White Buffalo Calf Woman
White Buffalo Calf Woman is a sacred woman of supernatural origin, comparable to the divine feminine principle of Mother Mary and Quan Yin, that is central to the Native American spiritual belief system, primarily held in the Lakota tribes, as their primary cultural prophet. Oral traditions relate that she brought the "Seven Sacred Rites" to the Lakota people. Buffalo are considered sacred to many of the Plains nations, who often consider them linked to creation, medicine and bringers of sacred messages from the ancestors.[1]
Wohpe, Spirit of Peace
In Lakota mythology, Wóȟpe (less correctly spelled "Wohpe") is a spirit of peace, the daughter of Wi and the Moon, Haŋhépi-Wi. She is the wife of the south wind. When she visited the Earth, she gave the Dakota people a pipe as a symbol of peace. Later, Wóȟpe became conflated with White Buffalo Calf Woman. An alternative name for Wóȟpe is Ptehíŋčalasaŋwiŋ. As a symbol of Wophe's coming to earth she is often associated with falling stars. [2]
With the arrival of Roman Catholic missionaries, their bible stories of the Mother Mary and Jesus became associated with the legend of White Buffalo Calf Woman. The syncretic practice of identifying Mary with PtesanWi and Jesus with the Chununpa continues among Lakota Christians to this day.
Birth of White Buffalo Significance
The Native Americans see the birth of a white buffalo calf as the most significant of prophetic signs, equivalent to the weeping statues, bleeding icons, and crosses of light that are becoming prevalent within the Christian churches today. Where the Christian faithful who visit these signs see them as a renewal of God's ongoing relationship with humanity, so do the Native Americans see the white buffalo calf as the sign to begin life's sacred hoop.
"The arrival of the white buffalo is like the second coming of Christ," says Floyd Hand Looks For Buffalo, an Oglala Medicine Man from Pine Ridge, South Dakota. "It will bring about purity of mind, body, and spirit and unify all nations— black, red, yellow, and white".