Masks for the Parliament of World Religions: White Buffalo Calf Woman

WHITE BUFFALO CALF WOMAN

As a beautiful young maiden I appeared bearing a sacred pipe,
And inside the village’s big medicine tipi,
together we conducted ceremony.

I showed the people
How to lift the pipe up to the sky,
toward Grandfather,
And down to the earth,
toward Grandmother.
And to the four directions of the universe.

I told them the smoke rising from the bowl
Was the living breath
of the great Grandfather Mystery. 

“With this pipe,” I said,“Walk a living prayer.
With your feet resting upon the earth
And the pipestem reaching into the sky,
Your body forms a living bridge between
The Sacred Beneath and the Sacred Above.
Now we are one:

Earth, sky, man, woman,
And all living things.
We are all relations,
The pipe holds them all together.” 

Next I instructed
In the seven sacred ceremonies of the pipe: 

The first was the sweat lodge purification ceremony.
The next was for naming the children.
The third was for healing,
The fourth was  the adoption ceremony.
The fifth  the marriage ceremony.
The sixth was the vision quest.
And the seventh  was the sundance ceremony.

As I walked away, I became a Buffalo, and I rolled over four times:

First I turned into a black buffalo;
Second  into a brown buffalo;
The third into a red buffalo;
And the fourth time I became a white buffalo calf.

 As soon as I departed that day
Great buffalo herds appeared from beyond the horizon
And some of their number allowed themselves to be killed
So the people might live.

I have not forgotten you.
That white buffalo calf born not so long ago,
Is but one glimmer from the beyond
Of My imminent return.

To grant your people
who are My people
another bridge
To knit the world above
And the earth below
Together again.


by Mary Kay Landon