Lakota Sioux

The Lakota Sioux

Location

The Lakota tribe lives on reservations in the Dakotas. The Lakotas that don’t live on reservations live in the Dakotas, Montana, and many parts of Canada. They are also Plain Indians, which means they like on mostly flat areas.

www.indians.org/articles/lakota-indians.html

Cosmology

The Lakota cosmology is a teaching of a universal energy that is everywhere and present in all things. Wakan Tanka, the creator, gives the energy to humans, Two Leggeds, at birth when he breaths in them the niya and ni. These are the soul and breath of life. Humans have four sacred parts the body, mind, emotions, and spirit. The purpose of being in a physical body is to learn and grow spiritually.

www.whitehorsecircle.com/cosmology.html

Sacred Symbols

Thunderbirds are both dreaded and honored by the Lakota. He is the guardian of truth and will kill liars with lighting bolts that strike from his beak and eyes. The thunderbirds also bring rain if enticed by tobacco offerings.

   The four medicine arrows and wheel are a symbol of enlightenment. Each arrow is a direction of thought and a state of being to acquire. The north arrow is wisdom. The south arrow is innocence. The east arrow is far seeing or seeing into the future. The west arrow is inner seeing or introspection.

  The medicine stone wheel is used for growth, learning and is a tool for enlightenment and assistance in areas where we need it. It includes seven stones in the middle, which represent the seven types of human personality or the universal personality the stones encircling them represent the plants, animals or something else that has equal value. The four points represent the four paths a person is born to. www.whats-your-sign.com/Sioux-symbols.html

Sacred Location

 Pe’Sla is an area in the Black Hills of South Dakota that is considered to be the Center and heart of everything that is. That location is apart of the Lakota people’s creation story. It is a place of prayer and certain ceremonies are performed there.

www.indiegogo.com/PeSla-lakotaheartland

A few of the gods

 Iktomi- Trickster, Symbol of Utter Defiance, clever 

Ksa- Wisdom, masculine, inventor of language and counselor of the gods

Maka- Earth domain is all lands except mountain and hills Patroness of sustenance, shelter, protection, contentment, comfort, and happiness

Iya- eating monster, fights Ksa and has a hunger that food doesn’t satisfy

mreid.com/lakota/mytwho.htm

Shaman

A shaman is the person who is closely connected to the spiritual world. They are also called the medicine men. They use medicine as magic to connect to the spiritual world.

Ritual

 Sun Dance

            This very important ritual is about renewal. It involves the extreme pain that warriors went through. It is usually held in June or July during the full moon. It involves being pierced in the side or back with a bone that is tethered to a buffalo skull. These could then be tethered to a sacred tree. The warriors then danced around the tree until the bones fell off there bodies.

Vision Quest

            This ritual is held in an isolated place until a vision is received. It usually last three to four days. The vision could be actual vision from the seeker or a visit from an animal. Once the vision is received. The medicine man interprets the vision. The vision is usually so the seeker understands his or her place in the world.

Rite of Purification (Inipi)

            Inipi means to live again. This ritual is about cleaning the spirit and mind. It can connect to the Vision Quest by helping the vision seeker enter a state of humility and rebirth. This all happens within a sweat lodge, which represents the “inner world.” Once a person leaves the sweat lodge it is said that impurities are left inside.

http://www.orderwhitemoon.org/goddess/whitebuffalocalfwoman.html

Chapter Review Primal Religions

Chapter Review

1.Primal religions are religions that come before the main religions that we have today. They are practiced by native inhabitants of countries. All religions stem for a primal religion.

2. The Ancestors gave shape to the landscape and created the various forms of life. They also gave them their territories to live in, language rules and customs.

3.The symbols include natural landmarks and rock paintings.

4.Totem- the natural form in which the Ancestor appeared in the Dreaming

Taboo- dictates that certain things and activities are set-aside for certain members of the group.

5.The rituals lead to truth about their world. They also are shown as a form of initiation

6.The came to be after The Dreaming

7. The initiation rituals awaken young people to the spiritual identity and redefine it

8. Two lower middle teeth are knocked out and buried and the removal of the foreskin of the penis

9.  The western regions of central Africa

10. Ife is considered the spot where Orishna-nla began to create the world.

11. They depict reality in two separate worlds, heaven and earth. Heaven is the invisible home of the gods and ancestors, and earth is the world of normal experience and the visible home of humans.

12. Olorun is the primary, original source of power in the universe. All other life forms owe their existence to him. He is distant so he is only mentioned in prayer.

13. Orishas are lesser deities compared to Olorun. They all have sacred power and can help or harm human beings

14.Ogun was the first king of Ife and became god of iron and war. Esu is the mediator between heaven and earth. He is included in the worship of any other orisha.

15. A mischievous supernatural being that has a role of both good and evil

16. Family ancestors gained supernatural status by doing good deeds and worshipped by the family. Deified ancestors are worshipped by many people.

17. Ritual practitioners mediate between the gods and the ancestors in heaven and the human beings on earth.

18. Divination- the use of various techniques for gaining knowledge about an individual’s future or about a cause of a problem. Knowing one’s future is essential to proceed in life

19.  Twenty to thirty thousand years ago humans came to America by crossing over the Bering Strait from Asia.

20. The religion of the Plains is a representation of American Indian religions. The Plains are a vast area of land and was an area where things were exchanged.

21. Wakan Tanka is the Lakota name for the supreme reality translated as the Great Spirit or Great Mysterious.

22. Inktomi is the Lakota trickster and mediator between heaven and earth. Taught first humans their ways and custom

23. Four souls depart. One goes along the spirit path and becomes a ghost or ancestor. The other souls enter unborn children and reborn

24. A vision quest is a way to seek spiritual power through an encounter with a guardian spirit or other medium.

25.  The sweat lodge is a dark airtight lodge made of saplings and covered in animal skins to represent the universe. Heated stones are placed in the middle and water is sprinkled on them. Sweat lodges lead a person sweat profusely and lead to physical and spiritual purification.

26.  The vision comes to in the form of an animal or object and has a message

27. In the Blackfeet tribe, a moral woman is chosen to lead the sun dance.

28. Axis mundi- the center of the world and connects the world to heaven.  In the Sun Dance it is a tree that is used in the dance

29. They believe that their bodies are the only things that are truly theirs to offer to the gods.

30. Aztecs were a highly developed civilization with a population of about fifteen million. They also lived in urban cities

31.  Mesoamerica included the land between Mexico to Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica

32. Quetzalcoatl created the world and the origin of the cosmos was at the city of Teotihuacan

33.  he was a priest-king  and was a role model for Aztecs authority figures

34. The age of the fifth sun and that the fate was that if the sun wasn’t nourished the age would end

35. Their world was a correspondence between time and space it has four quadrants extending outward from the center.

36. The human had two distinct forces the head and the heart, that are linked together connecting the divine and earthly realms

37. They could communicate with the gods and make offerings through language providing and alternate sacrifice

38.Cortes was seen as the long-lost priest-king because he was wearing a feathered helmet.

39.  The Aztecs also had a day set aside to perform rituals to those that had died

40. All encompassing nature of religion, change, and the boundaries of human and supernatural are thin and easily crossed

I Confess Part 2

 In the movie “I Confess” a man confesses to a priest that he murdered another man. Instead of telling the authorities that this man killed someone he stays silent and is himself, accused of killing the man. The priest remained faithful and didn’t tell because it is what he is supposed to do. As a priest you take vows and to keep a confession secret is one of them. When you are in a confessional the information shared is between the confessor and God. If the priest tells what was confessed he is revealing God’s information.

The movie can also be seen as displaying Hitchcock’s religious views. First, he believes that priests are great people they take on burdens and hardships to stay faithful to the vows they say at their ordination. At the end of the movie the killer and his wife ask for forgiveness because their lying and other things lead to the priest being put on trial for killing someone. These moments show that Hitchcock believes anyone can be forgiven even is they are about to die. It would be hard for me to forgive a person after all that happened, so it also shows that the priest is forgiving like God.

I would have ended the movie similar to the way it ended. I don’t think Otto, the murderer, should have died, but his death led to the question of forgiveness. I was stuck with the question should he be forgiven after all the things he did. After deep thought he should have. I also would have kept the ending the way it is because it is suspenseful. The priest is found not guilty but the community thinks he should stop being a priest. As the crowd starts to get rowdy the actual murderer reveals himself by shooting his wife who was about to tell everyone her husband was the murderer.

I Confess Part 1

This movie was interesting. At first, it had a lot of separate stories going on, but they all came together at the end. At the beginning of the movie, the credits come first. This is time consuming, because I prefer watching the movie first, then see the credits because most movies nowadays do it. The movie is in black and white, which adds a mysterious effect to the movie. The antagonist of the movie, Otto is a horrible person. He is the original orchestrator of murder and asks for forgiveness in confession. After he ask for forgiveness, he starts to lie and make it seem like everything it is the priest, Father Logan, fault. At the end of the movie, Otto kills his wife so that she doesn’t tell people that he is the killer. The priest, Father Logan, has an interesting backstory for a priest. His backstory made this whole movie more interesting and lead to the accusation of him being the killer. He faced a lot of problems in this movie and he handled them perfectly. He kept secret what was told to him in confession, and even forgave Otto when Otto was shot at the end of the movie. I don’t think that I could have did this, but then again I am not a priest. Overall this was a great movie. It had a slow beginning but it is a perfect lead up to the climax, which is the trial of Father Logan. This trial brought mixed emotions to me. It was such an intense scene and the acting for it was perfect. If you like older movies that are in black in white this is the movie for you. If you also like murder mysteries you will like this movie. I recommend this movie for all people to see and rate it for themselves.