Mitakuye Oyasin

{{Short description|Phrase and concept in Lakota culture}}

Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ (All Are Related) is a phrase from the Lakota language. It reflects the world view of interconnectedness held by the Lakota people of North America.{{cite book|last=François |first=Damien |title=The Self-destruction of the West: critical cultural anthropology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_jtzhrHVA_UC&dq=Mitakuye+Oyasin&pg=PA28|year=2007|publisher=Publibook|isbn=978-2-7483-3797-6|page=28}} This concept and phrase is expressed in many Yankton Sioux prayers,{{cite book|last=Maroukis|first=Thomas Constantine |title=Peyote and the Yankton Sioux: The Life and Times of Sam Necklace|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sW-Q9lvG5N0C&dq=Mitakuye+Oyasin&pg=PA160|year=2005|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|isbn=0-8061-3649-9|page=160}} as well as by ceremonial people in other Lakota communities.{{cite web|url=http://womennewsnetwork.net/2010/11/02/lakotaelderwomen-1008/|title=US: Indigenous Lakota women face harsh winter wrath under climate change|date=November 2, 2010}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t2x6RcaKljMC&dq=Mitakuye+Oyasin&pg=PA23|title=James Welch: A Critical Companion|last=Lupton|first=Mary Jane|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=2004|isbn=0-313-32725-4|pages=23–24}}

The phrase translates in English as "all my relatives," "we are all related," or "all my relations." It is a prayer of oneness and harmony with all forms of life: other people, animals, birds, insects, trees and plants, and even rocks, rivers, mountains and valleys.

From work in the 1940s, American scholar Joseph Epes Brown wrote a study of Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ and its relevance in the Sioux ideology of "underlying connection" and "oneness.”{{cite web |url=http://www.lakotacountrytimes.com/common/PastArchives/1237.html |title=Lakota Country Times |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170222134353/http://www.lakotacountrytimes.com/common/PastArchives/1237.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=22 February 2017|website=Lakota Country Times|access-date=25 February 2017}}