Sacred Land
17/01/24 03:04
For most of my life I have lived in or near places that indigenous people called sacred. When I was a young boy and a teenager, we used to climb up the side of a mountain in the valley south of our town to see what we called the Indian Caves on the side of a mountain called the Lion and the Mouse because of the distinctive shape of rocks near its summit. Beneath the Lion’s head were caves with walls decorated with ancient pictographs. I don’t know the exact dates of the decorations, but they were much older than the presence of settlers in the valley. Before any Europeans had ever come to the valley, Apsáalooke or Crow youth would go up on the mountain to pray and seek a vision for their lives. The area was considered to be sacred and used for ceremony more than any other purpose. While the surrounding area was rich in wildlife and a place of hunting deer and elk, the rocks at the top of the mountain were reserved for sacred ceremony.
When we moved to Rapid City and purchased a home just outside of the city, we knew that the entire area was considered sacred by Lakota people. There are sites in the Black Hills including Papa Mato (Bear Butte) and Mato Tipi (Devil’s Tower) that have been places of meeting, ceremony, Inipi (sweat lodges), and vision seeking for hundreds, if not thousands of years for multiple tribes of plains natives. About forty miles from our Rapid City Home is Wind Cave, considered by the Lakota to be the place of the origins of their people. Lakota stories tell of the first humans emerging from the ground through the cave, due in part to a trick played on they by Iktomi, a trickster spirt who could take on the form of different beings to manipulate humans. Sometimes appearing as a spider, Iktomi convinced humans that they would be able to fly like an eagle if they emerged from the cave, but humans remained bond to the ground despite having left the safety and shelter of their previous underground existence. Thus humans now must endure harsh winters and follow Tatanka (Bison) for food and sustenance.
From our newly adopted home here in Birch Bay we can see the stacks of the British Petroleum Refinery. The Refinery is part of a complex of industrial facilities located at a point of land where our bay ends. Just around the point are deep waters and a large safe harbor. During the Second World War, an aluminum manufacturing facility located there used abundant hydroelectric power from dams in the nearby Cascade mountains to produce aluminum for the manufacturing of airplanes for the war effort. The aluminum plant is now closed, but developers and BP have their sights set on all of the properties in the surrounding area, including additional shoreline. At the end of the street where we live are signs saying that the undeveloped land on the other side of the road belongs to BP.
This land, however, did not always belong to industrial developers. It is the sacred land of the Lummi people. Their name for the region is Xwe’chi’eXen (pronounced wuh-chee-uh-kin). The land on the other side of the BP refinery contains an historic village, fishing grounds, and the final resting place for ancestors of present-day Lummi Nation members. Now BP has proposed the purchase of an additional 1,100 acres along the shore that includes the village site and areas where treaties promised the Lummi rights to fish for all eternity. BP says they have no current proposal for the land. They say they may use the land as a buffer for existing facilities, or for wetland restoration, or perhaps for some as yet unknown purpose related to their proposed transition to cleaner energy in the future.
Lummi Nation leader are opposed to the acquisition of the land by the rich industrial entity. It hasn’t been that long since the Lummi people, with support from other Northwest tribes and nonprofits, engaged in a yearlong battle to protect Xwe’chi’eXen from what would have been North America’s largest coal terminal. In 2016 they succeeded in preventing the construction of the terminal, which almost certainly would have destroyed their historic offshore herring fishing operations.
The struggle to protect sacred Lummi lands has been constant since first contact with whit settlers a century and a half ago. Industrial developers, the State of Washington, and government of the United Sates have pursued the clearing of ancient forests for building materials, the construction of dams for electricity and drinking water, the digging of hillsides in search of valuable minerals, and the pollution of land and water for industrial development. Lummi People are once again united and asking for support from their neighbors in opposing the acquisition of yet more land by the giant multi-national corporation.
Industrial development has no understanding of the sacredness of land and water.
The concept of ownership of land is not a part of traditional Lummi culture. However, they have had to learn the business of titles and fences and control of their traditional ancestral territories. They have been forced to abandon places where their ancestors lived and fished and held ceremonies since time immemorial in just a few generations. They have had no choice except to adapt to some of the ways of the settlers. But they have not lost their connection to place and their reverence for the land and water from which their people have drawn sustenance for as long as any can remember.
As was the case with our South Dakota home, our house here comes with title to a small parcel of land. We understand the investment as an important part of what we measure as wealth. But we also see it as a commodity which can be bought and sold. We acquired it by paying money to the previous owners and we expect some day to be able to sell it for money to support the transition to our next place of living. Our attachment to the land is different from those whose ancestors lived here and who expect their great, great, grandchildren to live on the same land.
As we live in this place we can listen carefully to our indigenous neighbors and learn to appreciate the sacredness of this land. And we can seek to be wise stewards of the small patch of ground we currently occupy. As settlers, we hope to learn from those who have made their home here long before settlers arrive. There is much we have yet to understand.
When we moved to Rapid City and purchased a home just outside of the city, we knew that the entire area was considered sacred by Lakota people. There are sites in the Black Hills including Papa Mato (Bear Butte) and Mato Tipi (Devil’s Tower) that have been places of meeting, ceremony, Inipi (sweat lodges), and vision seeking for hundreds, if not thousands of years for multiple tribes of plains natives. About forty miles from our Rapid City Home is Wind Cave, considered by the Lakota to be the place of the origins of their people. Lakota stories tell of the first humans emerging from the ground through the cave, due in part to a trick played on they by Iktomi, a trickster spirt who could take on the form of different beings to manipulate humans. Sometimes appearing as a spider, Iktomi convinced humans that they would be able to fly like an eagle if they emerged from the cave, but humans remained bond to the ground despite having left the safety and shelter of their previous underground existence. Thus humans now must endure harsh winters and follow Tatanka (Bison) for food and sustenance.
From our newly adopted home here in Birch Bay we can see the stacks of the British Petroleum Refinery. The Refinery is part of a complex of industrial facilities located at a point of land where our bay ends. Just around the point are deep waters and a large safe harbor. During the Second World War, an aluminum manufacturing facility located there used abundant hydroelectric power from dams in the nearby Cascade mountains to produce aluminum for the manufacturing of airplanes for the war effort. The aluminum plant is now closed, but developers and BP have their sights set on all of the properties in the surrounding area, including additional shoreline. At the end of the street where we live are signs saying that the undeveloped land on the other side of the road belongs to BP.
This land, however, did not always belong to industrial developers. It is the sacred land of the Lummi people. Their name for the region is Xwe’chi’eXen (pronounced wuh-chee-uh-kin). The land on the other side of the BP refinery contains an historic village, fishing grounds, and the final resting place for ancestors of present-day Lummi Nation members. Now BP has proposed the purchase of an additional 1,100 acres along the shore that includes the village site and areas where treaties promised the Lummi rights to fish for all eternity. BP says they have no current proposal for the land. They say they may use the land as a buffer for existing facilities, or for wetland restoration, or perhaps for some as yet unknown purpose related to their proposed transition to cleaner energy in the future.
Lummi Nation leader are opposed to the acquisition of the land by the rich industrial entity. It hasn’t been that long since the Lummi people, with support from other Northwest tribes and nonprofits, engaged in a yearlong battle to protect Xwe’chi’eXen from what would have been North America’s largest coal terminal. In 2016 they succeeded in preventing the construction of the terminal, which almost certainly would have destroyed their historic offshore herring fishing operations.
The struggle to protect sacred Lummi lands has been constant since first contact with whit settlers a century and a half ago. Industrial developers, the State of Washington, and government of the United Sates have pursued the clearing of ancient forests for building materials, the construction of dams for electricity and drinking water, the digging of hillsides in search of valuable minerals, and the pollution of land and water for industrial development. Lummi People are once again united and asking for support from their neighbors in opposing the acquisition of yet more land by the giant multi-national corporation.
Industrial development has no understanding of the sacredness of land and water.
The concept of ownership of land is not a part of traditional Lummi culture. However, they have had to learn the business of titles and fences and control of their traditional ancestral territories. They have been forced to abandon places where their ancestors lived and fished and held ceremonies since time immemorial in just a few generations. They have had no choice except to adapt to some of the ways of the settlers. But they have not lost their connection to place and their reverence for the land and water from which their people have drawn sustenance for as long as any can remember.
As was the case with our South Dakota home, our house here comes with title to a small parcel of land. We understand the investment as an important part of what we measure as wealth. But we also see it as a commodity which can be bought and sold. We acquired it by paying money to the previous owners and we expect some day to be able to sell it for money to support the transition to our next place of living. Our attachment to the land is different from those whose ancestors lived here and who expect their great, great, grandchildren to live on the same land.
As we live in this place we can listen carefully to our indigenous neighbors and learn to appreciate the sacredness of this land. And we can seek to be wise stewards of the small patch of ground we currently occupy. As settlers, we hope to learn from those who have made their home here long before settlers arrive. There is much we have yet to understand.
