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Yuwipi: Vision and Experience in Oglala Ritual
A profoundly spiritual book, Yuwipi describes a present-day Oglala Sioux healing ritual that is performed for a wide range of personal crises. The vivid narrative centers on the experience of a hypothetical father and son in need of spiritual and physical assistance. The author combines the Yuwipi ceremony with two ancient Sioux rituals often performed in conjunction with it, the vision quest and the sweat lodge. Wayne Runs Again, suffering from alcoholism and worried about his father’s health, seeks out a shaman who, while bound in darkness, calls on supernatural beings to free him and to communicate. While the young man undergoes purification in a sweat lodge and waits on a hill for a vision, the community prays for him and his father. The ceremony serves not only to cure the sick but also to reaffirm the continuity of Oglala society.
113 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 10, 2021
Tradition Changes But Continues
This short work of 101 pages mainly describes a cluster of rituals which both author and participants describe as “Yuwipi”. They take place on the Pine Ridge Reservation of the Oglala Lakota, a people sometimes called “Sioux” by outsiders. Once the Lakota people owned a big chunk of land in the Dakotas (named after them), Minnesota, Nebraska and parts of Wyoming and Montana. After the Indian Wars of the late 19th century, their lands were reduced to reservations, mainly in South Dakota. There are around 131,000 Lakota today.
Though containing some beautiful descriptions of the scenes and surroundings of the rituals, and full of authenticity of the human interactions among the participants, the bulk of the book is a painstaking description of a set of rituals which has become loosely known as Yuwipi, though originally the word pertained to only some parts or some people associated with those rituals. If this doesn’t interest you, it will not be a 4 star book for you. We read about the sweat lodge and the “sing” in which spirits are contacted through a Yuwipi Man who is tied and covered up. In the past, such men could predict the future or find lost objects, but the main reason for Yuwipi was curative. The ritual is followed by a feast, and in the book, it is linked to a specific vision quest by a young man who feels he has lost his way. All these aspects are tied to a real story from a Lakota community telling of how various people helped cure the young man from his hopelessness. So, the text is not just general, but linked to real events that happened in the 1960s. The author mixed several such events into his work to create a deeper description.
Powers was adopted by a Lakota leader when he was young and spent at least 50 years connected to the people on the reservation. He has written more detailed books about Lakota religion.
Only a few pages at the end are devoted to an anthropological analysis of the ritual. Such analysis is not placed into the context of any theories prevalent in anthropological circles nor are any writers cited who did not work on the Lakota. This tends to deprive readers of a broader perspective. However, the author interestingly notes that under the constant pressure of white culture in the USA, the Oglala Lakota try to preserve their heritage as much as they can. They tend to merge what used to be secular with their traditional religion. “The further the contemporary Oglalas are divorced in time from traditional beliefs, the stronger the attempt to identify these beliefs as religious rather than secular. ….Many secular ceremonies, dances, songs, and artifacts are invested with a [traditional power] attribute, even though they were not so regarded in olden times.” (p.97) The “Indian way” appeals to the people as a kind of recapturing times gone by and I suspect, a strengthening of Lakota identity. So, even if Yuwipi is different today, it still provides a source of health and belonging to the people.
This short work of 101 pages mainly describes a cluster of rituals which both author and participants describe as “Yuwipi”. They take place on the Pine Ridge Reservation of the Oglala Lakota, a people sometimes called “Sioux” by outsiders. Once the Lakota people owned a big chunk of land in the Dakotas (named after them), Minnesota, Nebraska and parts of Wyoming and Montana. After the Indian Wars of the late 19th century, their lands were reduced to reservations, mainly in South Dakota. There are around 131,000 Lakota today.
Though containing some beautiful descriptions of the scenes and surroundings of the rituals, and full of authenticity of the human interactions among the participants, the bulk of the book is a painstaking description of a set of rituals which has become loosely known as Yuwipi, though originally the word pertained to only some parts or some people associated with those rituals. If this doesn’t interest you, it will not be a 4 star book for you. We read about the sweat lodge and the “sing” in which spirits are contacted through a Yuwipi Man who is tied and covered up. In the past, such men could predict the future or find lost objects, but the main reason for Yuwipi was curative. The ritual is followed by a feast, and in the book, it is linked to a specific vision quest by a young man who feels he has lost his way. All these aspects are tied to a real story from a Lakota community telling of how various people helped cure the young man from his hopelessness. So, the text is not just general, but linked to real events that happened in the 1960s. The author mixed several such events into his work to create a deeper description.
Powers was adopted by a Lakota leader when he was young and spent at least 50 years connected to the people on the reservation. He has written more detailed books about Lakota religion.
Only a few pages at the end are devoted to an anthropological analysis of the ritual. Such analysis is not placed into the context of any theories prevalent in anthropological circles nor are any writers cited who did not work on the Lakota. This tends to deprive readers of a broader perspective. However, the author interestingly notes that under the constant pressure of white culture in the USA, the Oglala Lakota try to preserve their heritage as much as they can. They tend to merge what used to be secular with their traditional religion. “The further the contemporary Oglalas are divorced in time from traditional beliefs, the stronger the attempt to identify these beliefs as religious rather than secular. ….Many secular ceremonies, dances, songs, and artifacts are invested with a [traditional power] attribute, even though they were not so regarded in olden times.” (p.97) The “Indian way” appeals to the people as a kind of recapturing times gone by and I suspect, a strengthening of Lakota identity. So, even if Yuwipi is different today, it still provides a source of health and belonging to the people.
September 25, 2018
Ethnography written mostly from the perspective of the protagonists of the story, It centers on a healing ritual and includes the experience of sweatlodge, vision quest, and curing ceremony.
August 1, 2008
Tgus came to me randomly when I shared with a neighbor friend that I had gone through a Yuwipi ceremony. However, I did not resonate with how this book was written at all. I will stick with turning to my teacher in Native American studies for support with the spiritual transformations around the Yuwipi ceremony!!
September 19, 2013
This was a wonderful insight to the ceremony and religion of the people
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews