Giveaway Ceremony

This weekend we hosted our third Giveaway Ceremony. When we lived in Duvall I attended a traditional Lakota sweat lodge, taught to the people there by Gilbert Walking Bull, a Lakota holy man from South Dakota. In the Lakota tradition, it is customary to give a "Wohpila" ceremony when prayers have been answered in order to thank the spirits for their benevolent assistance ('wohpila' means 'thank you' in Lakota). The ceremony consists of inviting the people of the community, serving them a good meal, and then giving them presents.

We are not Lakota but we've been very inspired by this tradition and so we loosely based our Giveaway Ceremony on a Wohpila. We had about 30 people in our little cabin and we served them some good beef stew with many wild plants I had gathered in it. Rosalee also made some delicious mushroom & shallots butter, which was an incredible success. We had also left a little sampling of all the food outside for the "spirits" to enjoy. After the meal, people looked at a table full of gifts and took one that called to them. As part of the ceremony, elders and women with young children were honored by going first.

The ceremony was a great success and we were blessed to be able to express our thanks by sharing this tradition with other people in the community. We're very grateful for all the blessings in out life and we hope we honored the forces who support us with the ceremony.