Excerpts

From Volume 1: Gary Holy Bull: Lakota Yuwipi Man

Gary Holy Bull

Not long after that we went into some purification lodges and things started happening to me. I started to see things, feel things, and hear things. For a while, I thought I was going crazy because I'd hear people talk and then notice that there was no one around.

One day I went hunting. The sun was barely up and I spent the day hunting, not returning until around three o'clock in the afternoon. I brought back a deer. We were taught to clean our own meat, so I cleaned it and hung it up. My mother, stepfather, and grandmother were all there when I came home.

I then laid down under the shade of a tree and fell asleep. Somebody started shaking me and I woke up to hear them say, "They're coming now, get up! They're coming, get up!" I got up and noticed that the sun was shining. I looked around to see who had awakened me and couldn't see anyone. There was no one in the house, the car was gone, and no one was anywhere near.

I went over to the edge of the cliff to see if anyone was going down the river. Nobody. Then I heard someone say in our Lakota language, "Hurry up, they're coming now. Hurry up, they're coming."

I went back to my spot in the shade and waited. After a while a car drove up with my mother, stepfather, and grandmother. My stepfather looked at me in a funny way, like he knew something about what had happened. I got up and we walked toward the sweat lodge which was close to the cliff overlooking the river. He said in Lakota, "When are they coming?" I looked at him and replied, "They're coming soon." That's all I said. He looked at me and did not say another word.

Nobody came that day. I kept thinking about who was supposed to come. I asked my stepfather who was coming. He just smiled at me and walked away.

That whole year, when I was twelve going on thirteen years old, I kept hearing those voices. When I would sleep someone would shake me, sometimes grabbing my feet and then I would hear it: "You need to hurry, they're coming now, they're coming soon." I finally told my grandmother, thinking that she might tell me something. She looked at me, shook her head, and looked down at the ground.

I became very frustrated. Everything began to frustrate me so I walked around wondering why I heard these voices. A year went by and nothing happened.

Ceremonies

There are many kinds of ceremonies. There are those when our people come together to ask for certain help from the Creator, to help put their lives back in order.

There is a ceremony for the time when we bring young girls into the lodge when they go through puberty. Women come in and tell them about what's happening to their bodies. It lasts four days.

The

girls are told about becoming a woman and many things are shared. Materials are brought to them to make dresses as they sit there in the lodge. They are told about how to be a part of family life. We celebrate how important each young woman is to the whole community.

There are ceremonies for making relatives, where you receive a name and are made a relative with someone. This also takes four days. During that time, men and women talk to you, telling you how important you are in the community. You are told that once you receive your new name, you will be given a special place in the community and that you will become a helper. You agree that no one in the community will ever be orphaned and that no one will ever go hungry. All these things are taught to you before you get your name.

There are other ceremonies. For instance, you can adopt a person when you see someone who has the same characteristics, personality, looks, or nature as your own relatives. In ceremony you ask them to become part of your family. Then you take care of them as if they were true relatives.

Yuwipi is a form of ceremony where you call spirits to be part of the healing. They can be called to help us heal cancer, diabetes, leukemia, tuberculosis, and heart disease. These are very powerful, very ancient healing ceremonies, dating from before Columbus touched the east coast. We used black-tailed deer skins in the old times, but now we use blankets. They used the black-tailed deer skin because you could breathe through its hide. We were wrapped up in it during the ceremony. That's why it's sometimes said that the ceremony is from the black-tailed deer (or the mule deer as it's called today).

It's not a ceremony that you plan. If we were sitting here and someone came to us who was very sick and wanted to have this ceremony, we'd do it right away. Whether it was light or dark in the room, we'd do it.

Purification Lodge

The first time I conducted a purification lodge or inipi was at Bear Butte. Some people asked me to do it and I said, "I don't know if I can." "You could try," they replied. I knew the songs and I had watched my stepfather very closely. I did know all the necessary steps and procedures. So I did it.

However, I did so feeling very unsure and afraid of what might happen. If the spirits came in I wasn't sure what to do or what to say. We went into that sweat lodge and everyone prayed and sang. I didn't see anything, but I felt good. When it was over we came out and prepared a meal by the camp. They shared their experiences and mentioned all the things that had happened in there. I must have been preoccupied, for they saw many things. They heard voices and experienced powerful revelations. They saw the blue spark-like lights of the spirits as well as other things. I hadn't seen a thing because I was worrying over what I would do if something happened. All I did was sing and pray for them in the way that I had been taught as a child. That was my first experience.

"I do not always ask, in my prayers and discussions, only for those things I would like to see happen, because no man can claim to know what is best for mankind."
— Fools Crow, Teton Sioux

"Here is something quite remarkable: towards evening of the 26th, they prepared a sweat, which was followed by a feast. I never saw anything like it in my life; 20 men entered, and almost piled themselves upon one another. Even the sick man dragged himself thither, though with considerable difficulty, and was one of the troop; he also sang for quite a long time . . . a sick man on the verge of his death! So the next day I found him in fine condition . . ."
— Father LeJeune, Jesuit missionary's account of a sweat lodge ceremony held in 1637