Religion

The Dakota and Nakota share a certain mode of spiritual belief, though its details vary somewhat from group to group and even from individual to individual. Traditional religious beliefs, still strong among contemporary Dakota, centre around the concept of wakan, a difficult term to translate, which combines the meanings of spiritual force, power, and sacredness. Wakan resides in nature, and it is more concentrated and effectual in some places and beings than in others. The Dakota believe in a supreme being, wakan-tanka, the Creator, and in a number of lesser supernatural beings who appear in the form of various animal species, such as eagles, hawks, and bison. There is a greater balance of good in some of these beings, and a greater balance of evil in others, but the benefit or harm of wakan depends as much upon how the individual approaches and uses it as on the power itself. Everything in nature – human beings, animals, plants, landforms, soils, bodies of water, rocks – was placed there by the Creator and may be a source of wakan. This being so, all nature is to be treated with respect. Human beings are not meant to dominate the natural world. They may take from nature what they can put to good use, asking permission and giving thanks through some return offering. The attitude is one of respect, arising from knowing one’s place.

Christian missionary activity among the Dakota began in the 1820s in Minnesota and, as was common until recently, strongly opposed Dakota spiritual belief and practice. Although many Dakotas joined churches and adopted Christian beliefs, there was a strong effort to reconcile Christianity with the traditional spiritual philosophy. The Old and New Testaments, hymnals and catechisms, were translated into Dakota, but today even the Dakota elders who read these materials find them problematic as sources of spiritual help. Many of the semantic constructs and even the word-formation are felt to exhibit a poor fit with the living structure of the language. This may be noticed also in dictionaries prepared by missionary teams: they reflect the religious agenda of the compilers rather than the authentic religious and spiritual discourse of the Dakota people.

Belief and observance were, and are, deeply a part of everyday life. Communion with the spiritual world is sought through prayer and visions. Individual spiritual development requires one to seek blessings and knowledge through the vision quest, the hambde ceya, and also through participation in collective activities such as the sweat lodge, still of primary importance. (Formerly, the wakan-watcipi, or Holy Dance Society, was another vehicle of spiritual enlightenment.) The truth of revelations gained through such spiritual exercises is judged by the worshipper and others by actual outcomes. Does the man or woman live according to the teachings they have received? Have the promised blessings actually come to pass?