Arvol Looking Horse (born 1954) is a Lakota Native American spiritual leader. He is the 19th keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe and Bundle. [1] [2]
He is a leading voice in the protest against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). [3] [4]
Arvol Looking Horse was born in 1954 on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota [5] to Cécilia Looking Horse, a Hunkpapa tribe member, and Stanley Looking Horse, a member of the Mni Sa band of the Itazipco tribe of the Titonwan Lakota people. Growing up in a traditional Lakota family and community, he was immersed in the culture and spirituality. He learned to speak Lakota as his first language, only later learning, and becoming fluent in, English. [6]
The Looking Horse family are the keepers of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe, which Lakota tradition teaches was gifted to the Oceti Sakowin by White Buffalo Calf Woman. [6] At twelve years old, Arvol Looking Horse inherited the White Buffalo Calf Pipe and the role of Keeper, becoming a ceremonial leader of the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Peoples. [5] He is the current Keeper in a line that goes back for 19 generations. [6] In the 400 year tradition of guardians of the sacred pipe, Looking Horse was the youngest to be entrusted with this responsibility. His grandmother had warned him that if the world did not improve during his lifetime, it was likely that he would be the last of the sacred bundle keepers. [3] While attending a government boarding school he witnessed the suppression of the spiritual traditions of his people, which led to his decision to work for religious freedom, and the preservation and protection of his culture. [7]
Due to his parents being involved in horseback riding and rodeos, Looking Horse himself practiced as a professional rodeo rider as an adult until an accident when a horse fell on him. He became paralyzed and quadriplegic from the injury, along with having both kneecaps shattered. Over time, he eventually regained the ability to walk, despite a poor outlook from his doctors. [3]
Since 1986, Looking Horse has led a group on the Big Foot Memorial Ride, which retraces the final journey of Chief Big Foot known as Chief Spotted Elk or Unphan Gleska in Lakota (erroneously renamed “Chief Big Foot” by a US Army soldier at Fort Bennett) and his band before they were killed in the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. [1] [8] The ride takes place from December 15 to 29. The usually severe winter temperatures connect the riders with the hardship Big Foot and his band faced before their deaths. [9] Another ceremony titled "Mending The Sacred Hoop" was conducted by Looking Horse in 1990 for the surviving family members from the Wounded Knee Massacre. [7] [10]
Looking Horse has conducted prayers and speeches in support of climate change action and against projects such as the Dakota Access Pipeline at the UN General Assembly and at the 1997 inauguration of President Bill Clinton. [1] He attended the March for Science in Washington, D.C., to push for climate change response. [3]
Due to a prophecy stating that the Seventh Generation of the Native American community would be the ones to restore the community, elders of the tribes and the Seven Council Fires have come out in support of the International Indigenous Youth Council and Looking Horse gave the youths involved at the Dakota Access Pipeline a Čhaŋnúŋpa and they were officially recognized as "warriors for the people" known as akicita. [2]
In 1994, a rare white buffalo calf was born and Looking Horse traveled to many sacred sites to perform the Four Direction ceremony in honor of the calf. To further promote this birth, Looking Horse created the World Peace and Prayer Day in 1996 for people of all faiths to support world peace and environmentalism. [11] Subsequent ceremonies for World Peace Day were held in Canada in 1997, Minnesota in 1998, Costa Rica in 1999, and the final ceremony in the Lakota region of South Dakota in 2000. With this, Looking Horse felt he had completed the ceremonial purpose of honoring the four directions and finishing in the center, meaning his part of the day was done and he turned over future organization of it to the broader international community. Another set of five ceremonies was performed around the world from 2001 to 2005, before it was suggested to the UN in 2005 to make the day into an officially recognized "Honoring Sacred Sites Day". To help keep the ceremony organized and funded, Looking Horse and other Indian elders formed the Wolakota Foundation in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, to help promote the spiritual traditions of indigenous peoples around the world. [12]
On May 10, 2003, during the Bear Butte Protection of Ceremonies meeting, Looking Horse made a Proclamation that non-Indians would not be allowed to attend Lakota ceremonies, due to ongoing exploitation and appropriation of Native American spiritual practices. [13]
He received The Wolf Award of Canada in 1996, given to a person who has dedicated his life to working for peace. [14] He has also received The United Nations Juliet Hollister Temple of Understanding Award in 2006. [11] In 1996 the city of New Orleans honored Chief Looking Horse by proclaiming August 27 "Day of the White Bison", and by the donation of the key to the city by the mayor. [15] In 2017, the Malibu Guitar Festival presented him with a humanitarian award. [3]
Looking Horse's son, Cody Looking Horse, is a member of the Standing Rock Youth Council and was active in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests; his mother is Professor Dawn Martin-Hill (Haudenosaunee). [16]
The Lakota are a Native American people. Also known as the Teton Sioux, they are one of the three prominent subcultures of the Sioux people, with the Eastern Dakota (Santee) and Western Dakota (Wičhíyena). Their current lands are in North and South Dakota. They speak Lakȟótiyapi—the Lakota language, the westernmost of three closely related languages that belong to the Siouan language family.
The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples. Collectively, they are the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, or "Seven Council Fires". The term "Sioux", an exonym from a French transcription ("Nadouessioux") of the Ojibwe term "Nadowessi", can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or to any of the nation's many language dialects.
A sweat lodge is a low profile hut, typically dome-shaped or oblong, and made with natural materials. The structure is the lodge, and the ceremony performed within the structure may be called by some cultures a purification ceremony or simply a sweat.
Sitting Bull was a Hunkpapa Lakota leader who led his people during years of resistance against United States government policies. Sitting Bull was killed by Indian agency police on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation during an attempt to arrest him at a time when authorities feared that he would join the Ghost Dance movement.
Heȟáka Sápa, commonly known as Black Elk, was a wičháša wakȟáŋ and heyoka of the Oglala Lakota people. He was a second cousin of the war leader Crazy Horse and fought with him in the Battle of Little Bighorn. He survived the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. He toured and performed in Europe as part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West.
White Buffalo Calf Woman or White Buffalo Maiden is a sacred woman of supernatural origin, central to the Lakota religion as the primary cultural prophet. Oral traditions relate that she brought the "Seven Sacred Rites" to the Lakota people.
A white buffalo or white bison is an American bison possessing white fur, and is considered sacred or spiritually significant in several Native American religions; therefore, such buffalo are often visited for prayer and other religious rituals. The coats of buffalo are almost always brown and their skin a dark brown or black; however, white buffalo can result from one of several physical conditions:
The Sun Dance is a ceremony practiced by some Native Americans in the United States and Indigenous peoples in Canada, primarily those of the Plains cultures. It usually involves the community gathering together to pray for healing. Individuals make personal sacrifices on behalf of the community.
Winter counts are pictorial calendars or histories in which tribal records and events were recorded by Native Americans in North America. The Blackfeet, Mandan, Kiowa, Lakota, and other Plains tribes used winter counts extensively. There are approximately one hundred winter counts in existence, many of which are duplicates.
The inípi ceremony, a type of sweat lodge, is a purification ceremony of the Lakota people. It is one of the Seven Sacred Ceremonies of the Lakota people, which has been passed down through the generations of Lakota.
Chanunpa is the Lakota language name for the sacred, ceremonial pipe and the ceremony in which it is used. The pipe ceremony is one of the Seven Sacred Rites of the Lakota people. Lakota tradition has it that White Buffalo Calf Woman brought the chanunpa to the people, as one of the Seven Sacred Rites, to serve as a sacred bridge between this world and Wakan Tanka, the "Great Mystery".
The Cheyenne River Indian Reservation was created by the United States in 1889 by breaking up the Great Sioux Reservation, following the attrition of the Lakota in a series of wars in the 1870s. The reservation covers almost all of Dewey and Ziebach counties in South Dakota. In addition, many small parcels of off-reservation trust land are located in Stanley, Haakon, and Meade counties.
Iron Tail was an Oglala Lakota Chief and a star performer with Buffalo Bill's Wild West. Iron Tail was one of the most famous Native American celebrities of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and a popular subject for professional photographers who circulated his image across the continents. Iron Tail is notable in American history for his distinctive profile on the Buffalo nickel or Indian Head nickel of 1913 to 1938.
The Dakota are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided into the Eastern Dakota and the Western Dakota.
The Oglala are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people who, along with the Dakota, make up the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the United States.
Čhetáŋ Sápa(Black Hawk) (c. 1832 – c. 1890) was a medicine man and member of the Sans Arc or Itázipčho band of the Lakota people. He is most known for a series of 76 drawings that were later bound into a ledger book that depicts scenes of Lakota life and rituals. The ledger drawings were commissioned by William Edward Canton, a federal "Indian trader" at the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. Black Hawk's drawings were drawn between 1880-1881. Today they are known as one of the most complete visual records of Lakota cosmology, ritual and daily life.
A ceremonial pipe is a particular type of smoking pipe, used by a number of cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas in their sacred ceremonies. Traditionally they are used to offer prayers in a religious ceremony, to make a ceremonial commitment, or to seal a covenant or treaty. The pipe ceremony may be a component of a larger ceremony, or held as a sacred ceremony in and of itself. Indigenous peoples of the Americas who use ceremonial pipes have names for them in each culture's Indigenous language. Not all cultures have pipe traditions, and there is no single word for all ceremonial pipes across the hundreds of diverse Native American languages.
The Wolf Award is an accolade conferred by a non-profit organization known as The Wolf Project to individuals, organizations, and communities in recognition of their efforts to reduce racial intolerance and to improve peace and understanding. The Wolf Award, which has also come to be known as The International Wolf Award, consists of a certificate of appreciation and a sculpture of a howling wolf, presented in ceremonial fashion to the recipient.
Zintkála Nuni, alternatively 'Zintka Lanuni', was a Lakota Sioux woman who was a 4-month-old infant when she was found alive among the victims at the Wounded Knee Massacre.
Lakota religion or Lakota spirituality is the traditional Native American religion of the Lakota people. It is practiced primarily in the North American Great Plains, within Lakota communities on reservations in North Dakota and South Dakota. The tradition has no formal leadership or organizational structure and displays much internal variation.
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