Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette photos Chief White Panther, of the Traditional United Eastern Lenape Nation, "smudges" Kim Ord, or Many Weasels, shortly before Ms. Ord performed a naming ceremony for a rare white buffalo at the Woodland Zoo in Farmington, Fayette County, yesterday. Smudging "cleanses the spirit and aura of the body," Chief White Panther said. Ms. Ord is a member of the Lenape Nation in Huntingdon County.

By Joe Smydo
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette With beating drums to represent the earth's heartbeat and burning white sage to purify the crowd, Native American groups yesterday blessed and formally named a rare white buffalo born in a Fayette County zoo.

Kim "Many Weasels" Ord, a Huntingdon County resident and member of the Lenape Nation, revealed the male buffalo's name, Kenahkihinen, a Lenape word meaning "watch over us," more than an hour into the ceremony at the bottom of a windswept hill.

"It is done. I have spoken," she said at the privately owned Woodland Zoo, near Farmington.

In some ways, the event resembled a child's christening. When Ms. Ord announced the buffalo's name, the crowd applauded. Nearby, the youngster frolicked in a field with a pair of adult buffalo.

"He knows this is his day, I think," said Stacy Smitley, a Dunbar resident who described herself as part Cherokee.

Kim "Many Weasels" Ord, a member of the Lenape Nation, revealed the male buffalo's name, Kenahkihinen, a Lenape word meaning "watch over us." Click photo for larger image.

With singing, prayers, a healing service and dance, the ceremony lasted nearly 2¹/₂ hours. It allowed Native American groups to come together to celebrate a joyous occasion in their culture and to share the moment with others.

Virginia Cherban, of Brownsville, said she liked the name "because we all need watched over." For Tammie Morgan of Uniontown, the ceremony offered a glimpse of the Cherokee culture she wished she had absorbed from her late great-grandmother.

"The name was perfect," she said.

Danawa Buchanan, a Cherokee elder from Bucks County, told the crowd of several hundred that the white buffalo was a reminder of each person's responsibility to the "elements of creation," including wind, water, plants and other people. Humankind, she said, has been given dominion over the earth.

"But we have lost the understanding of what it means to have dominion," she said. In an interview, Ms. Buchanan said the Blackfoot and Mohawk Nations also were represented yesterday.

Two days before Christmas, the zoo's reindeer were upstaged. Visitors walked by them, not to mention tigers, bears and other creatures, to see the buffalo.

Owners Sonny and Jill Herring threw open the zoo's doors, admitting everyone without charge because of the special occasion.

"We're sort of the keepers of the light, so to speak ... I guess our responsibility is to make it available to all people," said Mr. Herring, who's operated the zoo for 14 years, including four in the current location near Fort Necessity National Battlefield and the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and Spa.

Mr. Herring said he's had offers to buy the buffalo. At least one offer, he said without elaborating, was for more than it cost to build the zoo. But he's not selling.

"We respect the importance of it to the Native Americans," he said.

The white buffalo's significance is rooted in Sioux culture. "Many moons ago," according to an account provided yesterday, two Sioux scouts encountered a beautiful woman dressed in white.

One had impure thoughts about the woman and died on the spot. The other returned to his village and prepared a medicine lodge, where the woman taught the villagers "how to pray and about the connectedness of all things."

When she left, she turned into a buffalo calf. Today, the birth of a buffalo calf signals her return. Ms. Buchanan said the white buffalo is born at times when humanity is at a crossroads.