Sacred Black Hills: An Ideological Battle Ground

South Dakota Tourism The Black Hills of South Dakota.

Simon Moya-Smith

Sacred Black Hills: An Ideological Battle Ground

National Sacred Places Prayer Days 2013 will conclude June 26. In the meantime, Native Americans continue to reflect on the spiritual significance of sundry sacred sites spanning Turtle Island. (Related story: ā€œNational Sacred Places Prayer Days Starts Tomorrowā€)

Charlotte Black Elk, the revered Oglala Lakota historian, is a noted champion of the embattled Black Hills in South Dakota, and although many are aware that the Black Hills is a sacred place to the Lakota people, there are those who don’t know exactly why.

ā€œAll of the universe holds a song,ā€ she said. ā€œ[And] all of the songs of the universe [are] located in the Blacks Hills.ā€

Black Elk added that said song ā€œis only complete in the Black Hills.ā€

But with continued industrial development in the Black Hills, the sacred location is increasingly under siege by corporations, she said.

ā€œOur ceremonial site, with the star knowledge, with our cosmology, tells us when to be in the Black Hills, where to be and what ceremony to perform,ā€ she said. ā€œAnd I think right now the Black Hills are increasingly at risk because of exploitative energy interests.ā€

Black Elk said that it’s imperative the American populace learns that pollution occurs in the Black Hills even when a home is erected.

ā€œPeople are living up there,ā€ she said. ā€œAnd I don’t think people realize that when you build a house somewhere you bring pollution, and so much of the Black Hills is being developed. We have to protect [this] place on earth as a place of prayer, as a place of ceremony, and as a place that needs to be left as it is.ā€

Suzan Shown Harjo, president of the D.C.-based Morning Star Institute, organizes the annual National Sacred Places Prayer Days commemoration. Harjo said the U.S. government wrongfully seized the Black Hills from the Lakota people.

ā€œIn the case of the Black Hills, they were absolutely stolen,ā€ she said.

Harjo added that the Black Hills is merely one location in the U.S. threatened by industry.

ā€œWe have sacred places throughout this country that keep the world in balance,ā€ she said. ā€œAnd some of these are threatened and are being exposed to desecration and damage as we speak, and that simply has to stop.ā€

Black Elk said the difference in perspective between the Lakota and the Christian with regard to Mother Earth is significant and worth noting.

ā€œIn our origin story, we are children of the earth and the earth is our mother—our first and real mother,ā€ she said. ā€œIn Judaism, Islam and Christianity, the earth is a place of banishment and you live by dominating the earth, and that’s a very different philosophical perspective. In our origin legend, women were created first.ā€

Centuries after the arrival of the first white settler, Black Elk said the Lakota people remain in ideological warfare with American hegemony.

ā€œWe have gone from a war of weapons in the 1800s to a war of bureaucracy and now we’re in a war of ideas and principles,ā€ she said. ā€œAnd the Black Hills are central to all of that battle.ā€

Black Elk encourages Native peoples to pray, and not just six days out of the year. Every day.

ā€œWe should pray everyday—whatever our religious persuasion is,ā€ she said.

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