Legend of White Buffalo Calf Woman

To the Native Americans the birth of a white buffalo is a symbol of rebirth and world harmony

One summer, long ago, the seven sacred council fires of the Lakota Oyate, the nation, came together and camped. Every day they sent scouts to look for game, but the scouts found nothing, and the people were starving.

Among the bands assembled were the Itazipcho, the Without-Bows, who had their own camp circle under their chief, Standing Hollow Horn. Early one morning the chief sent two of his young men to hunt for game. They searched everywhere but could find nothing. Seeing a high hill, they decided to climb it in order to look over the whole country. Halfway up, they saw something coming toward them from far off, but the figure was floating instead of walking. From this they knew that the person was wakan, holy.

At first they could make out only a small moving speck and had to squint to see that it was a human form. But as it came nearer, they realized that it was a beautiful young woman, more beautiful than any they had ever seen. She wore a wonderful white buckskin outfit, tanned until it shone a long way in the sun. It was embroidered with sacred and marvelous designs of porcupine quill, in radiant colors no ordinary woman could have made. This wakan stranger was Ptesan-Wi, White Buffalo Calf Woman. In her hands she carried a large bundle and a fan of sage leaves. She wore her hair loose except for a strand at the left side, which was tied up with buffalo fur. Her eyes shone dark and sparkling, with great power in them.

The two young men looked at her open-mouthed. One was overawed, but the other desired her and stretched his hand out to touch her. This woman was Lila wakan, very sacred, and could not be treated with disrespect. Lightning instantly struck the brash young man and burned him up, so that only a small heap of blackened bones was left.

To the other scout who had behaved rightly, the White Buffalo Calf Woman said: "Good things I am bringing, something holy to your nation. A message I carry for your people from the buffalo nation. Go back to the camp and tell the people to prepare for my arrival. Tell your chief to put up a medicine lodge with twenty-four poles. Let it be made holy for my coming."

This young hunter returned to the camp. He told the chief, and the people, what the sacred woman had commanded. So the people put up the big medicine tipi and waited. After four days they saw the White Buffalo Calf Woman approaching, carrying her bundle before her. Her wonderful white buckskin dress shone from afar. The chief, Standing Hollow Horn, invited her to enter the medicine lodge. She went in and circled the interior sunrise. The chief addressed her respectfully, saying: "Sister, we are glad you have come to instruct us."

She told him what she wanted done. In the center of the tipi they were to put up an owanka wakan, a sacred altar, made of red earth, with a buffalo skull and a three-stick rack for a holy thing she was bringing. They did what she directed, and she traced a design with her finger on the smoothed earth of the altar. She showed them how to do all this, then circled the lodge again sunwise. Halting before the chief, she now opened the bundle. The holy thing it contained was the chanunpa, the sacred pipe. She held it out to the people and let them look at it. She was grasping the stem with her right hand and the bowl with her left, and thus the pipe has been held ever since.

Again the chief spoke, saying: "Sister, we are glad. We have had no meat for some time. All we can give you is water." They dipped some wacanga, sweet grass, into a skin bag of water and gave it to her, and to this day the people dip sweet grass or an eagle wing in water and sprinkle it on a person to be purified.

The White Buffalo Calf Woman showed the people how to use the pipe. She filled it with chan-shasha, red willow-bark tobacco. She walked around the lodge four times after the manner of Anpetu-Wi, the great sun. This represented the circle without end, the sacred hoop, the road of life. The woman placed a dry buffalo chip on the fire and lit the pipe with it. This was peta-owihankeshni, the fire without end, the flame to be passed on from generation to generation.

She told them that the smoke rising from the bowl was Tunkashila's breath, the living breath of the great Grandfather Mystery.

The White Buffalo Calf Woman showed the people the right way to pray, the right words and the right gestures. She taught them how to sing the pipe-filling song and how to lift the pipe up to the sky, toward Grandfather, and down toward Grandmother Earth, to Unci, and then to the four directions of the universe.

"With this holy pipe," she said, "you will walk like a living prayer. With your feet resting upon the earth and the pipe stem reaching into the sky, your body forms a living bridge between the Sacred Beneath and the Sacred Above. Wakan Tanka smiles upon us, because now we are as one: earth, sky, all living things, the two-legged, the four-legged, the winged ones, the trees, the grasses.

Together with the people, they are all related, one family. The pipe holds them all together.

"Look at this bowl," said the White Buffalo Calf Woman. "Its stone represents the buffalo, but also the flesh and blood of the red man. The buffalo represents the universe and the four directions, because he stands on four legs, for the four ages of creation. The buffalo was put in the west by Wakan Tanka at the making of the world, to hold back the waters.

Every year he loses one hair, and in every one of the four ages he loses a leg. The sacred hoop will end when all the hair and legs of the great buffalo are gone, and the water comes back to cover Mother Earth.

The wooden stem of this chanunpa stands for all that grows on the Earth. Twelve feathers hanging from where the stem - the backbone - joins the bowl - the skull - are from Wanblee Galeshka, the spotted eagle, the very sacred bird who is the Great Spirit's messenger and the wisest of all flying ones.

You are joined to all things of the universe, for they all cry out to Tunkashila. Look at the bowl: engraved in it are seven circles of various sizes. They stand for the seven sacred ceremonies you will practice with this pipe, and for the Oceti Shakowin, the seven sacred campfires of our Lakota nation."

The White Buffalo Calf Woman then spoke to the women, telling them that it was the work of their hands and the fruit of their bodies which kept the people alive. "You are from Mother Earth," she told them. "What you are doing is as great as what the warriors do."

And therefore the sacred pipe is also something that binds men and women together in a circle of love. It is the one holy object in the making of which both men and women have a hand.

The men carve the bowl and make the stem; the women decorate it with bands of colored porcupine quills. When a man takes a wife, they both hold the pipe at the same time and red trade cloth is wound around their hands, thus tying them together for life.

The White Buffalo Calf Woman also talked to the children, because they have an understanding beyond their years. She told them that what their fathers and mothers did was for them, that their parents could remember being little once, and that they, the children, would grow up to have little ones of their own.

She told them: "You are the coming generation, that's why you are the most important and precious ones. Some day you will hold this pipe and smoke it. Some day you will pray with it."

She spoke once more to all the people: "The pipe is alive; it is a red being showing you a red life and a red road. And this is the first ceremony for which you will use the pipe. You will use it to keep the soul of a dead person, because through it you can talk to Wakan Tanka, the Great Mysterious. The day a human dies is always a sacred day. The day when the soul is released to the Great Spirit is another."

She spoke one last time to Standing Hollow Horn, the chief, saying, "Remember: this pipe is very sacred. Respect it and it will take you to the end of the road. The four ages of creation are in me. I will come to see you in every generation cycle. I shall come back to you."

The sacred woman then took leave of the people, saying: "Toksha ake wacinyanktin ktelo -- I shall see you again."

The people saw her walking off in the same direction from which she had come, outlined against the red ball of the setting sun. As she went, she stopped and rolled over four times. The first time, she turned into a black buffalo; the second into a brown one; the third into a red one; and finally, the fourth time she rolled over, she turned into a white buffalo calf. A white buffalo is the most sacred living thing you could ever encounter.

The White Buffalo Calf Woman disappeared over the horizon. As soon as she had vanished, buffalo in great herds appeared, allowing themselves to be killed so that the people might survive. And from that day on, our relations, the buffalo, furnished the people with everything they need -- meat for their food, skins for their clothes and tipi1s, and bones for their many tools.

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Legend of the White Buffalo

September 24, 1994 - Houston Chronicle

One summer a long time ago, the seven sacred council fires of the Lakota Sioux came together and camped. The sun was strong and the people were starving for there was no game.

Two young men went out to hunt. Along the way, the two men met a beautiful young woman dressed in white who floated as she walked. One man had bad desires for the woman and tried to touch her, but was consumed by a cloud and turned into a pile of bones.

The woman spoke to the second young man and said, "Return to your people and tell them I am coming." This holy woman brought a wrapped bundle to the people. She unwrapped the bundle giving to the people a sacred pipe and teaching them how to use it to pray. "With this holy pipe, you will walk like a living prayer," she said. The holy woman told the Sioux about the value of the buffalo, the women and the children. "You are from Mother Earth," she told the women, "What you are doing is as great as the warriors do."

Before she left, she told the people she would return. As she walked away, she rolled over four times, turning into a white female buffalo calf. It is said after that day the Lakota honored their pipe, and buffalo were plentiful. (from John Lame Deer's telling in 1967).

Many believe that the buffalo calf, Miracle, born August 20, 1994 symbolizes the coming together of humanity into a oneness of heart, mind, and spirit.

Miracle has gradually changed color, from snowy white to yellow to reddish brown to the almost black of her mother. But even this was prophesied. The legends also tell us that when all races are unified and peace returns to the earth, Miracle will once again turn white. It is possible there is a significance to the colors, as each shade duplicates the color of one of Earth's races.

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Sacred Red Heifer Articles

Red Heifer Born in Israel

In these days of difficulty for the Land of Israel, there is encouraging news...

It can now be revealed that less than one month ago, a red heifer was born in Israel. After the heifer's owner contacted the Temple Institute, on Friday, April 5th, 2001, Rabbi Menachem Makover and Rabbi Chaim Richman traveled to the farm where the heifer is located, to inspect and validate her status. The rabbis found her to be kosher and were satisfied that this heifer could indeed be a candidate to be used in the process of purification described in the book of Numbers, chapter 19. This is a prerequisite for the rebuilding of the Holy Temple.

Tradition records that a red heifer in our generation is a herald of the Messianic era. It is certainly an important development towards the rebuilding of the Holy Temple. Our sages taught that Israelis redemption can be compared to the dawn. "In the beginning, it progresses very slowly... but as it continues, it grows brighter and brighter.

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1997 - Kfar Hisidim, Israel - AP

In the Middle East the birth of a red cow denotes end times. Two such cows have been born. One in the US and one in the Middle East.

Watched over by an armed guard in a skullcap and visited by rabbis and other seekers of meaning, a rust-colored 10-month old heifer in Israel is hailed as a sign of the coming of the Messiah and decried as a walking bomb.

Of a variety believed extinct for centuries, the red heifer is seen by some as the missing link needed for religious Jews to rebuild their ancient Temple in Jerusalem. Sacrificing the animal in its third year and using its ashes in a purification rite would allow Jews to return 2000 years later to the Temple site, a spot holy to both Jews and Muslims.

Sacred cow? Rabbi Shmaria Shore strokes the nose of 10 month-old Melody, which some see as a harbinger of the Messiah. She is believed to be the first red heifer born in Israel in at least 2,000 years.

Cow: Religious Jews view heifer as a biblical portent

With tensions already high between Israel and the Palestinians, many fear that the calf's arrival could create an explosive situation.

That cow represents the risk of a massive religious war," said Avraham Poraz, a member of the parliament from the leftist Meretz Party. "If the fanatics get a hold of it and try to take over the Temple Mount, God knows what will happen. It only takes a few crazies to endanger all our lives."

Ten-month old Melody seems happy just lying around in the shade. But the debate over her theological import is one of the more bizarre signs of the growing rupture between religious and secular Israelis.

"The red heifer is one of the most important signs that we are living in a special time," says Gershon Solomon, head of a group dedicated to rebuilding the ancient Jewish Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.

Asked whether his group advocated that, Solomon would say only that he believed the Dome of the Rock and al-Aska Mosque could be dismantled and moved to Mecca -- a move that could hurt if not destroy prospects for regional peace. Even though mainstream religious groups have not rallied around the cow, some secular Israelis see her as a threat.