Table of Contents
On Aubrey Marcus’s podcast, Chase Iron Eyes offers Lakota creation knowledge as a teaching, local to his people and still, in his view, counsel for conduct. From his mid teens he sought it from medicine people and books, in a line reaching a student of Frank Fools Crow. One telling has a buffalo cow breathe awareness into a clot and shape a human. Another is an emergence from a cave in the Black Hills, a center for more than one nation. Blood becomes water and flesh becomes stone, while Great Spirit, which he equates with Wakan Tanka, holds the surrounding mystery. Earth in this telling formed then as a disc, far outside geology. The plains animal also stands for the sun’s gift and for a star figure. Lodge poles meet the ground at sixteen points to keep the winds, a whirlwind linked to mind, and the rest of that order. The trickster was sent to earth for disobedience. Drum and song reach past ordinary explanation. The voice, his teachers say, can make and unmake.
Key points
- Chase Iron Eyes presents the stories as Lakota knowledge that is local first and still useful as counsel for conduct.
- He sought the teaching through medicine people rather than receiving it as a childhood syllabus, in a line tied to Frank Fools Crow.
- One account forms a human when a buffalo cow breathes awareness into a clot. Another is an emergence from a cave in the Black Hills, beside a flood.
- A primal being’s blood becomes water and his flesh becomes stone, with Great Spirit holding the mystery, and the earth told as a disc.
- Buffalo, water, the winds, and a whirlwind linked to mind are powers in the order remembered by sixteen lodge poles.
- Drum and voice are the means his teachers use for what explanation cannot hold, and the voice itself is called holy.
Short quotes
this female buffalo breathe Consciousness into this clot and formed us formed the human being
Chase Iron Eyes, Lakota cosmology with Chase Iron Eyes
One telling has a buffalo cow breathe awareness into a clot and form a human. Watch at 8:49
water is older than the Sun
Chase Iron Eyes, Lakota cosmology with Chase Iron Eyes
In this teaching, water is older than the sun. Watch at 20:53
his blood becomes the water his flesh becomes the rock
Chase Iron Eyes, Lakota cosmology with Chase Iron Eyes
A primal being’s blood becomes water and his flesh becomes stone. Watch at 25:04
the spirit of the water is another God
Chase Iron Eyes, Lakota cosmology with Chase Iron Eyes
Water stands here as its own power beside the buffalo. Watch at 30:29
the drum and the voice are too very sacred powers that we have as human beings
Chase Iron Eyes, Lakota cosmology with Chase Iron Eyes
Drum and voice are called sacred powers people have, able to reach past ordinary matter. Watch at 1:07:22
my teachers have taught me that the voice is that powerful it is that sacred
Chase Iron Eyes, Lakota cosmology with Chase Iron Eyes
His teachers told him the voice itself is holy and strong enough to matter. Watch at 1:30:58
Video by Aubrey Marcus. Watch on YouTube.