le being (Carmody 66). A ritual the plains tribes held sacred was the use of the sacred pipe and the sweat lodge. The pipe filled with tobacco and smoked was used to mediate with the Great Spirit as the smoke drifted heavenward. The pipe was also used for social purposes such as reconciling enemies, uniting tribal members, and to express good fellowship. The sweat lodge was used for a person to be cleansed by perspiration as water was poured over hot stones to create steam. While the bodies impurities left it, the mind and heart would also be cleaned of anything bad to be able to commune with the Great Spirit (Carmody 66).Joseph Epes Brown writes that, for plains Indians, animals and other natural forms reflected aspects of God: Animals were created before human beings, so that in their divine origin they have a certain proximity to the Great Spirit, which demands respect. In them the Indian sees actual reflections of the qualities of the Great Spirit, which serve the same function as revealed scriptures in other religions. They are intermediaries or links between human beings and God. This explains not only why religious devotions may be directed to the deity through the animals, but it also helps us to understand why contact with or from the Great Spirit, comes almost exclusively through vision involving animal or other natural forms (Rockwell 6).Hunting was an important part of a Crees life. The Cree had a ritual that included parts of a bear that were not edible like the skull and bones. After feasting on a bear, a tree was cut down and stripped of bark and branches leaving a little growth at the very top of the tree. Then it was painted with horizontal red stripes and stuck in the ground by the edge of the camp. Circle and bar designs were put on the bears skull, tobacco put in its jaw, ribbons of hide and cloth were tied to it, than lashed to the pole about ten feet above the ground facing east towards the rising sun. The rest of ...
