Lakota Animal Traditions: What Densmore, Walker, and DeMallie's Primary Sources Record

Lakota animal traditions are documented in Frances Densmore's Teton Sioux Music (Smithsonian BAE Bulletin 61, 1918), James Walker's Lakota Belief and Ritual (University of Nebraska Press, 1980, compiled 1896–1914), and Raymond DeMallie's edition of Black Elk's interviews in The Sixth Grandfather (University of Nebraska Press, 1984). Animal guardian spirits (wotawe) appear in Lakota ceremonial life in specific vision-quest and medicine-bundle contexts. The White Buffalo Calf Woman brought the sacred pipe and the seven sacred rites. The dragonfly, hawk, and eagle carry specific warrior-medicine functions, not the generalized 'spirit animal guide' reading of contemporary pop culture.

Frances Densmore was fifty years old when she compiled Teton Sioux Music. She had been doing fieldwork on Smithsonian contracts since 1907, recording Indigenous music on a wax cylinder phonograph, and she had learned to work with patience and respect for the people who shared their knowledge with her. Teton Sioux Music (BAE Bulletin 61, 1918) documents over 240 songs from Lakota consultants including Red Bird, Eagle Shield, and Lone Man. It is one of the most detailed primary-source archives of Lakota ceremonial music available.

James Walker was the physician at the Pine Ridge Agency from 1896 to 1914. His unusual access to Oglala consultants — including men named Sword, Short Bull, Bad Wound, and others who were trained in the older ceremonial knowledge — produced materials that were edited and published posthumously as Lakota Belief and Ritual (University of Nebraska Press, 1980). Walker understood that he was recording knowledge that was under pressure from assimilation policies; his consultants understood the same thing and chose, in some cases, to share material they might otherwise have kept within the community.

These are the foundational primary sources. Not Black Elk Speaks (1932, John Neihardt’s literary adaptation), but The Sixth Grandfather (Raymond DeMallie’s 1984 edition of the actual 1931 interview transcripts). Neihardt is valuable as literature; DeMallie is the primary document.

Animal guardian spirits and the vision quest

The Lakota vision quest (hanbleceya, “crying for a vision”) is one of the Seven Sacred Rites described in Joseph Brown’s The Sacred Pipe (1953) and Walker’s Lakota Belief and Ritual. A person seeking a vision — typically a young man, with specific protocols for women’s visions — would go to an isolated hill for a period of fasting and prayer, sometimes for up to four days. The experience might include an encounter with an animal or supernatural being that conveyed knowledge, power, or a specific medicine role.

The resulting wotawe (guardian spirit or medicine) was specific and personal, not generic. Walker’s consultants were careful to distinguish between different kinds of animal medicine and their specific ceremonial applications. A man who received hawk medicine did not thereby “have the hawk as his spirit animal” in the New Age retail sense; he had a specific wotawe that came with specific responsibilities, protocols for maintenance, and ceremonial applications. The relationship required ongoing practice to sustain.

Specific animal medicines

Densmore’s 1918 work documents animal-specific ceremonial songs. The hawk (čhetán) is associated with the wakinyan (thunder beings) and carries warrior medicine. Densmore documents hawk songs used in battle preparation. The dragonfly (tȟašíyagnunpa) is associated with invulnerability — warriors painted dragonflies on horses and shields. The eagle (waŋbli) is among the most sacred birds, associated with the highest spiritual power; eagle feathers are used in the sacred pipe ceremony and in war bonnet construction.

The buffalo (tȟatȟáŋka) is not just an animal in Lakota cosmology; it is the foundational creature of Plains life, the source of food, clothing, shelter, and tools, and a sacred presence in its own right. The White Buffalo Calf Woman narrative, recorded by Walker and by Joseph Brown (from Black Elk’s account), frames the entire relationship between the Lakota people and the sacred pipe in terms of a buffalo-woman transformation.

Mitákuye oyásʼiŋ: all my relations

The concept of mitákuye oyásʼiŋ — a phrase spoken at the beginning and end of many Lakota ceremonies, often translated as “all my relations” — expresses a foundational kinship with all living beings, including animals, plants, rocks, and the earth itself. DeMallie’s Sixth Grandfather preserves Black Elk’s own articulation of this concept. Vine Deloria Jr.’s God Is Red (1973) provides the most accessible contemporary scholarly discussion of how this ecological kinship concept differs from both Western Christian dominion theology and New Age “nature spirituality.”

The practical expression of this concept in traditional Lakota life included specific hunting protocols, respect practices when taking animal life, and an understanding that the hunter and the hunted stood in a reciprocal rather than hierarchical relationship.

Engaging these traditions respectfully

The Oglala Sioux Tribe and the other Lakota bands have living cultural preservation programs and their own scholars, educators, and publications. Vine Deloria Jr.’s Custer Died for Your Sins (1969) and God Is Red (1973) remain the essential texts for understanding how Lakota people themselves have framed the question of who speaks for their traditions. Deloria was unambiguous about the “plastic shaman” industry and the appropriation of Lakota spiritual practices for commercial sale. This site’s cultural-position page addresses the same concern in more detail.