Vision Quests

[Danny Bear Claw]

The Dream Seekers.   Native Americans have traditionally viewed success in life as a gift from the Gods.  Seeking this gift, countless Indians have undertaken solitary journeys to remote locations in the mountains or forests, where they would fast and pray in the hope of receiving spiritual guidance in a powerful dream.  Among several tribes, these vision quests marked the passage into adulthood for adolescent boys.  In some communities, the practice endures today. 

Although details of the ordeal varied from tribe to tribe, most vision quests lasted from four to six days.  After a ritual purification, some Sioux questers spent the entire period in an earthen pit, naked except for a buffalo robe.  Crow youths often slept inside a fasting bed, a stone enclosure facing east so the "the blessings of the morning sun may enter directly" upon them.  The most determined seekers resorted to an act of self-mutilaion, chopping off a finger joint, for example, or gouging out tiny bits of flesh from their arms and legs as a means of inducing the spirits to take pity on them.  Offerings of tobacco and other sacred items were also commonly made.  Among the Indians of the Pacific Northwest, repeated bathing in frigid pools was the route to spiritual revelations.  The Luiseno peoples of Souther California used the hallucenogenic jimson weed to induce a vision.

When a vision did come - ususally in the form of an animal, insect, natural phenomenon, or some legendary creature - it revealed the dreamer's guardian for life.  Seeing an eagle, a bear, a thunderbird or a bolt of lightning, for example, might embue a man with a particular power.  He might be instructed to paint the image of that power on his shield or carry a token of it in his medicine bundle.  Henceforth, he was required to observe the obligations and taboos traditionally associated with his guardian spirit.

Many tribes have encouraged their adult members to continue seeking visions as a form of spiritual renewal.  As one experienced dreamer once explained, "You see something with your inner eyes, with all your soul and spirit".

Accounts of the experiences of several individual questers from several tribes follow:

"After going so many suns without food, I was asleep.  It was just like dreaming, what I saw.  A form stood in the air fronting me.  It was the spirit of a wolf that appeared to me.  Yellowlike in color, it sort of floated in the air.  Like a human being it talked to me and gave me it's power". - Yellow Wolf - Nez Perce

"When my eldest son died, I felt his loss so deeply that I climbed to the mountain's summit and lay there fasting for ten days and ten nights.  During that time, the spirit of the mountain appeared and gave me a medicine robe.  He instructed me how to make the robe and said that if I used it in doctoring I would be endowed with wisdom and power."  - Brings Down The Sun - Blackfeet

"The loon flew out into the lake and brought me a fish to eat and told me that I would have good luck in hunting and fishing; that I would live to a good old age; and that I would never be wounded by a shotgun or a rifle.  This bird who had blessed me was the kind that one rarely has a chance of shooting.  From that time on the loon was my guardian spirit."  - Anonymous Ojibwa from Sarnia, Ontario

"A bear lifted me up so that I could see all the earth.  He made me touch his teeth;  he had none at all.  'You may jump among high cliffs or do what you please', said he.  'You cannot die.  When you have no more teeth and all your hair is white, you shall fall asleep without waking.'"  -  Full Mouth Buffalo - Crow

"I felt again the need to touch my soul to the earth.  It was October, and there was a very bright moon.  I pitched a small tent and slept in a bedroll.  I fasted there for four days.  On the fourth night, when the moon took hold of my little camp, my vision came to me.  It was black and blue and silver, as clear as anything I have ever seen in moonlight.  But my vision would have come on a moonless night or in a snow storm.  It was very powerful."  - N. Scott Momaday - Kiowa

"After I had fasted eight days, a tall man with a big red mouth appeared from the east.  The solid earth bent under his steps as though it was a marsh.  He said, 'I have pity on you.  You shall live to see your own gray hairs and those of your children.  You shall never be in danger if you make yourself a war club such as I have and always carry it with you where ever you go.'"  - Menominee elder

[Marshal Will Wingam]

Thanks for posting this.

[Oregon Bill]

Wonderful post, DBC, and thanks for sharing it. The application of solitude and fasting to cleanse and focus the soul seems to have been a common element on the path to spiritual enlightenment.