American Indian Culture and Research Journal

I am making sacred smoke; In this manner I make the smoke; Mayall the people behold it! I am making sacred smoke; All over the universe there will be rejoicing! Sacred Smoke. Kablaya sang this song a long time ago when he danced the first Sun Dance among the Oglalas. Kablaya, like all Native Americans, understood the importance of sacred smoke; he knew that no ritual deed, no spiritual act, took place without the sacred pipe. Native American pipe smoking gripped the imaginations of early White observers, who called the pipe various names, most often the calumet or the peace pipe. Yet White people, taking readily to smoking as a personal and social pleasure, failed to understand Native American pipe use as a sacred act. White people failed to comprehend pipe smoking as an act relating the smoker spiritually to all living things and their Creator. And to this day White culture readily associates the pipe with Native Americans, but it rarely goes beyond its romantic associations to any real comprehension of the pipe's use and sacred function. While it is impossible in one article to cover the pipe's sacred function among all Native American tribes, an examination of its use and spiritual place among the Lakotas-a People who live because of the pipe-will hopefully deepen appreciation for its place among all Native Americans.