The Holy Tree

A Sioux Indian named Noah Jumping Eagle died in the mid-sixties on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in Dakota prairie country. Noah Jumping Eagle was a mystic. He had searched for God like a hunter, through the rocky canyons, along the dusty trails and over the snow-capped mountains. The year before Noah Jumping Eagle died, he was visited by a man who was doing research on the legends of the Sioux Indians. He said that Noah Jumping Eagle was a profoundly religious man — “pillar of his tiny parish,” and a man who “hungered after God — not just the idea of God, but the living flesh.” Then he described his walk with Noah to the “holy tree”:

“It is not far now,” Noah said, grinning his gold-toothed grin. After another five minutes, Noah turned to me. “The holy tree,” he said softly in Lakota, the language of the Sioux. I saw it! Noah’s holy tree! A huge cottonwood rising like a fountain. This was…