The Heyoka
 

Heyoka is a Lakota term given to the "wise fool". Traditionally, anyone who dreamed of the Thunder Beings (Lightning) was called to walk the path of Heyoka. 

In the Heyoka Ceremony, everything is backwards, and it is planned that the people shall be made to feel jolly and happy first, so that it may be easier for the power to come to them. 
Truth comes into this world with two faces.  One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping.  When people are already in despair, maybe the laughing face is better for them; and when they feel too good and are too sure of being safe, maybe the weeping face is better for them to see.  So that is what the heyoka ceremony is for.

The elders speak too, of the "Heyoka", a person who, in vision or dreams is visited by the Thunder Beings, and who assists humanity in it's exploration into the new worlds.  The Heyoka, too, becomes one who is contrary to the accustomed and accepted rules of society.  The Heyoka does so precisely to push the fold of accepted reality, to sound the wake-up call.  According to Ogalala Sioux Elder, Looks-for-Buffalo, "The Heyoka is the counterpoint to the Thunder Beings who repeatedly dissolve the existing order, and fashion a new arrangement from the pieces".

From Lame Deer - Seeker of Visions:  "Another kind of medicine man is the Heyoka, the sacred clown.  To us a clown is somebody sacred, funny, powerful, ridiculous, holy, shameful, visionary.  Fooling around, a clown is really performing a spiritual ceremony.  He has a power, it comes from the Thunder beings, not the animals on earth.  It is very simple to become a Heyoka, all you have to do is dream about the lightning, the Thunderbirds, you do this and when you wake up in the morning, you are a Heyoka, there is nothing you can do about it."

It is not easy to be a Heyoka.  It is even harder to have one in the family.  The wise old people know that Heyokas are thunder-dreamers, that the Thunder beings commanded them to act in a silly way.  The Heyokas get their power from the Wakinyan, the sacred flying ones, the Thunderbirds.  These Thunderbirds are the Wakan Oyate - the spirit nation.  If the Thunder-beings want to put their power on earth, they send a dream to a man, a vision about thunder and lightning.  By this dream they appoint him to work his power for them in a human way.  This is what makes him a Heyoka.  Every dream which has some symbol of the thunder powers in it will make you into a Heyoka.