Alongside the pipe itself, White Buffalo Calf Woman is credited in Lakota tradition with teaching the people the framework for what are generally described as the seven sacred rites of Lakota religious life, ceremonies that structure the relationship between individuals, the community, and the sacred throughout the course of a life and the turning of the seasons; the specific content and performance of these rites belongs to Lakota religious practitioners and is not detailed in this entry.
Having delivered her teaching, White Buffalo Calf Woman leaves the camp and, walking away, transforms as she goes, first into a black buffalo calf, then a brown or red one, then a yellow one, and finally a white one, before disappearing over the horizon, a sequence some accounts read as representing the four directions or four ages of the world. James Walker's extensive fieldwork among the Oglala at Pine Ridge from 1896 to 1914, later edited into Lakota Belief and Ritual by Raymond DeMallie and Elaine Jahner, remains among the most substantial documented records of how this narrative and its associated teachings were understood by Lakota religious specialists in the period Walker worked among them, material this entry draws on at the level of narrative summary rather than ceremonial instruction.