Looking Horse explained his role in the controversy about the new NMAI building: "When I heard about the pipestone being in the lobby, or entrance where the people come in, I thought this was very disrespectful. In our traditional ways, in our protocols, ceremonies, in our sacred way of life, we respect everything; everything is sacred. For instance, a child, you can't put our children's clothes on the floor. You can't even walk over our children's clothes or our children. What I told them was this is something that is created by the
Creator, the red pipestone, is part of our people and the sacred pipe made of the red pipestone and to do that is like putting Bibles on the floor and walking all over them.
In our sacred places we don't allow women to come in who are on their moon. We don't know how many women on their moon are coming in
[to the NMAI foyer]. These are things they're not looking at. We were upset."
In a broader context, Looking Horse said the pipestone protest was part of the campaign to protect the sacred rites. "What we're up
against today," he said, "is every time you turn around someone is borrowing our ceremonies. We're talking about protection of our ceremonies.
In spiritual sense, we have a spiritual people getting sick as a people. It falls back on our people, and people are getting sick because of it. Even people are trying to blame me. They say that I'm doing this and I'm doing that, and people are getting sick. Look at what's happening to the sacred sites and the pipestone quarries, the
red pipestone itself. They're selling that and abusing that, and that's why the people are getting sick."
"And one of the elders we have today said the leaders think about the seventh generation, but today people just think about their back pocket. We need to bring strong leaders back to our sacred way, they need to understand why we have sicknesses and negative energy - because people are not walking the sacred way of life.
"And the White Buffalo Calf Woman said `walk upon Mother Earth in a sacred manner.' And this is a way of life, that we walk upon Mother Earth in a sacred manner."
Looking Horse said that he had met the U.S. Attorney in Pierre, S.D. for help in enforcing federal law prohibiting non-Natives from using eagle feathers. The elders behind the "protection of ceremonies" statements look to that law as the means of enforcing their protocols.
"I told him we respect the eagles, the eagle nation," Looking Horse said. "Where eagles are being taken off the endangered species list,
I told him, no, we have to add on the red pipestone quarry. Right now, the market makes it an endangered species. Every person is supposed to make his own pipe; that's our traditional way. That way they understand the meaning of the sacred pipe. But today, everybody buys their pipes, and who knows what kind of energy it comes with? You sell them for different reasons, and that's
what we're talking about."
Looking Horse has sometimes been criticized for his extensive travels and his efforts to introduce the outside world to the Lakota religion. He replied that the message had global importance.
"Some people think we're just talking about on the reservation. But no, I tell them `open your eyes to what's going on around the world.' On Internet they're selling our ceremonies. Even when a white buffalo calf is born, why do we pay attention to a white buffalo born in Janesville, [Wis.] because it's off the reservation? Our people are thinking about boundaries, just on the reservation, but in our
ceremonies, it's so important, everything is global.
"It's Mother Earth," he said, illustrating with the ceremony often called the sweat lodge. "In the Inipi, our ceremony we call inipi, you go in there you only see half; the other half it's below the
earth. They argue it's only on the reservation, but holistically it's the Mother Earth.
"But always maintain the ceremonies," he said. "They're doing this very important message from our reservation, from our sacred sites."
Looking Horse has emphasized this global reach in a series of World Peace and Prayer days held each Spring Equinox for more than a decade. In recent years, ceremonies have taken place in sacred sites
around the world.
But next year, he said, the main observance would come home to the Black Hills in South Dakota, in the Tower, Grey Butte area. "Right now, we're working on that," he said. But his recent schedule has revolved around the Unity Ride. "It's a
huge event in Six Nations, Canada, the Elders Summit," he said. "Since I came back from Japan, I've been on this ride. I ran a Sun Dance, and I'm going back on the ride. The UN had an Indigenous
Day for 10 years," he said, "This is the tenth year."
Looking Horse sees the past decade as a momentous period of the Lakota religion, as well. "In 1994, the first white buffalo was born.
Almost every year since then a white buffalo calf has been born. White Buffalo Calf Woman said, "I shall return, when the people are having a hard time.' She said, "I would come to earth as a white
buffalo, with black nose and black tongue.' Since 1994 almost every year a white buffalo calf has been born. When I came out of Sun Dance I heard … that a white buffalo calf was born in Venezuela."
