Indians 101: The Northern Plains Vision Quest

The importance of individuality and individual personal experience in the spirituality of the Northern Plains is seen in the vision quest, a personal ceremony in which individuals seek dreams or visions which give them spiritual power. The Northern Plains include what is now North and South Dakota, Eastern Montana, northeastern Wyoming, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. This was an area which was the traditional homelands for the buffalo-hunting peoples, such as the Blackfoot, Assiniboine, Gros Ventre (Atsina), Sioux, Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Plains Chippewa (Ojibwa), and Plains Cree. It was also home to several agricultural Indian nations, such as the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara.

Spirituality among the Northern Plains peoples was a highly personal matter and generally involved making and maintaining personal contact with the spirit world. In most of the tribes, young people would participate in a vision quest ceremony to mark the transition from childhood to adulthood. During this ceremony, they would acquire the spiritual power which they needed for survival.

Among many of the tribes, both boys and girls participated in vision quest ceremonies. While adult men were more likely than adult women to seek visions through a quest, there were times when women would also do this.

Among many of the tribes, individuals could also go on a vision quest at times when they felt they needed to enhance their personal spirituality and/or to seek answers for spiritual questions. Seekers would isolate themselves in some remote and sacred location and attempt to obtain a vision. During this time, usually one to four days, the seeker would abstain from food and water.

The visions sought during the vision quest were felt to be distinct from other dreams and visions. Sioux writer Vine Deloria, in his book The World We Used to Live In: Remembering the Powers of the Medicine Men, explains:

“The vision quest differs from dreams or daytime sacred events in that it is almost wholly dependent on the initiative of the human, whereas the other two means of establishing a relationship occur because of the initiative of higher powers.”

With regard to the Blackfoot, photographer Walter McClintock, in his 1923 book Old Indian Trails, writes:

“If an Indian wanted a religious experience, or to gain supernatural power, he went alone to a remote place to fast and pray, sometimes for many days.”

At this remote place, the seeker would ask the spiritual world to send a dream. In the dream, an animal would often reveal sacred objects and provide instructions for their proper use. These instructions often included special songs. With this information, the seeker would then be able to put together a medicine bundle.

Among the Crow, the seeker goes to a mountain peak, a location with long views of the surrounding landscape. Here the seeker makes a U-shaped, coffin-shaped, or oval structure from rocks. The seeker then sits within the shape, covered by a robe, waiting for the vision. In an article in the Plains Anthropologist, Monica Weimer reports:

“In general, the structures were oval, U- or arc-shaped, ranging in height from a single course of rock to as high as a meter and were about 2 m in length. Some U-shaped structures had roofs, and they almost always faced east.”

With regard to the Assiniboine, Raymond DeMalle and David Reed Miller, in their chapter in the Handbook of North American Indians, report:

“On the vision quest a young man fasted and prayed for a spirit to visit him and bestow power for war, hunting, or curing. If successful, he constructed a medicine bundle according to his vision.”

The vision quest among the Gros Ventre is described by Loretta Fowler and Regina Flannery in their chapter in the Handbook of North American Indians:

“A man seeking power fasted alone, concentrating his thought and making offerings for one or more days on top of a promontory. He might induce a supernatural being—usually a quadruped, bird, snake, rock—to impart powers in matters of war, accumulation of wealth, or curing.”

Among the Plains Cree, boys who were approaching puberty were sent out to fast during which time many would receive a vision. The father would take the boy to a secluded place. The fasting place for some boys was on top of a high hill, others would go into a bear’s den, some would sit in a tree overhanging a river, some would fast on a raft, and a few would stay on an unbridled horse. Just prior to fasting the boy would daub himself with white clay. His father would then put up some strips of cloth as an offering, then offer the pipe to the spirits, and leave.

During his fast, the Cree boy might stand throughout the day, or look into the sun, or perform other feats to hasten the vision. If the boy was successful, he would be approached by a spirit helper who would become his pawakan. The spirit helper would teach the boy the gifts he was granted. According to anthropologist David Mandelbaum, in his book The Plains Cree: An Ethnographic, Historical, and Comparative Study:

“In every case, the visioner was taught a song which had to be sung when the vision capabilities and prerogatives were being exercised.”

Concerning the length of time a Cree boy might spend at the vision quest, Tom Gardipee told Verne Dusenberry (in The Montana Cree: A Study in Religious Persistence):

“The boy goes and fasts as long as he can stand it or until the spirit comes. It might be two days, but could go right on up to ten days. It must be even days.”

In many tribal traditions, the seeker goes through a sweat lodge purification ceremony in order to cast off all human fleshly influences at the beginning of the vision quest. Similarly, the seeker may also go through a sweat lodge ceremony at the end of the vision quest. Writing about the Sioux, Sioux writer Dr. Charles Eastman, in the book Light on the Indian World: The Essential Writings of Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa), reports:

“When he returned to the camp, he must remain at a distance until he had again entered the sweat lodge and prepared himself for intercourse with his fellows. Of the vision or sign vouchsafed to him he did not speak, unless it had included some commission which must be publicly fulfilled.”

In his University of Stockholm dissertation Conceptions of the Animals Among the Oglala Sioux: A Study of Religious Values in the Ecology of a Nomadic Hunting People, Joseph Epes Brown reports:

“Encounters with certain types of vision phenomena, for example, may obligate the recipient to fulfill in his life certain types of specific roles; those who dreamed or had visions of the Thunder-beings or dogs, were destined to become hehoka, or contraries, and those who dreamt repeatedly of the bison, or of Double-Woman or the Deer-Woman, might be destined to be berdaches, although the latter may or may not be medicine-men.”

In most visions, animals or birds appear and there is a correlation between the animal or bird and the type of power, knowledge or skill. There is a ranking of the animals. Animal spirits are not seen as being able to control the destinies of humans.