Our Grandmother

Ésceheman, 'Our Grandmother', is the female earth spirit of the Tsistsistas (Cheyenne), dwelling in the deep earth as guardian of the game animals and of the earth's generative power. Karl Schlesier's reconstruction of the Massaum, the great world-renewal ceremony, places her at the heart of Cheyenne sacred cosmology alongside Maheo above; Peter Powell's ethnohistory records the continuing veneration of Grandmother Earth in Northern Cheyenne ritual. In the Massaum tradition she and the thunder spirit Nonoma are the parents of Ehyophstah, the Yellow-Haired Woman.

Children

• Yellow-Haired Woman

Domains

• earth fertility animals

Powers

• to release or withhold the game animals from the deep earth

Epithets

• Ésceheman

Relations

• subordinate to: All-Spirit
• spouse: Thunder
• mother of: Yellow-Haired Woman

Sources

• Karl H. Schlesier, The Wolves of Heaven: Cheyenne Shamanism, Ceremonies, and Prehistoric Origins, University of Oklahoma Press, 1987
• Peter J. Powell, Sweet Medicine: The Continuing Role of the Sacred Arrows, the Sun Dance, and the Sacred Buffalo Hat in Northern Cheyenne History, University of Oklahoma Press, 1969