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Time and Space
The Lakota language does not employ separate lexical categories to differentiate between time and space; the two concepts are inseparable. All temporal statements in Lakota are simultaneously spatial ones, and the reverse is true. For example, in everyday Lakota one asks, "When is Pine Ridge from here?" (Letan Pine Ridge tohan hwo?), that is , "How far is it to Pine Ridge?" Another term, tehan, signifies both "long time" and "long distance," depending on the context in which it is used. The demonstrative pronouns le, 'this', and he, 'that', form the base for most Lakota words for time and space. To these radical elements are added suffixes wich designate location, motion, direction, and relative position, e.g., letu, 'right here' (no other possible place); lehantu, 'right now' (no other possible time); lel, 'here'; lehanl, 'nowadays'; letan, 'from now on, from here on'; hetu, 'right there' (no other possible place); hehantu, 'right then' (no other possible time); hel, 'there'; hehanl, 'then'; hetan, 'from then on, from there on'. The inseparability of time and space figures prominently in Oglala cosmology. There is a relationship between activities among celestial beings and terrestrial ones. This relationship is analogous to that between time and space; and if in the latter case the relationships are interdependent, then this is also true of earth-sky relationships; earth-sky relationships are also undifferentiated. In contemporary Oglala religion we find the contrasts between darkness and light, ignorance and knowledge, sacred and profane not only verbalized, but dramatized. Each ritual essentially is a recreation of Indian time and space. Through ritual, a profane dwelling is transformed into the entire Oglala universe during the Yuwipi meeting. The sacred persons still pray to the four directions in the order in which they were born: west, north, east, south. The placing of tobacco representing the Four Winds, Above, Below, and Spotted Eagle in a sacred pipe renders the pipe powerful becauseit contains the entire universe. When it is lighted, life and breath are invested in the universe; and when it is smoked, the universe passes through one's own body and is sent back to Wakantanka. The construction of an altar contained by flag offerings and demarcated by tobacco offerings is also a recreation of time and space in an Indian sense. The sweat lodge is the lodge of the wind, the universe itself; and in the vision quest, a common man submerges himself in the pit so that he may be reborn in the same manner as Tokahe, the first man. The sacred knowledge that energy is finite and is in constant flux between sacred and evil influences flows through all of Oglala ritual. It is only through sacred ritual that harmaony can be achieved and the universe restored to its proper balance. This harmonious balance is dramatized in all of the rituals. The famine of winter is offset by the abundance of summer. In ritual language those who are ill "walk through winter in darkness" (waniyetu opta aiyakpa omanipi). The ignorance of darkness is contrasted with the knowledge of light which comes forth every morning in the form of Anpo wicaĥpi, 'Morning Star'. In sacred and profane life, an Oglala still enters the tipi or sacred grounds in a clockwise direction as was prescribed by the White Buffalo Calf Woman. Under profane circumstances he enters from the east, the doorway and source of light. He moves to the south, where he faces death, symbolized above by the direction of the spirit path. He proceeds to the west, where there is darkness and the unpredictability of the Thunder-beings. He finally turns to the north, the land of his forefathers and thus the land of spirits. But under sacred circumstances, the clockwise circle is filled with positive signs. He first acknowledges his own ignorance and the shortcomings of common man by facing west, the place where out of darkness come the generative powers of rain. He then turns to the north, where there is life and breath, and where the Buffalo People reside, the source of his food. Proceeding to the east, he faces knowledge rather than turn his back on it. And finally, he moves to the south, where the profane symbols of death are replaced by the sacred generative powers of sun and warmth. In the profane world, a man's spirit is diffused outwardly toward the evil influences of the Four Winds. In the sacred world, it is the benevolent spirits of the Four Winds which are diffused inwardly and inhere in the supplicant himself and in all for whom he prays. The ideas of accretions and depletions of energy, and the contrasts between darkness and light, are apparent in the seven sacred rituals and in the use of the sacred pipe. Accretions are often symbolized by those things found above the earth; depletions are symbolized by those things below the earth. The following examples from the seven rituals will serve as illustrations: 1. In the sweat lodge, the surplus earth from the hole into which the heated stones will be placed is fashioned into a mound called the sacred hill (paha wakan). The ritual is conducted in two phases, light and dark. 2. In the vision quest, a man is placed on a sacred hill and a pit is dug where he will stay while crying for a vision. The dark-light contrast is found at two levels: he must stay for at least a full twenty-four hours (day and night) or any combinations of day and night not exceeding four days and four nights. At another level, the pit is dark, above the pit is light. 3. In the ghost-keeping ritual, the dead body is wrapped and placed on a burial scaffold or in a tree. The spirit is fed for the last time bay placing food in the ground. Here, wrapping is symbolic of darkness, metaphorically a return to one's subterranean origins. The depression in the earth into which food is placed is offset by the accretion of the burial scaffold. 4. During the initial sun dance rites, a hole is dug for the sacred pole and the earth is used to construct a sacred altar. The piercing of the dancer's flesh and the attachment to the sacred pole is regarded by Oglala sacred persons as a symbol of ignorance. By facing the sun and eventually breaking through the flesh, the dancer receives knowledge. Piercing is metaphorically expressed as dancing in darkness. The pole is a living tree where the nest of Thunder-beings is recreated. 5. In the Hunka, the candidate is covered with a buffalo robe during the initiation and emerges from it after the relationship between Hunka Ate and mihunka has been made final. 6. In the girl's puberty ritual, the initiate removes her dress and it is placed over the buffalo skull. She is told to sit in the manner of a woman, and the dress is removed from the skull and given away to a needy person. The transition from prepuberty to womanhood is contrasted ritually in terms of darkness and light vis-a-vis the buffalo skull, which is the source of women's power. 7. In the sacred ball game, the ball itself is regarded as Wakantanka. The throwing away of the ball represents ignorance, and the players' scrambling to catch the ball represents mankind's attempt to seek knowledge. In the Yuwipi meeting, the Yuwipi man is wrapped in a star quilt, which is a metaphor for death. The lights are then extinguished. After his ritual death and communication with the spirits, the lights are turned on, and he is found unwrapped by the spirits. The sacred pipe itself is a symbol of darkness and light. The powers of the universe are placed in the pipe bowl and the pipe is plugged with sage. When the pipe is lighted and smoked, the tobacco is transformed into smoke which rises, carrying the messages and prayers of the people to Wakantanka. Symbolically and logically, fire becomes the mediating agent between death and life, not only in the pipe ceremony, but in the sweat lodge, where profane stones are heated and thereby invested with ni, 'breath, life'. Aside from the binary contrasts revealed in the ritual use of space and time, sacred space is distinguished by another feature, circularity. The cangleška wakan, 'sacred hoop', is the symbol of Oglala solidarity. Miniature hoops, made from a willow frame onto which a cross representing the Four Winds is attached, are worn as hair ornaments or carried in the hand at sacred and secular dances. Theyt are also found as a design motif on beaded and quilled articles. The formation of some kinds of dances, e.g., the round dance, is also symbolic of this unity. But not only space is transformed from a profane state to a sacred one; time also undergoes a transformation in the sacred rituals. Anxiety over the future of the Oglala is reduced by calling on the powers of the past, which are conflated with the present. The Yuwipi man calls upon his spirit helpers, as many as four hundred, to aid his diagnosis of sickness. This number curiously corresponds to the average number of people living in the mid-nineteenth-century tiyošpaye. As intermediary between the common people and the supernaturals, the Yuwipi man is simultaneously intermediary between the supernaturals and the common people. Stated another way, he mediates between two tiyošpayes, forming a link between the dead and the living, the past and the present, the nomadic hunter-gatherer people before white contact and the community-dwelling Oglalas living under white dominance. Through the mediation of the sacred persons, the present world is in continuous communication with the old.
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