Sometimes translated as Thunderers or Thunderbeings, the spirits’ particular attributes and stories vary by tribe and even family line. Rulers of the Upper Realmīeyond Sioux beliefs, Thunderbirds permeate the spiritual world of widespread Native groups, including the Ojibwa of the Great Lakes region, Tlingit of the Pacific Northwest, Pawnee of the plains, and about two dozen other tribes. A database of ethnographic records collected by anthropologists includes roughly 500 references to Thunderbirds in documents describing Native cultures of the Americas. every single person who got one of these tattoos participated in that prayer,” Big Eagle says.

“Brothers and sisters all over the world. Known as wakinyan in Sioux languages, Thunderbirds are thought to protect the pure, clean and truthful from destructive, dishonorable forces. More than a fundraiser, it was a summoning of supernatural defense: Big Eagle says the tattoo sent a prayer, a flesh offering, to the Thunderbirds, powerful spirit-beings who rule the sky and control storms. That’s why she launched the tattoo campaign. “These forces that we’re standing up against, I wonder sometimes how human they really are.” “Peaceful, prayerful people getting attacked,” Big Eagle says. In efforts to dismantle the camps, law enforcement and mercenary agents resorted to pepper spray, rubber bullets, attack dogs, arrests, and undercover spies.

For nearly 10 months, these peaceful protestors maintained camps to block construction of the 1,172-mile oil pipeline that would burrow under four states and the Missouri River, threatening Indigenous land and water. The campaign raised more than $153,000 to support the No Dakota Access Pipeline (NoDAPL) movement and its water protectors. Tattoo artists around the globe offered the image and donated a portion of each sale to a GoFundMe launched by Big Eagle and Elle Festin, an international organizer for traditional Filipino tattooists. Within weeks, the design decorated the flesh of thousands of people from Arkansas to New Zealand. The bird-being hovered above zigzags and dots, representing the river of life and seven bands of the Great Sioux Nation. “My heart was just poured into it,” she recalls.Ī tattooist and descendant of Dakota and Lakota Sioux, Big Eagle rendered an eagle-like figure, with tail feathers morphed into a tipi. The screens commemorate 'an Otpetchesaht chief's encounter with the supernatural while checking his sockeye traps at Sproat Falls.' (Ruth Kirk, Wisdom of the Elders 1986, p.In late 2016, after joining protests at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline, Stephanie Big Eagle designed a tattoo to help the fight. (Graphic theme: Malin, 1999) (Photo: Jonaitis, 1988) These screens were displayed in the house and screens such as these were commonly used in potlatches or in young women's coming-of-age ceremonies. Tooksquin's servants, the lighting serpents and the wolf are also shown. Whales were thought to be the thunderbird's favorite meal. The screens depict the thunderbird, Tooksquin, carrying the whale in its talons. Two Nuu chaa nulth (Nootka) house screens, dating late 19th century. Graphic theme of Nuu chaa nulth (Nootka) cloth screen depicting thunderbird and whale. Notice wooden beak projecting from thunderbird adding dimensionality. They were 'talked into' moving to Alert Bay on Cormorant Island after 1870 when they were offered work in the fish canneries there. (Malin, 1999) The 'Namgis, one of the many Kwak'wala speaking nations in British Columbia, originally lived at the mouth of the Nimpkish River on Vancouver Island. It belonged to an important village leader, Tlah go glas, and the motif was his family crest. This house was located at Alert Bay, Vancouver Island. Kwakwaka'waka (Kwakiutl) house painted with the thunderbird and whale motif. Newcombe Collection) (Drucker, 1951, 1955) The memorial depicts the thunderbird and the whale in front of the Conuma Peak, a snow-capped peak on which the thunderbird dwelt in one version of the thunderbird and whale myth. Nootka memorial erected in 1902-1903 to honor Chief Moqwinna (or Maquinna). Additional stories associating whale with shaking are found even further south into California. Stories of thunderbird and whale associated with shaking extend south at least as far as Tillamook, Oregon. Thunderbird holding whale is a prominent theme in Native art on the west coast of Vancouver Island, at the northern end of the Cascadia subduction zone (Malin, 1999).

Oregon thunderbird native american