Wocekiye

Wocekiye is the common term for the Sioux religious system. It derives from the Siouan word for "prayer." Whether there was any other known term is unknown. It surrounds the worship of a pantheon of deities, who are related in a similarly derivative manner from one another to the Christian god, who are known collectively as the Wakantanka (wah-kaw-taw-kah), or the Great Mystery. Up to the late 19th century, much of the edicts surrounding the religion were considered taboo to speak of to outsiders. The Wicasa Wakan (Wee-chah-shuh wah-kaw), or Shamans/ Holy Men, made an exception with a Caucasian man named James Walker. Among the Lakota POWs in the Dakotas, they put him through the rites to become one of them and passing on much of their knowledge in the hopes that it could be preserved and one day returned to the Siouan people. He wrote all he learned down in 3 books, "Lakota Myth," "Lakota Society" & "Lakota Beliefs & Ritual," but much of what he was taught was often confused, contradictory and muddled. Other holy men continued to pass down important knowledge to their own children. Other things were recorded through happenstance by a missionary named Eugene Buechel around the turn of the 20th century, who created the groundwork for the Lakota Dictionary.

Bear in mind that some of this knowledge may not be complete or accurate. This also does not cover cultural variance beyond the Lakota/ Dakota/ Assiniboine, as Siouan people were widespread throughout the continent & other variations of spirit names and legends have been known to exist.

The pantheon consists of a series of 16 deities. These beings are divided into sets of two, whose powers compliment one another to create the known world. They are as follows:

There are also a variety of other spiritual aids in the world. They are as follows.

Other specific beings from the mythology are as follows.

The Siouan mythology concerning their Religions & origin stories are the main issue with Walker's work. It was made & kept mostly by the Shamans who saw it only as a useful teaching method rather than a true story, thus much of it is contradictory & has no useful or meaningful chronology. However, a general story can be assembled from it.

In the beginning, there was only one god, the Wakantanka, and he was all of existence, fixed in place and lonely. One day, he resolved to create other beings of power for him to act upon and talk to and bled away his power, causing him to split into three deities-- The Rock, the Earth & the Sky. As these beings began coming to their own sentience, they took on their own personalities and began communing with one another, learning from these interactions as children would. They soon saw flaws to their existence and began creating more and more beings and things to fill the spaces between them, creating the laws of nature as they went along, however, their work expended beyond their ability to control. In this, they not only created other gods, but mortal beings and accidentally brought evil into the world. Since the goddess of passion, Unk, was just as powerful as any of them, they couldn't recall her from existing and had to create new things to give to mortals in order to combat her-- such as spiritual power and medicine. In this, the first mortals, the Pte Oyate (Buffalo People) came into being in a great cave in the womb of the earth.

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Wikipedia