Bear Butte
I wish it were possible for the Native American people to get it across to the entire world how very much our sacred places mean to us. As "for example" Mecca is to Islam or Jerusalem to the Christians or Jewish people. To explain that no man made cathedral , mosque or temple could mean anymore to other beliefs as our Sacred places where generations of our ancestors have worshipped practicing the beliefs we still hold dear today. At no place is the culture gulf that seperates the European and the Indigenous people of America more evident. The desicration and disregard for this lands sacred places and the inablity or refusal to understand and respect that these places are to us as the Vatican is or any other structure of religious belief. Ancient and above all Holy , Sacred. These sites should be protected from human interference. Industry and greed instead rule in utter disregard. What we as Native Americans gaze upon with reverence instead is looked at with greedy calculation and lust.
The greater society in America does not seem to grasp what we repeat unendingly to them.
"BEAR BUTTE IS SACRED"
"BEAR BUTTE IS A HOLY MOUNTAIN"
"BEAR BUTTE IS WHERE WE PRAY"
"BEAR BUTTE IS WHERE WE FAST"
"BEAR BUTTTE IS HOME TO THE SPIRITS"
This is our belief, our faith, our "religion". We have explained this since the very first Euro came among us. We informed them first as friends welcoming strangers into our lands, we told their missionaries, explorers,generals and presidents. We told them in meetings with their government, their fur trading companies, we told Custer, Crook, Grant and all their leaders. They wrote it into the treatys' as they looked our leaders and all our people in the face as we lost our lands. In "land commission hearings" in court room after court room............. However in two centuries, rare has there been a Euro who actually heard what we said even though they gave the appearance of listening.
Once and again the sanctity of the Sacred mountain is under attack. The "Sturgis Bike Rally" has become a gigantic cash cow for the hedonistic purveyors of sex and sin that the land encircling Bear Butte is coveted as drunken sites of noisy, disrespectful, debauchery. Land once used for agriculture is now commanding astronomical prices. A liquor license is now worth an approximate $500,000.00. Evel Kneival and "Lynyrd Skynyrd" play to thousands of screaming fans in a concert venue and a beer bash campground so "elequently called", Buffalo Chip!
The "Chips" extreme noise is only four miles from the base of Bear Butte and close enough for a person praying on Bear Butte to clearly hear every filthy word that spews from their gigantic mega - watt speaker system.
Over the years these venues have crept closer and closer until one even has its filthy toilets on the slope of the Sacred Mountain Itself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Each year thousands of motorcycles roar around and upon Bear Butte, as America displays its version of "Sodom and Gomorah" within yards of the spot from which Chief Crazy Horse spoke when he told us to never sell the land.
Also over the years many Native American people and tribes have attempted to defend the Sacred Mountain. In the mid 1800's a war party rode out from the area to fight a wagon train crossing the sacred lands. Not because they were savages but because our Sacred and Holy site was being desicrated with extreme predjudice.
To this day the "pioneers?" have a historical plaque beside their highway 34 commerating their dead ancestors. Never once hearing or heeding , the reason , the why of our attempt to drive them away. Two years ago we beat back an attempt by some developers aided by Bill Janklow, to build a shooting range close by the Sacred Mountain. What don't they get? Have we not been clear? Have we not lost enough?
Recently the trigger to our ongoing and present struggle is the proposal by yet another developer to turn his 600 acres "his" on the North side of Bear Butte into a gigantic biker bar and concert venue. Oxy-moron if ever there was , "Bear Butte - venue"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To make it worse he proposed to erect a giant "Indian" statue facing Bear Butte and to call the whole place , "Now get this", SACRED GROUNDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
With one proposal the developer named Ray Allen, aroused the alarm and anger of every Native American who holds this Mountain Sacred. The Oglala, The Rosebud tribes of the Sioux Nation and the Cheyenne of Montana each immediately responded by passing resolutions condeming any and all further development expressing the will of their Nations, that Bear Butte be protected by a buffer zone of at least five miles and all further development be halted until suitable protections can be emplaced. Soon many more Native American Nations, societies and organizations will be making their opposition known and we will work in UNITY, to keep The Mountain "SACRED".
As soon as the "Sacred Grounds" announcement was made , various groups of Native American activists began to work to stop the development. Foremost among them has been the "Defenders of the Black Hills" , "International Alliance to Protect Bear Butte". This blog will do its best to carry their announcements and to support their work. "Owe Aku" a grassroots traditionalist group from Pine Ridge immediately began to alert the people to the danger and to successfully lobby the Oglala Tribal Council for the opposing resolution. Meantime many individual Native American people began to attend meetings and to voice their disapproval of the development as well as to seek a way to voice their opinions.
One of the apparent needs is for a website that will keep and diseminate updated information and give the people a place to ask and have their questions answered. As a concerned Native American I will do all I can on this blog to provide as much accurate information as possible.
I too believe it is the duty of every Native American and human being , be it man, woman, or child to help preserve our Sacred Places , traditions and way of life. Everyone has a role to play. Every traditional Society should join this work.
On this blog you will find the words that I and other Native Americans who care deeply about these "Sacred Native American Places" want to send out to the entire world in the hope someone might hear and actually listen. I hope these words will be a call to action. We need your help and support in a non-violent and positive way. We are trying Once More but slowly, heart breakingly, we are loosing our Mountain.
Each year the bike rally grows to unbelievable proportions, from 100,000 in 1990 to 600,000 this year. The only land left to develop surrounds Our Holy Place. We need the help of all who can and will hear these words of truth, 'BEAR BUTTE IS SACRED'.
No where have we asked the bike rally to stop or be given up. We have asked for respect deserved and earned. HOLY, SACRED , Your Vatican,Temple,Church, Mosque. Hear us Listen and Respect what we hold dear. I am Tsalagi(Cherokee) I have heard and I am listening. I am one but We are many.
*This piece is greatly influenced by the work of Carter Camp* It is because of his orginal writing
and use of his words and facts I have re-written this to incorporate my own feelings and work
to aid in bringing awareness to as many people as possible in an attempt to aid in saving -
BEAR BUTTE
*On my page you will find a link to the defend Bear Butte website*
Native American beauty unleashed...
