Though all plants are purposeful and important, four plants are sacred:
1. Tobacco is used in the offering of prayer to the Great Spirit. The smoke contains the prayers that are then lifted skyward.
2. Cedar purifies; good fortune will come your way if you carry cedar in your shoes.
3. Sage cleans the body and repels negative energy.
4. Sweetgrass also purifies and is carried for positive.
“So I know that it is a good thing I am going to do; and because no good thing can be done by any man alone. I will first make an offering and send a voice to the spirit world, that it may help me to be true. See I fill this sacred pipe with the bark of the red willow; but before we smoke it you must see how it is made and what it means. These four ribbons hanging here on the stem are the four quarters of the universe. The black one is for the west where the thunder beings live to send us rain; the white one is for the north, whence the comes the great white cleansing wind; the red one for the east, whence the morning star lives to give men wisdom. The yellow for the south, whence comes the summer and the power to grow.”
Black Elk
Oglala Sioux, 1863-1950
