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Summer 1997

The Sacred Black Hills An Ethnohistorical Review

Linea Sundstrom Archaeological and Ethnohistorical consultant

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Sundstrom, Linea, "The Sacred Black Hills An Ethnohistorical Review" (1997). Great Plains Quarterly. 1955. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1955

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. THE SACRED BLACK HILLS AN ETHNOHISTORICAL REVIEW

LINEA SUNDSTROM

The Black Hills area is widely recognized as have historic precedents. Watson Parker ques­ sacred in the context of traditional Lakota tions whether the Lakotas could have devel­ and Cheyenne belief systems. Questions arise, oped a sacred geography in the relatively short however, regarding the authenticity and his­ time they occupied the Black Hills. Donald torical depth of these beliefs.! Some research­ Worster concedes that the Black Hills are now ers assert that the concept of the sacred Black widely regarded as sacred to the Lakota people, Hills is little more than a twentieth century but asserts that the area was not viewed as scheme to promote tourism or part of a legal holy ground prior to the 1970s.4 strategy to gain the return of Black Hills lands The position that the Black Hills held little to Lakota and Cheyenne tribal governments.z significance to Indians is most frequently based While many Lakotas and Cheyennes today on two sources: Richard 1. Dodge's The Black express a strong spiritual link to the Black Hills, written in 1875, and Edwin Denig's Five Hills,3 some historians have questioned Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri, written in whether today's beliefs about the Black Hills 1854.5 Both assert that the Lakotas then liv­ ing in the area made little use of the Black Hills, venturing in only to gather tipi poles. Dodge and Denig state that the Lakotas avoided the Black Hills because game was scarce, pasturage was insufficient for horses, and there were "superstitions" about evil spir­ Linea Sundstrom is an archaeological and ethno­ its inhabiting the mountains. This informa­ historical consultant specializing in the northern Great tion has been cited with little regard to the Plains. She has published two books and numerous historical context in which it was compiled. articles on Black Hills cultural sites. Denig reported that "much superstition is attached to the Black Hills by the Indian," incorrectly attributing this "superstition" to [GPQ 17 (Summer/Fall 1997): 185- 2121 volcanic action causing smoke and loud noises

185 186 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER/FALL 1997

in the interior mountains.6 While later writers ment that the interior Black Hills contained mentioned loud, booming noises in the Black no evidence of Indian habitation is now en­ Hills, there is no evidence for any recent vol­ tirely refuted by more than 3000 archaeologi­ canic activity in the area, and the phenom­ cal sites recorded for this area.9 Even Dodge's enon remains unconfirmed and unexplained. own diary and the report of the 1874 Black Denig's informants told him the noises were Hills E?{pedition specifically mention discov­ the groans of a Great White Giant condemned ery of old Indian campsites in the Black Hills. 10 to lie under the mountains as punishment for Dodge's Black Hills diary is a study in self­ intruding into the Lakotas' hunting ground contradiction. One passage describes "a great and as a lesson to all whites to stay out of the Indian trail as large as a wagon road." Another area, a story clearly meant to scare whites away mentions seeing the remains of Indian camps from the Black Hills .. Denig himself had no "all along the day's route." Later, however, personal interest in the opening of the Black these observations are replaced with assertions Hills to white settlement, but seems merely to that the area was never used except for gath­ have been repeating what his informants told ering lodge poles. I I The changes coincide with him. Dodge's recognition of the great potential of The same cannot be said of Dodge. The the Black Hills to white entrepreneurs, but thesis of his later book, OUT Wild Indians, was whether they were truly coincidental is im­ that Native Americans entirely lacked moral­ possible to know. In alternately describing the ity and were something less than human, and Black Hills as void of evidence of Indian habi­ the theme of The Black Hills was the need to tation and full of such evidence, Dodge seems get the area into the hands of whites who could to have made a distinction between the inte­ extract wealth from the natural resources rior uplift and peripheral zones. In fact there is wasted under Indian occupation. He foresaw much less evidence for sacred places in the . stock ranches, cities, and tourist hotels spring­ interior than in the outer edges of the Black ing up in the country as soon as the "miserable Hills. nomads" could "be got rid of."7 Neither Dodge nor Denig contradicts the In this context, Dodge quotes a Lakota assertion that the Black Hills were sacred to named Robe Raiser, whom he had met with the Lakota people. The "superstition" they two mixed-blood men, all prospecting for gold noted is simply a biased description of the In­ on Rapid Creek.s According to Robe Raiser, dians' religious beliefs about the area. In Indians of his band entered the Black Hills Dodge's Black Hills diary, he reports finding only occasionally to hunt or cut tipi poles and the site of a Medicine Lodge (Sun Dance) usually avoided the area because it was the encampment on Castle Creek, well inside the abode of spirits, had little game and many flies, western Black Hills.12 If the Indians did not was too rainy, was bad for horses, and had use the area for camps, it was not because the frequent violent thunderstorms. Dodge implies mountains lacked religious significance. Nei­ that other Indians confirmed Robe Raiser's ther writer addressed the possibility that the information, but nowhere in his diary or book Black Hills were sacred to earlier groups in­ does he specifically mention speaking with any habiting the area. other Indian. Robe Raiser's comments, like From a more objective perspective, Donald those of Denig's informants, imply that the Worster writes that the Lakotas did not men­ interior Black Hills were avoided at least in tion anything about the sacredness of the Black part because they were considered holy ground, Hills until the dawning of a religious revital­ "the abode of spirits." ization movement in the 1970s.13 Worster im­ Overall, both The Black Hills and OUT Wild plies that current views of the sacredness of Indians are rife with error and should not be the Black Hills are the product of this revi­ cited uncritically. For example, Dodge's state- talization movement, which followed decades THE SACRED BLACK HILLS 187 of frustration in attempting to regain an eco­ Gillette Prairie, the Hot Springs-Minnekahta nomic foothold after the extinction of the area, lnyan Kara Mountain, Harney Peak, bison herds that had been their mainstay and Black Buttes, White Butte, and Rapid Creek the forced removal of the Lakotas to non­ Valley. arable lands. Worster notes that Lakota testi­ A historic Lakota map of the Black Hills mony before various treaty and claims shows most of these localities. Between 1890 commissions stressed the economic, not spiri­ and 1913, Amos Bad Heart Bull made an ex­ tual, value of the Black Hills and asserts that tensive series of drawings, interpreted and no documentary evidence before the 1970s printed after his death, that record the history suggests that the Black Hills were the Lakotas' and traditions of the Oglala division of the sacred place. Lakota alliance. His map of the Black Hills The question of the sacredness, or lack (Fig. 1) shows eight features of known reli­ thereof, of the Black Hills to Native Ameri­ gious significance. A yellow band surrounding can groups demands a more exacting view. the Black Hills is labeled Ki Inyanka Ocanku The question must be rephrased: what por­ (The Racetrack). This refers to a circular de­ tions of the area, if any, were considered sa­ pression surrounding the interior uplift, still cred, when, and by whom? known as the Racetrack or Red Valley. Other Published ethnographic and ethnohistoric features shown and labeled on the map are: accounts provide evidence of whether the Mato Tipi Paha (Bear Lodge Butte or Devils Black Hills were considered sacred historically Tower); Hinyankagapa (Inyan Kara Mountain); by various Native peoples or whether their Baha Sapa (Black Buttes); Re Sla (Gillette "sacredness" is merely a product of a clever Prairie); Mato Baha (Bear Butte); Mini Kata tourist promotion or legal strategy. Such (Hot Springs); Pte Tali Yapa (Buffalo Gap); information explores the historical depth of and Miniluzan (Rapid Creek).15 Each of these present-day traditions and beliefs and provides features is discussed separately below. a framework for building more detailed Was Bad Heart Bull participating in a lat­ understandings of the traditional or sacred ter-day conspiracy to designate the Black Hills landscape. Ethnographic and historic sources sacred land so that the Lakotas could demand used here are generally limited to information their return? Such a conclusion ignores the collected at least fifty years ago, long before historical context of the creation of the map. the 1970s and within the lifetimes of people Bad Heart Bull made the map, and the rest of who had enjoyed the freedom of movement, his pictographic history, simply to record the and concommitant geographic competence, story of his people as tribal historians remem­ of the pre-reservation era. In some instances, bered it. He never attempted to publish or more recent information, such as James publicize his work, and few people outside his LaPointe's 1976 compilation of Lakota family knew of it until it was "discovered" in legends, is included when it is consistent with 1926, thirteen years after his death. His fam­ and supported by older references. 14 ily, extremely reluctant to share the manu­ script with outsiders, eventually agreed to let LAKOTA SACRED PLACES Helen Blish record and study the drawings and their notations. When Bad Heart Bull's sister Historic and ethnographic sources indicate died in 1947, the manuscript was interred with that both specific locations and specific kinds her.16 Bad Heart Bull was hardly attempting of places were sacred to the Lakotas. Specific to mislead whites about the religious signifi­ locations in and near the Black Hills men­ cance of the Black Hills. Neither he nor Blish's tioned as sacred include Bear Lodge Butte Oglala informants identified the map specifi­ (Devils Tower), Bear Butte, the Racetrack or cally as a chart of sacred locales, although other Red Valley, Buffalo Gap, Craven Canyon, information confirms the sacred nature of the 188 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER/FALL 1997

FIG. 1. Amos Bad Heart Bu!l's map of the Black Hills. Reproduced from A Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, by Amos Bad Heart Bull, text by Helen H. Blish, by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright © 1967 by the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright © renewed 1995 by the University of Nebraska Press. THE SACRED BLACK HILLS 189

FIG. 2. Inyan Kara, the Stone Creator, rises above the western Black Hills. It was sacred to the Lakotas and Cheyennes, and an important landmark for early non-Indian explorers in the Black Hills country. Photograph by Linea Sundstrom.

features shown on the map. Besides being lit­ The Lakota word for ghost is wanagi (the soul erally buried, the map was figuratively buried when separated from the body) or wica nagi (a among the 408 drawings comprising the en­ person's ghost) or wamaka nagi (animal's ghost) tire manuscript. or simply nagi (spirit}.19 I"ya" means stone; Kaga refers to the action of creating or imitat­ Inyan Kara Mountain (Fig. 2). Bad Heart ing; and Pa means peak, butte, or hill. The Bull's written notation on the map identifies location of this butte on Bad Heart Bull's map, one peak as Hinyankagapa, which Blish trans­ on the western edge of the Black Hills, west of lates as Ghost ButteY Similarly, Cheyenne Gillette Prairie and south of Black Buttes, informants told John Bourke in 1877, "Inyan confirms that lnyan Kara is represented. Kara Peak they [the Lakotas] call ihancaja-paja, The term I"ya" Kaga can be translated sev­ that is to say the hill where the ghosts live."18 eral ways. Inyan refers both to rock and to a These terms are variants of Inyan Kaga Pa, (or superior being from whose blood the earth and in corrupted form, lnyan Kara Butte). Al­ sky were created. The spirit I"ya" literally though they are consistent in drawing a con­ bleeds dry and hardens into stone in creating nection between lnyan Kara Mountain and the earth. In this sense Inyan is one of sixteen ghosts, the translations do not make sense. "aspects" ofWaka"Tanka (Great Sacredness or 190 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER/FALL 1997

Great Mystery). Inyan is one of four beings that and renewed, or to those conducting such a existed prior to creation and is the creator of ceremony. The name may also refer to any sky and earth.20 Kaga means to make, create, combination of these. or imitate. This same term is used for one who makes, creates, or imitates. Kaga also refers to Harney Peak (Fig. 3). There has been some the performance of a ceremony in which a confusion as to the identity of the mountain spirit is evoked or imitated.21 The name of that Bad Heart Bull labeled Hinyankagapa. 25 this mountain thus has meaning on several A footnote to the text says that one informant levels. Translated as Stone Maker, the name spelled the name Hinhan Kaga. This indicates may refer to the creation of the earth through an entirely different name for the mountain, Inyan's self-sacrifice-Le., Stone creates [the rather than just an alternative spelling. The world]. This would identify Inyan Kara as the word Hinhan means owl; the entire phrase might place where creation began or ended or where be translated Owl Maker Hill. This is one of creation is manifest in the visible features of the Lakota names for Harney Peak. the mountain. In one story in the Lakota Fallen Star myth On another level, the name refers to the cycle, the term Owl Maker (Owl Imitator) is geologic origin of the mountain. Inyan Kara is used to refer to the evil spirit Double-Face. an igneous intrusive thrust up through the The people rescue a child taken by Double­ main ranges of the northern Black Hills. The Face in the guise of an owl-like monster. This semi-volcanic origin of the feature and result­ event is said to have taken place at Owl Maker ing odd shape of the mountain is expressed as Butte.26 Although the specific location is not stone creating [itself]. An early translation of given, Owl Maker Butte would translate to the place name is "the peak makes the moun­ Hinhan Kaga Pa, the term supplied by Blish's tain.'>22 This seems to express the same idea; informants for Harney Peak. Blish's informants however, the term follows English, rather than apparently thought that the map showed Lakota, syntax, and thus is probably not cor­ Harney Peak, rather than Inyan Kara. The rect. Lakota syntax indicates the phrase is "the location of the feature on Bad Heart Bull's stone makes" or "the stone is made"; the term map is correct for Inyan Kara, but not plau­ pa simply means the name refers to a peak. A sible for Harney Peak, which is east, not west, reporter accompanying the 1874 Black Hills of Gillette Prairie (Re Sla on Bad Heart Bull's Expedition translated the name as "The map). Mask."23 The Lakota word for mask is iteha; On the Bad Heart Bull map, Inyan Kara is thus, the idea of imitating or evoking an im­ pictured with horns and a human face. In age, rather than a mask in the literal sense, is Cheyenne tradition, this indicates a spirit suggested here. being.27 Horned humans were also sometimes In the final sense of the term, Inyan Kaga drawn by the Lakotas to depict spirit beings.28 would refer to the performance of a ceremony The tradition of a ghost or evil spirit inhabit­ in which Inyan is invoked. According to a re­ ing either Harney Peak or Inyan Kara, or both, cent study of Lakota ethnoastronomy, Lakotas apparently originated with the Cheyennes. preparing for the Sun Dance first traveled to Blish's informants told her that Ghost Butte Inyan Kara to gather stones to be used in the was the Cheyenne name for the mountain in purification (sweat bath) preceding the Sun question.29 This term could either be a poor Dance.24 I have not found any historical refer­ translation for "spirit being" or a correct trans­ ences to this practice. lation for ghost. In the Cheyenne language, The name Inyan Kaga thus can refer to the the same word, mis tai, is used for ghost and act of creation, to the creation of the par­ owl. In Cheyenne tradition ghosts are said to ticular feature, and perhaps to a ceremony fly around at night like owls, preying on young through which this act was commemorated children, and are said to make a sound like an THE SACRED BLACK HILLS 191

FIG. 3. Harney Peak is the highest point east of the Rockies and marks the center of the granite ranges forming the heart of the Black Hills . Photograph by Linea Sundstrom.

owl hooting. Such ghosts occupy high peaks.30 Another source provides a sacred term for The Lakotas, by contrast, use separate terms Harney Peak. Nicholas Black Elk made sev­ and concepts for ghosts and owls but some­ eral references to Harney Peak in telling his times call the old woman who guards the Ghost life story to John Neihardt in 1931, always Road (Milky Way) Hinhan Kaga or Owl referring to it as "the center." In Lakota theol­ Maker.3! It seems plausible that the Lakota ogy the center of the universe could be (and name for Harney Peak, Owl Maker [or Owl was) anywhere.33 One established a center by Imitator] Butte, is a translation of the Chey­ making an altar or praying with the sacred enne word Ghost [or Owl] Hill. A Cheyenne pipe to the seven directions-south, west, story tells of a girl who is captured by a huge north, east, up, down, and center. In Black Ghost Owl and eventually escapes to a "high Elk's account, Harney Peak was the center both mountain" with the aid of some hawk people.32 because it marked the center of the Lakotas' This may refer to Harney Peak, but unlike the territory at that time and because it was the Lakota version of the story, no specific place­ center from which he had received instruc­ name is given. It does, however, suggest that tion and knowledge of the four directions of the mountain may have been incorporated into the universe. The term translated as "the cen­ the mythology of both groups. ter of the earth" was part of a sacred language, 192 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER/FALL 1997

cated pictographically on the Bad Heart Bull map by showing a bear's face at the base of the butte and is preserved in the adjacent portion of the Black Hills, known as the Bear Lodge Range. The name refers to an old myth, widely told on the northern Plains, about the for­ mation of both Bear Lodge Butte and the Black Hills. As a girl and seven brother help­ ers attempt to escape from a monstrous bear, the Black Hills rise up as a barrier between them and their pursuer. The Bear's Lodge is formed when the girl and her seven helpers pray to the rock to rise up and save them from the bear. From the top of the towering rock, the people rise up to the sky to dwell there as the stars of the Big Dipper or Pleiades. (See discussion of Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache tradi­ tional beliefs, below.) Few historic Lakota versions of this story were recorded. One version, collected both historically and recently, refers to two boys, who are set upon by a great bear and run to the rock for refuge. The butte is formed as the rock rises up carrying the boys to safety. In another version, collected in 1933, the young­ FlO. 4. The Bear Lodge Butte (Devil's Tower) is revered in Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Lakota est of seven brothers goes to rescue his sister­ tradition . It is remembered in oral traditions as the in-law from the leader of a den of monster place where the rock saved the children from a monster bears. All eight escape by praying to a rock bear. Photograph by Linea Sundstrom. that rises to become Bear Lodge Butte.37 Un­ like the Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arikara, and Arapaho versions of the story, the older Lakota distinct from everyday speech and used in re­ texts do not associate the feature with the ligious discourse.34 Thus, the term refers as Big Dipper or the Pleiades. The Lakotas did much to the religious significance of Harney make a connection between Bear Lodge Butte Peak to Black Elk as to its physical location. It and stars-one of their principal constella­ is clear, however, that Black Elk referred spe­ tions was known as Maw Tipila or the Bear cifically to the Black Hills as the center or Lodge.38 In this case, it represents the butte heart of the earth and to Harney Peak as the itself, not the people who escaped from the center of that center.35 great bear. In addition to its mythological significance, Bear Lodge Butte (Devils Tower) (Fig. 4). some Lakotas believed Bear Lodge Butte to be Bad Heart Bull shows a feature in the Black an earth center (see discussion of Harney Peak) Hills that unmistakably represents Devils and the place from which the Great Spirit Tower, despite a somewhat distorted geo­ scattered game animals to provide food for graphic placement. I have used the name for them.39 Some Lakotas today associate Bear this feature, the Bear Lodge, that was used in Lodge Butte with their Sacred Calf Pipe,4o but common by Lakotas, Cheyennes, Arikaras, I could find no written historical precedent Arapahos, and Crows.36 This name is indi- for this belief. THE SACRED BLACK HILLS 193

FIG. 5. Sundance Mountain was a fasting site overlooking the traditional Sun Dance grounds along the Redwater River and Sundance Creek in the northwestern Black Hills. Photograph by Linea Sundstrom.

Sundance Mountain (Fig. 5). Sundance refers to it as "a summer rendezvous of the Mountain is not shown as a separate feature Sioux who came [t]here to hunt, gather berries, on Bad Heart Bull's map but is known from and hold their sun dance."42 other sources to have been a Lakota sacred One reach of Sundance Creek, known as site. According to Nicholas Black Elk, the Medicine Flat Creek, runs through the Red Belle Fourche River was referred to as the Sun Valley just east of Sundance Mountain, Dance River "in olden times" because it flowed between the Bear Lodge range and the Black near the old Sun Dance grounds and was only Hills proper. This name is a translation of later referred to as the northern branch of the Wapiya Oblaye Inyan,43 or "plain of the rocks Good [Belle] River.4l A stream running that heal [or make fortunate]''' and refers to through the Red Valley between Bear Lodge porous rocks believed to have healing Butte and the Black Hills proper is still known properties. This connection between porous as Sundance Creek. The importance of the rock and healing is confirmed by the English traditional Sun Dance ground is also reflected and Lakota names of another sacred site, Inyan in the name Sundance, Wyoming, and nearby Oka Taka, or Medicine Rock State Park in Sundance Mountain. An account of the area southeastern Montana.44 The Lakota name around Sundance Mountain, written in 1886, refers to porous rock while the English name 194 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER/FALL 1997

indicates the site was recognized as a place of ground because it did not freeze in winter and healing. game and shelter were abundant in the creek valley. LaPointe ties a Fallen Star myth to this Black Buttes. Bad Heart Bull's map includes area, suggesting that it may have had religious the Black Buttes, just northeast of Inyan Kara significance. In the 1940s, Nicholas Black Elk in the Bear Lodge range, but no interpretation also related a Fallen Star story linked to Rapid of this feature appears in the accompanying Valley. 53 text.45 It is difficult to track down any specific Black Elk's narrative about Fallen Star also ethnographic or ethnohistoric references to refers to a place called He Ska or White Buttes, this feature, because its Lakota name, Paha located north of the Black Hills.54 This prob­ Sapa, is one of the terms applied to the Black ably was either the White Butte near the town Hills as a whole. An older term, He Sapa, also of the same name in Perkins County, South means Black Mountains and refers less am­ Dakota, or the White Butte in nearby Slope biguously to the Black Hills.46 Nevertheless, County, North Dakota, both outside the Black their presence on Bad Heart Bull's map sug­ Hills proper. The latter site is revered by the gests that Black Buttes bore a traditional sig­ Hidatsas as one of the buttes associated with nifican~e. Earthnaming rites. 55

Bear Butte. On the eastern edge of the Black Hot Springs. Bad Heart Bull indicated the Hills, Bad Heart Bull drew a butte in the form location of an area of hot springs in the south­ of a bear's head. Bear Butte (Mato Paha) is an ern Black Hills portion of his map. The iden­ important Lakota holy site, an area used for tification of Hot Springs (Mnikahta) as a sacred ceremonies and individual prayers,47 includ­ locale is supported by a more recent statement ing the Hanblecheya (Crying for a Vision), by Stella Swift Bird: prayers for fertility, and prayers of remem­ brance. During such prayers it was traditional Hot Springs was called holy water or holy to place stones or other objects in the forks of place. When people got sick they went there trees on the butte48 in remembrance of the to drink the holy water. They drank four ancestors, whose spirits were believed to con­ times and each time it had a different taste. gregate at the sacred m.ountain.49 Because of They drank four mouthfuls and prayed.56 its importance as a holy site for various groups, Bear Butte was traditionally considered neu­ James LaPointe also collected recent Lakota tral ground. The various divisions of the Lakota beliefs concerning the warm springs of the nation held a council there in 1857 to discuss southern Black Hills. According to his infor­ the incursion of whites into the Black Hills mants, the term Mni awoblu makoce (land of country.50 Bear Butte appears to have been bubbling waters) was applied to this region of included in a set of seven ceremonial sites the Black Hills. The area was highly regarded (Star People Villages) that corresponded to both for its abundant plant and animal re­ constellations.51 Some Lakotas today associ­ sources and healing waters and for its religious ate the Sacred Calf Pipe, their holiest object, significance. with Bear Butte, but this belief may lack his­ torical precedent. 52 The Lakotas say these lands belonged to the "underground people," highly intelli­ Rapid Creek Valley. The inclusion of Rapid gent beings with supernatural powers, who Creek (Mnilusahan) on Bad Heart Bull's map inhabited subterranean lands .... Legends suggests that it, too, had special significance say these people bred game animals for hu­ for the Lakotas. According to J ames LaPointe, man consumption and kept perpetual fires Rapid Creek was a favorite winter camping ablaze to heat the waters that flow up to the THE SACRED BLACK HILLS 195

surface, thus keeping the flowers in bloom the turtle are there. The crow is always first and the medicinal shrubs growing the year to arrive, and the other birds come before round."57 the animals, while insects and cre~tures like the frog travel slowly and arrive last. Some­ These beliefs tied the warm springs area to the times it takes 10 years for all the animals to underground nation and the perpetuation of arrive, as they come from long distances the buffalo herds, but I have found no written and camp whenever winter overtakes confirmation that these beliefs date before them. 59 1970. Although the Racetrack is less well known The Racetrack. A ring of low relief surround­ than many of the other purported sacred sites ing the interior Black Hills is shown on Bad in the Black Hills, it certainly is of primary Heart Bull's map as Ki Inyanka Ocanku, the importance, historically, as the place where Racetrack. This valley is still known by that order was established and the Sun Dance was name, taken from an origin story known as the begun. Great Race.58 The four-Ieggeds and two­ leggeds race entirely around the Black Hills to Buffalo Gap (Fig. 6). Bad Heart Bull identi­ determine which will eat the other. The earth fied a gate-like figure at the southeastern edge and rocks there tum red from the blood flow­ of the Black Hills as Pte Tali Yapa, the Buffalo ing from the exhausted racers' mouths and feet. Gap or Buffalo Gate. As the name indicates, The two-Ieggeds win, establishing that people Buffalo Gap was the place where the great will thereafter eat bison instead ofbeing eaten bison herds entered the Black Hills in the fall by them. This event established order in the and came out again in the spring. It was also universe. It accounts for the beginning of the considered a gateway into the interior Black Sun Dance and the use of the bow and arrow. Hills for Lakota people as they sought winter All the Lakota versions of the story of the quarters in the shelter of the mountains.6o A Great Race refer specifically to the Black Hills more recently collected story concerns the and to the Racetrack. formation of the Buffalo Gap through the ac­ Eagle Shield further explained the signifi­ tion of countless herds of bison passing through cance of the Racetrack in terms of the Lakota the area after emerging from Wind Cave.61 Crow-Owners Warrior Society. Interestingly, he treated the animals' use of the Racetrack as Upland Prairies. Bad Heart Bull's map in­ an ongoing event, not as something from the cludes a feature labeled Re Sla, referring to an remote pase upland prairie or "bald," more commonly writ­ ten Pe Sla. I could find no other historic refer­ The reason why the Black Hills were so ences to this place, with one possible long unknown to the white man was that exception. In Black Elk's version of the Fallen Wakantanka [Great Spirit or Great Mys­ Star myth cycle, the hero is traveling in the tery] created them as a meeting place for Black Hills country when he comes to a flat the animals. The Indians had always known place, the home of Thunder-beings.62 Since this and regarded the law of Wakantanka the central Black Hills-unlike the lowland concerning it. By this law they were forbid­ prairies-were often associated with the Thun­ den to kill any of the animals during their ders, this hints that Gillette Prairie was the great gatherings. In the Black Hills there is place Fallen Star visited. Nothing in the story a ridge of land around which is a smooth, permits a definite identification, however. grassy place called the "race-course." This Some Lakotas today associate the three is where the animals have the races, during upland prairies-Reynolds Prairie (Fig. 7), their gatherings. Even small animals like Gillette Prairie, and Danby Park-with a 196 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER/FALL 1997

FIG. 6. The Buffalo Gap, a natural pass through the sandstones that ring the Black Hills, is referred to in Cheyenne and Lakota traditions about the Great Race and the emergence of the buffalo from Wind Cave. Photograph by Linea Sundstrom.

spring ritual known as "welcoming back all a sacred white buffalo bull, while a later tradi­ life in peace."63 The largest of these, Gillette tion tells of a Lakota man named Taopi Gli, Prairie, was known as Pe Sla (Bald Place). who eloped with a maiden from the under­ world nation and thereby ensured the pros­ Other locations. Several other locations con­ perity of his people.65 sidered sacred by some Lakotas today are not A creation story collected around the turn included in Bad Heart Bull's map. Wind Cave of the century explains that Tokahe appeared is sacred to Lakotas today who recognize it as as the first messenger from the world of the the place from which Tokahe (First Man) sacred beings and taught the people how to be emerged from the underworld to bring wis­ human. He gave them the concept of religion dom and power to the Lakota people through and taught them about the world of the sacred his teachings.64 Washun Niya, the breathing mysteries, how to heal sickness, and how to hole, is the Lakota name for this feature. In seek visions.66 He brought the Buffalo Cer­ other contexts, the cave is also seen as a door­ emony celebrated at a girl's coming of age. way to the underworld. Some view the cave as Although this version does not link T okahe the place from which the buffalo and other to Wind Cave, he is said to have emerged animals periodically emerge from the under­ from the underworld and eventually to have world to replenish the herds. A story published returned there. It is clear from LaPointe and in 1951 relates that the cave was the home of Powers that these events are associated with THE SACRED BLACK HILLS 197

FIG. 7. The unforested rolling uplands seen in the center of this photograph are Reynolds and Gillette prairies. These are shown on the Bad Heart Bull map as Pe Sla, the Bare Place, a place associated with the return of spring. Photograph by Linea Sundstrom.

Wind Cave in the minds of traditional Lakotas could give them. Toka bade them teach this today, but the age of this tradition is not lore to those only who were worthy and known.67 acceptable to the Gods. He stayed with the people until they lived aright, and then he When mankind first came upon the world, went from among them. Thus T oka estab­ they did not know how to live so as to please lished the order of holy men and they alone the Gods. Therefore the Gods sent T oka, commune with the Gods and speak their one of the Pte (Holy Buffalo) people who wil1. 68 dwell in the regions under the world, to teach them. They did as Toka bade them Craven and Red Canyons, in the southern and thus established their customs, their Black Hills, are recognized today as sacred lo­ usages, and their ceremonies. Toka chose cales, based on the presence of rock art there. 69 two of the people and gave into their charge Although the old name is no longer remem­ the ceremonies that should be done accord­ bered, this is probably the place referred to by ing to the will of the Gods, and he taught Nicholas Black Elk: them how to know and speak the wishes of the Gods. He told them the sacred myster­ There is a place in the Black Hills, also on ies so that they would have greater author­ the Little Big Horn, a bank of solid inscrip­ ity and powers than any which mankind tions that only a medicine man can read. It 198 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY. SUMMER/FALL 1997

is a mystery [i.e., holy]. There is one in the nies the story, I believe this legend refers to Black Hills that only a medicine man can Medicine Creek Cave in the Bear Lodge range read (pictograph). We don't know who or to Ludlow Cave in the Cave Hills north of wrote it, but a medicine man can decode it the Black Hills. The drawing reveals that the and get the meaning. We would camp and cave contained representations of bison, elk, when we came back there would be more deer, antelope, and mountain sheep heads, as writing. 70 well as a large number ofhoo{prints and a few anthropomorphic figures. These correspond Another Lakota, John Around Him, pro­ fairly well to the rock art recorded from Medi­ vided a similar account at a later date: cine Creek Cave.74 On the other hand, the story refers to a drawing of a shield with an Up there in the Black Hills somewhere, I eagle or Thunderbird on it and many offer­ don't know where, a long time ago there ings, which fit better with Ludlow Cave in the was a piece of rock-a bank or something­ northern Cave Hills.75 Unfortunately, most of the people went there every year. Every year the rock art once present in Ludlow Cave was there would be a different picture on the destroyed before it could be recorded. rock. Nobody knew who put the picture on Two Lakota sources refer to Sylvan Lake as the rock, but if there is going to be a war a holy place.76 These would seem to be anach­ within the next year, there will be a picture ronistic, because the lake did not exist until of people laying there. That shows that there contruction of a dam in 1892, but a more care­ is going to be a war. If they go there and see ful reading suggests that the place referred to pictures of buffalo and pictures of drying is actually in the deep valley downstream of racks where they hang the meat to dry, if the lake. Here several natural pools are formed they see that, then they'll have a good year. in the granite rocks over which the stream Plenty to eat.71 flows. One of the overlooking rocks resembles a human, identified in a story collected for the A large panel of rock art in Craven Canyon South Dakota Writers Project as a stately may be of Lakota origin. It has many similari­ young woman, sent by the spirits to guard the ties to Lakota picture-writing, but cannot be pools from animals who might dirty the waters directly "read" like other pictographic art.72 needed by the people in times of drought. Another possibility is that the passage refers According to an account given between 1928 to the Pringle Pictograph site, 39CU70, an and 1930 by Sitting Bull's nephews, One Bull isolated rock art site containing many triangle and White Bull, the Hunkpapa Lakota leader designs and a few other painted designs. Its received a vision near the present Sylvan Lake, location, next to a spring and below a tall in which he saw what looked like a man in the granite outcrop high in the Black Hills, sug­ rocks above the pools and he heard singing. gests that it was used in a ritual context. A He climbed up to investigate and saw that it third rock art site, a panel of red drawings on was an eagle. It flew away, but Sitting Bull the back of a small rock shelter in the bluffs remembered that it sang: "My father has given overlooking the Cheyenne River, contains me this nation; in protecting them I have a designs similar to those at Craven Canyon and hard time.'>77 This song meant that Sitting Bull the Pringle Pictograph. These three sites are was to devote his life to protecting his people. stylistically similar to each other but are dif­ ferent from other Black Hills rock art. 73 The Black Hills Area in Visions. The Black Marie McLaughlin identifies a "mysterious Hills were important as a place where power­ butte" with a cave in it as a mystical or sacred ful visions were received. One of the great site. Based on the description of the cave and pieces of Lakota religious literature is the vi­ a Lakota drawing of its rock art that accompa- sion of the Oglala holy man, Black Elk, as THE SACRED BLACK HILLS 199 related to John G. Neihardt in the 1930s. round and gradually passed out of my sight. Neihardt presented Black Elk's vision in Black I also saw prints of a man's hands and horse's Elk Speaks. Later, in The Sixth Grandfather, hoofs on the rocks [referring to rock art]' Raymond J. DeMallie reproduced the actual and two thousand years, and one hundred transcripts of Black Elk's teachings as Neihardt millions of dollars. I came away crying, as I collected them. Black Elk's teachings are too had gone. I have told this to many Dakotas, long and complex to relate here and are easily and all agree that it meant that we were to accessible elsewhere. Suffice it to say that the seek and keep peace with the whites. 78 holy spirits transported Black Elk to Harney Peak, the center of the world, to receive their Recollections of Lakota people indicate teachings. From this center Black Elk traveled that the Black Hills were frequently used for in his vision to the north, south, east, and the individual vision quest. According to west edges of Lakota territory, always return­ Frank Kicking Bear, his grandfather, Chagla, ing to Harney Peak. learned ritual and songs of the Sun Dance from Less well known is the vision of Brown Hat, a vision received in the Black Hills. Stella also known as Battiste Good, a Lakota histo­ Swift Bird recalled six places where her grand­ rian born about 1822. Brown Hat related his father, Fast Thunder, had fasted: one in the Hanblecheya as follows: buttes above Beaver Creek in Nebraska, one at Scottsbluff, one in Montana, one in the In the year 1856, I went to the Black Hills Black Hills, one in North Dakota, and one on and cried, and cried, and cried [i.e., prayed top of Bear Butte, "always on the highest butte for a vision], and suddenly I saw a bird above he could find. "79 The renowned Oglala holy me, which said: "Stop crying; I am a woman, man Chips prayed in the Black Hills in 1874.80 but I will tell you something: My Great­ Peter Bordeaux related an account of huge Father, Father-God, who made this place, eagles visiting a vision seeker in the Black gave it to me for a home and told me to Hills: watch over it. He put a blue sky over my head and gave me a blue flag to have with There were some white eagles, twice as large this beautiful green country. My Great­ as the ordinary eagles, that increased and Father grew, and his flesh was part earth existed in the air and space above the vast and part stone and part metal and part wood country and nestled on the land of the Black and part water; he took from them all and Hills all the time prior to the year of 1875. placed them here for me, and told me to A warrior observed the ceremony of the watch over them. I am the Eagle-Woman fast on the top of one of the Black Hills; on who tell you this. his third day, one of the said white eagles flew down and landed on the altar hill by "The whites know that there are four black the fasting warrior and talked to him in flags of God; that is, four divisions of the plain Sioux language. It said that the white earth. He first made the earth soft by wet­ men will invade your Black Hills in the ting it, then cut it into four parts, one of very near future and will take over the re­ which, containing the Black Hills, he gave sources under their possession and give you to the Dakotas, and, because I am a woman, a bad time. Then the white eagles relin­ I shall not consent to the pouring of blood quished their roaming from the vast coun­ on this chief house {or dwelling place}­ try of the Black Hills.8l that is, the Black Hills. The time will come that you will remember my words, for after A much earlier account of vision-seeking many years you shall grow up one with the in the Black Hills was given by One Eye, the white people." She then circled round and brother of Bull Bear. In 1846, he told Francis 200 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER/FALL 1997

Parkman that he had fasted in a cave in the around them. Circles of rocks form the tipi Black Hills as a boy, or approximately 1782.82 rings of older camp sites. An eagle-catch­ While a vision might be sought at any se­ ing pit is near. High on the butte itself, that cluded place, the repeated use of a particular great bird so close to Thunder still nests. place for vision seeking suggests a more spe­ Circling above the stone heights he watches cific religious significance for that place. Brown the fasters down below. A spring marks the Hat's vision is perhaps the strongest ethno­ place from which the people gathered blue graphic evidence that the Black Hills area as a clay to make the sky color used in decorat­ whole was considered sacred ground. In this ing the rawhide parfleches. And to the vision, the Eagle Woman told Brown Hat that southwest lies the spot where the Buffalo the Great Father gave the Black Hills to the People themselves first gave the Suhtaio Lakotas as their dwelling place.83 Nicholas the Sacred Medicine Lodge, the Sun Dance. Black Elk also considered the Black Hills the "heart of the earth" and the promised land of This is the heart of the Cheyenne sacred the Lakotas, based on the story of the Great places and sacred ways. This is where the Race.84 All Father and the Sacred Powers them­ selves gave Sweet Medicine the four Sa­ CHEYENNE SACRED PLACES cred Arrows.87

Bear Butte, Nowah'wus, is the most sacred In his discussion of Lakota beliefs about location in the traditional Cheyenne belief the Black Hills, Donald Worster states that system.85 Known as Sacred Mountain Where the Black Hills were not thought of as holy People Are Taught, or Medicine Pipe Moun­ ground by earlier generations. "They [the Black tain, Bear Butte was central to many Chey­ Hills] were not exactly their equivalent of enne beliefs and ceremonies. "The old Mecca."8s This statement certainly does not Proto-Tsistsistas and Tsistsistas [Cheyenne] apply to the Cheyennes and Bear Butte. Dur­ concept of the spirit lodge derives from the ing Cheyenne ceremonies, villages, ceremo­ configuration of the sacred mountain [Bear nial structures, and supplicants were often Butte] that itself is a spirit lodge and that is oriented to Bear Butte.89 Like the Muslim pray­ associated with maheonoxsz, the sacred caves, ing toward Mecca, religious Cheyennes were and heszevoxsz, the underground caverns where constantly aware of their location in relation the animal spirits reside."86 This belief is mir­ to the sacred mountain. John Bourke specifi­ rored in the sweat lodge as a medium of re­ cally stated in 1877 that "Bear Butte, at the newal. Cheyenne sacred tradition involves a northeast corner of the BlackHills, was once a series of stories whereby the people are saved sort of a Mecca for the Cheyennes" where they from crises by receiving sacred knowledge at fasted, prayed, and honored the spirits of their Bear Butte. When the Cheyennes were starv­ dead.90 The location of various Cheyenne ing, Sweet Medicine and Erect Horns brought bands during their seasonal movements mir­ them prosperity and cultural identity from the rored their arrangement around Bear Butte spirit beings residing within Bear Butte. Bear during gatherings for ceremonies.91 Butte as the source of the people's power and The Racetrack, Buffalo Gap, Sundance beliefs appears to be both old and fundamen­ Mountain, and Bear Lodge Butte (Devils tal to Cheyenne religion. The connection be­ Tower) are associated with Cheyenne tradi­ tween Bear Butte and the Cheyenne people is tions regarding the Great Race and the origins very complex and intricate. of the Sun Dance. The story of the Great Race plays an important role in Cheyenne cosmol­ Today, Cheyenne pilgrims climbing ogy, especially in establishing order among Nowah'wus see the marks of the past all living things.92 As in the Lakota version of the THE SACRED BLACK HILLS 201

tradition, the story is closely linked to the When a group of Cheyenne elders visited Racetrack.93 Two versions of the story place Bear Butte in 1940, they detoured on their the beginning and ending point at Buffalo way home to visit a hot spring in the southern Gap.94 Other versions refer to the first Sun Black Hills that was "famous in Cheyenne Dance near Bear Lodge Butte and Sundance legend." They also visited a place called "hole Mountain.95 in the wall" near the town of Mystic in the The Cheyenne name for Bear Lodge Butte central Black Hills and the remains of a cer­ is Nakoeve, Bear Peak. It was revered in Chey­ emonial antelope pit in the town of Belle enne tradition as the place where the girl was Fourche. 102 saved from the giant spirit bear and is linked to the constellations Pleiades and the Big Dip­ ARAPAHO SACRED PLACES per.96 Like the Lakotas, the Cheyennes believed Because the Arapahos were closely allied rock art sites were sources of power and infor­ with the Cheyennes, we can assume that for mation about the future.97 Beverly Badhorse the most part they shared the same sacred sites. notes that most incised rock art in the north­ An abbreviated version of an account of how ern Plains was probably made by Lakotas and the Arapahos acquired their seven sacred Cheyennes. Recognizable Cheyenne motifs bundles, or "Medicine Bags" suggests that Bear include V -neck humans, lizards, turtles, circles Butte was a focal point of their religion, as it with dots in the middle, and bisected circles, was for the Cheyennes: some of which refer to the Sun Dance. The Cheyennes say the V -neck human is a variant There was a vision in which a man found of the "man" symbol used in the Sun Dance himself inside a cave. He saw the medicine and in other Cheyenne ceremonies.98 Accord­ arrows of the Cheyennes, but "they were ing to Badhorse, the lizard or horned toad is too powerful." Instead, he took the seven the most powerful religious symbol of the medicine bags, which he gave to the seven Cheyennes because it does its own Sun Dance. most honored men in the tribe.103 Lizard body-painting is common among mod­ ern sun dancers. At least one lizard and sev­ The reference to the Cheyenne arrows strongly eral V -necked humans are known from Black suggests that Bear Butte was the place visited Hills rock art, and at least one Cheyenne shield in the vision. The Lakota holy man Fools motif is present.99 Crow, who fasted at Bear Butte around 1914 Karl Schlesier argues that some or all of the and again in 1950, noted that Cheyennes and stone alignments called medicine wheels are Arapahos alike made much use of the moun­ of Cheyenne origin. Whatever their exact ori­ tain.104 gin, these features do tend to be associated The Arapahos have traditions about Bear with Algonkian speakers.loo As the Cheyennes Lodge Butte similar to those of the Cheyennes, and their Arapaho allies were the only Kiowas, and Lakotas. Their name for the fea­ Algonkians in the Black Hills, it is reasonable ture translates to Bears' Lodge. to hypothesize that the single medicine wheel in the Black Hills was of Cheyenne origin. KIOWA AND KIOWA-ApACHE SACRED This circle of stones had five "arms" extend­ PLACES ing outward, each with a smaller circle of stones at its end and another about one-third of the The identity of the Kiowa people was way in from the end.101 The site lies on the closely tied to the Black Hills. The Lakotas eastern edge of the Black Hills, but most of called the Kiowas the Island Hill people, re­ the wheel has been destroyed by highway con­ ferring to the island-like position of the Black struction. Hills, surrounded by grasslands. According to 202 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER/FALL 1997 the Lakota holy man Black Elk, "there was trails." And a miracle occurred. The land another tribe that grew from this band, and became hilly and full of canyons, and the they called them the Island Hill [Witapaha, men and girl ran ahead while the bear was Kiowas], by which I think they meant the Sioux slowed by these hills and gullies and can­ called the Black Hills at that time the Island yons.IOS Hills." The Lakotas also used the term Island Hill people to refer to any ancient inhabitants The correspondence between the girl's de­ of the Black Hills. This suggests that the scription of the area as "entrails" and the Kiowa Kiowas were in the Hills long enough to be metaphor of stomach rind suggests that this considered the prehistoric inhabitants of the part of the story refers to the creation of the area. I05 Black Hills, the most prominent broken land­ Although much information has been lost, scape near Bear Lodge Butte. Like the Lakotas, a few sources provide a glimpse of the sacred Cheyennes, and Crows the Kiowas associate landscape of the Kiowas and their Kiowa­ Bear Lodge Butte with a constellation, either Apache allies in the Black Hills. Kiowa and the Pleiades or the Big Dipper.109 Kiowa-Apache myths refer specifically to Bear Another Kiowa version relates that the Lodge Butte and Bear Butte Lake.106 It is rea­ power of Bear Lodge Butte saved, not a girl or sonable to hypothesize that the entire north­ sisters, but the Kiowa culture-hero Sun-Boy ern border of the Black Hills from Bear Lodge or Half Boy. This supernatural boy had split Butte to Sundance Mountain to Bear Butte himself in two; thus the two parts are often was sacred ground for the Kiowas, as it was for referred to as the Twin Gods, although each the Cheyennes and Lakotas who followed was half of the same person.110 In 1890 an old them. Kiowa woman related that about 1690, the According to James Mooney, the Kiowas Kiowas had settled in the Black Hills country had a myth accounting for the origin of the near the Rock That Pushed Up the Boys, an­ Black Hills, though he did not record the text other name for Bear Lodge Butte. Because Sun­ or cite a source for it. The Kiowa name for Boy brought the Kiowas their sacred spirit the Black Hills, however, ptovides a link to power, this story indicates that Bear Lodge Kiowa mythology. The Kiowas called the Butte was an important religious place for the Black Hills Sadalkani K' op, translated as stom­ Kiowas. 111 ach rind or manifold mountains.I07 The name According to Kiowa tradition, the Bear refers to the rugged, broken nature of the Black Kidney tafme, one of three great tribal reli­ Hills country. In one version of the story of gious objects, came from Bear Butte.ll2 This Bear Lodge Butte, a girl and several warriors was a stone believed to house great supernatu­ are pursued by a giant bear. They receive su­ ral powers. pernatural help from three spirit beings: a A Kiowa-Apache tradition refers to a sa­ monstrous creature living under the waters of cred lake in the northern Black Hills as a a river, a hill, and a rock. The rock becomes portal to the land of the dead. Here a Kiowa­ Bear Lodge Butte, lifting the people safely out Apache culture hero received one of the sa­ of the reach of the bear. Before that, however, cred bundles of his people. This apparently the hill offers to help, if the people will in­ refers to Bear Butte Lake, the only natural struct it what to do. lake in the Black Hills apart from a few small sinkholes. Its proximity to Bear Butte is re­ The little girl said, "I want you to turn into flected in its identification as the sacred lake a buffalo's entrails. There is a certain part of the Kiowas and Kiowa-Apaches. This ech­ of the entrails that has some rugged gullies. oes a Kiowa tradition of a sacred lake in the You must become similar to buffalo en- northern Black Hills. I13 THE SACRED BLACK HILLS 203

ARIKARA SACRED PLACES feelings here. And now we've separated. It is truly the way it is: we have separated. The Arikara story accounting for the ori­ The eagle is going all around. He is going gin of Bear Lodge Butte is similar to the Kiowas' around in the Black Hills. But I'll go around and also associates the feature with the Pleia­ pitifully over there. I 16 des. 114 In one version of the story, seven sis­ ters were set upon by a bear while playing. This story suggests that the Black Hills were They ran to a big rock which rose up, carrying beyond the usual territory of the Arikaras, a them out of reach of the great bear. Their place where supernatural beings could live people could not get them down again, so they undisturbed by human interference. This ech­ rose up into the sky to become the stars of the oes the Lakotas' view of the Black Hills as the Pleiades. abode of spirits. The Arikaras told a series of stories about Bloody Hands, a poor orphan boy who lived MANDAN SACRED PLACES with his grandmother at the edge of the vil­ lage. Bloody Hands succeeded in various un­ One version of the Mandan account of the dertakings, despite his lack of wealth and Great Flood refers to Bear Butte. According physical beauty, because he possessed great to one source, Mandans made pilgrimages to powers. The story of Bloody Hands becoming Bear Butte annually to commemorate the flood an eagle is the last of the series, told in April, and to pray that it not return.ll7 This account at the end of the storytelling season. liS suggests a Mecca-like status for the mountain When Bloody Hands asked his grand­ even before the Cheyennes made it the focus mother's permission to join a war party, she of their religion. Mandan oral tradition states refused, explaining that the other warriors that the group lived for a time in the Black would make fun of him because he was so ugly Hills before establishing themselves on the and pitiful. His feelings hurt, Bloody Hands Missouri River, a tradition supported by the turned into an eagle. Heedless of his grand­ presence of Initial Middle Missouri (proto­ mother's pleas that he return to his natural Mandan) archaeological sites in the eastern form, he flew off "where the highest of the and northern periphery of the Black Hills. IIB Black Hills are." The grandmother followed him and attempted to bring him down by pos­ DISCUSSION ing as bait-first a rabbit and then a deer. The eagle was not fooled and reached the Black Groups occupying the Black Hills had tra­ Hills, where he lighted on top of a tall rock­ ditional or sacred landscapes encompassing Bear Lodge Butte. The grandmother begged three kinds of properties: distinctive regions, him to come to the edge so that she could . such as the area around Sundance Mountain; have one last look at him. When he did she specific points in the landscape, such as Inyan turned into a bear that leaped up the sides of Kara or Bear Butte; and kinds of places, such the rock, scratching it with her claws, but as springs and caves. Table 1 summarizes ref­ unable to reach him. When she grew tired, the erences to the Black Hills in the mythology of eagle-grandson departed, where the grand­ various groups occupying the area. Groups new mother could not follow. Thus they were sepa­ to the area often adapted the sacred landscape rated. of their predecessors to their own beliefs and traditions. As a group became separated from Now grandson, grandson, you have made it the Black Hills area in space and time, the hard for me. I t is impossible to go over there. number of remembered places became fewer It is only rocky land ... you have hurt my and fewer. Thus, we have much information 204 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER/FALL 1997

TABLE 1 STORIES REFERRING TO THE BLACK HILLS

MYTH FEATURES NAMED IN MYTH GROUP REF.

The Monster Bear Black Hills, Bear Lodge Butte Kiowa, Lakota, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Arikara Half-Boy Brings the Boy Medicine Bear Butte Lake Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache 2 Half-Boy Vanquishes the Monster Bear Bear Lodge Butte Kiowa 3 The Great Flood Bear Butte Mandan 4 Bloody Hands Becomes an Eagle Bear Lodge Butte Arikara 5 Erect Horns Gets the New Life Bear Butte Cheyenne/Suhtai 6 Lodge Ceremony and Sacred Hat Old Man and Old Woman Wolf Bear Butte Cheyenne 7 The Stone Buffalo Horn northern Black Hills Cheyenne 8 Sweet Medicine Receives the Sacred Arrows Bear Butte Cheyenne 9 The Death of Sweet Medicine Bear Butte Cheyenne 10 The Great Race The Racetrack, Sun Dance Lakota, Cheyenne 11 Mountain, Buffalo Gap, Inyan Kara The Ghost Owl Harney Peak Cheyenne, Lakota 12 Emergence of the Holy Buffalo People Wind Cave Lakota 13 Taopi Gli Goes to the Underground World Wind Cave Lakota 14 The Great Flood and the Origin of Harney Peak or Lakota 15 the Lakotas Bear Lodge Butte Thunderbird stories Harney Peak Lakota 16 Uncigila's Seventh Spot Black Hills (cave with rock art) Lakota 17 Why the Crow is Black Rapid Creek Lakota 18 Fallen Star and the Chiefs Arm Bear Butte, White Butte Lakota 19 The Seven Star Villages Bear Lodge Butte, Bear Butte, Lakota 20 Rapid Creek, possibly Gillette Prairie

TABLE REFERENCES (REFER TO NOTES AT END OF ARTICLE)133

1. Mooney, Calendar History (note 107), p. 160; Boyd, 37; Powell, Sweet Medicine (note 27), pp.467-71; Odell, Kiowa Voices (note 109), pp. 88-93; Erdoes and Ortiz, Mato Paha (note 46), p. 9. Myths and Legends (note 37), pp. 225-27; South Dakota 7. Schlesier, Wolves of Heaven (note 3), pp. 77-79. Writer's Project, Legends of the Mighty Sioux (note 37), 8. Grinnell, Cheyenne Campfires (note 30), pp. 46, pp. 115-16; LaPointe, Legends of the Lakota (note 14), 167-71. pp. 65-67; Schukies, Red Hat (note 3), pp. 71-75; Parks, 9. Erdoes and Ortiz, Myths and Legends (note 37), pp. Tradition Narratives (note 114), pp. 179-85, 733-36; 202-03; Grinnell, Cheyenne Indians (note 30), pp. 345- Dorsey and Kroeber, Traditions of the Arapaho (note 133), 81; Powell, Sweet Medicine (note 27), pp. 460-66; 5; Momaday, Rainy Mountain (note 109), p. 8; Parson, Schukies, Red Hat (note 3), pp. 283; Hyde, Life of George Kiowa Tales (note 106), pp. 9-11. Bent (note 85), p. 242; Stands in Timber and Liberty, 2. Nye, Bad Medicine (note 113), p. 49; McAllister, Cheyenne Memories (note 52), pp. 35-43. "Kiowa-Apache Social Organization" (note 113), p. 162. 10. Stands in Timber and Liberty, Cheyenne Memories 3. Nye, Bad Medicine (note 113), p. vii; Boyd, Kiowa (note 52), pp. 39; Erdoes and Ortiz, Myths and Legends Voices (note 111), pp. 2-12. (note 37), p. 204; Grinnell, Cheyenne Indians (note 30), 4. Rosen, Pa-Ha-Sa-Pah (note 117), p. 54; Odell, pp.345-81; Powell, Sweet Medicine (note 27), pp. 460- Mato Paha (note 117), p. 32. 66. 5. Parks, TraditionalNarratives {note 114),pp.508-14. 11. Stands in Timber and Liberty, Cheyenne Memories 6. Dorsey, The Cheyenne (note 133), pp. 46-48; (note 52), pp. 19-24; Powell, Sweet Medicine (note 27), Erdoes and Ortiz, Myths and Legends (note 37), pp. 34- pp. 472-77; Schlesier, Wolves of Heaven (note 3), p. 58; THE SACRED BLACK HILLS 205

TABLE REFERENCES CONTINUED

Grinnell, Cheyenne Campfires (note 30), pp. 252-54; 14. LaPointe, Legends of the Lakota (note 14), pp. 80-84. Erdoes and Ortiz, Myths and Legends (note 37), pp. 390- 15. Erdoes and Ortiz, Myths and Legends {note 37), pp. 92; Buechel, Lakota Tales (note 58), pp. 94-96; DeMallie, 93-95. Sixth Grandfather (note 33), pp. 309-10; LaPointe, Leg­ 16. Erdoes and Ortiz, Myths and Legends {note 37), pp. ends of Lakota (note 14), pp. 17-20; Black Elk, "Black 218-22; South Dakota Writers Project, Legends of the Hills Place Names" (note 43), n.p.; Neihardt, When the Mighty Sioux (note 37), p. 110; LaPointe, Legends of the Tree Flowered (note 53), pp. 202-08; Schukies, Red Hat Lakota (note 14), p. 59; Lame Deer and Erdoes, Lame (note 3), p. 283; Kroeber, "Cheyenne Tales" (note 133), Deer (note 3), p. 96. pp. 161-62; Moore, "Cheyenne Names and Cosmology" 17. Erdoes and Ortiz, Myths and Legends {note 37), pp. (note 92), pp. 296-97; Densmore, Teton Sioux Music 237-38. (note 34), p. 319; Marquis and Limbaugh, Cheyenne and 18. LaPointe, Legends of the Lakota (note 14), pp. 74- Sioux (note 93), p. 30. 77; DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather (note 33), pp. 395-409; 12. Marriott and Rachlin, Plains Indian Mythology Neihardt, When the Tree Flowered (note 53), pp. 168-91. (note 32), pp. 43-47; Deloria, Dakota Texts (note 26), 19. DeMallie, ibid.; Neihardt, ibid. pp. 14-16. 20. DeMallie, ibid.; Neihardt, ibid.; Goodman, Lakota 13. M. Powers, Oglala Women {note 64), pp. 41-42,50. Star Knowledge (note 3), n.p.

concerning Cheyenne and Lakota use of the Finally the Cheyennes reached the prairies Black Hills, less about Arapaho and Kiowa where the rippling blanket of buffalo grass use, and little about Mandan and Arikara use. was cut by the swiftly flowing waters of the Yellowstone, the Tongue, and the Platte The territories of ethnic groups often rivers. Ahead lay the apparently endless changed over time. In new territories, new sweep of the plains country, its color chang­ ethnic markers were established. Often the ing with the shifting rays of the sun. Here, sacred places of earlier-even evicted­ except for the pine hills and low-lying groups were adopted because they were buttes, there were few places where a man natural landmarks and powerful, impressive could fast and pray. Thus the heights of the locations. In a sense, immigrating groups Sacred Mountain remained all the more brought their sacred places with them. For deeply embedded in Cheyenne tribal instance, when the Suhtais lived in eastern memory.120 South Dakota their sacred mountain was located in the Timber Mountains of south­ The Black Hills provides a prime example western Minnesota. When they moved to of this phenomenon. We can trace Lakota the Black Hills region around 1670, they beliefs about Bear Lodge Butte and Bear Butte adopted Bear Butte as their foremost sa­ to the more elaborate Cheyenne traditions, cred place and transferred to it the origin of which in turn appear to have derived in part the New Life Lodge ceremony that had be­ from Arikara, Kiowa, or Crow traditions. The longed to the Minnesota mountain. Bear association of Devils Tower with bear taboos Butte was not a territorial marker but an perhaps is a hold-over from when the important spiritual place for a number of Athabascan and Algonkian groups were liv­ ethnic groups in historic and prehistoric ing far to the north.121 That the Lakotas lacked time.119 this long-standing tradition of bear avoidance is evident in their rather abbreviated version The very scarcity of prominent landmarks of the myth. Nevertheless, they adopted both may help explain why they tended to be used the place and much of the mythical context in similar ways by different ethnic groups: that had built up around it. 206 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER/FALL 1997

Religious traditions about the Black Hills teen sacred sites in a discrete area constitutes clearly antedate the beginnings of tourism in a holy land is a bit like asking how many an­ the 1930s and the legal battles of the 1960s gels can dance on the head of a pin. At least and 1970s, extending back at least several cen­ two Lakotas, Nicholas Black Elk and Battiste turies. The Kiowas, Mandans, Arikaras, Chey­ Good, specifically referred to the Black Hills ennes, and Lakotas all have traditional as a promised land, but both were speaking histories regarding extensive migrations in after the loss of the area under the bitterest of pre contact times. From the perspective of these circumstances. James H. McGregor, Indian traditional histories, the recognition of sacred agent at Pine Ridge in the 1930s, also described places is sometimes a matter ofhaving returned the Black Hills as the "special gift" of Wakan to a place remembered from the oldest times. Tanka to the Lakota people, based on his con­ It may also be viewed as a matter of perceiving versations with Oglala elders.123 The Chey­ an intrinsic sacredness of place that does not ennes believed that they were given all the depend on beliefs specific to anyone group for territory around Bear Butte as their promised its definition. land.124 The beliefs of earlier groups in this New groups entering or reentering the area regard are not recorded. recognized the sacred sites of their predeces­ The northern Plains contains many places sors and often adopted them as their own. historically considered sacred by various Na­ Thus, the question of whether the Lakotas "had tive American groups. Were the Black Hills time" to develop religious traditions about the more sacred than these other places? The an­ Black Hills reflects a naive view of culture swer certainly is yes as regards Bear Butte and change.122 Both the Lakotas and the Chey­ Bear Lodge Butte {Devils Tower}. The Race­ ennes placed old religious traditions into new track and associated locales were also primary {or renewed} geographic contexts as they en­ sacred sites for the Lakotas and Cheyennes, as tered (or reentered) the Black Hills area. was Bear Butte Lake for the Kiowa-Apaches. Rather than having to invent such traditions, At the same time, those portions of the Black the Lakotas recognized and adopted the reli­ Hills richest in sacred sites were also richest in gious traditions of those who preceded them resources, especially after the introduction of in the area. Myth structures permitted the rec­ the horse made the interior mountains less onciliation of old traditions to new places, as attractive to Native groups. In ceding the well as the adoption of new beliefs. Whether Black Hills in 1876, Lakota leaders made a this was a process of borrowing new traditions last-ditch effort to reserve for themselves that or renewing old ones, the result was a complex portion of the Black Hills from the Racetrack sacred geography. For as far back as the his­ outward. 125 torical and ethnographic record can take us, Were these leaders acting to retain the lands the Black Hills have been a physical manifes­ containing their most important holy places, tation of sacred relationships between earth, including Bear Butte, Bear Lodge Butte, Inyan sky, and the underworld, between people and Kara Mountain, Buffalo Gap, and the Race­ the spirit beings, and between the temporal track? Or were they acting to retain the lands and spiritual realms. most accessible on horseback and most valu­ Whether the Black Hills, as a whole, were able to them economically? Since Lakotas considered sacred is a more difficult question. viewed the abundance of resources in the Black At least thirteen places in the Black Hills are Hills as an expression of the beneficence of specifically referred to a~ sacred in historic Wakan Tanka, the two kinds of value were in­ and ethnographic documents. This does not tertwined in their minds. 126 Red Cloud clearly count generic sacred places, such as rock art implied this by asking that the federal govern­ sites, caves, and high peaks associated with ment provide for the Lakotas once the Black the Thunder-beings. Deciding whether thir- Hills were denied them: "God Almighty placed THE SACRED BLACK HILLS 207

those hills there for my wealth, but now you of the annual Sun Dance, "most solemn of want to take them and make me poor, so I ask festivities." He concluded that, tothe Indi­ so much [compensation] so that I won't be ans, "the Black Hills are holy ground of the poor."127 It can be argued that hunting and very holiest sort." With a perspicacity unusual other resource gathering in the Black Hills for his day, Curtis hypothesized that Lakota were as much religious as economic activities. religious leaders were increasingly stressing In 1874 William E. Curtis wrote that "accord­ traditions about the sacredness of the area in ing to the evidence of Sitting Bull, the Indi­ order to preserve intact this last undisturbed ans had wont in former days to make their remnant of their once vast territories. Samuel hunting [in the Black Hills] a mere accessory Barrows of the New York Tribune wrote that to-very possibly a part of-their worship."128 the Black Hills were the Indians' "fable-land," From the Lakota viewpoint, resource gather­ invested with legends and superstitions. Aris ing did not preclude approaching the Black B. Donaldson of the St. Paul Pioneer also Hills in "a reverential mood."129 stressed that the Black Hills were sacred to In emphasizing the economic value of the the Indians. Black Hills, the Lakota negotiators may sim­ ply have been trying to meet the whites on It [the Black Hills] is the famed stronghold white terms. After all, a religious argument and favorite hunting ground of the red man. could hardly be persuasive to a people who It is even dearer to him than the land of the considered Native religion ignorance at best "graves of his forefathers." He believes that and devil worship at worst. Such an argument the souls of the departed revisit these earthly was more likely to have had the opposite ef­ abodes, and in spiritual forms pursue the fect because the sooner the religion of the spiritual game over the old, familiar hunt­ Lakotas could be broken down, the sooner they ing grounds. To the simple faith of the In­ would become "good" (Le., fully acculturated) dian, it is the most sacred spot on earth, to Indians. Removing them from their purported him the "holy of holies."J3O holy land would only hasten the process. On the other hand, the whites were already grum­ Nowhere in these newspaper accounts was bling about the cost of the annual treaty pay­ the sacredness of the Black Hills questioned. ments to the reservation Lakotas. Faced with It seems to have been the accepted knowledge this expense, perhaps the whites could be per­ of the day that the Black Hills were, indeed, suaded to reconsider their taking of the Black the holy land of the Lakotas. At the same Hills. time, the reporters clearly show that they con­ The most revealing statements of white and sidered the issue of sacredness entirely ir­ Indian attitudes about the Black Hills in the relevant. Just as they were unanimous in 1870s come from newspaper accounts. Re­ recognizing the sacredness of the Black Hills, porters accompanying the 1874 Black Hills the reporters were unanimous in demanding expedition, with opportunity to discuss the that the area be quickly opened to white set­ Black Hills with Lakota, Santee, and Arikara tlement. For example, after describing the scouts, were unanimous in describing the Black Black Hills as the Lakotas' "holy of holies," Hills as the holy land of the Lakotas and Chey­ Donaldson wondered how much longer the ennes. N. H. Knappen of the Bismarck Tribune area would be left as only an occasional hunt­ said the Indians regarded the Black Hills as ing ground for "the most obstinately depraved the home of the Great Spirit. For the New nomad" in the human race. In the 1870s, In­ York World, William E. Curtis described the dian beliefs about the Black Hills were either Black Hills as the Indians' "earthly paradise" to be forbidden, reformed, or ignored. The real and "combined deer park and Mecca," and issue was how quickly the Indians could be noted that the Black Hills were often the site either reformed or exterminated and the area 208 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER/FALL 1997 opened to white use. l3l The reporters, who and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. reflected the prevailing attitudes of the day, 136-53. 2. Ibid., pp. 136-53; E. Steve Cassells, David had no motive for exaggerating the Indians' B. Miller, and Paul V. Miller, Paha Sapa: A Cultural beliefs about the sacredness of the Black Hills. Resource Overview of the Black Hills National Forest, When Lakotas asserted in the 1970s, with South Dakota and Wyoming, (USDA Forest Service, seeming suddenness, that the Black Hills were Black Hills National Forest, Custer, South Dakota, sacred ground, they were responding to the 1984), pp. 112-13; Watson Parker, "The Black Hills Controversy" (paper presented at the annual meet­ federal government's equally sudden policy ing of the Dakota History Conference, April 1984 ). that sacredness was relevant to their claims 3. John (Fire) Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes, on the area. The rise of interest in Native Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions: The Life of a Sioux American religious rights in the 1970s was to Medicine Man (New York: Simon and Schuster, culminate in passage of the American Indian 1972), pp. 93, 99,105; Karl H. Schlesier, The Wolves of Heaven: Cheyenne Shamanism, Ceremonies, and Religious Freedom Act in 1978. Public atti­ Prehistoric Origins (Norman: University of Okla­ tudes were changing rapidly. Instead of asking homa Press, 1987), p. 4; Renate Schukies, Red Hat: why the Lakotas were claiming sacred status Cheyenne Blue Sky Maker and Keeper of the Sacred for the Black Hills in the 1970s, we might Arrows (Munich and Hamburg: Lit Verlag, 1993); more productively ask how the conventional Thomas Mails, Fools Crow (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1979), pp. 86, 154; Tom Charging Eagle wisdom of the 1870s-that the Black Hills and Ron Zeilinger, Black Hills: Sacred Hills (Cham­ were the Lakotas' holy land-came to be dis­ berlain, South Dakota: Tipi Press, 1987); Ronald puted in the 1970s. The answer seems to lie in Goodman, Lakota Star Knowledge: Studies in Lakota the sudden relevance of sacredness to land Stellar Theology (Rosebud, South Dakota: Sinte claims disputes. The Black Hills have increas­ Gleska University, 1992), pp. 1-19; Severt Young Bear and R. D. Theisz, Standing in the Light: A ingly become a symbol of Native American Lakota Way of Seeing (Lincoln: University of Ne­ resistance to acculturation, and because of this braska Press, 1994), pp. 28-33; Leonard Crow Dog symbolic role, they are today sacred in ways and Richard Erdoes, Crow Dog: Four Generations of that they historically were not. This does not, Sioux Medicine Men (New York: HarperCollins, however, mean that the area had no religious 1995), pp. 41, 58,161. . 4. Parker, "Black Hills Controversy" (note 2 significance in the past. above), p. 4; Worster, Under Western Skies (note 1 We may never know for certain the degree above), p. 149. to which the Black Hills were considered sa­ 5. Richard 1. Dodge, The Black Hills (1876; rpt. cred ground by their past inhabitants. At least Minneapolis: Ross and Haines, 1965); Edwin portions of the area were sacred to many groups Thompson Denig, Five Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri, ed. John C. Ewers (Norman: University at many times. The presence of about a hun­ of Oklahoma Press, 1961). dred rock art sites in the Black Hills, many 6. Denig, ibid., p. 6. illustrating recognizably religious themes and 7. Richard 1. Dodge, Our Wild Indians (1882; some dating back thousands of years, suggests rpt. Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, that the area has had considerable religious 1970); Dodge, Black Hills (note 5 above), pp. 149- 51; Lesta V. Turchen and James D. McLaird, The significance for much, if not all, of its human Black Hills Expedition of 1875 (Mitchell, South history.132 The current religious revitalization Dakota: Dakota Wesleyan University Press, 1975), movement among Lakota and Cheyenne p. 77; Richard 1. Dodge, The Black Hills Journals of people is as much a rediscovery as a reinven­ Richard Irving Dodge, ed. Wayne R. Kime (Norman: tion of traditional beliefs, including beliefs University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), p. 105. 8. Dodge, Black Hills Journals (ibid.), p. 139. about the Black Hills. 9. Dodge, Black Hills (note 5 above), p. 137; Linea Sundstrom, Culture History of the Black Hills NOTES (Lincoln: J&L Reprint, 1989), p. 7. 10. Turchen and McLaird, Black Hills Expedi­ 1. Donald Worster, Under Western Skies: Na­ tion (note 7 above), pp. 39, 41; Dodge, Black Hills ture and History in the American West (New York Journals (note 7 above), pp. 72, 79, 122, 191,222; THE SACRED BLACK HILLS 209

William Ludlow, Report of a Reconnaissance of the 29. Bad Heart Bull, Pictographic History (note Black Hills of Dakota, Made in the Summer of 1874 15 above), p. 290. (Washington: Government Printing Office); Max 30. George Bird Grinnell, The Cheyenne Indi­ E. Gerber, "The Black Hills Expedition of 1874: A ans: Their History and Ways of Life, vol. 2 (New New Look," South Dakota History 1 (June-July 1970): Haven: Yale University Press, 1923): 100; Grinnell, 6-20. By Cheyenne Campfires, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale 11. Dodge, Black Hills Journals (note 7 above), University Press, 1962), pp. 186, 157-61; Royal pp. 72, 79, 105. Hassrick, The Sioux: Life and Customs of a Warrior 12. Ibid., p. 79. Society (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 13. Worster, Under Western Skies (note 1 above), 1964), pp. 323, 338. p.149. 31. Walker, Lakota Belief and Ritual (note 19 14. James LaPointe, Legends of the Lakota (San above), pp. 72-73; Eugene Buechel, A Dictionary of Francisco: The Indian Historian Press, 1976). Teton Sioux (Pine Ridge, South Dakota: Red Cloud 15. Amos Bad Heart Bull, A Pictographic History Indian School, 1983). of the Oglala Sioux, ed. Helen H. Blish (Lincoln: 32. Alice Marriott and Carol K. Rachlin, Plains University of Nebraska Press, 1967), p. 289. Indian Mythology (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 16. Ibid., pp. xix-xxii. 1975), pp. 43-47. 17. Ibid., p. 290. 33. Raymond J. DeMallie, The Sixth Grandfa­ 18. John Gregory Bourke diaries, 1872-96, vol. ther: Black Elk's Teachings Given to John G. 16: 1555-56, Library of the US Military Academy, Neihardt (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, West Point. 1984); John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks (New 19. James R. Walker, Lakota Belief and Ritual, York: Simon and Schuster, 1972). For the cen­ ed. Raymond J. DeMallie and Elaine A. Jahner ter of the universe, see Neihardt, p. 36, note; (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), pp. W. Powers, Sacred Language (note 19 above), p. 70-71; William K. Powers, Sacred Language: The 131, Joseph Epes Brown, The Sacred Pipe: Black Nature of Supernatural Discourse in Lakota (N orman: Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux University of Oklahoma Press, 1986), p. 136. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press), pp. 20. James R. Walker, Lakota Myth, ed. Elaine A. 89-90. Jahner (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 34. Frances Densmore, Teton Sioux Music (Bu­ 1983), pp. 194,206-12. reau of American Ethnology Bulletin 61, 1918), 21. W. Powers, Sacred Language (note 19 above), p.120. pp. 181-88, 206. 35. DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather (note 33 above), 22. G. K. Warren, Preliminary Report ofExplora­ pp. 295, 310. tions in Nebraska and Dakota in the Years 1855 -56-57 36. Douglas R. Parks and Waldo R. Wedel, "Paw­ (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1875), nee Geography: Historical and Sacred," Great Plains p. 18; Dodge, Black Hills Journals (note 7 above), Quarterly 5 (1985): 170. p.189. 37. South Dakota Writers Project, Federal 23. Herbert Krause and Gary D. Olson, Prelude Works Project Administration, Legends of the Mighty to Glory (Sioux Falls, South Dakota: Brevet Press Sioux, 1941, pp. 115-16; Richard Erdoes and and Augustana College Center for Western Stud­ Alfonso Ortiz, American Indian Mythsand Legends ies, 1974), p. 118. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), pp. 225-27; 24. Charlotte A. Black Elk, "Ceremonies of "The Legend of Devils Tower," pamphlet, (Sun­ Spring," 1987 manuscript, Appendix D in dance, Wyoming: Devils Tower National Monu­ Goodman, Lakota Star Knowledge (note 3 above), ment, undated). p. 51; Goodman, p. 13. 38. Eugene Buechel quoted in Goodman, Lakota 25. Ibid., pp. 9-14. Star Knowledge (note 3 above), p. 55; W. P. Clark, 26. Ella C. Deloria, Dakota Texts (1932, rpt. The Indian Sign Language (1885; rpt. Lincoln: Uni­ Vermillion: University of South Dakota Press, versity of Nebraska Press, 1982), p. 386. 1992), pp. 114-16. 39. Bourke diaries (note 18 above), vol. 16: 27. Such a drawing is misidentified as a buffalo 1555-56. head by Peter J. Powell, in Sweet Medicine: The 40. Raymond J. DeMallie and Douglas R. Parks, Continuing Role of the Sacred Arrows, the Sun Dance, Sioux Indian Religion: Tradition and Innovation and the Sacred Buffalo Hat in Northern Cheyenne (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press), p.68. p. 303; Schlesier, Wolves of Heaven (note 3 above), 41. DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather (note 33 above), p.93. p.366. 28. Decost Smith, Red Indian Experiences (Lon­ 42. Crook County Historical Society, Pioneers don: George Allen and Unwin, 1949), p. 127. of Crook County (Sundance, Wyoming, 1981), p.39. 210 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER/FALL 1997

43. Charlotte Black Elk, "Black Hills Place 57. LaPointe, Legends of the Lakota (note 14 Names," unpublished manuscript in author's pos­ above), pp. 45-46. session, 1984. 58. Eugene Buechel, Lakota Tales and Texts, ed. 44. Brig. Gen. John R. Brooke, Map of the Pine Paul Manhart (Pine Ridge, South Dakota: Red Ridge & Rosebud Indian Reservations and Adjacent Cloud Indian School, 1978), pp. 94-96; DeMallie, Territory, (US Army Department of the Platte, Sixth Grandfather (note 33 above), pp. 309-10; Engineer Office, 1890). LaPointe, Legends of the Lakota (note 14 above), 45. Bad Heart Bull, Pictographic History (note pp. 17-20; Densmore, Teton Sioux Music (note 34 15 above), p. 290. above), p. 319. 46. Thomas E. Odell, Mato Paha: The Story of 59. Densmore, Teton Sioux Music (note 34 Bear Butte (Spearfish, South Dakota: self-published, above), p. 319. 1942), p. 167 note; James H. Howard, "Notes on 60. Luther Standing Bear, My People, the Sioux the Ethnogeography of the Yankton Dakota," Plains (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1928), p. 17; Anthropologfst 17 (1972): 285; DeMallie, Sixth Kadlecek and Kadlecek, To Kill an Eagle (note 47 Grandfather (note 33 above), p. 163. above), p. 96; also see Ronald W. Turner, Mammals 47. Densmore, Teton Sioux Music (note 34 of the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming above), p. 256; LaPointe, Legends of the Lakota (note (Lawrence: University of Kansas Museum ofNatu­ 14 above), pp. 37 -38; South Dakota Writers Project, ral History, Miscellaneous Publication 60, 1974), Legends of the Mighty Sioux (note 37 above), pp. p.22. 111-12; Odell, ibid., pp. 21-29; Edward Kadlecek 61. LaPointe, Legends of the Lakota (note 14 and Mabell Kadlecek, To Kill an Eagle: Indian Views above), p. 84. on the Last Days of Crazy Horse (Boulder, Colorado: 62. DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather (note 33 above), Johnson Books, 1981), p. 146. p.407. 48. Ella C. Deloria, translations of George 63. Goodman, Lakota Star Knowledge (note 3 Bushotter texts collected by James Dorsey, (Boas above), pp. 9-14, 50-53. manuscript collection, reels 32-33, American Philo­ 64. Marla N. Powers, Oglala Women: Myth, sophical Society Library, Philadelphia, undated); Ritual, and Reality (Chicago: University of Chicago Odel, Mata Paha (note 46 above), pp. 21-22; James Press, 1986), pp. 41, 50. Owen Dorsey, A Study of Siouan Cults (Bureau of 65. "Wind Cave," Wi-Iyohi, Bulletin of the South American Ethnology Annual Report 11 [1894]: 351- Dakota Historical Society 23 (1970): 1-2; LaPointe, 544). Legends of the Lakota (note 14 above), pp. 79-85. 49. Bourke diaries (note 18 above), vol. 16: 66. Walker, Lakota Myth (note 20 above), pp. 1555-56. 373, 380. 50. George E. Hyde, Red Cloud's Folk: A History 67. LaPointe, Legends of the Lakota (note 14 of the Oglala Sioux Indians (Norman: University of above), pp. 79-85; M. Powers, Oglala Women (note Oklahoma Press, 1937), p. 82; Odell, Mata Paha 64 above), p. 50. (note 46 above), p. 21. 68. Walker, Lakota Myth (note 20 above), 51. Goodman, Lakota Star Knowledge (note 3 p.206. above), p. 14; DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather (note 33 69. LaPointe, Legends of the Lakota (note 14 above), p. 406. above), p. 52; DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather (note 33 52. John Stands in Timber and Margot Liberty, above), p. 376. Cheyenne Memories (Lincoln: University of Ne­ 70. DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather (note 33 above), braska Press, 1967),89; Mails, Fools Crow (note 3 p.376. above), pp. 254-55. 71. Emily H. Lewis, Wo'Wakita: Reservation Rec­ 53. Bad Heart Bull, Pictographic History (note ollections (Sioux Falls, South Dakota: Center for 15 above), p. 289; LaPointe, Legends of Lakota (note Western Studies, Augustana College, 1980), p. 76. 14 above), pp. 76- 77; DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather 72. Linea Sundstrom, Fragile Heritage: Prehis­ (note 33 above), p. 406; John G. Neihardt, When toric Rock Art of South Dakota (Pierre: South Da­ the Tree Flowered (Lincoln: Unive,rsity of Nebraska kota Historical Preservation Center, 1993), p. 129. Press, 1991), p. 178. 73. Linea Sundstrom, Rock Art of the Southern 54. DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather (note 33 above) Black Hills: A Contextual Approach (New York: p. 407; Neihardt, When the Tree Flowered (ibid.), Garland, 1990), pp. 303-10. pp. 178, 234. 74. Marie L. McLaughlin, Myths and Legends of 55. Alfred W. Bowers, Hidatsa Social and Cer­ the Sioux (1916; rpt. Lincoln: University of Ne­ emonial Organization (Bureau of American Ethnol­ braska Press, 1990), pp. 104-07; William G. Buck­ ogy Bulletin 194, 1965), p. 435. les, "An Analysis of Primitive Rock Art at Medicine 56. Kadlecek and Kadlecek, To Kill an Eagle Creek Cave, Wyoming, and Its Cultural and Chro­ (note 47 above), p. 66. nological Relationships to the Prehistory of the THE SACRED BLACK HILLS 211

Plains" (Masters thesis, University of Colorado, Sioux: Reminiscences of Four Indians and a White 1964). Soldier (Stockton, California: Pacific Center for 75. Linea Sundstrom, The Material Culture of Western Historical Studies, 1973), p. 30. Ludlow Cave (39HNl) , Custer National Forest, 94. Grinnell, Cheyenne Indians (note 30 above), Harding County, South Dakota: A NAG PRA Evalu­ pp. 252-54; Erdoes and Ortiz, Myths and Legends ation (Custer National Forest, Billings, Montana, (note 37 above), pp. 390-92. 1996). 95. Powell, Sweet Medicine (note 27 above), pp. 76. Stanley Vestal, Sitting Bull: Champion of the 472-77; Stands in Timber and Liberty, Cheyenne Sioux (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1932), pp. 72, Memories (note 52 above), pp. 19-24. 276; South Dakota Writers Project, Legends of the 96. Schlesier, Wolves of Heaven (note3 above), Mighty Sioux (note 37 above), pp. 113-14. pp. 50-51. 77. Raymond J. DeMallie, Foreword to Stanley 97. Grinnell, Cheyenne Indians (note 30 above), Vestal, Sitting Bull: Champion of the Sioux (N orman: p.148. University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), p. xv; Ves­ 98. Beverly Badhorse, "Petro glyphs: Possible tal, pp. 72, 276. Religious Significance of Some," Wyoming Archae­ 78. Garrick Mallery, Picture-Writing of the ologist 23-24 (1979): 27 -29; Powell, Sweet Medicine American Indians (Bureau of American Ethnology (note 27 above), p. 438. Annual Report 10, 1893), pp. 289-90. 99. Sundstrom, Rock Art of the Southern Black 79. Kadlecek and Kadlecek, To Kill an Eagle Hills (note 73 above), pp. 152-200; Linea (note 47 above), pp. 118, 146. Sundstrom and James D. Keyser, "Tribal Affilia­ 80. DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather (note 33 above), tion of Shield Petroglyphs from the Black Hills and pp. 157-59. Cave Hills," manuscript in author's possession, 81. Kadlecek and Kadlecek, To Kill an Eagle 1996. (note 47 above), p. 90. 100. Schlesier, Wolves of Heaven (note 3 above), 82. Hyde, Red Cloud's Folk (note 50 above), pp. pp. 83-87;John H. Brumley, "The Ellis Site (EcOp- 30-31. 4): A Late Prehistoric Burial Lodge/Medicine 83. Mallery, Picture-Writing (note 78 above), p. Wheel Site in Southeastern Alberta," in Contribu­ 290. tions to Plains Prehistory, ed. D. Burley (Archaeo­ 84. DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather (note 33 above), logical Survey of Alberta Occasional Paper 13, p.310. Edmonton, 1985), pp. 180-232. 85. Schlesier, Wolves of Heaven (note 3 above), 101. W. H. Over, Indian Picture Writing in South p. 63; Powell, Sweet Medicine (note 27 above), p. Dakota (University of South Dakota Museum, Ar­ 19; Grinnell, Cheyenne Indians (note 30 above), chaeological Studies Circular 4, 1941), p. 48. pp. 201, 368; Stands in Timber and Liberty, Chey­ 102. Odell, Mato Paha (note 46 above), p. 144; enne Memories (note 52 above), pp. 35-43, 89-90; Stands in Timber and Liberty, Cheyenne Memories George E. Hyde, Life of George Bent (Norman: (note 52 above), p. 85. University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), pp. 53, 242; 10 3. Virginia Cole Trenholm, The Arapahoes, Our Bourke diaries (note 18 above), vol. 16: 1555-56, People (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, vol. 26: 44; Odell, Mata Paha (note 46 above), pp. 1970), p. 80. 9-35, 140-58. 104. Mails, Fools Crow (note 3 above), p. 154. 86. Schlesier, Wolves of Heaven (note 3 above), 105. DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather (note 33 above), p.63. p. 314; LaPointe, Legends of the Lakota (note 14 87. Powell, Sweet Medicine (note 27 above), p.19. above), p. 61. 88. Worster, Under Western Skies (note 1 above), 106. Karl H. Schlesier, Introduction to Plains In­ p.149. dians, AD 500-1500: The Archaeological Past of 89. Stands in Timber and Liberty, Cheyenne Historic Groups, ed. Karl Schlesier (Norman: Uni­ Memories (note 52 above), p. 70; Schlesier, Wolves versity of Oklahoma Press, 1994), pp. xxv-xxvi; of Heaven (note 3 above), p. 81. N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain 90. Bourke diaries (note 18 above), vol. 26: 44. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 91. John H. Moore, The Cheyenne Nation: A 1969), pp. 7-8; Elsie Clews Parson, Kiowa Tales Social and Demographic History (Lincoln: Univer­ (American Folk-Lore Society Memoir 22, 1929), sity of Nebraska Press, 1987), pp. 50-51. pp. 9-11; John Harrington, "Kiowa Memories of 92. John H. Moore, "Cheyenne Names and Cos­ the Northland," in So Lives the Works of Men, ed. mology," American Ethnologist 11 (1984): 296-97. Donald D. Brand and Fred E. Harvey (Albuquer­ 93. Stands in Timber and Liberty, Cheyenne que: University of New Mexico Press, 1939), pp. Memories (note 52 above), pp. 19-24; Powell, Sweet 169, 174-76. Medicine (note 27 above), pp. 472-77, Thomas B. 107. James Mooney, Calendar History of the Kiowa Marquis and Ronald H. Limbaugh, Cheyenne and Indians (Bureau of American Ethnology Annual 212 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER/FALL 1997

Report 17, 1898), pp. 156, 160; Harrington, ibid., 122. Parker, "Black Hills Controversy" (note 2 p.168. above), p. 4. 108. Maurice Boyd, Kiowa Voices: Myths, Leg­ 123. DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather (note 33 above), ends, and Folktales, vol. 2 (Fort Worth: Texas Chris­ pp. 309-10; Mallery, Picture-Writing (note 78 above), tian University Press, 1983): 92. pp. 288-90; James H. McGregor, The Wounded Knee 109. Boyd, ibid., pp. 88-93; Momaday, Way to Massacre from the Viewpoint of the Sioux (Rapid City, Rainy Mountain (note 106 above), p. 8; Harrington South Dakota: Fenwyn Press, 1940), p. 22. (note 106 above), pp. 174-76. 124. Schlesier, Wolves of Heaven (note 3 above), 110. Boyd, Kiowa Voices (note 108 above), pp. 2- pp.77-78. 5; Marriott and Rachlin, Plains Indian Mythology 125. Report ofthe Secretary of the Interior, Ex­ (note 32 above), pp. 39-41. ecutive Document, House of Representatives, 1875- 111. Wilbur Sturtevant Nye, Bad Medicine and 76, p. 691. Good: Tales of the Kiowas (Norman: University of 126. Bourke diaries (note 18 above), vol. 16: Oklahoma Press, 1962), vii, 149-50; Boyd, Kiowa 1555-56; Krause and Olson, Prelude to Glory (note Voices (note 108 above), pp. 2-12. 23 above), p. 149. 112. Stands in Timber and Liberty, Cheyenne 12 7. Report of the Commission Appointed to Memories (note 52 above), p. 89; Mooney, Calen­ Treat with the Sioux Indians for the Reliquishment dar History (note 107 above), pp. 322-24. of the Black Hills (Washington: Government Print­ 113. J.G.McAllister, "Kiowa-Apache Social Or­ ing Office, 1877), pp. 6-9. ganization," in Social Anthropology of the North 128. Turchen and McLaird, Black Hills Expedi­ American Tribes, ed. Fred Eggan (Chicago: Univer­ tion (note 7 above), p. 149. sity of Chicago Press, 1937), p. 162; Nye, BadMedi­ 129. Worster, Under Western Skies (note 1 above), cine (note 111 above), p. 49. p.143. 114. Douglas R. Parks, Traditional Narratives of 130. All sources are quoted in Krause and Olson, the Arikara Indians, vol. 4 (Lincoln: University of Prelude to Glory (note 23 above), pp. 23, 28, 41, 149- Nebraska Press, 1991): 179-85, 733-36. 50, 192. A contemporary nonjournalistic account 115. Ibid., pp. 508-14. describes the Black Hills as "a kind of enchanted 116. Ibid., p. 513. ground" of the Indians: Dayton W. Canaday, "Be­ 117. Peter Rosen,Pa-Ha-Sa-Pah, or the Black Hills yond the Border: A Thousand Mile Tramp in Dakota of South Dakota (St. Louis: Nixon-Jones Printing, on Government Survey, 1874, by WilliamJ. Hurlbut," 1895), p. 54; Odell, Mato Paha (note 46 above), South Dakota History 1 (1970): 28. p.32. 131. Ibid., pp. 28,41,77,138. 118. Bowers, Hidatsa Organization (note 55 132. Sundstrom, Rock Art of the Southern Black above), pp. 158-60; Sundstrom, Culture History of Hills (note 73 above), p. 334-38. the Black Hills (note 9 above), pp. 71-73, 98. 133. George A. Dorsey and Alfred L. Kroeber, 119. Schlesier, Plains Indians, ADSOO-lS00 (note Traditions of the Arapaho Field Columbia Museum 106 above), pp. xxiv-xxv. Publications in Anthropology 5, 1905; George A. 120. Powell, Sweet Medicine (note 27 above), Dorsey, The Cheyenne Field Columbia Museum An­ p. xxii. thropological Series 9 (1-2), 1905; Alfred L. 121. Marriott and Rachlin, Plains Indians My­ Kroeber, "Cheyenne Tales," Journal of American thology (note 32 above), pp. 38-39. Folk-Lore 13 (1900): 161-90.