Black Elk's Pipe

Black Elk and John G. Neihardt (1932) introduced the audience of the book, Black Elk Speaks, to important symbols in the Lakota culture within John G. Neihardt's six-paragraph introduction (Chapter One: "The Offering of the Pipe." There, the holy man, Black Elk, moved to "... make an offering and send a voice to the Spirit of the World, that it may help me to be true. ... But before we smoke it you must see how it is made and what it means."

As an author, organizing transcribed texts, memories, and impressions, Neihardt, through this six-paragraph introduction of Black Elk, set a mood and intimate focus for the reader. The visionary Lakota, sharing and describing the sacred pipe, developed a tangible image of the entire universe, represented by the shared offering of the pipe. Without such a physical or otherwise perceivable model, we might never manage to begin to contemplate the Lakota universe.

As a reader of Black Elk Speaks, taking the time to listen and understand Black Elk's description of the pipe serves as a reference to symbolism throughout the book. Likewise, the images and symbols that Black Elk describes provide a framework for beginning to learn about Native American symbols, concepts, and ceremony, especially when referring to groups of the Great Plains region.
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Black Elk's Pipe

Neihardt ended his fabricated introduction describing the pipe, through Black Elk's voice. He begins with a key element: four ribbons on the stem representing the four quarters of the universe. This concept, of the four quarters of the universe appears again and again in Black Elk's narrative, and it is a common element in Native American ceremony at all levels from very personal and informal through formal group ceremonies and celebrations.

He discussed the symbolic colors of the four ribbons on his pipe, representing four of six directions:

1. The black ribbon represents the west, where the thunder beings live. Raymond Demaille's footnote (Neihardt 2008) denotes that the Lakota Indians use the word, wakiua, for the "embodiments of the power of the West, manifested in the violence and destructiveness of storms of thunder and lightning." Demaille commented that the Lakota represented these beings as giant birds "... whose outstretched wings are black clouds and the flash of whose eyes is lightning," as described by Walker (1980).
2. The pipe's white ribbon represents the north, "whence comes the great white cleansing wind." 
3. The red ribbon, representing the east, from "whence springs the light and where the morning star lives to give men wisdom."
4. The yellow ribbon on the pipe represents the south from "whence come the summer and the power to grow."

These colors, world quarters (cardinal directions), and respective powers ... the thunder beings, cleansing winds, morning star, and summer growth ... played an important role in Lakota communication and belief systems (Walker 1980). Demaille also explained that ...

"two other directions, up and down, were recognized in addition to the four winds, making a total of six. Ritual actions, such as offering the pipe, include all six directions in order to call upon and bring together the powers of the universe." 

Neihardt, as Black Elk, takes these into account when describing the pipe as having the following:

1. An eagle feather, represents of the oneness of the four spirits, as a father and "the thoughts of men that should rise high as eagles do." It stands for the direction, up, according to Demaille, where we find the father sky. 
2. A bison hide mouthpiece, represents the sixth direction, down, Neihardt, via Black Elk, draws attention to the bison hide mouthpiece representing the earth, "from whence we came and at whose breast we suck as babies all our lives, along with all the animals and birds and trees and grasses."

Finally, Neihardt's six-paragraph introduction through Black Elk concludes, "because it means all this, and more than any man can understand, the pipe is holy." And so ends Neihardt's introduction and leads into Black Elk's narrative. That narrative describes how the pipe came to the Lakotas, and that story, the subject of a future post, here, InTheTemazcal, likewise, played a critical role in the Lakota culture.

I have also heard, from an Apache jeweler, in Cloudcroft, NM, of the 7th direction ... inside, but I'm unaware of the extent of the use of this concept among Native Americans. As logical as it seems, I would expect that it occurred frequently.

In the temazcales that I have attended, I have seen the pipe rarely. El Oso Mario, I recall more than any other guide, would send a voice by sharing his pipe and tobacco with us. The symbolism described above, though, played a role in every ceremony that I've ever attended. That same symbolism, likewise, I see, with minor variations, in much of the literature I've reviewed on the Native American culture, and a strong awareness of this symbolism makes for a strong framework to understand many ceremonial events and stories from many pre-Colombian North American cultures.


... con todas mis relaciones. Aho!

References Cited

• Neihardt, J. G. 1932. Black Elk Speaks. William Morrow & Company.
• Neihardt, J. G. 2008. Black Elk Speaks. The Premier Edition. Excelsior Editions, State University of New York Press, Albany, New York. 
• Walker, J. R. 1980. Lakota Belief and Ritual. In Demallie, R. J., and E. A. Jahner (eds). History 16(2): 55-221.

Lead Image: The powerful symbolic colors described by Neihardt and Black Elk, in the introduction of Black Elk Speaks adorned, and still adorn, the lives of Native Americas, as seen in this Dakota Access Pipeline protest banner at the March for a Clean Energy Revolution,Philadelphia, in July 2016. Image Source: Wikipedia Commons.