/Nexus - 0222 - New Times Magazine/pages/0072/image.png)
Page Content (OCR)
RED INDIAN TRIBES PRAY WHITE BUFFALO IS A MIRACLE birth of a white buffalo has been hailed as a major reli- gious event by Amierican Indians, writes Charles Laurence. The white cow calf, born on a farm near Janesville, Wisconsin, has been named “Miracle”. Tribes have greeted it with pilgrimages, sacred rituals and prophesies of a new era of peace among all the human races. It has even been compared to the Seioed Coating. The buffalo, or American bison, has always been a sacred ani- mal to the North American tribes: a white buffalo, an albino freak of nature, is held to be a particularly powerful manifesta- tion of the spirit of “Tatanka", the Sioux word for bull. “The legend is that she would unify the nations of the four colours—the black, red yellow and white," said Mr Floyd Hand, a Sioux medicine man from South Dakota. Miracle, believed to be the first white buffalo born since 1933, has arrived when governmental sensitivity towards racial minori- ties has brought a new sense of confidence to native Americans. But this calf has brown eyes, so is not pure pink-eyed albino, and when she sheds her coat next spring, may take on a browner shade. There are plans to consult a vet to establish whether Miracle really is the white buffalo that the Tribes have been awaiting. (Source: Weekly Telegraph [UK], 7-13 September 1994) NEXUS ¢ 71 OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 1994