Placing 'The Sacred Pipe': A fractal model for Lakota ritual (Black Elk)

This dissertation proposes that the Lakota holy man Black Elk's narrative/text The Sacred Pipe provides a sophisticated process for the transformation of being through ritual. This transformation is structured to occur on at least four levels, the first of which is that of the individual. Yet transformation can also be effected for the community, the physical universe, and for the source of being itself, which the Lakota identify as Wakan-Tanka. Transition on all of these levels, Black Elk believed, is essential for a rebirth of Lakota culture in a form which can thrive in modern society and for the Lakota to perform tasks vital for their place in the universe. In addition, Black Elk's statements show his conviction that this process is also essential for a transition, and a new relationship with being, vitally needed in some aspects of American, and ultimately Western culture.; The transformation which The Sacred Pipe lays out entails a passage from linear state being, through intermittent chaos, into unified state being. This transition can be represented as a fractal loop, the characteristics of which bear numerous similarities to fractal geometry and chaos theory. The result is a model which makes it possible to “measure” these rituals in a new way, offering a fractal or “in-between” ontology of both being and becoming. In addition, this model illustrates how through these rituals one of Black Elk's most practical concerns can be realized: advancing humanity toward world peace through the progressive attaining of unified state being.; Black Elk came to such insights only after years of searching, transcending his own earlier understanding of the universe in the Lakota paradigm. Within this context, The Sacred Pipe also arises from his eventual grasp of the deep-level affinities between Lakota and Christian spirituality. From this perspective, Black Elk's narrative becomes a vehicle for creating deep-level global community in a wide-ranging manifestation of one of the rituals which Black Elk describes. Such a meta-community would arise through The Making of Relatives. In its arising, it would bring new life to the flowering tree which shaped the heart of Black Elk's life and mission.