Lakota Sioux Medicine Bag

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Many adults can recall the exciting adolescent years of driving a car for their first time or the feeling of anticipation and excitement when going to a bar for the first time. These all represent exciting rites of passage leading into adulthood in today's society. Yet, in other cultures, rite of passages are more formal and determine one’s lifestyle in their tribe and culture. For instance, the Lakota Sioux’s and Aboriginal Australians’ are examples where their rites of passages exemplifies this. Even though there are many differences between the Lakota Sioux Medicine Bag tradition and the Aboriginal Australian Walkabout Journey, many similarities can be found amongst the two. The Lakota Sioux rite of passage, or the Lakota Sioux Medicine Bag Ritual purpose is to connect with spirits and find “life’s direction”. The Medicine Bag Ritual enables the sense of death and rebirth to create a new, improved version of a person. At the age of puberty, boys prepare for a ritual that guides the choices they will make and how they reside in their tribe once they reach adulthood. To prepare for the ritual, teen boys go into a sweat lodge to purify themselves. This symbolically represents cleansing their spirit and mind. After purification from the sweat lodge they will endure a vision quest. During the vision quest, they are in a remote location for three to four days with no company or food. Spirits will give them a dream give symbols to …show more content…
The Lakota Sioux rite of passage is searching for a vision to guide a person on their life path. While the Aboriginal Australian rite of passage is to devote an extensive amount of time considering and evaluating where they can improve as a person. In contrast, common rites of passages in today's society are memorable but informal and do not guide a person like other rites of passages
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