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The Sacred Black Hills
By Charmaine White Face

The Black Hills have been called an island in the plains as they rise from the surrounding Midwestern plains to more than 7,000 feet. They cover a vast expanse of land from South Dakota, northeast Wyoming and southeast Montana, forming a sacred landscape for members of the Great Sioux Nation. Despite this, they are the center of a long-standing legal fight for ownership.

Historical Background
For the past 150 years, the rest of the world has heard of the Great Sioux Nation as one of the indigenous nations who fought the encroachment of American settlers into their territory with the westward expansion of the United States. What most people don't know is the extent of that territory and how the retreat from the invasion of Americans, always left in the middle, the sacred Black Hills.

The Great Sioux Nation, at one time, properly called Oceti Sakowin , covered 14 American states and three Canadian provinces. Many smaller nations, with different cultures and languages, also resided in this same geographic territory but the Great Sioux Nation was the dominant people. The Tetuwan (Lakota speakers) were the last to continue opposition to the incursion of the American settlers, as the other six tribes that constituted the Great Sioux Nation were almost totally obliterated. A few Dakota and Nakota speakers currently live along the Missouri River in South Dakota and Canada.

The last two treaties made between the Great Sioux Nation and the United States, the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868, were for peace at the insistence of the United States. The United States, however, did not keep its word and engaged in a war of starvation by destroying the buffalo.

The Sacred Center & Its Desecration
In the Treaties, at the center, was always the sacred Black Hills. More than 60 indigenous nations had been traveling to the Black Hills for millennia to conduct spiritual ceremonies, gather medicines and lodge poles. No animals were killed if they came from the Black Hills. Many petroglyphs can still be found with messages painted on the sides of high cliffs. Ancient funerary practices of the Tetuwan were held in the Black Hills and bodies were given back to the Creator by being laid on the large branches of trees. Healing water coming from our Grandmother Earth can be found in various places in the Black Hills. Tetuwan origin stories tell of the exact place where the two-leggeds (human beings) entered onto the face of the Earth, a place that is now a desecrating tourist trap. The entire Black Hills are also surrounded by a geologic phenomenon that Tetuwan know was the racetrack of the animals and birds used to determine the continuation of the humans.

At one time, many streams and creeks fed numerous species of animals, now gone: buffalo, grizzly, black and brown bears, wolves and mountain sheep to name just a few. American scientists now know that the Black Hills contain unique species of plants, animals, birds, insects, and reptiles not found anywhere else in the world.

In the early 1870s, prospectors illegally entered the Black Hills and carried out nuggets of gold. The United States turned a blind eye to this illegal activity and eventually began a succession of deceitful actions that continue today. They have allowed the exploitation of everything sacred in the Black Hills and they exclude the rightful owners, the Great Sioux Nation and members of other indigenous nations, from determining what happens in that sacred place.

All of the gold has been removed, so new kinds of mining are occurring. Feldspar mining is becoming popular involving huge monoliths of quartz that are blasted into smaller and smaller pieces before being shipped out to make ceramic. All of the forests in the Black Hills have been logged at least once. Ninety-seven percent have been logged at least three times. Most recently, the oldest trees in the Black Hills, supposedly protected by a US

Wilderness designation, were cut down for road safety and expansion. There are over 8,000 miles of roads in the Black Hills, more than any other National Forest. Housing development is increasing at such a rapid pace that local officials are finally starting to worry about the lack of water and pollution to underground water caused by the rampant and unsupervised explosion of septic systems.

Two large man-made dams have altered the ecology of the Black Hills. Forest fires have been suppressed for more than 100 years, so many species, particularly those requiring old growth, are no longer able to exist. Burial sites, archaeological sites, and sacred sites are bulldozed for other activities.

The entire Black Hills are sacred, not just one place, one burial site, one prayer site. There is a sacred energy field around the Black Hills. How far does it extend? One elder said that it continues about 50 miles around the Black Hills. How can people who believe that only man-made designations, such as a church or a cemetery are called sacred, understand a sacred space and landscape that extend for hundreds of miles? That is why Defenders of the Black Hills have as our motto: "Remember, the Black Hills are sacred." We ask only that respect be given for another peoples' understanding of spirituality. Maybe that respect will begin to generate more concrete actions that will contribute to the restoration of these sacred grounds.

Defenders of the Black Hills have recently been fighting the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority who are seeking to use eminent domain on the underground portion of Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota. They believe that more environmental studies are needed on the long-term consequences of the mine, particularly to underground water resources. They are trying to force the development of environmental studies by independent experts rather than by the state or Barrick Mining Company.

photo: Toby McLeod


ssif / preservation/ the 2005 most endangered sacred sites list / The Black Hills