a ceremony that object becomes filled with something that best be described, for lack of an actual English term, as "spirit." The Lakota use the term tonwan or ton to describe it.
****(start) tonwan or ton (***spiritual assistance)
WAKAN.
(By Sword, Translated by Burt Means.)
Wakan means very many things. The Lakota understands what it means from the things that are considered wakan; yet sometimes its meaning must be explained to him. It is something that is hard to understand. Thus wasica wakan, means a white man medicineman; but a Lakota medicineman is called pejuta wacasa. Wicasa wakan is the term for a Lakota priest of the old religion. The white people call our wicasa wakan, medicineman, which is a mistake. Again, they say a wicasa wakan is making medicine when he is performing ceremonies. This is also a mistake. The Lakota call a thing a medicine only when it is used to cure the sick or the wounded, the proper term being pejuta. When a priest uses any object in performing a ceremony that object becomes endowed with a spirit, not exactly a spirit, but something like one, the priests call it tonwan or ton. Now anything that thus acquires ton is wakan, because it is the power of the spirit or quality that has been put into it. A wicasa wakan has the power of the wakan beings. ****(end)
Ton is the power to do the supernatural. Rattle, smoke, feather...once anything has tonwicasa wakan has the power of wakan beings, bestowed upon him by wakanton has been placed, called a Wasicun,
Wasicun (start)
Folk etymology claims that it comes from the Lakota for "he takes the fat", from wašiƞ (cooking fat) + cu, from icu (“to take”). More likely, it comes from an old Lakota word for medicine bundle, referring to the bundles of goods brought by French traders, and originally did not carry the derogatory meaning of the modern word. Compare Dakota wašicuŋ (“white man”).
Alternative forms washichu, washicun, wasichu, wasi'chu, wašicun
wasicu
white person, Caucasian, white people
a non-Indian
a native person who has lost their culture and thus become "not native".
greedy person, dishonorable person
(end)
from which the shaman do their work from. White culture would probably call this a "medicine bag," which is incorrect because there is no "medicine" in it. White doctors or Lakota pejuta wacasa would have "medicine bags," not holy men. Wasicun is actually a wakan being too, but the least powerful of all. it becomes wakan because the spirit is said to have entered it. Therefore, a beings. With that power the holy man can put ton into anything. He also has a place of his own where
Like Wanka Tanka, which can be good or evil, this ton is not necessarily positive in the big picture either. For example, the roots of certain plants are wakan because they are poisonous or some reptiles are considered wakanwakan because the stories handed down from generation to generation have said the wakan beings made them so. A person acting out of the norm, appearing "crazy," is wakan. Even alcohol, which makes one "crazy," is wakan. On the other hand, food is wakan because it gives life. Very old things are wakan because their origin is a mystery. Babies are wakan because they do not speak. Every object in the world has a spirit and that spirit is wakan, good or evil, put there by Wanka Tanka, good or evil. because their bite can kill. Some animals are
Lame Deer served his people as a medicine man and ritual leader for many years and could easily be considered somewhat of an "expert" on concept and tradition among the Lakota. About Wakan Tanka he said:
You can't explain it except by going to the circles within circles idea, the spirit splitting itself up into stones, trees, tiny insects even, making them all wakan by his everpresence. And in turn all these myriad of things which make up the universe flowing back to their source, united in the one Grandfather (15, tunksila) spirit (***star light bows down to the Rainbow Trail, we wail. White Buffalo Calf Woman sings the tales).
* (end)
***http://www.facebook.com/publicfigurewhitebuffalocalfwoman (Inside of parenthesis with numeric values by iyeska or interpreter WhiteBuffaloCalfWoman TwinDeerMother)
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