Gemma came in today to show us items and clothing from the Lakota tribe, which is in North America.
These are some of the things we learned.
The Lakota have a dance stick that they move up and down to lead the dance. The dance is like a prayer.
Boys wear a head-dress called a roach for ceremonial reasons.
Girls wear beads and braid their hair. The three parts of the braid symbolise body, mind and spirit.
The white buffalo calf is a symbol of hope.
Girls wear dance shawls for the pow wow.
Their houses now are wooden and small. In summer they live in tipis usually made out of canvas. Sometimes they are made out of buffalo skin.
They use sweet grass for their prayers. They light it and the smoke that goes up is their prayers going up to God.
Dreamcatchers were made by the Oneida . You put them on your window or over your bed and they catch your nightmares.
When a boy was twelve, he was isolated on a mountain. When he came back, he had to take care of the children, cook his own food, make his own bed, and look after himself for a year. He wasn’t allowed to talk to the women during this year. At the end of the year, the women would decide if they could call him a man or not.
The Lakota have a medicine pouch. They keep medicine in it but they also keep grey wolf skin and things that are very important to them. It’s like a memory box and it’s private.
The Lakota believe that there is good medicine and bad medicine and that everyone is medicine. If you’re good medicine you’re kind and helpful and nice. If you’re bad medicine, you’re mean, cruel and selfish.
Women wear feathers in their hair. If you’re married, you wear them on the right. If you’re not married, you wear them on the left. You shouldn’t touch a woman’s feathers.
Warriors would wear a choker around their neck made out of beads and deer bones. If they were hit by a bullet, the bullet would ricochet off the deer bones. They would also have a breast plate on their chest made out of the same things. Women’s breast plates were long and thin and the men’s would be shorter and thicker.
Thank you Gemma!
