Arvol Looking Horse

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Arvol Looking Horse (born 1954) is a Lakota spiritual leader and the 19th keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe and Bundle. The White Buffalo Calf Pipe is a sacred Lakota bundle his family has kept for 19 generations. He inherited the Pipe at age 12 and became a ceremonial leader for the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota nations. He grew up on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota, spoke Lakota first, and later learned English. His grandmother warned him he might be the last keeper if the world did not improve.

Looking Horse attended a government boarding school where he saw the suppression of his people’s traditions, which strengthened his resolve to protect them. He was a professional rodeo rider until a severe accident left him paralyzed; he gradually recovered enough to walk again.

Since 1986, he has led the Big Foot Memorial Ride, a December journey retracing Chief Big Foot’s last days before the Wounded Knee Massacre. In 1990 he led Mending The Sacred Hoop, a ceremony for Wounded Knee survivors.

He has spoken out for climate action and against the Dakota Access Pipeline, including at the United Nations and at the 1997 presidential inauguration. He joined the March for Science in Washington, D.C., and has supported Indigenous youth activists, calling some of them akicita, or warriors for the people.

In 1994 a rare white buffalo calf was born, and Looking Horse performed a Four Direction ceremony. He started World Peace and Prayer Day in 1996 to promote peace and care for the Earth. The event has spread worldwide, and he helped organize the Wolakota Foundation to support Indigenous spiritual traditions.

In 2003 he proclaimed that non-Indians should not attend Lakota ceremonies to protect them from exploitation. He has received several honors, including Canada’s Wolf Award (1996) and the UN Temple of Understanding Award (2006). His son Cody Looking Horse is active with the Standing Rock Youth Council and the DAPL protests; his mother is professor Dawn Martin-Hill.