Inipi Life-Renewal Ceremony

The Inipi or the Inikaga or Inikagapi in the plural is correctly rendered here as the Life-renewal ceremony. It is one of the most sacred rituals in the Lakota Way where one goes to cleanse oneself in mind, body and spirit. But in the time when English-only speakers. And Lakota-only speakers met for the first time they were prone to misinterpret many words such as here when “sweat” was applied mistakenly, and it has nothing to do with the life-renewal ceremony.

The Lakota word for sweat is temnita which is nowhere to be found in the word inikagapi. The operative ni is life or living in Lakota and thus inikaga is life-renewal. But some of us Lakota do speak fluent English as well as fluent Lakota and it is time to express clearly and truthfully the Lakota Way.

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I keep using the proper noun Lakota to emphasize that I don’t identify as “Sioux Indian” which is the greatest misnomer of all. After all, Indians live in cities like New Dehli, Culcutta and Bombay while some of us Lakota live in cities like New York, Los Angeles and Laplante (LA).

And thus it is time to go back and recover what is best in the Lakota Way. In this we can clearly overcome the confusion, the social problems, the seemingly permanent jobless economic situation and the needless deaths of some young people.

To do this, a new standard of bi-lingual-biliterate writing and speaking on matters Lakota should be used to clarify our overall spiritual, social and economic condition.

Wicahpi Wanjila- Leroy C. Curley
November 2, 2009