Wakan Tanka

The Great Spirit

Domain: Creation, the Sacred & Cosmos
Alignment: Lawful Good
Element: Light
Relics of Power: Sacred Pipe

Speak with Wakan Tanka

The People

People

Native American peoples

Region

North America

Period

pre-colonial – present

These spirits and deities were worshipped by the many Native peoples of North America, from the Lakota to the Navajo and Iroquois. Their beliefs bind humans to the Great Spirit, to totem animals, and to balance with the land. Passed down orally, they survive in the Indigenous nations that endured colonization.

The Sun Dance gathered the Plains nations in fasting and sacrifice around the sacred tree. The Hopi dance with the kachinas, masked spirits of the rains, and the sacred pipe seals prayers and treaties — ceremonies still alive in today's nations.

The Sacred Scrolls

Wakan Tanka is the Great Mystery of the Sioux peoples (Lakota, Dakota, Nakota), the sacred and unknowable force that pervades all of creation. It is not a god of fixed form, but the totality of the sacred, the sum of all the spirits and powers of the universe. Everything that is wakan — sacred, mysterious — partakes of its essence. As The Great Spirit, this deity occupies a position of supreme prestige in the nativos pantheon. Their domains over Creation, the Sacred & Cosmos reflect ancestral cosmic order maintained across millennia. In classical iconography, they are depicted with an aura of unshakeable majesty and sacred attributes that inspired reverence in emperors and peasants alike. Their influence extended beyond earthly boundaries, governing fates and harmony between the visible and invisible worlds. For ancient devotees, contemplating their essence was to understand the very fundamental forces of nature and human existence.

Sacred Symbols

The sacred pipe, the circle, the four directions and the eagle feather

Divine Lineage

Encompasses all spirits: Wi (the Sun), Skan (the Sky), Maka (the Earth) and the other wakan powers.

The Legendary Myth

For the Lakota, Wakan Tanka was uncreated and cannot be fully grasped by the human mind. It manifests in sixteen sacred aspects, grouped into four-times-four powers that govern the sky, the earth and the spirit.

Legends & Deeds

A celebrated secondary legend preserved in the oral traditions of the nativos recounts the journey when Wakan Tanka intervened directly in the lives of mortals.

Cult & Worship

Historically, the cult of Wakan Tanka occupied a central place in the religious and architectural calendar of antiquity.

Relics of Power

The chanunpa, the ceremonial pipe whose smoke carries the prayers of men up to the Great Mystery.

Did You Know?

The translation 'Great Spirit' is a Christian simplification; for the Lakota, Wakan Tanka is better understood as 'Great Mystery', something too sacred to be named as a single person.