LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Ranch owner Arby Little Soldier found the white buffalo, called Lightning Medicine Cloud, just shy of its first birthday this week. The buffalo's mother, Buffalo Woman, was also found dead the next day on the ranch near Greenville, about 75 miles east of Fort Worth.

The white calf's father, Ben, had been killed earlier this month when he was struck by lightning during the storms that spawned several tornadoes. "To lose all three in a month is really terrible," Hunt County Sheriff Randy Meeks says.

He told television reporters that he and his wife returned from out of town to find the grisly discovery. The calf was considered sacred by some in the Native American community; its mother was also found dead the next day.

"My people - my brothers, my sisters - are hurt for what has happened here at this ranch," Little Soldier told reporters. "You don't think things like this are going to happen to such a sacred animal, a sacred family."

Little Soldier said the calf's legend will endure at the ranch.

"He was the hope of all nations," he told KDFW. "You have taken the inner spirituality. You tried to stop what we're bringing back to y'all, but you just opened the doors to release the message to all people."


Thousands of people attended a naming ceremony at the ranch to celebrate the calf's birth last year on May 12.

Little Soldier has issued a statement says that the white buffalo "was brought in by God, but taken out by hands of evil people." The calf's first birthday was going to be celebrated at a pow-wow this month at the ranch.

Little Soldier said the scholarship pow-wow will go on as scheduled, but will now serve as a memorial to the animal.

According to Lakota Sioux lore, the goddess of peace once appeared in the form of a white buffalo calf.

Not an albino, the white buffalo was born during a thunderstorm, Little Soldier said. The calf was named Lightning Medicine Cloud in recognition of the circumstances of his arrival.

The birth of a white buffalo is a one-in-several-million occurrence and fills a centuries-old American Indian prophecy, he said.

According to the Web site, the white buffalo has long been sacred to the Lakota and other Plains tribes.

"They believe that man's survival as a people depend on heeding the white buffalo's sacred message, which urges man to live with the understanding that all living beings are linked and interdependent," he said.

"The white buffalo is considered a warning by the Lakota, but it is also a chance for all people to collectively focus their energy on the peaceful, healthy, harmonious world that the buffalo is urging us to create."

Meeks declined to discuss details of deaths of the two buffalo, other than that "it was pretty bad." They were buried on the property.

Little Soldier has offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever is responsible for the deaths.

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