Oglala Lakota tribesman shares spiritual background
Melvin High Hawk, an Oglala Lakota from Wounded Knee, S.D., spoke to two classes last week about Lakota spiritual ceremonies.
High Hawk began both lectures with an opening prayer. High Hawk lit a bundle of sage and, using an eagle feather, spread its smoke over the standing students.
“This will purify you,” High Hawk explained. Then, accompanied with a hide-covered hand drum, High Hawk sang a Sun Dance prayer song, then translated it for the students. One word he emphasized, “Tunkasila,” means “grandfather” and equates to “God.”
“Part of my prayer meant, ‘who that is praying, grandfather will see you,’” High Hawk said. This prayer, unlike other religious supplications, asks God not for its speaker’s benefit, but for the gratification of all those praying.
High Hawk spoke on three Lakota spiritual rites, the sweat lodge, the vision quest, and the Sun Dance. The sweat lodge, or Inipi, involves 16 willows bound into a traditional hut. Then stones, heated in a fire outside, are brought into the dark confines of the hut. High Hawk explained the significance of the seven stones. The first four symbolize the four compass points, the next three are Grandfather, Grandmother earth, and all of creation. Listening to High Hawk’s speech, one realizes various points of Lakota spiritual tradition: many things come in sets of four and seven. For the sweat lodge, a spiritual sojourner sits in the heat and the dark for the duration of 16 lengthy spiritual songs. There are four songs for each door to the lodge.
“It is challenging,” High Hawk said, “but if you went in there for a purpose, God will help you.”
High Hawk’s spiritual background descends from a family of religious figures. Three different religions, including Christianity and the Native American Church, combine in High Hawk’s liturgy. The practices High Hawk spoke about are personal to him, having done sweat lodges and Sun Dances himself. In order to commit to his wife, Deborah Ceder Face, High Hawk participated in the Hot Springs Wahoo Sanctuary Sun Dance. For students unfamiliar with the concepts of Sun Dance, High Hawk spoke on the rigors of the tradition. Men and women dance all day, while fasting, hooked through the skin to a standing pole or “tree.” Broc Andrson, sophomore of Alliance, was particularly affected by High Hawk’s description of the ceremony.
“I was unaware of how inflicting pain on oneself was such an act of love,” Anderson said.
High Hawk shared his own scars from the rite, and told personal stories about the intense community. The details, though, of the Sun Dance ceremony and the vision quest, remained respectfully obscured in order to preserve the holiness of the traditions.
“You’re out there to sacrifice,” High Hawk said. “To be humbled. If you complete it, everything will be good, but you have to be patient.”
High Hawk’s past and his desire to guide youth motivated him to speak on Lakota religious ceremonies.
“I just want to help people,” High Hawk told the classes. His message was: “No matter what you do in this world, be honest with yourself, and truthful in your actions.”
Along with the spiritual traditions he now shares with students, this advice helped High Hawk escape a vicious cycle of alcoholism. Robert McEwen, the professor for both classes, invited High Hawk in order to expose his students to the religious traditions that exist just beyond their dorms.
“Several years ago, some of my Oglala Lakota students presented a lesson on traditional sweat lodge ceremony in my Comp class,” McEwen said. “I saw that the presentation would also work well in a Humanities class. So this semester I asked my kola, Mr Melvin High Hawk, to present a lesson to my Comp and Humanities students.”
High Hawk expressed concern for modern students and a willingness to council to anyone in need, even providing his personal phone number, 308-360-3622, for contact.
To end the class, High Hawk sang a farewell song and prayed over the students.
“I knew he would do a great job,” McEwen said, “and he did.”