The Sixteen Wakan Tankas.

An
Introduction to Lakota Metaphysics.
Daniel Garber
Sep 4·15 min read

Mitákuyepi. My name is Daniel Garber. An elderly Lakota sun dancer once gave me the
Lakota name Wakhúwa Wičákȟa, which in English means “Seeker of Truth.” My family is
from the high plains of Montana in the USA. I grew up on a family farm that was
homesteaded on land that lies on the border between pre-treaty Blackfoot and Nakota
lands. Lakota and Crow peoples probably left their energies there as well. I am an ikče
wičaša, but I am a wašicų and I suffer from ancestral guilt.
The preceding is something like the customary Lakota way of introducing oneself to
strangers. But this is not about me. This is about David C. Posthumus, PhD. He is an
Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Dakota and he published a
book in 2018 entitled “All My Relatives: Exploring Lakota Ontology, Belief and Ritual.”
This is about that book, and the 2015 dissertation that preceded it, entitled “Transmitting
Sacred Knowledge: Aspects of Historical and Contemporary Oglala Lakota Belief and
Ritual.”
When he graduated from Michigan State University in 2007, Posthumus wrote his senior
thesis paper entitled, “The Pipe Religion, Spirit World, and Lakota Spirituality.” He began
doing field work with the Lakotas at that time, and it seems he has been at it ever since.
The literature on old Lakota philosophy is based on interviews done with Lakotas since
the nineteenth century. Much of that early work was recorded not by anthropologists, but
by trappers and traders and agents of the US government, who happened to find
themselves living next to old Lakotas. This means that much of that information did not
come directly from the source, but rather through the interpretation of outsiders, who
were sometimes not sympathetic, and who certainly were not products of the culture
upon which they were reporting. This means the work was not professionally disciplined.
Much was probably lost in translation.

Much was also lost due to colonial practices of repression and oppression, which sought
to tame and civilize what they saw at the time as savage peoples. This was accomplished
through enforced re-education of Lakota children in boarding schools and the
criminalization of traditional ways. For example, it was illegal to practice traditional
Lakota religious ceremonies in the open until The American Indian Religious Freedom
Act of 1978. (Some contemporary Lakota practitioners do not like to refer to what they do
as religion, due to the negative associations, but rather refer to it as spirituality.) As a
result, many modern Lakotas do not know or practice their own ways. They have been
acculturated into the dominant culture, but not always well.

The Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota is the home of the mighty Oglala Lakotas.
Per Capita Income on Pine Ridge is $7,773. The unemployment rate on the rez is 80%. A
recent study found the life expectancy for men to be 48 years; and for women to be 52
years. The Pine Ridge Reservation has the highest infant mortality rate in the United
States. Only a small minority population of the Lakotas still speak the language. Even this
is not the “old” Lakota. It is a newer version of the language. It seems the dominant
culture did its job well — if their goal was to destroy the old Lakota ways. But they didn’t
wipe them out completely. Some practices survived by going underground, including the
iconic Lakota Sun Dance. But how can we reliably determine what those practices and
beliefs were when those who did and had them are now all dead and gone?
The best surviving window we have into the old ideas of Lakota philosophy is through the
writings of Dr. James R. Walker. Walker spent eighteen years, from 1896 until 1914,
living in South Dakota as a physician on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Three volumes of
documents have been published (Walker 1980, 1982, 1983) that have become primary
sources for the study of Lakota spirituality. Walker’s notes were filled with conflicting and
confusing accounts from his sources. The published material is the end result of weeding
out much of Walker’s conflicting notes. So again, much has been lost. There is even
speculation among some contemporary Lakota scholars and writers that Walker’s
informants were purposely misinforming him, partly because the material was banned
and illegal, and partly because they didn’t trust such knowledge to a representative of the
dominant culture, even though he claimed to be an initiated Lakota shaman.
David Posthumus wades into this quagmire and tries to do his best to find the truth — to
search out the true old Lakota ways, philosophy and spiritual practices. He does this by
reviewing and surveying the old conflicting sources, with a concentration on the Walker
material. He supplements this with his own informants. He also attempts to do this in
line with modern anthropological practices, designed to eliminate cultural biases that at
one time led to colonial prejudicial judgments about the so-called savages.

As a professional anthropologist, Posthumus is writing for an audience of fellow

academics, in particular for anthropologists. As a result the book is full of academic
jargon. This is not a book for the casual reader interested in shamanism — unless you are
highly motivated to wade in to pan for the valuable nuggets of Lakota knowledge, of
which there are many to be found. I myself was a Philosophy major, so I was trained to
recognize and understand academic jargon, but I find the anthropological jargon found
here particularly dense and hard to endure. For example, we are told this book is about
“Ontological Ethnometaphysics.”
In Posthumus’ own words:
“This project explores traditional Lakota ontological conceptions as they operated within
the magico-ritual realm, largely in the nineteenth century. I do not claim that these
underlying beliefs apply equally to all Lakota people at all times or that multiple
ontologies do not operate situationally and simultaneously in Lakota culture and thought.
Adopting an eclectic new animist or post-humanist position and one grounded in
ethnohistorical methods, I explore Lakota animist beliefs regarding the personhood of
rocks, ghosts or spirits of deceased humans, animals, meteorological phenomena,
familiar spirits or spirit helpers, medicine bundles, and so on. In this study I draw on
insights from ontologically inflected anthropologies, particularly that of Phillippe Descola
(2013a), in a (re)interpretation of nineteenth- century Lakota ethnography.”

In a less formal way, Posthumus says:

“One of the really cool things for me about this book is that it brings together so much of
the literature on the Lakotas and particularly puts all these new things — these new
theoretical ideas — new animism and stuff — into dialogue with those sources and
particularly with the Delorias — with Vine Deloria’s work and with Ella Deloria’s work.”

So Posthumus is writing from a position of authority, in regard to contemporary

anthropological issues, such as the question of whether Lakota practitioners are animists
or shamans. In his dissertation he writes:
“Shamanism is a hotly debated and contested concept in anthropology today (see
Atkinson 1992; Geertz 1973:122; and Taussig 1986). Neither shaman nor priest is
completely adequate in the Lakota case. Practitioners seem to inhabit an intermediate,
overlapping space between classical anthropological definitions of priest and shaman.
While contemporary Lakota religious leaders are increasingly full-time practitioners, they
also clearly utilize helper spirits, mediate between worlds, and are believed to leave their
bodies and enter into trance states. Labeling Lakota ritual practitioners as shamans has
met with some resistance and criticism, but I believe there is substantial evidence
supporting the notion that Lakota ritual practitioners may be better understood as
shamans as opposed to priests.”

Posthumus uses the term “shaman” unabashedly throughout. He doesn’t take on the
social justice issue of whether the term “shaman” is appropriate to use at all, outside of its
use in reference to the Siberian Tungus or Evenk. He does adopt the notion of “New-
Animism.” New-Animism redefines what it means to be a “person.” This has something to
do with what he calls “The Ontological Turn” and he credits that to A. Irving Hallowell.
He uses the term “Situated Animism” after Philippe Descola, and often refers to it as
Descolian Animism. Situated Animism is practical modern animism. In Situated
Animism human beings are at the bottom of the natural pecking order; not at the top.
When humans are at the bottom of the natural order, then it is crucial to have “allies”
who are non-human persons in order to survive and to prosper.

“In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the
human being on top — the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation — and the plants
at the bottom. But in Native American ways of knowing, human people are often referred
to as “the younger brothers of Creation.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass”

This “new-animism” redefines a person to include rocks, animals, supernatural entities,

ancestors, medicine bundles, and more. Does this mean everything is a person? Although
everything might not be a person, everything has the *potential* to be a person.
“I once asked an old man: Are all the stones we see about us here alive? He reflected a
long while, and then replied, ‘No! But some are.’”
— Hallowell
Non-human persons live like human persons do. They live in groups like humans do.
Posthumus adopts the idea of the “collective” which is the social group in which non-
human persons live. A collective mimics the lifestyle of humans who live in tribes
(oyatepi) and camps (tʿiyošpaye) and families (tʿiwahe).

And so Posthumus is setting the stage for demonstrating how the Lakota philosophy is
opposed to Western European worldviews. In addition to the existence of non-human
persons, the natural world is not separate from the civilized world. There is no
separation. The Lakota maxim mitakuye oyasʾį — We Are All Related — or Everything is
Related — summarizes this worldview, but almost trivializes it.
“The realms of Lakota mythology (ohųųkaką), dreams and visions (ihąųblapi), and ritual
or ceremony (wicʿoȟ
ʾą, woecʿų) were peopled by a diverse cast of characters, mainly
various animal species and spirit persons commonly encountered in the plains
environment in which the people lived. In these domains human-nonhuman
communication and exchange is still possible, as it was in the primordial subterranean
world. Aside from Iktómi and a few other key personalities, the literature suggests that
the nonhuman persons of Sioux cosmologies should not be conceptualized as monolithic,
timeless, immortal, singular entities but rather as a class (oicʿaǧe) of persons, a tribe-
species or collective, an oyáte.”

In Lakota mythology, Iktomi is a spider trickster spirit.

“[Iktómi] named everything that was to be found all over the world. . . .Whatever moved
upon earth [i.e., animals] got its name from Ikto. We believe that he was the first to speak
by using the words with which we express ourselves. Wherever there are here and there
some animals that are peculiar, they were made so by Iktomi; and we believe too that he
made all wild fruits. . . . He long ago named all the organs found within a man’s body, and
to this day we follow those names. . . . And in the olden times, Ikto was good friends with
all sorts of animals, being related to them; and they took their orders from him. . . . He
was able to converse with animals who cannot speak.”
Posthumus has spent years learning and speaking the Lakota language, so much is to be
learned about Lakota words and the language here. There is also an extensive Glossary of
Lakota Terms and Phrases in the back of the book, before the copious Notes and
References, and the ever-handy Index. He adopts a convention of spelling and printing
the language that is a bit different from what I’ve become used to. It is also different from
that used in his dissertation. In personal correspondence to me he explains that it is Ella
Deloria’s orthography. Ella Deloria is a Yankton Sioux ethnographer and linguist.

The nuggets of old Lakota belief that make the book (and the dissertation) truly worth
savoring have to do with metaphysical ideas that apply to both the human and the non-
human soul. Walker’s old Lakota informants from the nineteenth century describe four
parts of the soul. These four parts of the soul are themselves part of what is known as the
“Sixteen Wakan Tankas” or the Tobtób Kį. The Tobtób Kį are the Four Times Four (a
term used in reference to the sixteen manifestations of Wak ʿą T ʿąka).
Walker calls this “the secret lore of the shamans” and gives credit to these old Lakota
informants — Little-wound, American-horse, Bad-wound, Short-bull, No-flesh, Ringing-
shield, Tyon, and Sword. All of these gentlemen were deceased at the time of his writing,
which was 1917. Bad-wound, No-flesh, and Ringing-shield were the principal informants
on the subject of doctrine. Tyon was the interpreter of the shamans, although his
knowledge of English was admittedly poor. Sword wrote out his knowledge in old Lakota
and that had to then be translated into English.

Walker’s account of this process, and his discovery of “the secret lore” sounds eminently
plausible. Posthumus addresses the Tobtób Kį at length in his dissertation. As he explains
to me in a personal correspondence, in the book he concentrates more on the Parts of the
Soul, and not so much about the Four Times Four.
The Tobtób Kį are sixteen distinct spiritual entities that make up what we call Wak ʿą
Tʿąka. Wakʿą Tʿąka is literally translated as Great Mystery. Wakʿą is mysterious. It is
mysterious because it is incomprehensible to the limited minds of mere humans. Wak ʿą is
sacred because it is so mysterious. Tʿąka is great. Wakʿą Tʿąka is not translated as “God.”
It is not the Christian God. It is not equivalent to Jehovah. The Lakota prefer the word
“spiritual” to “religious.” The word religious has connections to organized religions that
have not been kind to the Lakota.
The sixteen spiritual entities that make up Wakʿą Tʿąka are benevolent, that is to say they
are the good guys. Other spiritual entities exist who are not so benevolent. Those are the
bad guys. The bad guys make up something called wakan šica, which is still subordinate
to Wakʿą Tʿąka. All of these spiritual entities are non-human persons, but they are
immortal. The higher ones play primary roles in the old Lakota myths. Each of these
spiritual entities has its own appearance and attributes. They can shape-shift and appear
as human. They can even marry and have children with humans.

The sixteen Wakan Tankas, or the Tobtób Kį are:

Wí — Sun
Táku Škąšką — Motion, Sky (Great Spirit)
Makʿa — Earth
Iny ą — Stone
Hąwí — Moon
Tʿaté — Wind
Woȟpe — the Divine Feminine
Wakiyą — Thunder Beings
Tʿatʿąka — Buffalo
Hunųąp — Bear
Tʿatúye Tópa — the Four Winds/Directions
Yumní — the Whirlwind
Niya — spirit
Naǧi — ghost
Naǧila — Spirit-like
Šicų — spiritual potency

The first twelve are primordial and the subjects of myth. The last four are the Four Parts
of the Soul. Each of the sixteen can be assigned to one of the willow poles used to
construct a typical Lakota sweat lodge, or initʿi. And so the lodge becomes a symbolic
ritual object incorporating these Lakota beliefs.

All of the parts of the soul are given at birth by Táku Škąšką, also known as T ʿųkašila,
Grandfather Sky or the Great Spirit. The Niya is the breath of life, the animating element.
If it happens to leave, the body will become lethargic and die. The Na ǧi is the ghost and
contains more of the character of the person. If it leaves, the body will lose consciousness
and be comatose, although it will continue to live because the Niya is present. A shaman’s
diagnosis of a sick patient may indicate that one of these has gone missing. In that case
his/her job is to spirit travel to locate the missing spirit and try to convince or compel it to
return to its body.

At first, understanding the nuances of the four Parts of the Soul is daunting. Sometimes
the Niya is referred to as the ghost. Sometimes the Naǧi is referred to as spirit. Some of
the confusion is no doubt due to the difficulty of translating these obscure subjects. To
me, it makes sense to call the Naǧi the ghost. When one dies, the Niya and the Na ǧi travel
back to the stars along the spirit trail. Waniya is sometimes used as a word for star and
Wanaǧi is the word for the earth-bound wandering ghosts who fail to return to the stars.
The sixteenth and last of the Tobtób Kį is the šicų. I find this one to be the most
intriguing. The translations or descriptions about this are very confusing. This may be
due to its very central and powerful nature. The šicų is given to the person, whether they
be human or not, at birth by Táku Škąšką. But the šicų is literally very powerful medicine.
It is the power that can be bestowed on a shaman by the high Spirits. A shaman can
receive Buffalo or Bear or Thunder Being šicų, directly from the spirit, usually in dream
vision or in ceremony. Medicine that is received in this way is kept in a medicine bundle,
not surprisingly called a wašicų. The medicine that one might receive from the Eagle is
the Eagle spirit’s šicų. Such a thing can reside in a relic or a fetish. (This is why, in my
opinion, the šicų does not return to the stars with the other parts of the soul.) The šicų
can be preserved in a lock of hair, such as in the Keeping of the Soul ceremony. One can
capture the šicų of your enemy by taking his scalp. Animal parts can contain the šicų of
the animal. Knowledge of and control of the šicų is crucial and central to the healing and
curing practices of the Lakota shaman. Mitʿawašicų is the Lakota for “my spirit helper.”
“Medicine men accumulate šicųpi (plural form of šicų) mainly through multiple vision
quests throughout the life cycle. In successful or correctly performed healing rituals the
practitioner invests one or more of his šicųpi or part of his collective šicų in the patient or
an object. This is necessary in order to renew or make over the patient (p ʿiya or wap ʿiya)
and hence to cure (various forms of the stem asniya ‘to cause to recover, to cause to be
well’), restoring wellness or balance.”

“Sicun means ‘leaving your spirit or your influence someplace.’ If you’ve ever read a book
and got a sense of the author’s feelings, then that’s something like the meaning. The spirit
of the author is in that book. Or it could be that somebody feels your presence when
you’re not there; that’s your Sicun.”
— Albert White Hat in “Zuya: Oral Teachings from Rosebud” page 77.
The fifteenth Tobtób Kį is somewhat problematic. The description of the Na ǧila is very
obscure. It only appears in the Walker material. Few other sources seems to refer to it, so
there is little corroborative evidence of its existence. One source suggests that the “Ton”
(tʿų or tȟ
úŋ) is the same thing as the Naǧila. In the language of the shamans, T ʿų is “a kind
of spiritual potency endowed in sacred things.” For this reason, in the book Posthumus
instead concentrates on the other three parts of the soul, although he describes other
parts as also important — the mind, the heart and one’s personal power.
“The constituent elements of Lakota interiority included the niyá ‘life, breath’, na ǧi ‘spirit,
soul, ghost’, šicų ‘familiar, “guardian spirit,” imparted nonhuman potency’, wacʿ
will, intellect, consciousness’, cʿąte ‘heart, feelings, emotions’, and wowaš ʾake ‘strength,
power’. Essentially, the combined niyá, naǧi, and šicų constitute a triune conception of
the soul or spirit, a common archetype cross-culturally, but the wacʿí,y c ʿąté, and
wówašʾake are no less significant in terms of the subjective self as a whole. However, I
focus here on the triune niyá, naǧi, and šicų, which were conceptualized as the wak ʿą
aspects of human beings and hence immortal, having no birth or death.”

So Posthumus leaves the status of the fifteenth Wakʿą T ʿąka up in the air, or unresolved.
In a personal correspondence with me Posthumus acknowledges that this is an open and
unresolved issue. In my opinion the fifteenth Wakʿą Tʿąka could be ascribed to the wac ʿį,
or mind referred to above. This makes sense, since the mind is consciousness. And when
one dies that consciousness leaves the body, presumably to make the voyage with the
other parts of the soul back to the stars on the spirit trail (wanaǧi tʿac ʿąku). Another word
for mind is tʿawacʿį. As a matter of fact, a Lakota phrase describing the “mind and soul” is
tʿawacʿį wicʿanaǧi kicʿi.

“Perhaps it is the legacy of animism and a relational ontology that has allowed Native
American spirituality to flourish in a modern world in which many other religious
traditions are threatened or endangered. Perhaps this legacy has allowed native peoples
to escape the spiritual disenchantment and secularization characteristic of much of the
West, which paradoxically motivates many Westerners to seek spiritual succor and
fulfillment through participation in native ceremonial traditions. All speculation aside, in
an era of increasing polarization, ethnic conflict, sectarian violence, and ecological crisis
this study demonstrates just how much we all can learn from Sioux philosophy and
spirituality in terms of abolishing the destructive and shortsighted nature/culture
dichotomy and living respectfully with other life- forms in a multispecies world.”
— David C. Posthumus, “All My Relatives: Exploring Lakota Ontology, Belief and Ritual,”
page 219.
Copyright © 2020 Daniel Garber

https://medium.com/@danielgarber_70196/the-sixteen-wakan-tankas-an-introduction-
to-lakota-metaphysics-746458e134d1

An edited version of this appeared in Issue 107, the Spring 2020 issue of Sacred Hoop
Magazine.