A prayer stick is a stick-shaped object used for prayer.
For example, the rituals of the Pueblo contain many prayers; thus the Zuñi have prayers for food, health, and rain. Prayer-sticks, that is sticks with feathers attached as supplicatory offerings to the "spirits", were largely used by the Pueblo. These sticks are usually made of cottonwood about seven inches long, and vary in shape, colour, and the feather attached, according to the nature of the petitions, and the person praying. The stick is intended to represent the "god" to whom the feathers convey the prayers that are breathed into the "spirit" of the plumes.
The Hopi Indians had a special prayer-stick to which a small bag of sacred meal was attached. Green and blue prayer-sticks are often found in the Pueblo graves and especially in the ceremonial graves of Arizona.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Famous quotes containing the words prayer and/or stick:
“Prayer is the fair and radiant daughter of all the human virtues, the arch connecting heaven and earth, the sweet companion that is alike the lion and the dove; and prayer will give you the key of heaven. As pure and as bold as innocence, as strong as all things are that are entire and single, this fair and invincible queen rests on the material world; she has taken possession of it; for, like the sun, she casts about it a sphere of light.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“Together, hand in hand, with that stick of matches, with our necklace, we shall liberate this country.”
—Winnie Mandela (b. 1934)