The death of a sacred white buffalo on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation left many -- Indian and non-Indian, near and far -- wrestling with anger, sadness and grief.

And apprehension.

"It's kind of scary in a way," said Oglala Sioux tribal spokesman Mel Lone Hill, recounting last summer's tornadoes, this year's tribal council turmoil and the March 19 shooting of Medicine Wheel, a 4-year-old white buffalo.

"What's coming this summer? What's next? Things always happen in fours." The role of the white buffalo -- and the legacy of the White Buffalo Calf Woman -- will open the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's three-day symposium, "Bison:  The Past, Present and Future of the Great Plains," which begins Friday.

"There's so much interest in our prophecies," said Arvol Looking Horse, who will speak Friday. "People have so much interest in the white buffalo calf and the prophecies of other nations because there's a lot of suffering going on on the earth's surfaces." As a 12-year-old, Looking Horse became the 19th-generation keeper of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe, a gift from a holy woman who, according to Lakota prophecy, visited the Great Sioux Nation.

She promised to return one day in the form a white buffalo calf -- and at a time of a change.

"There are a lot of spiritual leaders like Black Elk, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse who spoke about great changes," Looking Horse said Wednesday. "And now we're in the middle of these changes." Born May 9, 1996 -- the first white buffalo born on Indian lands in more than a century -- Medicine Wheel was immediately viewed as symbol of hope, rebirth and unity for numerous Great Plains tribes.

But a police officer ordered it killed after the buffalo strayed from its pasture, setting in motion a wave of grief from coast to coast.

"I can't believe they shot the animal," said Adam Barbera of Somerset, N.J., who read about Medicine Wheel's death on the Internet. "There's a powerful meaning in this, and it doesn't seem to be a happy one." According to the white buffalo prophecy, said Looking Horse, four white calves would be born about the same time.

Looking Horse remembers the birth of Miracle, a white buffalo calf born Aug. 20, 1994, in Janesville, Wis. He was among thousands who made pilgrimages to see the calf.

"It was something I thought I would never see in my life," he said. "It was just something I heard about when I was growing up." Three more -- in North Dakota, Michigan and South Dakota -- were born within four years of Miracle's birth, Looking Horse said. Two of those animals, the Michigan calf and Medicine Wheel, have since died, he added.

Looking Horse said he's also heard of a white buffalo in Wyoming, but he's never seen that animal.

When Medicine Wheel was born, doubt existed whether the animal was 100 percent bison. Tests from Stormont Laboratory in Woodland, Calif., dispelled those early doubts.

Medicine Wheel was killed March 19 after a police officer deemed the animal -- which he spotted running down the road -- a threat to the community's safety, according to a tribal police report.

But the shooting of Medicine Wheel, whom some regarded as a pet, troubled many locals.

"There's a lot of questions," said Elaine Quiver, director of the Oglala tribe's foster grandparents program. "Why this one, who was so gentle and kind to kids?" But Quiver also believes there's a lesson in Medicine Wheel's death.

"We're like a serpent with many heads," she said. "Each one is not happy with the same body. For that we don't have no purpose in life. That's one of the reasons the white buffalo calf gave its life. He had to show us we need to go back to our sacred way of life."

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