American Indian Environmental Relationships::

Spiritual Landscapes

Within Native American philosophies, the entire land is considered sacred. A concept of 'sacred' is not confined to small areas of life, such as holy days or a church building, but both manifest itself in and permeates all areas of life, time and space.

Sacred geography is powerful in Native America. The entire cosmos - from trees, flowers, rocks and rivers to galaxies, wind, fire and sun - is living, breathing and animated with spirit. Each aspect of the cosmic landscape has a personal identity and human beings are seen to be a part of the natural order rather than separate from it through some kind of superiority of human consciousness. As the Nez Perce leader, Chief Joseph said to US administrators towards the end of the 19th century, "The earth and myself are of one mind. The measure of the land and the measure of our bodies are the same".

The Sioux lawyer, activist and scholar, Vine Deloria JR, has written that, for the most part, tribal histories are land-centered, by virtue of the fact that Indians have lived on their land for such a long time that they have an historical perspective of their environment that is passed down through the generations. Thus the Native American's feeling of an emotional attachment to the landscape is intensified by 'prolonged intimacy' with it. As Deloria points out: "[The Lakota writer] Luther Standing Bear once remarked that a people had to be born, reborn, and reborn again on a piece of land before beginning to come to grips with its rhythms". Deloria has also stated that land is as much a source of revelation as a medium for reflection. By this he means that, on the one hand land provides the medium through which humans can reflect upon the nature of life. On the other hand, land itself produces revelation and meaning, which must then be discerned by the intuitive mind and open spirit.

All landscape is sacred and sanctified, but some areas of land and space are singled out as being particularly holy: the Black Hills, for example, are considered to be a sacred geographical site for the Sioux because they provide a home for particular birds and animals, and because a creation story has the Sioux people being birthed there. Among the Mescalero Apache of New Mexico, specific geographical places are considered sacred, partly because of the roles they have played in mythological time and partly because they provide natural resources required in traditional ceremonies as well as for sustenance. Of particular importance for the Mescalero Apache are the four primary sacred mountains - Guadeloupe, Salinas, Capitan, and San Augustin - which in cosmology are the Four Grandfathers who support the universe and encircle that part of the earth that is the homeland of the Mescalero Apache.

Sweatlodge and vision-questing sites are particularly sacred because they form the physical meeting points between the vertical and the horizontal worlds. These sites are believed to exhibit intense sacred power, for it is there that the worlds of the spirit and of nature (including humanity) intersect. Such points of intersection on the physical landscape may be called 'power centres'. They can also be called 'transformer sites' which are sites of spiritual transformation. Such power centres are spiritually ideal locations from which to communicate with the spirit world, and shamans all over Native America utilise such powerful locations to invoke rain, wind, snow and to heal. One example is that of the Mescalero Apache who traditionally undertook a sweatlodge ritual prior to and after a hunt. Before the hunt, the hunter sweated so that during the hunt he would be able to enter the spirit world and be transformed into a predatory animal, with all the predator's visual acuity, speed and stealth. After the hunt, it was necessary to sweat again in order to transform himself back into the person who could resume normal, daily contact with his people again.

Despite the whole of the landscape being considered holy, the following may prove a useful classification of those areas of the landscape that are considered particularly sacred:

• spirit residences, or sites such as ponds, caves, and rock formations where supernatural forces are believed to reside. An example of this are the Rocky Mountains, which are a sacred landscape for the Blackfeet as such spirits as Thunder, Wind Maker, Medicine Elk and Medicine Grizzly have their homes there;
• ceremonial areas such as sweathouse sites, ritual bathing pools and sites of rituals such as the Sun Dance. Often such ceremonial sites occur in particular geographical spots and such ceremonies confer sacredness to these geographical sites as well as these natural sites conferring holiness to the ceremonies;
• traditional landmarks which are those sites that relate to the significant cultural and historical events of a peoples. An example of these are several sites of the Sto:lo of British Columbia such as Lhilhetalets, a large pool which sometimes appears in a dry, side-channel of the Fraser River, which is associated with the origin of the sxwo:yxwey mask and Sto:lo tribal ancestors;
• vision-questing sites such as Harney Peak, Slim Butte and Bear Butte in South Dakota. Most questing sites are associated with remote, isolated geographical areas such as mountains, forests, caves and remote stretches of river. They could be called 'wilderness areas' which are actively sought out by participants;
• legendary and mythological places which are sites associated with significant events, legends and/or characters in Native folklore such as the giant Sleeping Bear sand dune on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan which marks the site of a mother bear waiting for her cubs to swim ashore, and the Badger-Two-Medicine wild lands which are sites for several Blackfeet mythological adventures;
• burials: burial and mortuary sites include cave burials, tree burials, box burials and funerary houses;
• traditional resource areas: these are sites from which materials for ceremonial and spiritual activities are or were obtained. They include quarry sites for natural paint, and for certain stones, gems, crystals and minerals which are thought to have special powers. Pipestone National Monument in Minnesota is a sacred site as the deep red catlinite sandstone is produced from here and this produces the medicine, or sacred pipes of several Plains Indian nations. Many other sites are important because they provide medicinal plants such as sage and cedar, as well as materials used in the construction of ceremonial buildings such as the willow saplings used to build sweatlodges;
• temples and shrines which range from the simple stone circles in the Great Plains to the quarter-mile-long Serpent Mound earth effigy in southern Ohio;
• astronomical observatories: examples of such ancient astronomical sites include The Bighorn Medicine Wheel stone circle on Medicine Mountain in Wyoming, and the solar-lunar observatory on top of Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.

Humanity is not the only species to engage with the universe ceremonially. Many Native American scholars, elders and spiritual practitioners have commented on the fact that other living species perform ceremonies that humans know little or nothing about. The Lakota, for example, used to talk about the animals and birds gathering in the Black Hills for their annual council meetings, social gatherings and ceremonial activities. This the Lakota also replicated when, before the days of the reservation system, all the various bands would gather once a year in the Black Hills for their political social and religious meetings.