(10) NATIVE AMERICAN – LAKOTA

 

“The Great Spirit has given to you a red day and a red road” – Black Elk

A mythology that is part of an active religion – or mythologies and religions, as native American mythology at its broadest can be very broad indeed. The description of native American mythology can extend to mythology throughout the pre-Columbian Americas. Even if we confine ourselves to the geographic northern continent, that still is incredibly diverse – including the more lurid central American or meso-American mythologies.

This entry is intended to be representative of the native American mythologies in the area of the present United States. Of course, this remains as diverse as the people themselves in this area, but if I have to nominate any in particular, it would be those of the Great Plains in general or the Lakota (or Sioux) in particular.

This is because of my familiarity with Lakota ‘holy man’ Black Elk, through his own words as narrated in Black Elk Speaks (narrated to John Neihardt) and through the apparent focus his work gave to Huston Smith in the latter’s study of primal religions. I have a particular soft spot for Wakan Tanka, the overarching Great Mysterious that resides in everything – also the Ghost Dance.

 

SACRED SPACE & CHTHONIC BLUES

 

I don’t know much about the mythic worlds of Native American mythology other than references to their belief in an afterlife in the happy hunting ground that is attributed to them, although that probably originated in the British settlers interpreting their description – apparently the phrase first appeared “in 1823 in The Pioneers by James Fenimore Cooper”.

 

APOCALYPSE HOW

 

Lakota mythology indeed has its apocalypse and one of the most famous at that, albeit it may have been influenced by Christian millenarianism (and was strangely parallel to the contemporaneous millenarianism of the Boxer Rebellion) – the Ghost Dance. While it certainly was to be an apocalypse for the United States, it was more in the nature of a positive millenarian transformation or eucatastrophe for the Lakota.

 

EQUAL RITES

 

Lakota mythology has at least one messianic female figure – White Buffalo Calf Woman.

 

DIVINE COMEDY

 

More broadly, Native American mythologies have quite the divine comedy of recurring trickster figures – Coyote and Raven.

 

TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

 

Another mythology in my top ten that persists in religious belief among Native Americans – and in cultural impact beyond that. Indeed, enough so that Huston Smith included a chapter on the primal religions among major religions in his book The World’s Religions – and with the Lakota religion featuring prominently.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

I don’t have a religion – I have a mythology.

Indeed, I have a top ten of them. As much as I enjoy mythology, not all mythologies are equal. Arguably not even the same mythology, as like the proverbial river of Heraclitus, you cannot step into the same mythology twice, as it is constantly evolving, with many variants, often inconsistent with each other. Some mythologies just resonate better with me than others.

Hence this is my top ten ranking of mythology – or perhaps top ten mythologies? Mythos – or mythoi? My myths and sacred mysteries? Whatever. They are not ranked by the extent to which they still form part of an active religion, their duration or number of adherents, or by their cultural impact or influence, but by my personal interest in them – although this tends to overlap with one or more of the previous criteria, particularly my top two entries, which are the standouts both to me and for Western culture in general.

Just some further notes – I have some ratings within each entry:

 

SACRED SPACES & CHTHONIC BLUES

Rating mythologies by their mythic worlds within and beyond our own, particularly that most common chthonic denominator – their underworlds.

 

APOCALYPSE HOW

Rating mythologies by their apocalypses – that is, their eschatology to use the technical term, or their apocalyptic myths of “the end of the present age, human history, or the world itself”. No prizes for guessing the mythology in the top apocalyptic spot – that provides its own title of apocalypse to this rating.

 

EQUAL RITES

Rating mythologies by their goddesses – or more precisely the importance or significance of goddesses or female figures as compared to those of gods or male figures within their pantheon.

 

DIVINE COMEDY

Rating mythologies by how much they lend themselves to divine comedy or comic figures.

 

TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

No, not a repetition of rating mythologies by their apocalypses but more metaphorically in terms of their decline or persistence as actual or active religious belief, in duration or number of adherents, or in their cultural impact or influence.

 

So that said, these are my Top 10 Mythologies. You know the rules – this is one of my deep dive top tens, counting down from tenth to first place and looking at individual entries in some depth or detail of themselves.

But wait – there’s more! The subject is prolific enough for my usual twenty special mentions per top ten and for honorable mentions beyond that.

Finally, note on the visual images used in this top ten. Given the copyright in visual images, I use visual images of one of the three following types to avoid infringing copyright – images from the public domain or free images, images licensed for use with attribution, and images as fair use for the purposes of comment, criticism, reaction or review.