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Date Posted: 14:06:49 11/21/05 Mon
Author: Jonathan
Subject: Cangle'ska Wakan - Sacred Hoop

[b]Cangle'ska Wakan - Sacred Hoop[/b]
by Jonathan Holmes

[img]http://www.tamanawit.com/images/medwheel.gif[/img]

The [i]Cangle'ska Waka'n [/i](chan-GLAY-shka wah-KAHN) has been interpreted as "Sacred Hoop" or "Medicine Wheel." It is foremost, a circle which represents connectedness, and is a symbol of unity, and is used by Lakota holy men as a metaphor for the traditional camp circle, since within the camp circle there is safety and unity.

The origin of the term [i]Cangle'ska[/i] comes from it's literal meaning, "spotted wood," which I have been taught is in reference to a traditional game played by Lakota men during the Buffalo Days.

The implements of the Buffalo Game consisted of a hoop made from an Ash sapling about half an inch thick and more than two feet in diameter, called a [i]cangle'ska[/i], which had been bent into shape and fastened while still green, and two pairs of throwing sticks, or [i]painyankapi[/i] about 3 feet in length, wrapped with thongs. The hoop had four flattened spaces on each side, at equi-distant points. Two players, representing two sides, threw the two pairs of sticks at the hoop as it rolled past, and the scoring was done according to the marked or flattened space that lies upon the stick after the hoop falls. This Buffalo Game is said to have been played to secure success in the buffalo hunt. The hoop figuratively represents the horns of a buffalo and the bone that supports them. Playing the game was called "shooting the buffalo." Also the hoop in the game represented an encampment of all the Lakota tribes, and it was also supposed to represent the rim of the horizon and the four quarters of the earth. The four spaces marked on the hoop represented the openings or passes into the circle of the camp. They also represented the four winds and were prayed to by the thrower before he threw.

Today the Lakota word for "hoop" is [i]cangle'ska[/i]. Although it literally means "spotted wood," in reference to the four flattened sections of the hoop used in the game described above, no other term for hoop is used in any other context.

The Lakota word for the Black Hills is [i]Wamaka' Og’naka Ica'nte[/i], or "the heart of everything that is." For the Lakota, the Black Hills are the center of the universe. Lakota tradition identifies the Black Hills as the first place created on earth and the center of the [i]Cangle'ska Oya'te[/i], or "the Hoop of the Nation." From this, the Sacred Hoop is a model of the Lakota view the world. It is pictured as a circle inscribed by a cross. Central to Lakota tradition is the idea of the oneness of the universe and the circle is the symbol of the unity of the elements of the universe.

This circular universe is reflected in many items that the Lakota people saw around them. When the Lakota tribes gathered together on the Plains, they would camp in a circle of lodges. The traditional home, the tipi, is a circle, with a circular firepit in it's center. The drum, providing the heartbeat of the people, made from a hollowed out tree, is a circle. The sun and moon are circles. Tornados and whirlwinds spin in a circle. Bird nests, ant hills, and burrows are formed in a circular shape. Hawks and Eagles soar in a circular pattern. The stump of a tree when cut is a circle. The eye, is a circle. A rock thrown into a pond, creates circles of waves extending outward. Hail is a circular shape. Rainbows are circles, although we only see half of them at any one time.

Since the sacred hoop is a circle, there is no beginning and no end. As a young boy, holyman Nicholas Black Elk experienced a great vision in which the spirits showed him many things. In his boyhood vision, he stood on a mountain that he later identified as Harney Peak, the highest point in the Black Hills. From that height he could see “the whole hoop of the world,” in reference to the the geologic feature called the "racetrack" that runs around the outside of the Black Hills.

The [i]Cangle'ska Waka'n[/i], being today represented most often by a "Quilled Wheel", or a circle with the cross in the center, has many other meanings acording to the way I was taught. If you look at the circle vertically, the horizontal cross-bar represents the level surface of the earth. The half-circle arc above it represents the domed shape that the sky forms over our heads, from horizon to horizon. The half-circle arc beneath it represents cosmologically, the mirrored image of the earth underneath the surface. (Note: this is also a metaphor for one of the symbolisms of the [i]Ini'tipi [/i]or "Sweatlodge".) The vertical cross-bar represents the connection to [i]Tunka'sila[/i] or "Grandfather" above and [i]Unci' Maka' [/i] or "Grandmother Earth" below.

If you look at the circle horizontally, the outer circle represents that sacred place where the sky and the earth meets, also called the horizon. If you look at the horizon from any mountain or from a ship on the ocean, it completes a perfect circle around you, wherever you are. You are at the center of your own universe, and the four cross-bars represent the four cardinal directions that are inculded in prayer (Black west, Red north, Yellow east, and White south).

The four quadrants created by the cross-bars are representative of the universal nature of how many things are divided into four. For there are four cardinal directions: west, north, east and south; four divisions of time: day, night, moon (or month), and year; four seasons, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring; four periods in human life: babyhood, childhood, adulthood, and old age; four main elements: earth, air, fire and water; and both man and buffalo have four limbs. In recognition of this repetative occurance of four in the universe, many Lakota ceremonies are done over the course of four days, or in four stages.

Lastly, the center of the hoop, the [i]ho'coka[/i], is the most sacred point. On one level the [i]ho'coka[/i] refers to the inner part of a camp circle, on another level it refers to the central space in the universe within which a person communicates with the spirits in six directions (west, north, east, south, above, and below). On another level, the [i]ho'coka[/i] represents the balance between the good red road, and the black bad road, always in flux. Lastly, the [i]ho'coka[/i] in the center of the [i]Cangle'ska Waka'n[/i] represents the sacred harmony and purity the individual seeks to achieve when they are in balance, and "centered" in the universe. Therefore, a breath-plume from the Golden Eagle representing [i]Wanbli' Gle'ska Waka'n[/i] is usually tied to the center, which also represents the sacred spotted eagle spirit within ourselves, also called the 7th direction.

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