The Black Hills Land Claim::

Valuing the Black Hills

The Black Hills are sacred for many reasons: it is the place of origin of all species, including the Lakota; it is the centre and heartbeat of Turtle Island - the continent, the earth, the universe; it is the abode of the supernatural; it is the ceremonial heartland; it was a major source of food, water and shelter for the Lakota, especially during the winter months, before the 1877 annexation.

The Black Hills region was an "incubator" providing the "building blocks" of life, according to one Oglala man who spoke with me during my field research. Over time, the hills came to harbour a complex network of streams and creeks, numerous species of animals, birds and plants. One Oglala elder called the Hills a "refrigerator" and told me that the Hills were given to the Lakota people by Wakantanka to take care of and to survive from. He said:

"The old people, the old people a long time ago, called [the Black Hills] the purse, the mother's purse. Because it has everything in it. It had all kinds of jewellery and all kinds of gold. But that's for mother earth. That's part of the earth. It's the earth. And then, the Indian people go over there and they hunt, and they gather, in the summer time they gathered. It's a rich piece of land."

The Lakota followed the buffalo - their primary food source. The buffalo entered the Black Hills through a gap now known as Buffalo Gap, especially during the winter, where, like the Lakota, they retreated to seek shelter from the punishing Plains blizzards. Wild fruits, vegetables, water and meat were not the only things obtained from the Hills to furnish the Lakotas' survival. Lodge poles were also sought from the Hills to construct tipis.

For the Lakota, the Hills lies in the shape of a mother. One man told me that the Bighorn Mountains, just to the east of the Hills in Wyoming, are the backbone of Mother Earth, and the Black Hills are her breasts. Below the breasts beats cante, the heart. He Sapa is the mother who provides nourishment for the people. Indeed, she bore life there also. An elder told me:

"We didn't come over the Bering Strait. We were always here. [That theory] was written by a white man. That was told by a white man. When I said we've always been here, we were underneath, in this beautiful Mother Earth. And as you can see, the Black Hills are very sacred to us because this is our home. This is where we've come from. And there was a trickster that went down inside the cave and promised them everything. And, like the white man, he told them all these beautiful stories of what could happen if you come to the surface. He promised them that they would always have food, they would always have a place to live, that they would never go hungry, that they would always be happy. […] When they came up to the surface, the trickster disappeared. And it wasn't what he promised them. They had to struggle. That was the beginning of our struggling, I think."

Ceremonially, the Black Hills have been described to non-Indians as heart, heartbeat, sacred, altar, tabernacle, cathedral, and white possession of it is likened to desecration. Such Christian terminology has been chiefly employed in the context of land claim hearings and meetings where the Lakota are trying to share with non-Indians their views of the Black Hills. Wakan, as a concept, defies understanding and cannot be explained in words. However, one man made an attempt for me by situating its definition in the context of the Black Hills. According to him, the term wakan describes the complex feelings the Lakota have for the Black Hills region. It expresses that which is sacred, powerful, dangerous, untouchable, reverential, unexplainable, incomprehensible. The Lakota's relationship with the Hills is as dynamic as that between two lovers: intimate, complex and suffused by the transcendental.

It is not only through formalised ceremony that the wakan nature of the Hills can be experienced and celebrated, but through simply being there. As one Oglala Lakota told me:

"[E]verybody knows about the Black Hills, everybody who comes here, and how beautiful it is. You go in there and you sit for a few hours - you can feel a difference. It's who you are."

Through walking, sitting, mediating, or praying, the boundaries between oneself and the Hills collapse and the wakan dimension of life itself can be felt.

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