White Buffalo Woman

This is White Buffalo Woman (her true name is Ptesáŋwiŋ) of the Lakota. She is basically the equivalent to Jesus Christ in the Lakota Religion, she brought the Seven Commandments, or Ceremonies to the Lakota people.

During a famine, a chief of the Lakota sent two young men out to find a buffalo herd for food. While the young men travelled they saw a white cloud in the distance touch upon the Earth. Then, from the cloud, they saw a woman, she was a beautiful young Lakota woman in white buckskin. She had dark hair, skin and eyes.

One of the men was filled with lust for the woman. He approached her, attempting to kidnap her and claim her as a wife. His companion warned him that she didn't seem like an "ordinary woman", as she manifested from the cloud and he probably shouldn't do that. But his advice was ignored. He went toward the woman and put his hands on her shoulders.

Angered, the woman blew a type of white smoke out of her mouth. And when the man who touched her breathed it, something horrible began to happen.

The man's body began to twist and contort, his skin turned inside out and he was reduced to a bloody mess on the ground which soon dissolved into nothingness.

The other man was horrified by what he witnessed, the woman, with anger in her eyes looked at the other man, gestured for him to approach her and said in the Lakota language, "Come here, now!"

The man was frightened and shook his head. The woman took a deep breath, and her angry look subsided slightly, she said that she wouldn't hurt him.

Still nervous, he did what she said, clutching his bow and arrow just in case. When he approached, the woman explained her name was Ptesáŋwiŋ, and she was a wakȟáŋ, a spirit in the Lakota mythologies. Again she stated not to be scared of her, she told him that no harm would come to him, as she could see into his heart and he did not have the motives the first man had.

She said that she had come to Earth to help the Lakota people and demanded he take her back with him to his village.

He did so, a council was called and a celebration was held for her. She taught the Lakota the Seven Ceremonies to protect the Mother Earth and gave them the čhaŋnúŋpa, the sacred ceremonial pipe.

The Seven Ceremonies are:

The Use of the Sweat Lodge
The Use of the Vision Quest
The Sun Dance
To Honor Relatives
To Honor Female Puberty
To Throw the Sacred Ball
To Keep Your Soul

After teaching the Commandments to the Lakota she promised she would one day return to the Lakota as a white buffalo to bring peace and harmony.

In the 1990s, a female white buffalo was born in Wisconsin and people thought it was her, that she had returned. The buffalo was called Miracle, she had also changed fur colors from white to brown and then dark yellow and died at around 10 years of age. And many people thought Miracle was Ptesáŋwiŋ reincarnated.

According to legend, Ptesáŋwiŋ particularly likes red and black sweet berries and she is the daughter of Mother Earth.

I picture her as being a wise, though serious spiritual being who is direct and serious, hence why I portrayed her as such in this drawing. I also imagine her being a true feminist as she taught the Lakota the importance of girls, women, and female puberty. In this drawing, she destroyed the man who tried to kidnap her and she is beckoning the other man to approach her.