Lakota Courtship: Catch Her Wrap, Sing Her Songs, Steal Her Moccasins

The Plains Indian flute is featured in Paul Goble's "Love Flute."
Lakota Courtship And Marriage
Catch Her Wrap, Steal Her Moccasins
By Dakota Wind
The Great Plains, ND (TFS) – Long ago, young Očhéthi Šakówiŋ men would court their sweethearts with spoken words and by serenading them with song. Courtship was public, in full view of the wičhóthi (the village, or encampment). How a man pursued his love, and how she returned or didn’t return his affections was known to all. This public courtship was known as Wiókhiyapi, or “To court a woman.”

One of the tools men used to court women was the Plains Indian love flute. The Lakȟóta call the flute Wayážo, which simply means, “To play the flute.” The Plains Indian love flute has its origins in a variety of stories, but the common elements include: a young man who is in love with a young woman and has an inability to express himself to her, supernatural assistance (how he acquires the flute), and then how he wins the affections of his sweetheart. The young women were never expected to respond, but if they did, the young man might craft a song from her words to him.

Regarding the flute and the nature of serenading, the late Ella Deloria had much to share about this subject. “To have a love song sung about one was shameful. This was the only kind of love song that existed and it was no compliment,” Deloria said in her work The Dakota Way of Life. The Dakota call these love songs Wiílowaŋpi, Singing About A Woman. The Thítȟuŋwaŋ term for the same is Wióweštelowaŋpi, which Deloria interprets as, A Singing In Mockery Of Woman.

Deloria said the Wiílowaŋpi was like a public report on a young woman’s courtship behavior. From the love song, two things are implied: that she had yielded herself outside of marriage, or had promised to marry with no intention of doing so. The Wiílowaŋpi had a rule for its composition: young women were not outright named. Her identity had to be guessed. There's always an exception, and Deloria recalled on one occasion that a jilted lover actually named his obsession, which was shameful to him and intolerable to her.

From inside Goble's "Love Flute," which shows young men singing past sunset and into the night.

The traditional courting hour, according to Deloria, was towards evening when the sun hung low and men took their horses to water, when the women went to gather fuel and water to last the night.

Deloria called courtship WióyuspA, or To Catch A Woman, in reference to catching hold of a woman’s wrap to detain her. The alternate term in Dakota is WiókhiyA, To Talk To A Woman. Once caught, it was proper for a young woman to free herself or pretend a false resistance if she liked her suitor, but not too much resistance lest her efforts dampen his pursuit of her. When her suitor spoke to her, she would affect disinterest in him. It was the man’s role to pursue and the woman’s role to be pursued. A highly romantic young woman might be seduced into an indiscretion and then abandoned after once yielding herself. Deloria called this Maníl Éiȟpéyapi, Abandoned In The Wilds.

"Courting In A Blanket," by Evans Flammond.

Another tool men employed in Wiókhiyapi was the bison robe or blanket. A young man would wear a blanket about his shoulders, there might be other suitors too, all politely ignoring each other, waiting for their intended to appear. If a man was able to catch his sweetheart for just a moment, he’d wrap his blanket around himself and her, and share his feelings with her. The Lakȟóta have a phrase to describe this situation: Šiná Aópemni Inážiŋpi (lit. “Robe Wrapped-up-in Standing-they”), or Standing Wrapped In A Blanket. The blanket tradition is still seen in modern times, late night, on the pow-wow trail, but only the blanket itself is referred to in colloquial terms as a “snagging blanket.” According to the late Albert White Hat, they stood under the robe and spoke, the blanket was means of providing a moment of privacy.

Courtship Scene with Umbrella. A beautifully executed example of quillwork. Prairie Edge, Rapid City, SD.

Lastly, the umbrella was used in the traditional courtship as a supplemental tool to provide not just shade, but additional privacy from wary eyes. The umbrella was a popular trade item long before the reservation era. They were decorated with feathers, ribbons, bells, thimbles, and beadwork. Some were even painted.

The primary usage of the umbrella was for shade, which is reflected in the names for the umbrella. The New Lakota Dictionary has an entry for umbrella as Íyohaŋzi, or To Cast Shadow On. The Dakota call the umbrella Óhaŋzihdepi, which refers to any constructed shade against the sun (a pow-wow bowery, an awning, a light branch with the leaves still on, and even an umbrella). Buechel’s Lakota Dictionary entry for umbrella as Oíyohaŋzi, which refers to a shelter providing shade from the sun, but Buechel’s entry says this referred to a wagon covering.

Tipis at Fort Yates, ND. Photo by Frank Fiske.

A woman didn’t draw attention to herself, but she could announce her availability for suitors by affixing a pair of rabbit ears to one of the lodge poles when camp was established.

The woman was not without authority in her suitors’ courtship. If a man held no interest for her at all, she might say, “Héčhe šni (Don’t do that),” or more simply make a sign of negation, which is holding one’s open hand up, fingers together, palm facing inward, and waving one’s hand in and out a few times.

It was not unheard of for a young woman to demonstrate her affections to a young man by secretly gifting him with her work (ex. a decorated pair of moccasins), but this was considered improper. Deloria calls this “man buying,” and that this was cause for private ridicule and suspicion among the women. When a gift, as such, was given, the young woman hoped that the young man cared enough not to reveal from whom he received it. As she gifted him, she might whisper, “Wíyukčaŋ,” or “Think about this [us],” which Deloria freely translates as, “Perhaps this will help you think.”

Lakota moccasins, ~1910 CE. The wear on the soles indicate that the wearer walked on the balls of his feet. Fully beaded moccasins with beaded soles were actually worn. Eiteljorg Museum.

Haŋpa, or moccasins, played a role in courtship and marriage too. When a young man pursued his sweetheart, he might ride his horse in front of her mother’s lodge. Doing so, he usually plaited his hair, dressed his best, and even painted his face. If his mother or sisters were so inclined, they would make a pair of fully beaded moccasins. Not just the moccasin tops were beaded or quilled, but the very soles as well. This would indicate that his female relatives thought highly of him, a good sign for his intended.

Some men might offer a young woman’s father a gift of fine fleet horses, guns, blankets, or another special gift. He did this not to “buy a wife,” but to demonstrate his ability to provide for her. If her parents approved of his match to their daughter, they accepted these gifts and presented some of their own, this formalized and recognized the marriage. If his gifts were refused, it wasn’t a slight to the suitor, rather, they thought highly of their daughter that they wanted a man who could provide better. This demonstration of gifts to “buy” one’s wife is called Wíŋyaŋčhiŋ. When the marriage was recognized, the bride’s family presented her and her new husband with a lodge of their own to start their family.

In the tradition of giving gifts to “get the girl,” young lovers might announce their intention to marry concurrently. A young man might urge his parents to prepare gifts and a feast, then his family took horses and clothes for the young man’s intended. The young woman would dress in the clothes her lover’s family made for her, and her Hakátaku, or brothers, would set her upon one of the horses her fiance gifted to them, and escort their sister to the feast. There were no speeches or formal rite to observe. He wanted her, and she wanted him. This kind of marriage was called Wíŋyaŋ Hé Čhiŋčák’upi, or They Gave Her To Him.

Sometimes a man captured a woman from another tribe for his wife. This was called YúzA, or To Hold Something or Somebody Tight. This word is never used in reference by men or women to take a man.

A Yanktonai man and a Mandan woman elope.

It happened from time to time, that a young couple might elope. Elopement wasn’t unknown to the Lakȟóta. They called it WiínaȟmA, or To Run Away With Somebody (a woman) and marry in secret. The reasons vary. Perhaps she didn’t like any of her suitors and loved only one suitor.

When a young woman made her choice, the other young men assumed an air of nonchalance. It was laughable to show resentment of her choice, there were other women. If more than one young woman showed interest in a man, neither would they deride the man’s choice. A woman might say, “Is he the only man?”

The 1824-1825 entry of the Swan Winter Count portrays a single horse, but the entry recalls the death of twenty of Swan's horses killed by a jealous person. wintercounts.si.edu.

Now and then, there was a jilted man who demanded retaliatory satisfaction. Deloria recounted a story of a man who made lame a rival’s horse. Deloria couldn’t find an informant who knew of this incident, but this did happen. According to the Swan Winter Count in 1824-1825, when Swan, an Oóhenuŋpa (Two Boilings; Two Kettle), had all his horses killed. Once, an angry young man threw dirt in the face of a woman who married another. This demonstration served a grievous insult meaning that she was a liar and now all would know of it. Deloria said of this particular incident, that no one felt sorry for the new bride and that she “had it coming.”

Jilted women sometimes demanded satisfaction too. Deloria recalled the story of a woman who cast her knife at a man who had betrayed her (two-timed her perhaps?) and took out one of his eyes. In another incident, a place called Chateau Creek in south-eastern South Dakota, known in Dakota as Nawízi Kičhízapi, or The Jealous Ones Fight Each Other, was where two women cast dignity aside and fought over a man.

A young man removed her moccasins to prevent her from running away. Photo of pictograph by Holly Young.

If a young man captured a woman or eloped with her, he pulled her up on to his horse behind him, removed her moccasins, and held onto them so she wouldn’t run away.

Mature men and women courted politely and respectfully. An older man didn’t serenade his woman with song or flute, neither did he try to grab her wrap or wrap her in his blanket, not did he steal her moccasins. That was behavior for young men. No. The mature man might call on a mature woman and visit politely for a while before saying something like, “You seem to me a woman I could live with harmoniously.” A mature woman might say, “I have no one to hunt for me (or my father).” The mature man and woman never dared to elope either. They were adults, and elopement was for the young.

Divorce isn’t a topic focused on here, but it certainly happened and it could be initiated by a woman as easily as a man. The general causes for divorce were unfaithfulness and laziness. 

Dakota Wind is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He is currently a university student working on a degree in History with a focus on American Indian and Western History. He maintains the history website The First Scout.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kevin Locke. 

Deloria, Ella Cara. The Dakota Way Of Life. Sioux Falls, SD: Mariah Press, 2007.

White Hat, Albert, and compiled and edited by John Cunningham. Life’s Journey - Zuya: Oral Teachings from Rosebud. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Utah Press, 2012.

Goble, Paul. Tipi: Home of The Nomadic Buffalo Hunters. Lanham: World Wisdom, 2013.

Belitz, Larry, and Mark Belitz. The Buffalo Hide Tipi of The Sioux. Sioux Falls, SD: Pine Hill Press, SD, 2006.

Ullrich, Jan F. New Lakota Dictionary: Lakȟótiyapi-English/English-Lakȟótiyapi & incorporating the Dakota Dialects of The Yankton-Yanktonai & Santee-Sisseton. Bloomington, IN: Lakota Language Consortium, 2011.

Buechel, Eugene, and Paul Manhart. Lakota Dictionary: Lakota-English/English-Lakota. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.

Waggoner, Josephine, Emily Levine, and Lynne Allen. Witness: A Húŋkpapȟa Historian’s Strong-Heart Song of The Lakotas. Lincoln, NB & London, England: University of Nebraska Press, 2013.

Clark, W.P. The Indian Sign Language. LaVergne, TN: General Books, 2009.

Hassrick, Royal B. The Sioux: Life And Customs Of A Warrior Society. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964.

Swan Winter Count (Oóhenuŋpa). wintercounts.si.edu. Accessed on March 19, 2017.

Traditional Lakota Courtship

Saint Valentine recieves a rosary from the Virgin Mary.

Traditional Lakota Courtship
Lakota Demonstrations Of Affection

By Dakota Wind
GREAT PLAINS - Valentine’s Day is a day most associated with romantic love, often celebrated with affectionate cards, fresh flowers, or gifting of sweets to loved ones. Its my understanding that celebrating Valentine’s Day as it is celebrated today wasn’t always so, that it wasn’t until the Middle Ages that the saint’s day became associated with courtly love.

Amongst the Lakota there is a courting practice, an old tradition seldom performed today, but reaching back nearly a thousand years, and it starts with serenading one’s object of affection with the haunting sound of flute music.

Like many ancient world traditions, the Lakota used to arrange marriages for their daughters. This practice, along with polygamous marriages (when a man took more than one wife), have not been put into practice in well over a century.

The origin of the flute on the Northern Plains has many stories, about as many stories as there are tribes with variations among the bands or clans of those tribes.

Kevin Locke from his Makoche album "Open Circle." Artistically speaking, it is Kevin's best piece of work. Gratify yourself and get a copy on Amazon or buy it through Makoche in Bismarck, ND.

Traditional flute-players Bryan Akipa and Kevin Locke tell the story of a young man who fell in love with a young woman a long time ago. The young man became so smitten around the woman of his affections, that he found he could not talk to her. Motivated by his silence of melancholy, the young man removed himself from the village.

They say this young man came to the river and followed it. He eventually came to rest under the shade of a tree; some say it was a cedar tree. He fell asleep, or as he was drifting off to sleep, he heard the wind passing through the branches of the tree. In the branches of the tree were holes that a woodpecker had drilled, probably looking for termites or bore beetles. As the wind passed over the holes of the branch, a melody was produced.

Some say that it was the personification of elk who came to visit the young man and gifted him with the flute because they were moved by his inability to articulate his feelings to the young woman of his affections. Some say he merely reached up and carefully removed the branch and the birds taught him how to sing with it.

Englishman Paul Goble renders the first flute story in his book "Love Flute" which is published by Aladdin Paperbacks. The look and feel of the book is based on pictographs of the Plains Indians.

However he came to possess the flute, he learned its art. Then he returned to his village. He played his flute from the outskirts of the encampment, perhaps from the top of a hill or perhaps upwind so that his music could carry.

The young woman with whom he was in love with knew immediately that the music was for her. She returned his affections and they became a couple.

I have always been interested in when something happened. Like the flute story. When did the flute appear on the Northern Plains? I like to ask flute-players when they think the flute came to be, but the answer is almost always a resounding “a long time.” Then one day I asked Keith Bear, a Mandan-Hidatsa flute-player when the flute came to be. He quietly reflected that when he was young he had asked a grandfather that same question who in turn told him that when he was young, had asked the same question of a grandfather and was told, “They [the flutes] have been around for the span of ten grandfather’s lives.”

Keith Bear poses regally in a traditional quilled war shirt and carried a beautiful crane flute. He, like Kevin Locke, recorded at Makoche in Bismarck.

It was a puzzle to figure out, the span of ten grandfather’s lives. Keith ruminated that a grandfather’s life could be anywhere from forty to 100. Who knew the answer? I turned to renowned Plains Indian archaeologist Dr. Ray Wood and asked him how long the whistle has been on the northern plains, for in Lakota, one word for whistle is the same as flute, while flute also has another name for it.

As I was waiting for Dr. Wood’s response to my query, I came across the Brown Hat Winter Count in which the span of a grandfather’s life is measured at about seventy-five winters (years). I took this as a good sign, for the Mandan and Hidatsa are long ago relatives of the Lakota. Being that Keith is a grandfather himself, and he had asked a grandfather too, we could easily today say that the flute has been on the Northern Plains for the span of twelve grandfathers. Twelve times seventy-five equals 900. Now subtract 900 from the year I asked, which was back in 2000, we arrive at the year AD 1100.

Here's one of Dr. Wood's many works about the archaeology and history on the Northern Plains. Dr. Wood might not have had the excitement of Indiana Jones, but at one point fifty some years ago, he and several other archaeologists worked feverishly to salvage what they could when the dams were built by the Army Corps of Engineers back in the 1950s.

I eventually received a reply from Dr. Wood. He graciously and swiftly responded (in two weeks) and sent me images of the whistles he personally recovered from a few sites along the Upper Missouri River. He dated them to the year AD 1100.

In contrast of the flute story where the young man courts the affections of the woman and wins her heart is the story of the Homely Girl.

A long time ago, as these stories go, a young girl was relentlessly teased about her looks. She wasn’t regarded in any way beautiful. In the version I heard, she lived with her grandmother, and she was in love with the chief’s son. The grandmother was in a way, the fairy god-mother of this story.

A day came when the chief wanted to arrange the marriage of his son and he made an announcement to the people. The chief’s son was considered by many to be not just brave in battle but quite handsome in appearance. All the single young women of the village wanted to be the wife of the chief’s son. The chief proclaimed that a test would determine who would be his son’s wife.

I haven't heard the story of the Homely Girl since I was little, but the story of the "Rough-Face Girl" by Rafe Martin and David Shannon is close. Buy yourself a copy of this beautiful story.

Perhaps it was a year that passed as the women prepared for the test, perhaps a summer only, I don’t recollect that detail, but they prepared. When the young women heard that the homely girl wanted to participate, they scoffed and openly mocked her efforts.

The test consisted of a demonstration of domestic life, which at that time meant food preparation, building a fire, and a host of other skills like tanning and making moccasins.

The homely girl’s grandmother took her granddaughter out in the summer field and showed her which turnips to pick to make soup with, and they plaited them together into one long braid. The grandmother took her granddaughter into the woods and showed her which wood to pick for starting a fire and which wood to pick to burn the longest. The grandmother showed her granddaughter how best to set up the tipi and take it down in wind and rain, in the heat and cold.

The time of the test arrived, and the chief and his son visited all the families who had suitors. They visited the beautiful and the daughters of other chiefs, many who rushed to prepare food, who couldn’t maintain a fire, whose impatience showed in their beadwork or quillwork, or who couldn’t assemble or disassemble a tipi swiftly enough to satisfy the chief.

They came at last to the homely girl’s demonstration. She made simple moccasins with hard soles and modest accents of quillwork. She built a fire and it lasted through the night. For much of their time, the chief and his son quietly watched the homely girl in her demonstrations.

The test came to an end. The beautiful women were confident one of them would be chosen. The daughters of other chiefs were confident were confident one of them would chosen. At the end of the day, though, it was the homely girl who was chosen for her quality of character was revealed in her craft and preparation. She was not haughty, she was not impatient, and she did not spite any of her rivals.

In the first story, the lesson men should take is patience, and to find one’s voice. A natural lesson is to be learned from it too is that in nature it is the male who must prove his worth to the female.

In the second story, the virtues that Lakota women should practice are humility and patience. Virtue wins out in the end.