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The cottonwood (Populus deltoides or Populus sargentii) is perhaps the most characteristic tree of the Plains region and its English name derives from the cotton-like strands to which the seeds are attached when liberated from the catkins. It grows generally near springs of water courses and its presence is an index of water nearby. Under the bark, there is a sweet, milky pith, which was deemed as a delicacy by the Natives. The winter settlements of the nomadic peoples were generally established near wooden areas, along the shores of creeks, where the cottonwoods were particularly frequent. This tree was thus specially related with the human world, the house, the encampment, and with the daily needs. In the cosmogonic myth of the Arapaho, one of the first things created by the Man with the Pipe, in the initial stages, were seven cottonwood trees, which grew from the primordial waters (Dorsey 1903: p.193).
A cottonwood tree |
The most important element in the Sun Dance Lodge was the center pole, which the Lakota called the Sun Pole or Sacred Tree (čan wakan). It was a cottonwood pole, because this tree was, according to Black Elk, sacred for three reasons: 1) it was associated symbolically and mythically with the origin of the shape of the tipi, the characteristic lodge of the Plains; the shape of the cottonwood leaves was interpreted as a miniature model of the tent and the Lakota believed that the children, playing with the leaves, discovered the structure of the tent; 2) if one cuts crosswise a cottonwood branch he sees, in the pith, the shape of a five-pointed star, representing the Great Spirit, wakan tanka; 3) the cottonwood leaves shake and rustle at the slightest breeze: according the Lakota, these sounds are the prayers the tree sends to the Great Spirit (Brown 1953: p. 74-75). All these qualities made the cottonwood (wa’ga čan in Lakota language) the sacred tree par excellence.
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A group of Lakota is carrying an expressly felled cottonwood tree, to be put as the Center Pole in the Sun Dance ceremony (Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, photo National Geographic Society, 2012) |
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The center pole in the Sun Dance actualizes the communion of the earth and the sky, constituting a veritable axis mundi, which represented, for the duration of the ceremony, the center of the world. Such a symbolism of the cosmic ax, clearly derived from shamanism, is diffused all through the American continent and is one of the main unifying elements of Native cultures (Comba 2012: p. 201-207).
A woman is praying near the Sun Dance Center Pole, at the end of the ceremony. The colored ribbons contains sometimes some tobacco and symbolize the offerings left by the participants to the ritual (Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, photo National Geographic Society, 2012)
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Animals