Traditional Dakota spirituality is a form of religious belief that a cultural anthropologist might describe as "animism" where each thing, plant and animal has a spirit. In Dakota religion each thing, plant, and animal is also kindred to each other and is also a part of Wakan Tanka the Great Mystery. This is in sharp contrast to Christianity's view derived from the Old Testament that (sinful) Adam and Eve were placed here atop an inanimate world with plants and animals who were wild and needed to be subdued. Animals were certainly not humankind's kin - let alone the inanimate objects of the world.This was not the Dakota view. As Luther Standing Bear described it: "From Wakan Tanka there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things - the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals - and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred and brought together by the same Great Mystery" (Standing Bear 1978:193).
In the Dakota view the Mother Earth is a living thing. Taku skan skan, the god of movement (or energy) is also all around us. This way of viewing the world is in stark contrast to Christianity and Western Science and provided a different aesthetic. As an example, according to Luther Standing Bear,"the Milky Way was a path which was traveled by the ghosts. The old people told us to heed wa maka skan, which were the 'moving things of earth.' This meant, of course, the animals that lived and moved about, and the stories they told of wa maka skan increased our interest and delight. The wolf, duck.eagle, hawk, spider, bear, and other creatures had marvelous powers, and each one was useful and helpful to us. Then there were the warriors who lived in the sky and dashed about on their spirited horses during a thunder storm, their lances clashing with the thunder and glittering with the lightning. There was wiwila, the living spirit of the spring, and stones that flew like a bird and talked like a man. Everything was possessed of a personality, only differing with us in form. Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library and its books were the stones, leaves, grass, brooks, and the birds and animals that shared, alike with us, the storms and blessings of earth. We learned to do what only the student of nature ever learns, and that was to feel beauty" (Standing Bear 1978:194).
This different religious outlook resulted in a sharp contrast between the Euro-American view that uncontrolled land was "crude, primitive,wild,rude, untamed and savage" and the Lakota view that there was no wilderness and that, "mountains, lakes, rivers, springs, valleys,, and woods were all finished beauty; winds, rain, snow, sunshine, day, night, and change of seasons brought interest; birds, insects, and animals filled the world with knowledge that defied the discernment of man" (Id. at 196). Where Christian religion emphasized the beauty of heaven and the toil and sin of this world, the Lakota emphasized the beauty of this world and their heaven or Wanagi yata was similar in many ways to a pleasant day on this world. (Id. at 197).
One of the sharpest examples of the contrast between the traditional Dakota worldview and Christianity and Western Science lies in their different views concerning stones and rock. One of the "moving things of earth" are stones which both fall from the sky at night and leave long furrows when heavy boulders move across the landscape. Where Euro-Americans viewed stones and rocks as inanimate material the traditional Dakota view of stones and boulders was quite different. The Dakota had many kinds of medicine men, but one type were the Stone Dreamers who obtained their powers in dreams. As Luther Standing pointed out: "The Lakotas had some wonderful medicine-men who not only cured the sick, but they looked into the future and prophesied events, located lost or hidden articles, assisted the hunters by coaxing the buffalo near, made themselves invisible when near an enemy, and performed wonderful and magic things. . . .White Crow was a Stone Dreamer and the stones told him many wonderful things. One day when my father was away, my stepmother became ill and lay on her bed in great pain, unable to rise. I sent for White Crow, who brought with him no medicine-bag, rattle, nor the usual drum; neither did he sing or talk to mother, but merely sat and looked at her as she rolled in pain. After a while he took a small piece of root which he had with him and cut it into two smaller pieces, telling mother to chew one of the pieces and swallow it and also to chew the second piece and rub it on her chest where the pain was. This mother did as quickly as possible for she was seriously ill. Her recovery was almost immediate, for it seemed no more than five minutes before she was up and preparing food for White Crow. I was so delighted and curious, that I offered White Crow my best horse if he would give me the name of the plant. He refused, and I then offered him fifty dollars for it, but found that it was not purchasable at any price" (Id. 206-208).
The knowledge to cure with plants was not the only power of the Stone Dreamers. Frances Densmore has an entire section in Teton Sioux Music and Culture (1992: 204-243) regarding the sacred stones (tun kan') and the songs associated with the sacred stones. These could be small round stones kept in down (the synechdoche symbol of all of the winged creatures) and wrapped in leather which could fly through the air and speak to him or her and report back with information about missing children and adults, lost articles, etc. Luther Standing Bear described one of these medicine men as follows: "Chips was another Stone Dreamer and his fame was wide among his people, for he would go into the sweatbath and there locate lost articles or horses and absent people. While taking the purification ceremony the tunkes, or hot stones, brought great inspiration to Chips, so whenhe went to the place of the vigil they came to him in spirit and offered him service. So Chips always carried stones some of them painted in colors, in his medicine-bag. When he was making medicine they would fly to him and they could be heard striking the tipi and after we moved into houses I have heard them dropping down the chimney and have seen them lying about on the floor where they had fallen" (Standing Bear 1978:208).
The spirit in stones could teach much useful information and give a song and much power to those who dreamed of it. According to Luther Standing Bear: "The Stone Dreamer sang a song about the night sun, or moon, and also one about the day sun, which was taught to him by stones. The stones were possessed of extraordinary knowledge, for they were on the earth, in the earth, and in the sky visiting the sun and the moon, so they taught the following song to the dreamer, that he might derive power from these heavenly bodies [Followed by The moon song and The sun song]. Whenever horses or articles were lost, the Stone medicine-man was called, for he could send out his flying stones and they would locate the missing things. The medicine-man was always called with the pipe for the best results" (Standing Bear 1978: 216)
Round stones fell from the sky at night and large heavy and rounded granite boulders left obvious furrows where they had moved across the landscape and were sometimes located in places and landscapes composed of entirely different materials such as limestone and sandstone. These stones not only represented Inyan or the oldest god of rock (sometimes referred to by the older name toonkan or tun kan') but also obviously embodied Taku skan skan or Skan in the older language since they moved.
The sacred number four was also incorporated into the dreams that gave power to the Stone Dreamers. As Luther Standing Bear noted: "The Stone Dreamer sings the Song of the Moon, the words calling attention to the four circles of the dopa village [in older times the village of four circles or bands] over which the Moon is guardian. The sun also sings a song through the Stone Dreamer, calling attention to the four activities or four ceremonies in honor of the sun" (Standing Bear 1978:122).
Dakota sacred boulders such as the Red Rock at Newport, Minnesota were painted with vermillion stripes. Red Rock was painted at least semi-annually and gifts or sacrifieces were left around it including swan's down. When the Dakota were forced to leave the area they asked the local white people to continue the practice which has been done. The last painting was in the 1960's and some faded enamel paint is still visible. Today we might wonder, "Why did the Dakota paint a stone with red vermillion stripes at least twice a year and ask the white people to continue the practice?" To understand this it is important to realize that 1) the stone was sacred and had an important spirit who resided there and 2) painting stripes on someon'es "face" was considered a sign of respect and was something of a duty. According to Luther Standing Bear, the first thing that a dutiful husband did in the morning was to comb his wife's hair and paint her face and sometimes put a red or yellow stripe of paint down the part in her hair."Every morning a married woman had her hair brushed and her face painted for the day by her husband. This was a mark of respect that every Lakota paid his spouse" (Standing Bear 1978:65). Face paint could protect the skin against the wind and sun and face paints were a marriage gift of adornment which honored a bride. Brides were made happy by the pleasant attention of woman attendants who painted their faces before marriage. A young man would dress up and paint his face to go courting. Mothers would paint the skin of their children with red paint and grease to protect them against hot wind and sun.
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