Estsanatlehi,Nut White Buffalo Woman

NAME: Estsanatlehi. also Changing Woman.
SYMBOLS: Spruce Mountain, hoops, the rainbow.

USUAL IMAGE: An attractive Native American woman at any age between 12 and 80, she most often is shown wareing a muti-color dress and a cloak made from white feathers into which white shells and large turqoises have been sewn, she holds four hoops.

PLACE OF WORSHIP: The home was the main place of worship for Estsanatlehi as she was a goddess that was believed to deal closely with the public and as such did not make others come to her.

MAJOR TABOOS: Harm to children

RELATIVES: Coyote (step-father), Sun-rise and Sun-set (twin sons).

DETAILS: Estsanatlehi was the ancestral mother of the Navajo and Apache peoples, she is also called Changing Woman because she can change her age at will by walking into the horizon until she meets herself comeing back. Some of her other names are White Shell Woman and Turquoise Woman. The Navajo say she was born of darkness and dawn on top of Spruce Mountain, where Coyote the trickster finds her, a baby wrapped in clouds, surrounded by three rainbows and bound to her cradle board with sunbeams and lighting. She grows up in 18 days, feeding on sun, clouds, and flower pollens. Later she is impregnated by the Sun and a waterfall and has twin boys who hold up each end of the day, because of this monsters soon begin to seek them out to kill them. To protect them from these monsters she throws four hoops into the four directions, causing barrier winds to arise and keep the monsters away. She is the keeper of the Blessingway, ceremonies used by the Navanjos, Apache and some other tribes to create well-being in childbirth, puberty, house blessings and weddings. The ceremonies are also used to ensure that the people may walk in beauty

NAME: Nuit. Nut. Night. Nox.
SYMBOLS: The night sky.

USUAL IMAGE: A nude woman, her body filled with stars and in the area just below her breasts the sun. She is shown in the form of an arch. She was also sometimes shown as a cow whose udder gave forth the Milky Way.

HOLY DAYS: February the 25th was the Egyptian day of Nuit.

PLACE OF WORSHIP: Under an open sky.

RELATIVES: Geb (husband\brother, Earth god), IsIs, Osiris, Nephthys, Set (children).

FORM OF WORSHIP: Your basic Egyptian thing.

SYNODEITIES: Not many really, as Nuit is one of the few sky-goddesses to be found in any culture, the way it works in most is that you have a sky-father and an earth-mother, the Egyptians were one of the few that had a sky-mother and an earth father.

DETAILS: Nuit, or Nut, is the origin for the word that means `night' in a number of languages, In Egypt she was the endless giving sky, and their personification of the Heavens, and all that was between Bakhau and Manu, the Maountains of sunrise and sunset. They said that she gave birth morning and swallowed it every night. Every day the sun would pass through her body, which was arched over the earth, who was Geb her brother and husband, her fingers and toes were shown barely touching the ground. Her image is usually found painted on the inner lid sarcophagie, she was also the Mother of Gods to the Egyptians.

An Egyptian creation story says that Ra separated Nuit and Geb (Heaven and Earth) because he was disturbed by their incest. The sycamore-fig tree was sacred to her. Egyptians said every woman was a nutrit, or little goddess.

NAME: White Buffalo Woman, White Buffalo Calf Woman
SYMBOLS: White Buffalo, Pipe, Stone Circle of 36 stones.

USUAL IMAGE: Young Native American Woman dressed in white buckskins, carrying a pipe and often shown encircled by a cloud.

PLACE OF WORSHIP: In a Stone Lodge, Within a Medicine Wheel, During a Pipe Ceremony.

MAJOR TABOOS: Disrespect for the seven sacred ceremonies.

FORM OF WORSHIP: Not what you would call worship, as no one ever said that White Buffalo Woman was what you would call a Goddess in the Western sense of the word, so she was not really worshiped, but was the one who introduced a number of ceremonies, however in the stories about her extra-human abilities are given to her.

SYNODEITIES: Spider Grandmother, Changing Woman, Iatiku, Copper Woman, The Corn Maidens (different Native American), Ceres (Greek/Roman), Mary (Christian), Kwan Yin (Chinese).

DETAILS: According to Native Americans around 1800 to 2100 years ago a woman appeared to two braves out of a cloud that came from the North, she told them that she was there to teach them better ways to talk with the Great Spirit, on hearing this one of the braves said they did not need some stranger telling them how to do anything and attacked her intent on rape, but as soon as he got near her both she and he were encircled by the cloud so that the other brave could not see them, after a moment the cloud again left and the woman was standing unharmed, the only thing left of the attacking brave however was a pile of dried bones, this convinced the remaining brave that it might be a good idea to be courteous to this woman, so he did as she asked him and brought back as many of the chiefs, shaman, and elders of the different tribes in the area as he could get to come.

Over seven days she taught seven ceremonies which she said would bring them into contact with the Great Spirit, and bring them back into contact with that which they had lost touch with.

Among the ceremonies that she was said to have brought was The Pipe Ceremony as well as how to make the pipe and how to use tobacco, How to build a Medicine Wheel and what it meant, The ceremony of the Seven (or five or three, depends on how many you have) Fires which was a way for different tribes to meet peacefully, A ceremony for contacting the spirits of the dead, as well as others such things as bring back the buffalo, preying, and other things.

After teaching the seven ceremonies she was said to have been seen to go into a cloud which flew off into the North, leaving behind only a few of the things she used to teach the ceremonies.

What ever the case there are seven ceremonies that are to be found in one form or another all over America. Interestingly enough there is a man in South Dakota who claims to have the Pipe that White Buffalo Woman left behind back then, he lives sort of like a Native American monk in the Bad Lands and spends his time taking care of this Pipe and different stories related to it, as well as teaching the Pipe Ceremony.....And to you cynics out there, no he does not do this for pay, and gets very upset if someone tries to bring money into the matter.

Note: After this was first writen and first put up there as been the birth of Miracle the white buffalo, who is not albino, and was greeted by thousands of Native Americans as a return of White Buffalo Woman and the herald of important changes. As time pasted Miracle's hair changed color a number of times, taking on a yellowish hue, then rust (red), brown and now black. This they say showing the five hues that humans come in and that it was time that we as a people come together.

White Buffalo Woman or not, it is plain that Miracle has gotten the interest of more then just a small group of Native Americans. While this has sparked great interest among N.A. religious people (by the way until 1972 N.A. religion was against the law.) It is having enough effect that other forces are trying to move against it, with endless stories about average albino buffalo showing up on T.V. and in the paper to blunt it, and old rocker and N.R.A. spokes dork Ted Neugent trying to buy Miracle so he could "fill him full of arrows." offering a huge mound of cash. The reply was get lost Ted.

Still no doubt interesting time's we're in