HAU, MITAKUYEPI! HECETU WELO! (MY RELATIVES! THAT IS THE WAY IT IS! )
Nearly every tribe performed a purification ceremony, which most passed from generation to generation orally. The most publicized of these is the Lakota Sweat Lodge ceremony. Black Elk explained the ceremony to Joseph Epps Brown in his book The Sacred Pipe, which details the seven sacred ceremonies of the Lakota People. Because the Lakota sweat lodge has been studied extensively (for example, Raymond A. Bucko's The Lakota Ritual of the Sweat Lodge), many people have come to believe that the Lakota way is the only correct sweat lodge. This is not true. Other nations practice variations of the sweat lodge.
In the inipi or sweat lodge ceremony, people come together in spiritual community to pray. Preparations are extensive, and vary from one Native subculture to another. But all involve the sacred elements of fire, water, air, and earth. A lodge is built, typically of willow branches, and then covered with wool blankets (traditionally skins and hides). A fire is built and stones are placed in the fire for purification.
As the stones heat to red-hot temperature, the people make prayer ties and other preparations to enter the lodge. A fire-keeper tends the stones. Helpers place the blankets on the lodge frame. The lodge leader smudges the sweat lodge. Pipe carriers load their pipes.
Once sweat lodge ceremony begins, songs are song to welcome Creator, the Spirits and all of our Relations. The fire keeper brings in rocks, which are placed in a pit in the center of the lodge. The blanket door is closed to form a sacred circle enclosure. Water is poured over the rocks and steam rises. The purpose of the sweat lodge is prayer, spiritual community and purification.
Most people always pray for the rise of wise leaders who will recognize that Mother Earth is being destroyed and who will enact laws to protect her. We ask that prayers be offered to find leaders who will promote World Peace and will stop leading the People into senseless wars and death.
Humble Request: Please offer prayers to provide for the needs of the sick in this country and others. With all of our knowledge, it is a crime that people in this country and others are dying because of greed. How much can a pill cost? What happened to the Hippocratic oath that all medical doctors swear upon entering the practice of medicine? Why is it that those with means will be treated medically, yet our soldiers, who served this country, are killed by VA hospitals through neglect and lies? All those who practice the powerful ceremony of Inipi or other purification and prayer rituals offer prayers for the salvation of our world and the conquest of greed, intolerance and ignorance. We thank all of you who are already engaged in the Power of Prayer to Save our World. We are all related. What happens to one of us will inevitably impact another and then another of us. We are all related. That is one of the messages of the Inipi.
We ARE all related.
There is a simple but profound Lakota prayer: Mitakuye Oyasin. These two words mean “All My Relations” or “We are All Related”. To pray this prayer is to petition Creator (God) on behalf of everyone and everything on Earth.
Mitakuye Oyasin. (Pronounciation is: Mee-tah-koo-yay O-yah-seen)