Plains Indian 4 State Trip 2016: Reclaiming Sacred Sites: Black Elk, Bear Lodge, and the Black Hills

“Defend the sacred” is one of the rallying cries at the Standing Rock pipeline protest. It has ignited a movement there and around the country and has drawn thousands of Indians from over 300 Indian Nations to the protest. It might be the largest political gathering and mass mobilization of Indians since the 1851 Horse Creek Treaty (when 10,000 Indians came) or the Plains Indian Wars themselves (fought collectively by a number of tribes)?

But such efforts at significant political change and reclaiming historic rights have been happening at the tribal level as well throughout the Plains, both recently and even since the early 1900s. For example, in August the Federal Board of Geographic Names overcame opposition from South Dakota state authorities to change the name of Harney Peak to Black Elk Peak. Some would have preferred that the name be Hinhan Kaga, its Indian name meaning ‘Making of Owls,’ but naming it after the famed Lakota holy man and national leader was still a major victory. Almost anything is better than using the name ‘Harney Peak’, the name imposed by colonialists in 1855. Harney was an American military commander in the Black Hills (sacred Lakota/Sioux land ceded them in various treaties) who led a military invasion of Sioux land in 1855 that among other things resulted in the massacre of more than 100 men, women and children at a village of Brule Sioux Indians in what is today Nebraska. We recently hiked 3 ½ miles to the top of Black Elk and in so doing stood at 7,242 feet, the highest summit in the United States east of the Rockies. Unfortunately weather conditions were not perfect, to say the least, and the peak was cloud covered so we were unable to get the full impact of being able to see 4 states, but it was still great.

Indians are also campaigning to reclaim another spiritual and breathtaking site that we visited, Bear Lodge in NE Wyoming. Many 19^th century maps give it that name, but when Roosevelt made it the 1^st national monument in 1906 he used another name it was given by American forces, Devils Tower. A walk around the base of the mountain as well as exhibits at the visitor center highlight the spiritual nature of the site. Indians frequently go there to pray, engage in sweat lodges or sun dances. Prayer offerings (colorful hanging cloths) are left there and are evident in many places along the trails as are signs informing visitors about the holy nature of the place. There are many Indian legends about the site, as a number of different tribes consider it holy.

The beautiful and sacred Black Hills themselves, where we stayed for 5 days, have been the focus of an almost century long legal battle by the Oglala Lakota to reclaim their property and rights, or be provided just compensation. In one early decision, the Court of Claims rejected the Lakota claim while yet confirming the government’s intolerable treatment of the Indians there: “A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealing will never, in all probability, be found in our history.” But the Indians persisted and in 1980 the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision that in 1877 the government’s seizure of the Black Hills from the Indian Nation was an “illegal taking or property” in violation of the 5^th Amendment. However, only a monetary award was provided ($106 million), not the return of the land itself (which now includes 6 national parks) and the Indians refused to accept this and have continued to refuse payment even as the amount awarded has risen (with interest now to more than $600 million).