The Seven Sacred Rites of the Lakota

She gave them seven.

White Buffalo Calf Woman, when she came to the Lakota people and brought the Sacred Pipe, brought seven rites with it — seven ways of using the pipe, seven modes of right relationship with Wakan Tanka, seven ceremonies that together make a complete religious life. She gave them the names of the rites and the structure of each one, and the medicine men who received them have carried them ever since.

The first rite is the keeping of the soul.

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When a person dies, the soul does not immediately depart. For a period — days or months — the soul is kept in a bundle of the person’s hair and sacred objects, held by a family member who takes on the responsibility of its care. The soul is fed and spoken to. When the time comes for the final release, the soul is freed in a ceremony and sent on its journey. This is the keeping of the soul. Its purpose: to slow grief, to honor the dead, to give the living a structured way of holding loss.

The second rite is the inipi — the sweat lodge. Purification, rebirth, the return to Grandmother Earth’s womb, the preparation for any major ceremony.

The third rite is the vision quest — hanbleceya, crying for a vision. The individual alone on the hilltop, calling to Wakan Tanka, receiving the personal vision that defines a life’s direction.

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The fourth rite is the Sun Dance — wiwanyag wachipi, the dance looking at the sun. The communal ceremony of sacrifice and renewal, in which the people collectively offer themselves in gratitude and prayer.

The fifth rite is the making of relatives — hunkapi. The ceremony by which two people who are not born relatives become relatives — the formal adoption of a person into the web of obligation and care. The Lakota theological insight: kinship can be made, not only born. The family can be expanded by ceremony.

The sixth rite is the preparing of a girl for womanhood. When a girl becomes a woman, the ceremony acknowledges her new power and her new relationship with the sacred feminine — a formal welcoming of her into the full participation of the women’s circle.

The seventh rite is the throwing of the ball — tapa wankayeyapi. A ball representing Wakan Tanka — the universe, the sacred, the living power — is thrown from the center to people in the four directions. Those who receive it are touched by the sacred. The ceremony embodies the Lakota understanding that the sacred is not contained in a temple or a priest but is a thing that moves, that passes from person to person, that can be thrown and caught, that touches the people directly.

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Together these seven rites address every major need of human life: the need to grieve, to purify, to receive individual vision, to offer communally, to create family, to welcome womanhood, to participate in the living movement of the sacred.

None of them requires a building.

All of them require the pipe, which is the center, which White Buffalo Calf Woman gave as the instrument of connection — the living link between the human and the Wakan, the thing held in the hands that makes the prayers travel.

The pipe is still held.

The seven rites are still performed.

The connection is still open.