January Thirteenth

THE MYSTERIOUS woman took from the bundle a pipe . . . . Holding the pipe up with its stem to the heavens, she said: "With this sacred pipe you will walk upon the Earth; for the Earth is your Grandmother and Mother, and She is sacred. Every step that is taken upon Her should be a prayer. The bowl of the pipe is red stone; it is the Earth. Carved in the stone and facing the center is this buffalo calf, who represents all the four-leggeds who live upon your Mother. The stem of the pipe is of wood, and this represents all that grows upon the Earth."

-- BLACK ELK
photo from Life magazine archives, St. Joseph, Mo., 1952; photographer Francis Miller