Rare white bison arrives in Yellowstone with a message

With the arrival of a white bison, Earth finds itself at a crossroads, according to legend.

For the Lakota people, the calf’s birth earlier this month fulfills a prophecy and is a sacred symbol, but it is also a warning “that a spiritual awakening needs to happen,” said Chief Arvol Looking Horse, the spiritual leader of the Lakota Dakota and the Nakota Oyate of South Dakota, who led a ceremony and celebration honoring the calf’s birth Wednesday in Yellowstone.

The name of the calf, revealed during the celebration, is Wakan Gli, which means “Holy Comes/Holy Returns.”

According to Lakota legend, the white buffalo calf woman appeared more than 3,000 years ago to two scouts sitting on a hill, Chief Looking Horse said. She carried a buffalo robe in her arms and used supernatural powers to turn one of the scouts, who had impure thoughts, into bone. The other scout, who she said “had a good spirit,” was told to return to her people to tell them she brought a sacred gift, Chief Looking Horse said.

The next day, the woman was seen walking toward the center of the encampment carrying a package containing a sacred pipe, Chief Looking Horse said. The holy woman taught the people to pray and said that in time they would “know more about this sacred pipe.”

As she left, she climbed a hill towards the west and stopped, before turning around and getting back up, having transformed into a young black buffalo. She turned around a second time and became a young red buffalo; and a third time, turning yellow. Then she turned around a fourth time, stopping near the top of the hill in the form of a white buffalo with black eyes, black hooves and a black nose, according to legend.

Chief Looking Horse, who is also the 19th Keeper of the White Bison Woman’s Sacred Pipe and Bundle, said the woman told the people, “The next time I stand on the Earth as a White Bison, nothing will be good anymore. ” He explained that the prophecy warns that when the white buffalo stands again on Earth, many white animals will be born throughout the world, “because Mother Earth is sick and has a fever, and she will speak to these white animals for peace and harmony. »

“That’s the message that this pipe, the sacred pipe, evokes peace and harmony,” he said.

Chief Looking Horse recounted his awe after the birth of a baby white buffalo in 1994 in Janesville, Wisconsin, noting that it happened as the world was waking up to global warming. In 1993, indigenous spiritual leaders gathered at the United Nations to warn of climate change at the Cry of the Earth conference.

And so with the birth of the white bison in Yellowstone, we find ourselves at a crossroads, Chief Looking Horse said, adding that his grandmother said on her deathbed that he would be the last guardian of the sacred bundle “if people do not straighten up”.

Either we face global disasters, disease and false leaders, he said, “or we can unite on a global scale.”

The bison or American buffalo, as it has been known to indigenous people for hundreds of years, is a deeply important and sacred animal to many Native Americans. Tens of millions of buffalo once roamed North America, but the mass slaughter of buffalo in the 1800s caused their numbers to drop to just a few hundred by 1889, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The systematic and indiscriminate slaughter of bison has its roots in racist ideology and a lack of respect for nature. According to the Buffalo Field Campaign, a group that works to “end the harassment and slaughter of America’s last wild bison,” European settlers saw “the survival of the bison as a way to perpetuate the Native American way of life; they saw the bison as incompatible with their dream of a cattle-ranching culture on the Great Plains.”

The near-total destruction of the bison proved devastating to Native Americans, who for thousands of years had depended on the animal for everything from clothing and food to shelter, tools and ceremonies.

Jim Matheson, executive director of the National Bison Association, said the calf, with its dark eyes, black hooves and black nose, appears to be a rare white buffalo, lacking the pink tones of an albino animal.

“This is the first time I’ve heard of a white buffalo born in Yellowstone,” Mr. Matheson said in an interview, calling her birth “very exciting” because she came from a “closed herd.” This means the herd only breeds among itself and does not mix with livestock, which can introduce genetic mutations increasing the likelihood of a white calf being born.

Chief Looking Horse said the birth of the calf in the wild Yellowstone herd brought tears to his eyes.

“This is all so upsetting,” he said, adding that he believes the prophecy shows that now is the time for people around the world to come together and become better stewards of the planet.

“We live in a time where everything is about money,” Chief Looking Horse said.

“You have to think about your own children,” he said. “Mother Earth is a source of life, not a resource.”