The Black Hills Land Claim::

He Sapa: The Heart of the Nation

Across the sweep of prairie, the Black Hills rise in a volcanic uplift that swelled to life close to a billion years ago. Older than the Rocky Mountains, the Himalayas and the Alps, the once magnificent range of mountain peaks eroded through time to the hills that now graze upon the Plains. The Black Hills is composed of granite rock that threads itself throughout the range and binds two worlds together: above, a forest of ponderosa pine; below, an intricate web of caves. Some seventy-nine miles of cave networks have been mapped so far, under a forest that stretches some 120 miles north to south and 50 miles across, covering 6,000 square miles in total. Dinosaurs, mammoths, grey wolves, camels, pronghorns, jackrabbits, giant bears, and much more, once roamed the Hills and surrounding grasslands, and today their remains are continually being unearthed.

The Lakota call the Black Hills He (those), or Paha (hill), Sapa (black): those that are black, or black hills, for they rise out of the prairie like a black cloud. The Lakota believe the "soup of life" began there: the beginning of space and time; the cyclical motion of life itself set in motion by Inyan, the Rock, whose remains saturate the ancient granite core of the Hills. According to ancient stories, the Lakota as the Pte Oyate (Buffalo Nation), lived under the earth, in a network of caves they called home. They emerged to the surface through an opening now concealed within federal land: Wind Cave National Park. The Lakota were born and they died in the Hills: it was a major burial site for them, along with the Badlands to the east.

Countless Lakota stories centre upon the Black Hills. One is the Racetrack Story.

One version of the Racetrack Story goes like this: One time, all the animals and birds of the universe gathered at the Black Hills to run a race that would decide who would thrive and who would struggle. The two-legged were considered with the birds on one side, and the four-legged were on the other. If the two-legged and the birds won the race, they would eat the four-legged, but if the four-legged won then they would eat the two-legged and the birds. The race began and the animals and birds ran around the Black Hills.

Because the race took a long time, a magpie decided to perch on the ear of a buffalo and stay there. At times a big gust of wind would hinder the birds' progress but not that of the four-legged; at other times a blazing hot day would render the four-leggeds useless but not seem to bother the birds. The birds were in the lead, until the rains poured down and killed some of them. Still the clever magpie was sitting on the buffalo's ear.

In the end, it looked like the buffalo was in the lead. All the four-legged began to cheer. Winning the race would mean the four-legged would have supremacy over all the other species. But as the buffalo neared the winning line, the magpie suddenly flew off his ear, up into the air and beat the buffalo at the goal.

The magpie had won the race on behalf of the two-legged and the birds. The Thunderbeing officially declared the magpie the winner and presented him with a rainbow - which is why the magpie's tail is today so colourful. He also declared that the birds could move as they pleased, all year round. The two-legged humans were presented with a bow and arrow. The Thunderbeing told their representative, "With this weapon the tribe shall grow and be powerful. Return to your tribe and teach them the making of these bows. Now you can hunt buffalo". The Thunderbeing also told the humans that the location of the race was the heart of the earth.

Some accounts of the Racetrack state that in the struggle and effort to run and then win the race, the animals and birds shed much blood. This blood created the colour of the track that circumscribes the Hills. Others say that the race itself created the Black Hills - that is, before the race the region was simply a lush and gentle uplift, but that the pounding of the ground by the racers so shook the earth that the track was pushed down and the ground within it rose even higher. Today, many young Lakota organise marathon races around the Black Hills to honour it and the first great run.

It is said that the Black Hills is the home of Wakinyan, the Thunderbeing whose belly rumbles and whose eyes flash with such ferocity that an adult can be killed, a tree can be split and a large area of forest can be ravaged by fire in an instant. Wakinyan resides at the granite core of the Hills, in the vicinity of Thunderhead Mountain, on whose face Crazy Horse has been caught and fixed; the jagged spires of the Needles, which climbers scale; and Harney Peak, whose 7,242 foot granite knob hikers climb daily during the tourist season.

Ceremonies, such as vision-quests, sweats and sundances were and still are performed there. Tobacco ties, plugs, and even cigarette packets; strips of cloth in the sacred colours of blue, green, red, yellow, black and white; beds of sage and braids of sweetgrass can be found throughout the region, especially around sacred sites such as Devils Tower and Bear Butte. But today 1.2 million acres of the Black Hills is under federal ownership. The remaining land is in private, individual and corporate, hands. Land prices are exorbitant. Although many Lakota come to the Hills regularly to pray, to meditate, to collect medicinal herbs, more public ceremonies such as sundances, inipis (sweats), and hanbleceya (vision-quests) require permission from the landowner.

Since gold was discovered in the Black Hills over a hundred years ago, the Hills are no longer the abode of the Lakota. As we shall see in this article, the Hills has become a corporate Disneyland, or a 'blind man's zoo', nurturing such industries as mining, logging and tourism, to name but a few. These have been a sore point for the Lakota, who have spent the most part of the last and present century in court trying to curb such activities and to reclaim He Sapa, the heart or cante of the Lakota nation.

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