Vertigo/W

White-Buffalo-Woman
White-Buffalo-Woman existed in the spirit world of the animal power beings. From this mystical realm, she witnessed the planet Earth suffering under the polluted corruption of the Fourth World age. Recognizing the Earth's need for her guidance, she took on human form and manifested herself on Earth as a Native American woman known as Brown Mary.

In the mid 1960s, Brown Mary met a Polish musician named Fred Kominsky in California. She introduced him to the ways of the spiritual Ghostdance and re-christened him as Snake. Snake and Brown Mary became the backbone of a rock and roll band named Fifth World Raga. Through the beating of her tom drum, Mary inspired an entire counterculture of naturalist primitivism. The power of the band’s music began to slowly affect planetary change, ushering in a new dawn of enlightenment commonly referred to as the Fifth World. By 1968, the hippie movement had dominated most of the western United States, notably California.

In reaction to this, a centuries-old secret society known as the Mammonites sought to suppress the Ghostdance movement. They enlisted the aid of an agent named Cody to infiltrate the hippie culture and destroy it from within. Cody introduced himself to Snake and Brown Mary, and insinuated himself into their lives as the Fifth World Raga's band manager.

By 1973, Agent Cody was ready to destabilize the Ghostdance movement. He arranged for Brown Mary and Snake to meet him at a small commune in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. He told them that an activist group was establishing a movement there to propagate Native American values, and he felt that they would be interested. When Brown Mary and Snake arrived however, Cody surreptitiously had the trunk of Snake's Thunderbird filled with illegal automatic weapons. He then contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and arranged for them to stage a raid on the commune. The raid evolved into a massive firefight and the site erupted into chaos. During the melee, Cody abducted Brown Mary while Snake ran for the hills. Federal agents gunned down everyone else in attendance and set the place to flame. Snake spent the next two decades believing that Brown Mary was dead.

In fact, Cody brought her to his home in Laurel Canyon. Recognizing that Mary was the spiritual guide for the Ghostdance phenomenon, he destroyed her spirit by having her addicted to cocaine. Brown Mary lost all sense of identity and her connection to the spirit world was severed. Cody soon learned however, that Mary had conceived a child (the father of whom remains unknown) during her time with Fifth World Raga. After giving birth, Cody took the infant away from her and delivered him to his Mammanite superiors. The Mammonites named the child, Christopher, and raised him in seclusion at Fort Edgar.

For the next twenty years, Brown Mary lived as Cody's property – to do with as he pleased. He routinely abused her, keeping her brain addled with a constant supply of drugs. He degraded her with mocking nicknames such as Squaw and Hemp-Cow. He regularly kept contact with the Mammonites and updated them on Mary's condition.

In 1995, a power being named Coyote-Old-Man manifested himself on Earth. He traveled to California searching for the missing White-Buffalo-Woman. He first discovered her son, Christopher, and aided him in escaping from the clutches of the Mammonites. Together, they found White-Buffalo-Woman and broke her free of Cody's Mulholland Drive estate. Coyote-Old-Man used his magic to help White-Buffalo-Woman regain her true memories. As her spirit was restored, she abandoned her Brown Mary identity altogether and assumed her true form.

The age of the Fifth World finally arrived and the totem spirit of the Thunderbird appeared in the sky above California. White-Buffalo-Woman led the charge against those who would suppress the Earth's native instincts. Thousands of animal spirits merged within the forms of their Earthly counterparts and the entire Western coastline fell beneath their attack. White-Buffalo-Woman found Agent Cody in the middle of a desert plane. She leapt upon him, crushing him to death beneath her cloven feet.

As the era of the Fourth World came to a close, White-Buffalo-Woman returned to the spirit world to continue guiding humanity in the aftermath of the new Fifth World age.