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White Buffalo Has Meaning Beyond Color
I make a traveling salesman look like a stay-at-homer during the summer. I like cruising
the highways on weekends. The traffic usually is light, and the roads are fair. Those rolling plains and the sweet
scent of fresh air are enticing.
by Dorreen Yellowbird Columnist for the Grand Forks Herald
As I traveled west, then south, a week ago toward Standing Rock, dodging flagmen, road construction signs and loose
gravel on the newly tarred interstate, I watched for the towering buffalo statue on the hill near Jamestown. That
stone buffalo is my signal to try to catch a glimpse of White Cloud, our special North Dakota white bison. She
had a calf this spring that I haven't seen.
I take special interest in this anomaly in the animal world for several reasons. It is said by some she is part
of an ancient prophecy about the White Buffalo Calf woman. She also has character. In spite of the fact that she
is
different from her brown counterparts, lives in a world contrived by humans and is rejected by her own, she carries
on.
A couple of years ago, one of our photographers and I had an opportunity to see her up close. Her caretaker allowed
us into the Jamestown pen with the buffaloes. He wasn't at all nervous in the pen with those huge beasts. The herd
was milling around the hay and feed that is provided for them, but there was poor White Cloud off by herself. She
tried to move into the herd of cows nearer to the feed, and one of the large females went after her with head down
and horns slashing. She moved off by herself. That has been how I have seen her most of the time - off by herself
but in the close proximity of the herd. With the calf, I noticed, she was closer to the herd. Her calf, incidentally,
is not white, but it does look to me lighter than the other calves.
There is a controversy or at least, a disagreement, about the status of this white buffalo in the traditions of
Indigenous people. Is White Cloud part of the prophecy?
The prophecy - which differs somewhat, depending on the person who tells the story - generally says that many years
ago, at the beginning time of the people, a beautiful woman came to the people. She taught the people ceremonies
and a way of life. As she was leaving, she gave the people a Sacred Pipe to be used in ceremonies. She told the
people she would return when four white buffalo calves were born.
It is said that that Sacred Pipe given by the White Buffalo Calf woman is held by Arvol Looking Horse, a Lakota
medicine man from Green Grass, S.D. In a statement made by Looking Horse in 1998 at Pipestone, Minn., he said the
first white buffalo calf was born in 1994 and that all four have been born. The people are faced with disaster
or harmony. If the people unite in spirituality, there will be peace and harmony and the Indigenous nations would
regain their position in the world, he said.
At the 2000 World Unity conference at Sisseton, S.D., Looking Horse said the Comet Hale-Bopp was one of the signs
that the prophecy is upon us. He added there would be 12 young people, six females and six males, from the seventh
generation who will lead the people back to strength and renewal. I understand that Looking Horse includes White
Cloud as one of the four white buffalo calves.
One who disagrees is a Sisseton/Wahpeton traditional person who told me there are only two of the four white buffalo
calves born. He said that these two buffaloes have turned white, yellow, red and black or shades of those colors.
He claimed when the White Buffalo Calf left the people, she turned these four colors. The true white buffalo calves
will also turn those colors, he said.
The veterinarians who take care of White Cloud say that she is truly an albino. So for some, she does not meet
the criteria of the four colors.
Many Native people have been guided by the Creator and received spiritual help from entities such as the White
Buffalo Calf Woman and others. Also, this prophecy was told many years ago before the birth of the first calf.
And it is a part of a foretelling of a great change in the year 2000. Some say we are in the year 2000, and if
all the calves have been born, why has nothing happened? Perhaps, one of the spiritual leaders said, we don't
understand the span of time. It is not measured by years but by a different determination, or we could be at that
point of change now.
A good change, I hope - one where there is harmony and peace in the world, this nation and our communities.
Yellow Bird's e-mail address is dyellowbird@gfherald.com or she can be reached at (701) 780-1228.
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