Albino Buffalo

Dr. Phil Baird gave us some Lakota perspective when he spoke to us at the Streeter Symposium. He told us that what our maps have named Devil's Lake, his people call Spirit Lake. Originaly called Mini Wachun it meant the ability to give and take life. That we called that the work of the devil was an interesting decision of translation. He also told us that when White Cloud was born in 1986, it was a sign that we are in hard times. The last time an albino buffalo came, she stayed with the Lakota through the difficulties. White Cloud has been joined by two more albino buffalo, in August 2007 and May 2008. They are reminders of the magnitude to which we are back in hard times. Later, someone told me that the wasichu owners of White Cloud were breeding for albinos, on purpose. I learned these stories in the middle of the Coteau, a word which means: a place of division and a place of transition. I am still trying to translate the stories.