Preparing for Womanhood

This ceremony, for when a girl passes into womanhood, is also known as Tatanka Alowanpi, the Buffalo Ceremony. According to Black Elk, it is “performed after the first menstrual period of a woman” and was revealed to Slow Buffalo in a “vision of a buffalo calf being cleansed by her mother.” Slow Buffalo is purported to have explained that the buffalo people showed him how they purified a young calf so “she would go forth and would bear fruit in a sacred manner.”

White Buffalo Cow Woman Appears was the first person for whom Slow Buffalo performed the ceremony. Her father told Slow Buffalo that his daughter “is about to pass through her first period” and asked him to “purify her and prepare her for womanhood ... in a better and more wakan manner than that which we have followed.”

Before that, all menstruating women were isolated in separate lodges away from their homes, and young women who were menstruating for their first times were also instructed during this time by older female relatives about women’s social roles.

Through Ishnati Awichalowan, this transition into womanhood is sanctified by a private ceremony, typically conducted by a man who is also a spiritual leader. Then, during a public part of the ceremony, according to Deloria, “the girl’s ‘respect-relations,’ her brothers and cousins, give generously in her name.” Black Elk says that this ceremony is the “source of much holiness, not only for our women, but for the whole nation.”

Black Elk. Ishna Ta Awi Cha Lowan: Preparing a Girl for Womanhood. In The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux (Brown, Joseph E., ed.), 116-126. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953, 1989.

Deloria, Ella.  Education—By Precept and Example. In Speaking of Indians, 41-44. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983.

Walker, James R. Tatanka Lowanpi, The Buffalo Ceremony. In Lakota Belief and Ritual (DeMallie, Raymond J. and Jahner, Elaine A., eds.), 241-253. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980, 1991.