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The Legendary White Buffalo

 

White Buffalo is not an Albino Buffalo, it is an American bison (American buffalo) that is considered to be sacred signs in several Native American religions, and thus have great spiritual importance in those cultures and is visited for prayer and other religious ceremonies. Bison are normally brown in color; A "White Buffalo" can result from one of several physical conditions:

•    They may be leucistic, with white fur but blue eyes, instead of the pink seen in albinos.

•    They are not albinos, in which case they will remain unpigmented throughout their lives, and may also have hearing and vision problems.

•    A true White Buffalo is extremely rare; the National Bison Association has estimated that they only occur in approximately one out of every 10 million births.

Sacred?

White Buffalo is considered to be sacred signs in several Native American religions, and thus have great spiritual importance in those cultures and is visited for prayer and other religious ceremonies.

The Lakota people have a prophecy about the white buffalo calf. How that prophecy originated was that we have a sacred bundle, a sacred peace pipe, that was brought to us about 2,000 years ago by what we know as the White Buffalo Calf Woman.
The story goes that she appeared to two warriors at that time. These two warriors were out hunting buffalo, hunting for food in the sacred Black Hills of South Dakota, and they saw a big body coming toward them. And they saw that it was a White Buffalo calf. As it came closer to them, it turned into a beautiful young Indian girl.

One of the warriors had bad thoughts in his mind, and so the young girl told him to step forward. And when he did step forward, a black cloud came over his body, and when the black cloud disappeared, the warrior who had bad thoughts, was left with no flesh or blood on his bones. The other warrior kneeled and began to pray. When he prayed, the White Buffalo calf, who was now an Indian girl, told him to go back to his people and warn them that in four days she was going to bring a sacred bundle.

So the warrior did as he was told. He went back to his people and he gathered all the elders and all the leaders and all the people in a circle and told them what she had instructed him to do. And on the fourth day she came.

The legend goes that a cloud came down from the sky, and off of the cloud stepped the White Buffalo calf. As it rolled onto the earth, the calf stood up and became this beautiful young woman who was carrying the sacred bundle in her hand. As she entered into the circle of the nation, she sang a sacred song and took the sacred bundle to the people who were there. She spent four days among the Indian people and taught them about the sacred bundle, the meaning of it. She taught them seven sacred ceremonies.

One of them was the sweat lodge, or the Purification Ceremony, another was the Naming Ceremony. Others were the Healing Ceremony, the Making of Relatives or the Adoption Ceremony, the Marriage Ceremony, the Vision Quest, Sundance Ceremony, the People's Ceremony For All of The Nation. She brought us these sacred ceremonies and taught our people the songs and the traditional ways. And she instructed our people that as long as we performed these ceremonies, we would always remain caretakers and guardians of sacred land. She told us that as long as we took care of it and respected it, that our people would never die and would always live.

When she was done teaching, she left the way she came. She went out of the circle, and as she was leaving she turned and told that she would return one day for the sacred bundle. The sacred bundle is known as the White Buffalo Calf Pipe because it was brought by the White Buffalo Calf Woman. It is kept in a sacred place (Green Grass) on the Cheyenne River Indian reservation in South Dakota. It's kept by Dr. Arvol Looking Horse, a 19th generation Lakota Indian who is known as the keeper of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe.

When White Buffalo Calf Woman promised to return again, she made some prophecies at that time. One of those prophesies was that the birth of a White Buffalo calf would be a sign that it would be near the time when she would return again to purify the world. What she meant by that was that she would bring back harmony again and balance, spiritually.

Chief Arvol Looking Horse, 19th Generation Keeper of the Original Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Great Sioux Nation, sends these words on learning of the recent birth of the 9th White Buffalo Calf:

“White Buffalo Calf Woman's spirit makes her presence known, a sign of great changes signifying the Crossroads. I never dreamed I would live to witness this momentous time. Eight other white buffalo have since stood upon Mother Earth. White Buffalo Calf Woman's spirit has announced her message of support in this time of great danger, and she continues to announce the message in the birth of each White Buffalo--each one of them a Sign, each one a fulfillment of ancient Prophecy as well as a new Prophecy for our times.”

Still, despite their ongoing struggles, Native Americans are heartened by the appearance of a White Buffalo in Janesville, and have hope for a harmonious and prosperous future.

Mention that we are praying, many of the medicine people, the spiritual leaders, the elders, are praying for the world," says Joseph Chasing Horse. "We are praying that mankind does wake up and think about the future, for we haven't just inherited this earth from our ancestors, but we are borrowing it from our unborn children."

 

  Blizzard 01  
Blizzard, The White Buffalo born in The United States was named not only after his pristine white fur but also, due to weather conditions upon his arrival at the Assiniboine Zoo in Winnipeg, Canada on March 6th, 2006. "Hundreds of thousands of zoo visitors have come to see Blizzard each year since then, and many individuals have developed a close relationship with him, offering prayers, songs, and gifts of tobacco ties, coloured cloths and dream catchers. This calf has become so much more than a display animal - he is  in-fact a symbol of spiritual renewal and hope in our community and has certainly focused attention in bringing people of all backgrounds together."

Dr Robert E. Wrigley
Curator of the Assiniboine Park Zoo.