Religious Beleifs
Wankan Tanka
Holy Men and Women
Rituals
Oral Tradition
Death and Afterlife
Religious Beleifs
- To the Sioux, religion was not separate from everyday life. They believed that human beings, like the buffalo and other animals, were created from the Mother Earth. Humans and nature were one. There was no clear distinction between the natural and the supernatural.
Wankan Tanka
- The Great Spirit
- He was mysterious, powerful and sacred.
- The words Wakan Tanka translates as "all that is holy and mysterious."
- It had created the universe, and yet, at the same time, was the universe.
- The Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Earth, the very rocks, and the human soul were all manifestations of the Wakan Tanka.
Holy Men and Women
- Included in the Wakan Tanka were invisible beings, or Wakanpi, who exercised power and control over everything.
- It was essential that humans please these beings.
- Since the Wakanpi were incomprehensible to ordinary humans, it was necessary that certain human beings be capable of understanding their needs.
- Holy men and women fulfilled this role.
- They obtained their special knowledge through direct contact with the mysterious ones through dreams and visions.
- They acted as mediums through which the power of the Wakan could flow.
Rituals
- Special people of the Wakan Tanka, such as White Buffalo Calf Woman, brought important rituals, like the sacred pipe ceremony, to the community.
- Holy men and women received other rituals during trance-like states.
- On a personal level, near the time of puberty, Sioux boys, and some girls, went on a vision quest through which they experienced a symbolic death and rebirth and gained a vision of their guardian spirit.
- This guardian spirit gave them their own personal songs and rituals.
Oral Tradition
- The Sioux passed down their knowledge, rituals, and beliefs together with their history and moral code to the new generations in story form.
- Elders often gathered the young around the fire to impart important tales and legends.
- Some, like the story of White Buffalo Calf Woman, could take up to seven evenings to tell and could only be told when the moon was shining.
Death and Afterlife
- Death and the afterlife held no special terror for the Sioux. In battle, Sioux warriors courted death openly. They believed that death in battle was preferable to dying of old age or disease.
- The Sioux believed in the immortal nature of the human soul, which, having come from the Wakan Tanka at birth, returned to the Wakan Tanka at death.
- The spirits of dead loved ones were therefore one with the Wakan Tanka and everywhere and in everything, though a part lingered near the grave for the consolation of friends and relatives.