White buffalo seen as a sign
A symbol of hope, rebirth and unity for Native Americans has been born in the form of a white buffalo calf named Miracle. The rare birth, which took place on a farm in Wisconsin, has great cultural significance for the Great Plains Native American tribes. Floyd Hand, a Sioux medicine man from South Dakota, says the arrival of a white buffalo is like the Second Coming of Christ. The calf's birth will "bring purity of mind, body and spirit, and unify all nations -- black, red, yellow and white".
Since the birth, thousands of visitors have travelled to the Wisconsin farm to catch a glimpse of Miracle. According to statistics from the National Buffalo Association, the likelihood of a white calf birth is approximately 1 in 6,000 million. Suzan Shown Harjo, President of the Morning Star Institute, which works to preserve native cultures, says that the white buffalo is a messenger of creation:"It is an important sign of well-being and comingness, being on the verge of an awakening." She says the birth of Miracle should make "all people pause the world over". ( Source: Washington Post, USA, 1994 )
In 1933 a white buffalo calf was born in Colorado, and in 1994 another one, named Miracle, was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, on the ranch of Dave and Valerie Heider. Thousands of people of many different faiths have visited Miracle, testifying that her birth is a call for all races to come together to heal the earth and solve our mutual problems.
On 9 May of this year, a silvery-white buffalo calf named Medicine Wheel was born at the ranch of Joe Merrival on the Pine Ridge reservation of South Dakota. Another white calf, Rainbow, had been born in the same herd on 27 April. It died 25 hours later of scours, a diarrhea-type condition.
The birth of a white buffalo calf is seen by the Native Americans as the most significant of prophetic signs, equivalent to the weeping statues, bleeding icons, and crosses of light that are becoming prevalent within the Christian churches. Just as the Christian faithful who attend these signs see them as a renewal of God's ongoing relationship with humanity, so do the Native Americans see the white buffalo calf as a sign to begin to mend life's sacred hoop.
The recent births were surrounded by controversy. Some have suggested that the calf is a beefalo, a buffalo and beef cattle mix. Some have accused Mr Merrival of genetic engineering. The odds of the birth of a white buffalo are estimated as 6-10 million to one. In response, he says that there is little probability of mixed parentage and none whatsoever of genetic manipulation.
Mr Merrival, who is of Oglala Sioux ancestry, thinks the birth of Medicine Wheel is a great gift that must now be used to try and help as many people as possible. His son Darrin thinks that the calf was sent to us to unify the nation.
James Dubray, a medicine man, said: "Our young people need it the most. They need to have hope. They need to have a future. And this will help. This place has been chosen as the starting point for the healing process to begin."
Floyd Hand Looks For Buffalo, an Oglala medicine man, has commented:
"Here is a man, a poor farmer, who has been kind to animals
all his life, and now there is a white buffalo calf here. These
are omens, and they are happening in the most unexpected place
among the poorest people in the country. They are good omens,
if we pay attention to them. For us, this would be something like
coming to see Jesus lying in the manger."
( report from
Share International, September 1996 )
White Buffalo Calf Woman promised to return by Bette Stockbauer
Miracle - Chronology of the White Buffalo ( Website )
Deities appear to Native Americans
"A spiritual renewal swept through Navajo country after deities reportedly appeared in May to two respected tribal women," according to a Dallas Morning News article. Thousands of Navajos have visited Rocky Ridge, Arizona, in recent months to pray and leave offerings at the site where Sarah Begay and her 96-year-old mother, Irene Yazzie, had the experience.
The article continues: "According to tribal members who visited the site, the Navajo women were inside their home when a thunderous noise came from nowhere and drew them to the door to investigate. What they saw standing before them, they said, were two ancient male Navajo spirits.
"The daughter [Ms Begay] was kind of in shock, and she couldn't move," said Karen Abe, a Navajo woman who visited the site and spoke with Ms Begay's family. "The deities said the Navajos haven't been saying their prayers.'"
"She said the spirits warned that the Navajo people are headed for perilous times if they lose their traditional ways. Just as quickly as they appeared, the deities were said to have vanished. Ms Begay said they left behind footprints and sprinklings of corn pollen, which Navajos traditionally place on the ground during special prayers. A shrine has been placed there, but no traces of the footprints or powder remain, said Mrs Abe."
The article also quotes a Native American pastor, the Reverend Abe Jackson, as saying: "I believe that there are things that happen that not only encourage us as native people, but continue the hope for us that our heritage and culture are not being lost." (Source: Dallas Morning News, USA; reported in Share International, September 1996 )
The birth of a rust-coloured calf in Israel is being hailed as a miraculous sign of the coming of the Messiah - and labelled a potential threat to Middle East peace. The red heifer, of a variety believed extinct for centuries, was born to a black and white mother and a tan-coloured bull on a northern Israeli farm run by a religious high school for troubled and orphaned students. In ancient times the ashes of a red heifer, butchered in her third year, were mixed with water and used to purify Jews before they could approach Jerusalem's Holy Temple on Temple Mount. Not since the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in AD 70 has a red heifer been born in Israel, scholars say.
Some Jews see the heifer's birth as sign from God that the coming of the Messiah is near. Many Muslims, and some less observant Jews, are concerned that extremists might take the red heifer as a signal to destroy the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa mosques, which now occupy Jerusalem's Temple Mount. That would clear the way for thc construction of a third Jewish temple - and be likely to provoke a war. "Traditionally, there have been only nine such red cows in our history The first was prepared under the direction of Moses and Aaron in the desert. Thc second was officiated over by Ezra upon the Jews' return from the Babylonian exile. Seven more were prepared during the period of the Second Temple. According to the 12th century Jewish philosopher Maimonides, the tenth and final red heifer will be prepared by the Messiah."
A dozen rabbis have examincd thc calf and said she is the long-awaited ritual heifer, meeting, so far, all the criteria described by the ancients. If the calf lives unblemished for another 18 months, she can theoretically be put to use. "It is written that it is the 10th heifer that the Messiah will discover and here we have the 10th heifer. This is a clear sign that the Messiah is near," said Rabbi Ido Weber Erlich of Jerusalem in an interview on Israel Radio. ( Sources: Boston Globe; Newsweek Magazine; Washington Jewish Week, USA )