Klaas-Jan BAKKER - AMORC

erecting a large cottonwood tree at the centre
of the dance ground. The tree is adorned with
flags and artefacts of six colours, representing
the six cardinal directions (east, west, north, and
south, above and below.) The dancing ground is
surrounded by an arbour covered with boughs
with an opening to the east, where the dancers
and the Sun enter each day.
From an astronomical standpoint, the Sun
Dance is interesting because its elements display
many of the features of the Lakota cosmos. The
Lakota believe that the circle is a divine shape,
primarily because so many things in the cosmos
(the Sun, the Moon, etc.) are round or of round
appearance. Although the Sun Dance is not held
on the summer solstice, the eastern opening of its
arbour clearly is supposed to be oriented toward
the rising of the summer sun
The Medicine Wheel
There has been some argument over the antiquity
of North American medicine wheels, and their
purpose. Most scholars agree that they may have
had some astronomical function. The medicine
wheels were large with spokes and built from
rocks with a central cairn in the middle. The most
famous totally intact medicine wheel is found
in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, which
appears to have been used to observe the rising
sun at the summer solstice and the summer dawn
stars Aldebaran (in the constellation of Taurus)
and Rigel (in Orion), and built circa 1760. There
are numerous other medicine wheels in Canada,
where they seem to be most common, but they
also were utilised on the northern Plains which
includes Lakota territory.
Numerous remains of medicine wheels on
the Plains were often as large as a hundred meters
in diameter. The date of many of these has never
been firmly established though some could be
as much as 10,000 years old, and many modern
ethnographic informants, when asked about
them, seem to have forgotten about their original
function, and know only that they are sacred and
have to do with powerful “medicine.” The wheels
clearly show similarities to sun dance medicine
lodges and tepee rings; for the Lakota both these
structures were thought to be “mirrors” of the
cosmos. Many of them have 28 spokes, which is a
significant astronomical number.
Symbolism
The Lakota had seven subdivisions or tribes. The
numbers four and seven are very meaningful
to them. In Lakota cosmology, there were
quadripartite divisions of everything: four colours
(red, green, blue and yellow), four superior
mysteries (sun, sky, earth and rock), four classes of
gods (superior, associate, subordinate and spirits),
four elements in the sky (sun, moon, sky and
stars), four parts of time (day, night, month and
year), and four winds corresponding to the four
cardinal directions. All of these are symbolised by
the Lakota cross-within-a-circle, a symbol which
appears throughout the Americas. For the Lakota,
it is the “sacred hoop” and represents the totality
of their people.
To the Lakota, man exists as an integral part of
nature, but not as someone who wishes to control
everything, but as one wanting to live in harmony
with it. This is something we should all aspire to
in our own everyday lives.
Bibliography
Lakota Society by James Walker, ISBN: 0-8032-1656-4.
Land of the Spotted Eagle by Luther Standing Bear, ISBN: 0-
8032-0964-9.
Oglala Religion by William Powers, ISBN: 0-8032-8706-2.
The Medicine Wheel at Big Horn.
Lakota symbolism.
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The Rosicrucian Beacon -- December 2007