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| ISBN-13: | 9780835609098 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Quest Books |
| Publication date: | 11/27/2012 |
| Pages: | 224 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d) |
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Path of the Sacred Pipe
Journey of Love, Power, and Healing
By Jay Cleve
Theosophical Publishing House
Copyright © 2012 Jay CleveAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8356-0909-8
CHAPTER 1
The Sacred Pipe
Its History and Foundation
Legend has it that the pipe came from the Great Spirit, but how did humans receive it? Each tribe has its own myths and legends, and the story is often tied in with the creation of humans at the beginning.
In the Gros Ventres re-creation myth, the pipe was central to both the formation of the world and the release of the game animals. According to the Iowa Black Bear clan origin myth, the very first items received by the bears after they came out of the earth were a pipe bowl and then a pipe stem.
The pipe was given to the ancestors of the Arapaho at the beginning of the world when the Turtle brought the earth up from under the water. The pipe was given to the tribe by the Duck, who, after the land appeared, was swimming on the top of the water. The original pipe was given to the Blackfoot by Thunder, the spirit-person responsible for thunder and lightning.
For the Cree, the Sacred Pipe was the parting gift from the Creator. Within the Cree creation myth, after the first man and woman were created, they were given the gift of the Pipe:
"My children," Manitou said, "I am going far away. I am going up where nobody will see me. However, I am leaving you certain things—main things that are very important. There will be four of them: Fire, Pipe [bowl], Pipe stem, and sweetgrass." If, in the future, you wish to make any connection with me, these are the things to be used. And they must be used in this order: First, upward, in memory of your Creator; next, to the spirits of the Four Directions; and lastly, to Mother Earth."
Hence, the Sacred Pipe is the first gift to the original couple from the spirit realm for a Plains Cree.
CREATOR'S GIFT OF THE SACRED PIPE AT PIPESTONE
Among the many legends about how the first pipe came to humans, the following is one of the most common stories:
In centuries past, there was a battle raging around several tribes on the site where Natives from all over the country now come to quarry the red pipestone for their pipes. It is said that so many people were killed that the blood soaked deep into the ground and mixed with the earthly flesh of our Mother.
The Great Spirit saw the slaughter and was very sad that the people had forgotten how to live in peace with one other. He sent his messenger to stop the fighting. This powerful one appeared on the rock cliff overlooking the battle. He commanded the fighting to stop, and all obeyed—so powerful was his voice and command. He then scooped up the mixture of blood and earth and formed it into a Sacred Pipe bowl.
He made a stem out of the nearby hollow core branch of a sumac tree. He described to all present the meaning and medicine (power) of the red stone bowl and the wood stem. He commanded that, from then on, no decisions concerning war or other important things were to be made without the equal balance of both male and female input, and that requests for guidance concerning these issues be made to the Great Spirit through the Sacred Pipe.
He went on to teach many aspects of the Sacred Pipe: how it would transform prayers, first from a thought into physical form (through tobacco), and then through the transforming energy of fire into the spiritual form (smoke), drifting our requests up to the attention of the Great Spirit. He said that the Sacred Pipe acts as a kind of portal between the spiritual and physical worlds.
He then presented several Sacred Pipes to various spiritual beings who had come with the Great Messenger, assigning them to go to all the various nations on Turtle Island (North America) and instructing them in proper use of the pipes. He said that when a Sacred Pipe was awakened for the first time by smoking it, he would send a spirit helper to live in it to show the people the way of peace and harmony, both personally through an individual's Sacred Pipe, and corporately through the Ceremonial Pipe. The spirit's residence in the Sacred Pipe is one reason Natives never say false or boastful things in the presence of a Sacred Pipe, for it will reveal the truth of what is said.
These spiritual beings then went into the Four Directions and presented the Sacred Pipes to many nations, at places considered sacred to them. One of these places is a sacred lake in the Smoky Mountains, where a great serpent presented it to Red Arrow Woman of the Cherokee. Another is Bear Butte in South Dakota, where the White Buffalo Calf Maiden gave it to the Lakota Nation.
WHITE BUFFALO CALF MAIDEN'S GIFT TO THE SIOUX
Nick Black Elk, a well-known medicine man, gives a beautiful account of the gifting of the Sacred Pipe to the Lakota by the White Buffalo Calf Maiden (which I've summarized):
Long ago, two scouts were looking for bison. When they came to the top of a high hill and looked north, they saw something coming from a distance. When it came closer, they cried, "It is a woman!" One of the scouts had bad thoughts, but the other said, "This is a sacred woman; throw all bad thoughts away." When she came closer, they saw that she was wearing a beautiful white buckskin dress, and her hair was very long and she was young and quite beautiful.
She knew their thoughts and in a voice like singing she said: "You do not know me, but if you want to do as you think, you may come." The foolish one went; but just as he stood before her, there was a white cloud that came and covered them. When the cloud cleared, the beautiful woman emerged, while the foolish man was a skeleton covered with worms.
The sacred woman told the remaining scout to return to his people and tell his chief, Standing Hollow Horn, to prepare a large teepee, gather all his people, and make ready for her coming. When all were ready, the woman entered the lodge. Standing before the chief she held out a sacred bundle with both hands saying: "Behold this and always love it! It is lela wakan ("very sacred"), and you must treat it as such. No impure man should ever be allowed to see it, for within this bundle there is a Sacred Pipe. With this you will, during the winters to come, send your voice to Wakan Tanka, your Father and Grandfather."
Then she took from the bundle a pipe and a small round stone that she placed on the ground. Holding the pipe with its stem pointing to the Heavens she said: "With this Sacred Pipe you will walk upon the Earth; for the Earth is your Grandmother and Mother, and She is sacred. Every step that is taken upon Her should be a prayer. The bowl of this Pipe is of red stone; it is the Earth. Carved in the stone and facing the center is this buffalo calf who represents all the four-leggeds who live upon your Mother. The stem of the pipe is of wood, and this represents all that grows upon the Earth. And these twelve feathers that hang here where the stem fits into the bowl are from Wanbli Galeshka, the Spotted Eagle; and they represent the eagle and all the wingeds of the air. All these peoples, and all the things of the universe, are joined to you who smoke the pipe—all send their voices to Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit. When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything."
When the mysterious woman left the lodge she walked a short distance, looked back at the people, and sat down. When she arose, she had become a young red and brown buffalo calf. Then the calf walked farther, lay down, rolled on the ground, and became a black buffalo. The black buffalo walked farther, rolled on the ground, and became a brown buffalo, then red, and then returned to white. This buffalo walked farther, stopped, and after bowing to each of the four quarters of the universe, disappeared over the hill.
Where did this White Buffalo Calf Maiden come from? Father William Stolzman, who was a member of the Rosebud Medicine Men and Pastors' Meeting group for several years, was present when the question was asked to a group of old medicine men. Apparently the story is very old and known by only a few.
A long time ago, a band of Lakota went down near Denver and were massacred; only a woman and her child escaped. It was a girl-child, still sucking at the breast. One day the woman was lying with her daughter nursing when, unexpectedly, she felt something shake her shoulder. She turned around and discovered that it was a starving buffalo calf. She took pity on it and let it suck beside her infant. The child and the calf grew up together. When the child became a maiden, the buffalo calf grew up to become the chief of all the buffalo, and he gave himself to the maiden in the form of the pipe. The maiden lived with the buffalo and traveled north with the herd in the summer, and that is where she came from.
There are many descriptions of the various spiritual beings that brought the gift of the Sacred Pipe to the nations. But when it is a human being who brings the Sacred Pipe, it is almost always a woman. Sun Bear, an Ojibwa medicine man, said that Day Break Star Woman brought the Sacred Pipe to the Ojibwa. He explains that she, Evening Star Woman, Red Arrow Woman, and Buffalo Calf Maiden are all the same person. But myths of Day Break Star Woman, for example, occur farther north, where there weren't buffalo.
THE SACRED PIPE IN NORTH AMERICA
Prior to the contemporary spread throughout Native cultures in sub-Arctic North America, the pipe had a range from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic and from the Gulf of Mexico to James Bay. It didn't penetrate to the Pacific Coast, where tubular pipes continued in use, or the cultures of the Southwest, where tubular pipes ("cloudblowers") and elbow pipes with a short reed stem were used. Unlike tubular pipes, most other pipes came in two pieces: bowl and stem.
Many of the early explorers and missionaries in the Americas noted the ritualistic use of the pipe. In l535, Cartier observed the pipe being smoked along the St. Lawrence. In 1607, Captain John Smith reported that the Werowance (chief) of the Rappahannock, a tribe of the Powhatan Confederacy, conducted elaborate pipe ceremonies. And in 1615, William Parker reported that the first thing the Powhatan did was offer their pipe. In 1673, Father Marquette likened the pipe to the "Scepter of Kings" and the "Arbiter of Life and Death."
Members of the Lewis and Clark expedition regularly saw rituals in which the pipe was used. In the nineteenth century, Jesuit priest Pierre-Jean De Smet also contributed extensive commentaries pertaining to Indian life and the pipe that presided at all feasts and ceremonies.
In a l939 address to students in Saskatoon, Dan Kennedy, an Ochankugahe, explained that the Native American understanding of the Sacred Pipe is like the "Ark of the Covenant" and the "Ten Commandments"—a symbol of the Great Spirit's Covenant with the Natives.
Philosopher, poet, and anthropologist Hartley Burr Alexander explains: "No symbol native to the peoples of America has more profoundly stirred the imagination of the immigrant white race than that of the ceremonial pipe of the Indian—the hobowakan, the calumet, the pipe of peace ..."
There were many special reasons for smoking the pipe. It signaled the friendly reception of a stranger and afforded someone safe transport among other tribes. Smoking the pipe reflected the willingness to discuss an issue. Sometimes when someone did not seem to be telling the truth, the person was asked to smoke the pipe while talking—to test the person's willingness to be truthful or insure that the truth was being told. Also, it was used as the formal act of acceptance of an agreement, much in the same way we use the signing and sealing of a contract.
Offering smoke (the pipe) was included in entering into peace negotiations. Early traders on the Upper Missouri River documented a ceremony called "trading on the pipe," placing pipes on the ground as "witnesses" to the fairness of the trading. Other times, a pipe was "sent around" to bands of a tribe to obtain individual or group participation in a raid or war party. Smoking a pipe "sent around" thus bound a man to accompany the party.
WHITE BUFFALO CALF MAIDEN'S PIPE TODAY
For years, the Cheyenne River Reservation of central South Dakota has been the place where the White Buffalo Calf Maiden Pipe has been kept. There are no markers that direct a traveler to the reservation's main town, a small, out-of-the-way community called Green Grass, twenty miles from Eagle Butte. Yet pipe carriers make a pilgrimage to Green Grass to "recharge" their pipes from the original pipe of the Sioux.
Stanley Looking Horse passed on the caretaker duties of the Keeper of the Sacred Pipe to his son, Arval, the nineteenth caretaker. Arval said that just before a Keeper of the Sacred Pipe dies, he or she has a vision of whom to give the pipe. It's always given to a blood relative. In 1966, when Arval was twelve years old, his grandmother had a vision just before she died that the pipe should go to him. She taught him how to be the Keeper of the Pipe, and his father, Stanley, told him the rest later.
Stanley Looking Horse says that the White Buffalo Calf Maiden brought the Sacred Pipe to the people near Devil's Tower. His son, Arval, says that he can trace the movements of the Sacred Pipe in stages to its current location. The Sioux first came to the Black Hills in 1775 to 1776, and by 1805 were in control of the territory.
Lakota medicine men call the original Sacred Pipe Ptehincala Hu Cannupa (Buffalo Calf Leg Pipe). Max Blacksmith, who grew up on the Cheyenne River Reservation, said that in the 1920s his father, John Blacksmith, told Max that he saw the original pipe at Green Grass and he said that it looked like a buffalo calf leg and its hoof.
Well-known medicine man John Fire Lame Deer said that he saw the Sacred Pipe in 1935. Lame Deer went to Green Grass and the old woman who was at the time Keeper of the Pipe was expecting him. When she opened the sacred bundle there were two pipes. She pointed out the older pipe, the original Sacred Pipe, which was about a foot long. Its stem was made from the left front leg bone of a buffalo calf and the bowl was made from some kind of anklebone. The bowl was strapped to the stem with a leather thong.
Lame Deer said that the second Sacred Pipe had a wooden stem about two feet long and looked much like the pipes used today. The woman told him that this was the first pipe, the one White Buffalo Calf Maiden instructed the chiefs to make.
Frank Fools Crow, powerful Sioux medicine man and healer, said that he was taught and had seen in a vision that the original Sacred Pipe is much older than anthropologists believed. In the spring of 1976, Fools Crow went to Green Grass and was shown the pipe. He dated it to between 1200 and 1500 AD. (A holy man in the Black Hills told me it dated back to Columbus "discovering" America.)
The fact that the original Sacred Pipe is to be kept in the hands of the Keeper of the Pipe is clearly demonstrated by stories in which others take the pipe. For example, people once stole the original pipe from its keeper and were later killed. Lightning struck them dead and the pipe was mysteriously returned. Arval said that once the Indian agent sent the Indian police to bring the pipe to Cheyenne Agency, the reservation headquarters. As soon as they had the pipe there, Indian police began to die. The agent asked the keeper to come after the pipe. He did, but instead of riding he walked all the way from Green Grass. By the time he arrived, all of the police involved in taking the pipe had died.
In recent years, Father Paul Steinmetz, who spent many years on reservations, said: "... the Sacred Pipe is the key to understanding the original religions of North America from the Rockies to the Atlantic and from Hudson Bay to the Caribbean."
And Father Michael Steltenkamp, a Jesuit priest who also spent many years on reservations, suggested that "... the pipe has become somewhat of a religious thread binding the many-patterned fabric of Indian culture and religion.... The Christian's breaking of bread is analogous to this centuries-old Indian practice. In both rituals, transcendence is perceived to operate and bind."
THE SACRED PIPE TODAY
The bowl of the Sacred Pipe, called the Chanupa in Lakota, is the feminine aspect of a pipe. Pipes are carved out of many different kinds of stone: soapstone, greenstone, alabaster, red stone (catlinite), and black pipestone (steatite) from Canada and the United States. Alabaster makes an attractive pipe but tends to crumble from the heat of smoking.
Very early in historic times, the Sioux (or Dakota) moved to the west and southwest. By about 1700, the Sioux were in control of the pipestone region, an area marbled with red stone, and they remained in control until the end of tribal days, about one and one-half centuries later. The red stone received its most widespread use during Sioux times, since the tribe's central focus is the Sacred Pipe.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Path of the Sacred Pipe by Jay Cleve. Copyright © 2012 Jay Cleve. Excerpted by permission of Theosophical Publishing House.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Author's Note xi
Introduction 1
1 The Sacred Pipe 13
2 The Medicine Wheel 31
3 Ceremonies with the Sacred Pipe 69
4 Native American Spiritual Philosophy 83
5 Smoking the Sacred Pipe 101
Notes 135
Index 145