The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

deeper significance.
We can divide traditional literature into two basic genres:
ceremonial and popular, as opposed to the Western prose and
poetry distinction. Ceremonial literature includes all literature
that is accompanied by ritual actions and music and that
produces mythic (metaphysical) states of consciousness and/or
conditions. This literature may appear to the westerner as either
prose or poetry, but its distinguishing characteristic is that it is to
some degree sacred. The word sacred, like the words power
and medicine, has a very different meaning to tribal people than
to members of technological societies. It does not signify
something of religious significance and therefore believed in
with emotional fervor—“venerable, consecrated, or sacrosanct,”
as the Random House dictionary has it—but something that it is
filled with an intangible but very real power or force, for good
or bad. Lame Deer says in his discussion of symbolism:
Four is the number that is most wakan, most sacred. Four
stands for Tatuye Tope—the four quarters of the earth. One
of its chief symbols is Umane, which looks like this:
It represents the unused earth force. By this I mean that the
Great Spirit pours a great unimaginable amount of force
into all things—pebbles, ants, leaves, whirlwinds—
whatever you will …
This force is symbolized by the Umane. In the old days
men used to have an Umane altar made of raised earth in
their tipis on certain special occasions. It was so wakan
you couldn’t touch it or even hold your hand over it. 21
Lame Deer is not saying that one was forbidden to touch the
altar; he is saying that one could not touch it. The Umane does
not represent the power; it is the power. Sacred, power, and
medicine are related terms. Having power means being able to
use this extra force without being harmed by it. This is a