Mitos y leyendas: The Lakota’s Vision of Four

• Mitos y leyendas shares with you the Lakota’s vision of four.
• This number repeats many times for them.
• Life revolves around the round.

The peoples of the North American prairies, including the Lakota, have a worldview organized around the idea of four. For them, everything is framed in significant quartets.

To begin, they divide the world into four cardinal directions: West, North, South, and East. Time is also broken down into four parts: day, night, lunar phases, and year.

Additionally, they observe that plants have four main components: roots, stems, leaves, and fruits.

Four categories encompass living creatures: those that crawl, those that fly, quadrupeds, and bipeds.

Cycles of Four

Likewise, they identify four essential elements on Earth: the Sun, the Moon, the sky, and the stars.

In their spirituality, they recognize four types of entities: the Great Beings, their Auxiliaries, those inferior to them, and the Spirits.

Human life follows a cycle of four stages: infancy, childhood, adulthood, and old age.

Even in anatomy, they notice that humans have four fingers on hands and feet, with thumbs and big toes opposed to facilitate work.

Life

An Oglala shaman, connected to the Lakota, reflects on the circularity present in creation.

While everything tends to be circular, except for stones that can be destructive, the circle becomes a sacred symbol reflecting the nature and cycles of life.

From the movement of the Sun and the Moon to the seasons of the year, everything seems to turn in a perpetual cycle.

For this reason, tribes like the Oglala erect round tipis and organize their camps in a circular shape.

Geometry

Even during ceremonies, they sit in circles to honor this worldview. Circular ornaments not only decorate but also represent the connection with the universe and the flow of time.

When they gather in a circle around the campfire to smoke the sacred pipe, they pass the instrument from one to another, reminding of the importance of the circle in creation and connection with the divine.

It’s an act that reinforces the idea of unity with the cosmos and the hope for an auspicious future under the guidance of the Great Spirit.

Mitos y leyendas bids you farewell for now and hopes you enjoyed the Lakota’s vision of four. Until next time!