The birth of a white buffalo calf in Wisconsin in 1994 inspired the author to research the historical, spiritual, and biological significance of the white buffalo. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

In this first volume of The White Buffalo Woman Trilogy, author Heyoka Merrifield celebrates the sacredness of nature and the return of a culture hidden by time. Eyes of Wisdom offers a deeply moving narration of life and ceremony on the plains that is richly interwoven with Native American and other mythic traditions. The author draws inspiration from the legend of White Buffalo Woman, his vision quests, and experiences in the Sun Dance lodge.

Gary Null, health author and radio personality, delves into the anthropology of Native Americans to bring you the legends, the myths, and the history of their sacred healing practices: The Ghost Dance, Vision Quests, Rites of Passage, and Wankan-Tanka (White Buffalo Woman). Emphasizing the unity of all life, body and soul, man and nature, dozens of Native American healers share their beliefs, customs, and traditions.

A Lakota Indian legend in which the White Buffalo Woman presents her people with the Sacred Calf Pipe which gives them the means to pray to the Great Spirit.

"This vibrant book of wonders speaks true and dreams deep. Writng with blazing honesty she tells of her hard-won knowledge of many of the world's spiritual and healing traditions, while hold the Sacred Hoop of Natie Amreicanwisdom. This magnificent teacher becomes for us a new embodiment of White Buffalo Woman." Jean Houston Author of THE SEARCH FOR THE BELOVED BUFFALO WOMAN COMES SINGING explores fascinating uses of traditions like the Medicine Wheel; healing through ritual action; dreamtime; and the moon lodge -- the woman's place of retreat and visioning. These powerful personal tools integrate ancient wisdom with contemporary experience, as Buffalo Woman calls each spiritual warrior to her own true place in the dance of life.

Black Elk of the Sioux has been recognized as one of the truly remarkable men of his time in the matter of religious belief and practice. Shortly before his death in August, 1950, when he was the "keeper of the sacred pipe," he said, "It is my prayer that, through our sacred pipe, and through this book in which I shall explain what our pipe really is, peace may come to those peoples who can understand, and understanding which must be of the heart and not of the head alone. Then they will realize that we Indians know the One true God, and that we pray to Him continually." Black Elk was the only qualified priest of the older Oglala Sioux still living when The Sacred Pipe was written. This is his book: he gave it orally to Joseph Epes Brown during the latter's eight month's residence on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, where Black Elk lived. Beginning with the story of White Buffalo Cow Woman's first visit to the Sioux to give them the sacred pip~, Black Elk describes and discusses the details and meanings of the seven rites, which were disclosed, one by one, to the Sioux through visions. He takes the reader through the sun dance, the purification rite, the "keeping of the soul," and other rites, showing how the Sioux have come to terms with God and nature and their fellow men through a rare spirit of sacrifice and determination. The wakan Mysteries of the Siouan peoples have been a subject of interest and study by explorers and scholars from the period of earliest contact between whites and Indians in North America, but Black Elk's account is without doubt the most highly developed on this religion and cosmography. The Sacred Pipe, published as volume thirty-six in the Civilization of the American Indian Series, will be greeted enthusiastically by students of comparative religion, ethnologists, historians, philosophers, and everyone interested in American Indian life.