South Dakota Before Mount Rushmore
Did I mention South Dakota has enough roadside attractions to keep you in the state for at least busy few weeks. Including Mount Rushmore, the famous national monument in the Black Hills. Recently, I’ve been contemplating what exactly happened to the North America’s Indigenous peoples, who lived in a spiritual unity with the land and all the creatures that walked on it.
I can’t imagine the horror those original people must have felt when they were no longer able to live on the lands that had been their family home forever. At least for longer than any of the Lakota Sioux could remember. Places where they’d birthed and raised their babies, held ceremonies, and gave thanks to their Creator for all they had. I could never imagine the horror of seeing the land that had always provided for them suddenly devoid of brush and native grasses, picked clean of rocks and gutted with plows.
The Arrival Of The Pale Strangers
In the late 1800’s, powerful rifles in the hands of trigger happy strangers from distant lands felled entire herds of buffalo. Looking out across these plains, It’s mind boggling to think of seas of buffalo lying on them, dead. Millions of these majestic creatures succumbed to the dusty earth beneath an invisible hail of bullets. Their corpses rotted and stunk in the heat of the sun. Indians, whose ability to survive the cruel winter depended on harvesting a few bison every year were forced to watch. But they couldn’t know what else these ruthless strangers had in store.
The Genocide
Besides being a pass time for the new settlers, the slaughter of buffalo herds served another purpose. And that was to deprive the Indians of food so they’d go live on their allotted reservations and leave the prairies to the settlers. With the buffalo herds decimated, white settlers on horseback would gleefully burn and pillage Indian hunting camps camps and villages. Men, women and children were massacred as they tried to flee.
The Cree, Lakota, Crow and Sioux people had to clear off the land. After thousands of years of living there, the strangers told them it was time to leave. They had to make way for the newcomers to clear, plough, and plant the land. Within a hundred years, hundreds of thousands of nomadic people were killed or rounded up and forced to live on reservations in places they might never have seen before. But that was just the beginning.
Mount Rushmore
Countless lives were completely. ruined for the sake of the concept of colonial dominion over land. It saddened me. But I’m the descendant of 20th century European immigrants. If the murder of people and the theft of their homelands saddened me, I couldn’t imagine how it made indigenous people feel.
Mount Rushmore is a carved depiction of the heads of four early US presidents. It was completed in March 1925, just after the peak of the genocide of the people of the area. It happens to be carved into what used to be called “the Needles”. The Needles is said to have been a very culturally significant natural feature to the Lakota Sioux in those days.
Now, If I were Lakota Sioux, I would have felt some degree of resentment at this. And I’d still be at least a little angry at having my land taken and my people murdered. Having a monument to celebrate the leaders of the genocide of my people carved into our sacred mountain wouldn’t make me feel any better. Instead, I’d be reminded of the crimes that these men perpetrated on my ancestors every time I saw it. And I’d feel helpless.
The Dignity Of Earth And Sky Monument
I decided that I wouldn’t be one of the millions who pay their respects to Mount Rushmore each year. Instead, I want to see a unified world where people care about each other. The fact is, this monument serves as a brutal reminder to the victims of an awful genocide. It’s more than a reminder of the horrors some people. suffered. It’s also there as as a warning to the victims to stay quiet and behave well. At best the ongoing presence of this monument supports a world where we just don’t care about other people.
Dignity Of Earth and Sky
That’s the reason I visited a giant statue of a beautiful Lakota Sioux woman instead of Mount Rushmore. This memorial is called Dignity Of Earth and Sky. Dignity, as she’s called, towers about 8 stories high and she’s truly magnificent. The stone blanket that rests on here shoulders is meticulously inlaid with lapis lazuli and turquoise coloured glass. At night, Diginity of Earth And Sky’s cape lights up and becomes a beacon for travelers looking for a place to rest. But this Sioux woman looks like she’s standing guard over the surrounding prairies. She looks like she could be waiting for the buffalo, or her people, or for her home to be returned.
Lynne Fedorick is an RV expert and experienced outdoor author who has written hundreds of articles for RV Life, RV Trader, and other leading publications. She evaluates RV gear, portable power systems, and emergency preparedness equipment for real-world RV travel. Lynne is the founder of RVAdventureGuide.com, offering RV travel tips, reviews, and destinations from a uniquely Canadian perspective.
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