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The Lakota Emergence exhibit logo is based on a traditional design, called “black war bonnet,” comprised of concentric circles of opposing triangles. This design apparently was developed in the Great Plains and is closely associated with Lakotans. The horizontally extended black triangle that tapers to a point is representative of a traditional Lakotan viewpoint of the world which is a tapered disk with the dome of the sky hovering over its outer perimeter. Through this disk the ancestors of Lakotans emerged onto this earth from the underworld at a place called Washun Niya, known today as Wind Cave. The original Lakota Emergence exhibit divided the traditional Lakota emergence narrative into sixteen passages and paired each with a contemporary Lakotan artist and one or more treasured museum artifacts created by Lakotan ancestors. Most of the passages are situated in this world, but four of them describe situations in the underworld. The breaks in the extended black triangle represent the four shifts in the passages between the two worlds.

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