Calf Pipe Keepers

[kingsleybray]

Does anyone have the book by Wilbur Riegert about the Calf Pipe? It was mentioned in the material we collated about Elk Head. He prints a list of the keepers of the Calf Pipe according to Martha Bad Warrior, Elk Head's daughter. She kept the bundle between 1914 (death of Elk Head) and 1936, when she herself died. The pipe then passed to her son Ehli Bad Warrior.

Could anyone post the list of keeprs that Martha gave Riegert?

Thanks

Kingsley

[Dietmar]

Kingsley,

unfortunately the link to the digitalized book on the main site is gone, but is it this list?:

from: www.american-tribes.com/Lakota/BIO/ElkHead.htm

www.heyokamagazine.com/HEYOKA.6.BOOKS.wilberRiegert.htm

There´s a chapter about Martha Bad Warrior in the book. She listed as Pipe Keepers:

Standing Hollow Horn (received the Sacred Calf Pipe)
Two Runs (the first keeper who lived 101 years)
Bad Warrior (who lived 109 years)
Elk Head (who lived 80 years)
Martha Bad Warrior

Btw, there´s a Facebook page of the book:
www.facebook.com/QuestForThePipe

[kingsleybray]

Thanks Dietmar. In her book PRAYERS OF SMOKE (Berkeley, CA: 1990), pp 140-41, Barbara Means Adams gives the same list of early keepers of the Calf Pipe as given by Martha Bad Warrior to Riegert. She assigns dates to three of the successions, as follows:

1. Standing Hollow Horn (Hehlokecha Najin)
2. Two Runs (Nunpa iyanka)
3. Bad Warrior, 1758
4. Elk Head, 1834
5. Martha Bad Warrior, 1897.

I wondered, are those dates in Riegert also? or is the dating unique to Barbara's book? (Barbara, who I spoke to several times in the early 2000s, passed away a few years ago.)

I would not take the list or the dates literally, but I am intrigued that 1834 and 1758-59 were Halley's Comet years. I do have another, independent clue that one of the early keepers died in 1758. I am wondering if the Lakota concept of Wohpe, the celestial manifestation of the White Buffalo Cow Woman who brought the Pipe, is connected to visitations of Halley's.

Kingsley

[emilylevine]

Kingsley
Your original post peaked my curiosity so I ordered the book from Riegert's granddaughter. It arrived today and looks very interesting. So, thanks.
Em

[jeroen]

Elk Head, also known as Red Hair:

[Dietmar]

I haven´t seen this photo of Elk Head before:


"Elk Head, Keeper of the Holy Pipe of the Sioux Nation" (from ebay)

Not sure if I like it though.

[kingsleybray]

the flag is a symbol of the alliance btw the Lakotas and the USA. I don't think he's being an Uncle Tom here - to carry the flag like that should remind white Americans of the loyalty they owed to their Lakota friends and relatives. Nice tabbed pipe bag of the sort carried by wakichunze.

[Historian]

According to John L. Smith in "A Short History of the Sacred Calf Pipe of the Teton Dakota", he speculates the date the White Buffalo Calf Pipe was given was somewhere in the vicinity of 1785 to 1800, based on testimony he gained from Lakota informants. However, according to Garrick Mallery in "Picture Writing of the American Indians", he cites evidence on two different, very old wintercounts, both pinpointing the date the White Buffalo Calf Pipe was given as 1540. Yet Frances Densmore in "Teton Sioux Music" states that according to Lakota informants in 1916, the White Buffalo Calf Pipe bundle was at that time about 300 years old, putting the origin at about 1616. There are varying lists of Keepers of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle with different amounts of names. (Curtis, 1916) lists 7 Keepers; (Mekeel, 1931) lists 9 Keepers; (Left Heron, 1931) lists 8 Keepers; (Thomas, 1934) lists 10 Keepers; and (Smith, 1966) lists 13 Keepers. The most common versions of the name attributed to the first Keeper have been, Walking Standing Buffalo; or Standing Walking Buffalo; or Buffalo Stands Upwards; or Buffalo Standing Upward; or Standing Hollow Horn. There are various differences as to who held the White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle after the first Keeper, but most agree that Elk Head, aka Red Hair, aka Red Haired Elk Head (b. 1818 - d. 1916) was one of the Keepers who obtained the White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle from his father, who was also known as Elk Head. See photo of Elk Head (b. 1818 - d. 1916) and the White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle below, taken by Edward S. Curtis in 1908.


When Elk Head in the 1908 photo above died in 1916, the White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle went to his daughter, Martha Bad Warrior, aka Red Eagle Woman, (b. 1854 - d. 1936). When Martha Bad Warrior died in 1936, the White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle went to her son, Ehli Bad Warrior, (b. 1882 - d. 1959). When Ehli Bad Warrior died in 1959, the White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle went to his sister, Lucy (Bad Warrior) Looking Horse, (b. 1891 - d. 1966). Just before Lucy (Bad Warrior) Looking Horse died in 1966, she chose to pass over her son, Stanley Looking Horse, and pass the White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle to then 12 year old grandson, Arvol Looking Horse, (b. 1954) the current Keeper.

For more detailed study, I recommend the following sources:

Brown, Joseph Epes
1953. The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Sacred Rites of the Oglala Sioux. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Curtis, Edward S.
1930. The North American Indian: (1907-1930). ed. Frederick Webb Hodge, 20 Volumes, Harvard University Press - Cambridge, MA, and Plimpton Press - Norwood, MA.

DeMallie, Raymond J.
1984. The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's Teachings Given to John G. Niehardt. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Densmore, Frances
1918. Teton Sioux Music. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 61, Washington DC. (pp. 63-66)

Dorsey, George A.
1906. Legend of the Teton Sioux Medicine Pipe. Journal of American Folk Lore, vol. 19. (pp. 326-329)

Marrery, Garrick
1889. Picture Writing of the American Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology, Tenth Annual Report, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

Mekeel, H. Scudder.
1931. Field Notes: Summer of 1931, White Clay District, Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. Archives of the Department of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY.

Niehardt, John G.
1932. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Smith, John L.
1964. A Ceremony for the Preparation of the Offering Cloths for Presentation to the Sacred Calf Pipe of the Teton Sioux. Plains Anthropologist vol. 9, no.25.
1967. A Short History of the Sacred Calf Pipe Bundle of the Teton Dakota. University Museum News vol. 28, nos. 7 - 8, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD.
1970. The Sacred Calf Pipe Bundle: It's Effect on the Present Teton Dakota. Plains Anthropologist vol. 15, no. 48.

St. Pierre, Mark and Tilda Long Soldier
1995. Walking in the Sacred Manner: Healers, Dreamers, and Pipe Carriers--Medicine Women of the Plains. Touchstone Books.

Thomas, Sidney J.
1941. A Sioux Medicine Bundle. American Anthropologist, vol. 43, (pp. 605-609)

Walker, James R.
1982. Lakota Belief and Ritual. edited by Raymond J. DeMallie and Elaine A. Jahner. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, (pp. 109-112, pp. 148-150)