Sacred Black Hills: An Ideological Battle Ground
Simon Moya-Smith
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: āNational 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 donāt know exactly why.
āAll of the universe holds a song,ā she said. ā[And] all of the songs of the universe [are] located in the Blacks Hills.ā
Black Elk added that said song āis 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.
āOur 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. āAnd I think right now the Black Hills are increasingly at risk because of exploitative energy interests.ā
Black Elk said that itās imperative the American populace learns that pollution occurs in the Black Hills even when a home is erected.
āPeople are living up there,ā she said. āAnd I donāt 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.
āIn 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.
āWe have sacred places throughout this country that keep the world in balance,ā she said. āAnd 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.
āIn our origin story, we are children of the earth and the earth is our motherāour first and real mother,ā she said. āIn Judaism, Islam and Christianity, the earth is a place of banishment and you live by dominating the earth, and thatās 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.
āWe have gone from a war of weapons in the 1800s to a war of bureaucracy and now weāre in a war of ideas and principles,ā she said. āAnd 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.
āWe should pray everydayāwhatever our religious persuasion is,ā she said.