Wocekiye

Wocekiye (pronounced Woh-cheh-kee-yeh) is the common term for the Sioux religious system. It derives from the Siouan word for "prayer." Whether there was any other known term is unknown. It surrounds the worship of a pantheon of deities, who are related in a similarly derivative manner from one another to the Christian god, who are known collectively as the Wakantanka (wah-kaw-taw-kah), or the Great Mystery. Up to the late 19th century, much of the edicts surrounding the religion were considered taboo to speak of to outsiders. The Wicasa Wakan (Wee-chah-shuh wah-kaw), or Shamans/ Holy Men, made an exception with a Caucasian man named James Walker. Among the Lakota POWs in the Dakotas, they put him through the rites to become one of them and passing on much of their knowledge in the hopes that it could be preserved and one day returned to the Siouan people. He wrote all he learned down in 3 books, Lakota Myth, Lakota Society, and Lakota Beliefs & Ritual, but much of what he was taught was often confused, contradictory and muddled. Other holy men continued to pass down important knowledge to their own children. Other things were recorded through happenstance by a missionary named Eugene Buechel around the turn of the 20th century, who created the groundwork for the Lakota Dictionary.

Bear in mind that some of this knowledge may not be complete or accurate. This also does not cover cultural variance beyond the Lakota/ Dakota/ Assiniboine, as Siouan people were widespread throughout the continent & other variations of spirit names and legends have been known to exist.

Wakantanka

The pantheon consists of a series of 16 deities. These beings are divided into sets of two, whose powers compliment one another to create the known world. They are as follows:

• Skan-skan/ Takuskanskan (Shkaw-shkaw)- God of sky & time. Also known as the Great Judge & Mediator.
• Omaka/ Unci (Uh-chee)- Goddess of the Earth & seas
• Inyan (Ih-yaw)- God of the Mountains
• Wakinyan (wah-kih-yaw)- The Thunderbird/ Storm God
• Tate (Tah-teh)- Wind God
• Yumni (Yoo-muh-nee)- Whirlwind/ Cyclone God. Also commonly referred to as the God of Love for the role he plays in creation myths.
• Okaga- The south wind
• Yata- the north wind
• Yunpa (yuh-bah)- the east wind
• Eya- the west wind
• Wazi- The first man/ the Wizard
• Wakanka- the first woman/ the Witch
• Wi (wee)- the sun god
• Hanwi (haw-wee)- the moon goddess
• Unk (uhk)- Dark Goddess of Passion & Discord
• Gnaski (Guh-nah-suh-kee)- Dark God of lies. aka the Crazy Buffalo

The Wakan

There are also a variety of other spiritual aids in the world. They are as follows.

• Canotila (Chaw-oh-dee-lah)- The Little People who dwell in the trees. They protect the forests, are commonly portrayed as tricksters & send men important messages in their dreams.
• Wakinyan- Different from the Thunderbird, they are the spirits of the air who help the Thunderbird move the storms in the sky.
• Unktehi (Uh-kuh-teh-hee)- Spirits of the water & teachers & guides in sacred artwork & tattooing. They are commonly described as being something along the line of a Buffalo or Goat with a long tail, but certain stories give them odd characteristics such as a thick, brittle tail & backward horns that sound more like giant, clawless Crawfish or lobsters.
• Unkcegila (Uh-kuh-cheh-ghee-lah)- Draconic spirits of the land. They are responsible for natural disasters and the fertility of the land. In legend, they were supposedly formed from the wrath of Unk when she was tossed into the sea, and so much of Walkers' work often confuses Unktehi & Unkcegila. They are the mortal enemies of the Thunderbird and it is said that fossils are the result of the battles between the two.
• Tatanka (tah-taw-kah)- The spirits who protect the Buffalos.
• Hohnogica- Spirits of the home & hearth.
• Wanagi (wah-nah-ghee)- The souls of the dead still trapped in the human world. They take the form of disembodied shadows.
• Tunkan (Tuh-kaw)- Spirits of the rocks. They are said to play a major role in the sweat lodge ceremonies.

Other specific beings from the mythology are as follows.

• Wohpe (Woh-huh-beh)- aka the White Buffalo Calf Woman. In the mythology, Tate was once the mediator for Skanskan, but forsook this role for a mortal woman named Ite. In his place, Skan created a feminine being called Wohpe, the Fallen Star Goddess. She plays a major role in the spiritual beliefs in a similar fashion to the angel Gabriel in Christianity & brought many of the oldest rituals to the Siouan people, including the Peace Pipe.
• Iya/ Waziya- The giant winter god. Using the imagery of the first man, Wazi, they also created a form in the mythology called Waziya that is supposed to resemble a common Amerindian personification—old man winter. He lives in the Aurora Borealis and looses winter on the world, then gathers it back up and returns it to the north in spring. Waziya is also a common euphemism for Santa Claus.
• Anung-Ite (Ah-nuhk ee-teh)- The two-faced woman. Originally Ite, the daughter of Wazi & Kakanka, she was tricked into upsetting Hanwi by trying to seduce the sun. For her transgression, she was banished into the world and merged with part of Unk to become a murderous monster called Anung-Ite, however, Tate still did not leave her and brought his family to live in the early world with her. She may be considered a direct ancestor to all men.
• Iktomi (ee-kuh-toh-mee)- The God of Wisdom/ the Trickster/ the spider. He was born of the powers of Inyan & Wakinyan to keep them company, but came into an odd, crippled form (as wisdom often comes in strange ways). Still, he wished to be helpful and become a close friend & ally to Skanskan, who brought him to his position as a god of wisdom. However, he came to be tricked by Gnaski & reprimanded by Tate, infuriating him. In his attempts to get even by tricking Ite into falling for Wi instead of Tate, he was cast out and became the trickster spirit. Now, he only teaches wisdom through playing tricks on those who live without it, convincing them to embrace it on their own.
• To Win (Tow whih)- The Blue Woman who guards the road to the afterlife. Every act in one's life marks one's spirit with "tattoos" that the To Win can read. She is encountered on the Spirit Road (seen as the center of the Milky Way in the sky) and throws spirits back to earth if they aren't prepared for the next life. To Win is most likely a play on the Siouan word for aunt, Tonwin.
• Heyoka- The thunderbird, Wakinyan, usually has many tricks to conceal himself from others. Any man said to see him is believed to be rendered insane & becomes his slave. These are the Heyoka, often translated as Clowns, who wear moccasins with mismatched or non-patterned beadwork, a thick cape & literally nothing else. This word is also a common euphemism for, not just the insane, but anyone who is odd or does or thinks anything antithetical to the greater society. Such people were usually recruited to be Wicasa Wakan, Holy Men.

Mythological origins

The Siouan mythology concerning their Religions & origin stories are the main issue with Walker's work. It was made & kept mostly by the Shamans who saw it only as a useful teaching method rather than a true story, thus much of it is contradictory & has no useful or meaningful chronology. It is likely that it had once been conceived as a complete narrative, was split into smaller chunks in order to ensure accuracy in the teachings &, over time, each piece may have been embellished to better stand on its own. However, a general story can be assembled from it.

In the beginning, there was only one god, the Wakantanka, and he was all of existence, fixed in place and lonely. One day, he resolved to create other beings of power for him to act upon and talk to and bled away his power, causing him to split into three deities—The Rock, the Earth & the Sky. As these beings began coming to their own sentience, they took on their own personalities and began communing with one another, learning from these interactions as children would. They soon saw flaws to their existence and began creating more and more beings and things to fill the spaces between them, creating the laws of nature as they went along, however, their work expended beyond their ability to control. In this, they not only created other gods, but mortal beings and accidentally brought evil into the world. Since the goddess of passion, Unk, was just as powerful as any of them, they couldn't recall her from existing and had to create new things to give to mortals in order to combat her—such as spiritual power and medicine. In this, the first mortals, the Pte Oyate (Buffalo People) came into being in a great cave in the womb of the earth.

I have already discussed some of what occurred above with the stories of certain, specific beings. Iktomi was disgraced by Gnaski, son of Unk, & chose to get revenge on Tate for his harsh treatment in the aftermath. Wazi & Wakanka, the spiritual leaders of the Pte Oyate & parents of Tate's wife Ite, are convinced by Iktomi to cause their daughter to fall in love with the sun god Wi and take the place of the moon. Somehow, he does this before Ite exists, even though she already existed as Tate's wife before. Ite is cursed to become Anung-Ite, & she, Wazi & Wakanka are banished to the surface of the earth to wander forever. Iktomi is also cursed and disgraced from godhood & Tate comes to live on the surface of the earth, with his five sons—Yata, Yunpa, Okaga, Eya & Yumni.

From there, the story enters its most interesting point. Wohpe is sent to earth to help Tate & his sons forge the world as we know it. The four adult sons would go out into the world to mark out the four directions and help Skanskan create time & space (again, even though it already exists). Tate is so surprised, and pleased, to meet his replacement that he asks her to live with him as his adoptive daughter & take care of his youngest son, Yumni. However, the brothers all fall for her and wish her to be their wife. Not possessed of an ability to love, she shuns all of them, going to far as to use magic to curse them should they ever break with her wishes. Two of the brothers concede. However, on their journey, they are tricked by Wazi, Kakanka & Iktomi at various points, which drives them into conflict.

Wohpe soon begins to feel that she cannot avoid becoming the wife of one of the brothers and asks Yumni which she should choose, and he drives her into the arms of his favorite big brother, Okaga. Upon the return of the four brothers, Tate holds a great feast for the gods to celebrate the works of his sons. During this feast, Tate gives magical gifts to all the attendees, however, Iktomi, still sore, uses his powers to ruin most of them. Then, Okaga and Wohpe marry. Unfortunately, this infuriates Yata and the two fall to violent arguments that push all five brothers apart, with Yumni & Tate caught in the middle. Yata tries multiple times to rape Wohpe, and she uses her magic to escape by shrinking and hiding under her dress, but goes to far with it and cannot escape her own spell. It is afterward that the four directions move to the corners of the earth, never to speak again & Yumni becomes the whirlwind god, constantly forced to move between them in order to keep in touch with his brothers.

Further stories put together certain ideological points and the origins of other aspects of Lakota life & the natural world after this. Eventually, the humans meet the Pte Oyate once again on the surface of the earth and form a close interdependence with them that lasts forever. All of this is mainly supposed to point out one thing in particular—the importance of exercising wisdom in decision making. Wisdom is defined as the ability to predict the consequences of one's actions and those of others, and to understand what is coming before it happens. For, not even the gods or our early ancestors were born with it, but it could have prevented all of this tragedy.

The dead

Siouan people buried the dead in specified burial grounds, usually consisting of a buried grave marked with a pile of rocks. This devolved from the last form of burial mounds used by Siouan people to the east—a sealed tomb buried in boulders and covered over with earth. In Siouan mythology the dead pass through the reflections on the water to enter the spirit world, which is reflected in the sky. It is believed that the stars—known as Wi Can (wee chaw. Branching lights)-- are the souls of the dead and it is passed down that they paint pictures in the sky to resemble things on the earth in order to send their children messages. Supposedly, this is what led the Lakota to settle in the Black Hills region. In Hopewell burials, funerary artifacts & mounds often resemble these constellations of the Siouan tradition.

Cangleska Pejuta

The most important religious symbol in Wocekiye is known as the Cangleska Pejuta (chaw-guh-reh-shkah peh-zhoo-duh), also known as the Medicine Wheel. It is represented as a circle divided into four by a cross or X and decorated with the colors red, yellow, black & white. Its use is widespread due to the wide variety in its symbolism.

• Represents the four stages of life
• Represents the four main edicts of the Siouan people; wisdom, fortitude, gratitude & respect
• Represents the 16 arch deities (when thought of as a sphere) with two gods at north, south, east, west, above & below respectively & the cross representing the four winds.
• Represents that all life comes from Wakantanka and can only go back to him in the end.
• Represents the four directions

The three holy groups

There are three distinct groups of holy men.

• Wicasa Wakan- The Shamans. Their main concern is conducting regular public & private religious ceremonies, recording tribal history & keeping the time. They do this by counting the 13 full moons of the year and referencing that with weather patterns & bird song. Many native people would make little rhymes out of the songs of different birds from different times of the year telling what kinds of things happened in the natural world during that time, so they wouldn't forget. The Wicasa Wakan would be marked with a hat made from the scalp of a buffalo, horns and all, commonly referred to as a Brown Bonnet.
• Pejuta Wicasa- The Medicine Men. These people were the healers & physicians of the native world and actually had access to pretty decent medicine. They were also believed to practice witchcraft & learned a wide variety of magic tricks in order to prove as such. Medicine & Magic were often seen as indistinguishable from one another to native peoples. Pejuta comes first in this odd case because, upon becoming a medicine man, the person is considered medicine themselves over being a human being. The Pejuta Wicasa were marked by wearing a coyote or wolf hide over their head & shoulders, commonly referred to as a Grey Bonnet.
• Holy Dancers- Specific people were charged with performing certain sacred dances for different reasons throughout the year. They costumes were overly elaborate & considered holy in their own right. No one but the intended dancer was allowed to so much as touch them.

Common superstitions and traditions

• When one's pets die, their souls stay in this world and take care of one. When one dies, all ascend to the next world together.
• Those who practice medicine must never fall prey to the belief that the power originates from them, or they will lose the power to heal forever.
• Pointing at a rainbow is bad luck, as it is believed the tail of the Thunderbird is a rainbow & he doesn't like to be seen.
• All men are born with an inherent power, called Sicun, which protects them from evil. This also influenced a common, widespread Native American euphemism for white people,

wasicun, which means "Powerful One."

• Wisdom is earned through experience and it is the duty of all men to call out those who do not fulfill it.
• "Thunder Hears Me" is a common expression, usually used in place of "I swear to god" when one is making a threat or promise. Essentially, may the thunderbird strike me down is I am lying. The less intense version is "The Earth Hears Me."
• When a spirit takes a specific liking to someone, it becomes their protectorate & is referred to as a Manitukala. (word taken from Ojibwe/ Medewiwin tradition)
• Beadwork is supposed to represent the stars and, therefore, the ancestors.<
• Human souls trapped on the earthly plane take the form of shadows.
• The Lakota name for the spirit world is Wanagi Tamakoce.
• Medicine Pouches were often worn by different people for different purposes & often consisted of a beadworked, ornamental pouch with some kind of medicinal herb sown inside. Mothers would make pouches containing the umbilical cords of their children; Salamanders for boys & Turtles for girls.
• The Man in the Moon comes from Lakota beliefs, however they seem to have flip-flopped for many years as to whether it was a man or a woman. The Winnebago, who have kept a very pure storytelling tradition, claim that it is a transgender man (teją́čowįga). It can be seen as a dress-wearing individual sitting Indian style, but wearing feathers in their hair the way a man would (off to the side) rather than how a woman would (straight up from the back.). This sentiment may have once been shared, as the Lakota word is Hanwi Hokewins'e (Effeminate Moon).

Other Siouan belief systems

Of the other five Siouan culture groups, the best preserved heritage is coming from the Chiwere tribes—such as the Winnebago/ Ho-Chunk. It shows beliefs that varied quite a bit from the Dakota—such as multiple named Thunderbirds divided into good & evil clans, genderless deities, addition of elements that seem to have been borrowed from the Caddoan Pawnees (or vice versa), a somewhat more negative view of the deity connected to the fallen star, very specific burial traditions etc. Much of it can be viewed online. From the book Catawba Texts, a rare look at the East Coast Siouan peoples, it appears there was a lot of similarity in the religion & mythology to the Chiweres. However, the book does not go into enough detail with this in order to paint a full picture. The shared burial ritual, in particular, involves burying an individual under a corner of their home & holding a several day long vigil & fast. Archaeologists expect that, over time, the Fort Ancient & Monongahela peoples, who populated the Ohio River Valley up to the mid-late 17th century, also may have taken up this custom.

The Dhegihan tribes of the southern Great Plains also have much of their mythology preserved. They appear to have a very different creation myth.

The Gulf Coast tribes – The Biloxi and Tunica – seem to have either lost much, if not all, of their mythology, or it has never been recorded.