every month to renew their sense of self within the world. The Yurok women see menarche as a time that they are giving part of themselves to pay back the earth for what it has given to them. They use this period of time to reflect upon their place in life and in the community and remind themselves of how they can continue serving their community to help it prosper. (Rojas) A common theme throughout Native American culture is the giving of the self to provide for others; many tribes believed that death brought new life and that their ancestors watched over them from the skies to provide them with rain that would bring crops, and animals that would bring food. Some tribes believed that they were able to give up power over their own body, allowing …show more content…
Native Americans source their power from different rituals and ceremonies they perform, such as the pipe ceremony. The pipe ceremony is a ritual used by the Lakota Sioux nation to connect the real world to the spiritual world. In order to connect both worlds, the leader of the ritual would call upon and thank the six energies or powers: North, South, East, and West, the Earth, the Sky, and ultimately the Great Spirit. The energy of the West provides rains and the spirit world, the North is a source of endurance, strength, trustworthiness, and honesty. The East power supplies knowledge and spirituality from the sun, and the South brings bounty, medicine and growth. Mother Earth is then thanked for providing the Earth and the sky, and lastly the Great Spirit is thanked for providing all life to the world. Ceremonial pipes are seen as a link between the Earth and the sky; it is a physical form of the prayer. Different pipes would be used during different ceremonies because each contained symbols designed to draw upon specific spiritual energies. Tobacco is smoked from the pipe to connect the real and spiritual worlds because the roots of the plants grew deep into the earth and its smoke, which is used to communicate with all the powers, rises high into the heavens. (“The Native