Towering Dilemma Indian Spiritual Rights Run Into The First Amendment In Wyoming Dispute

Please Lord, spare us from those who would save us.

It has been a sacred place to the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho and other tribes since time immemorial. The Lakota people called it Mahto Tipi Paha, Bear Lodge Butte.

Then the white man came along, looked at this sacred mountain, and named it Devils Tower.

This would be like a tribe of Indians going to Rome, looking at the Vatican, and naming it The House of the Devil. It just points out the total lack of respect the white man had for any religious site, symbol or relic of the Indian people.

The Indians did not build cathedrals, mosques or synagogues in which to worship. Instead, tribal people such as the Lakota moved to their sacred sites in conjunction with the movement of the planets and stars. Each season dictated the place the tribe should be and which spiritual ceremony they should perform. Sacred sites were chosen by the movement of the heavens. They were outdoors and under the skies.

This does not mean these religious sites were not as sacred to the Indian people as the cathedrals or churches are to the Christians, the mosques are to the Muslims or the synagogues are to the Jews. These sacred sites were out there for the viewing and the pleasure of all people. It was only during certain times of the year they became spiritually significant.

The National Park Service attempted to search for a compromise when rock climbers objected to the Devils Tower National Monument being off limits during the most sacred days of the Indian people. The Indians wanted to worship in their traditional way without the rock climbers scaling their sacred mountain and the tourists gawking at their ceremonies.

The Park Service asked the rock climbers to refrain from climbing the mountain during the month of June, a very sacred time for the Lakota and other tribes. Seven out of the eight climber’s guide companies honored that request. One guide company, the Mountain States Legal Foundation, dismantled the precarious compromise when it sued.

A federal judge based in Casper, Wyo., issued a preliminary injunction preventing the Park Service from enforcing the restrictions placed upon the rock climbers. The judge’s reasoning? The ban violated the separation of church and state.

Suppose a group of American Indians decided to use St. Peter’s Cathedral as a place to climb. They used ropes and ladders to scale the church, but they only chose Sundays to resort to this sport. Or suppose they decided to go to Israel and use the Wailing Wall as a climbing site? What if they decided to scale some of the mosques in the Muslim countries? How long do you suppose they could enjoy this sport before all hell broke loose?

As I said, the Indian people did not build great religious buildings, but they worshiped in their own way under the skies at the sacred sites chosen for them by the constellations. Does this make Mahto Tipi Paha (Devils Tower) any less sacred than a cathedral, church, mosque or synagogue? According to the white man, it does.

American Indians were given freedom of religion by Congress in 1978. That’s right: 1978. Prior to that sacred sites were pillaged and damaged, and many religious ceremonies practiced since time immemorial - including the Sacred Sun Dance of the Lakota - were banned. The traditional Indian people had to take their spirituality underground in order to keep it alive. This happened in the United States of America, the land of the free, the home of the brave and the land of religious freedom. That is religious freedom to everyone except the first Americans.

The spirituality of the Indian people is totally foreign to the white man. The white man had no concept of what the ceremonies meant and why they were conducted. He immediately assumed they were pagan (which means they did not coincide with his own beliefs) and totally ignored them or banned them.

The Indian ceremonies were conducted in a language the white man did not understand, so he decided to outlaw the language. The missionaries were sent into Indian country to convert the people the white man labeled as heathen. You will note that the Indians never sent missionaries among the white people to cure them of their evil ways. Perhaps we should have.

The religious ceremonies of the Indian people, outlawed by the white man, did not die. The sacred ceremonies were passed down from medicine man to son, from son to grandson and from grandson to greatgrandson, and so on, for many generations. The spiritual significance they held 1,000 years ago, they still hold.

It should not be left in the hands of white judges or lawmakers to tell the Indian people that their religion means nothing. This is exactly what is being conveyed to the Indian people when they ask for one month out of the year to hold their sacred ceremonies at their sacred mountain and are told the rights of the rock climbers are more important than their ancient religious rites.

Lord spare us from those who would save us.

Tim Giago is editor in chief and publisher of Indian Country Today, a national weekly newspaper on American Indian issues. His Lakota name, Nanwica Kciji, means “Stands Up for Them.” Readers may write to him at Indian Country Today, 1920 Lombardy Dr., Rapid City, S.D., 57701.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Devils Tower is the 1,300-foot basalt rock featured in the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” It has long been sacred to many Native American tribes who sought to have the rock climbers banned during sacred ceremonies. In mid-June, a federal judge ruled that The National Park Service could not ban climbers from Devils Tower in deference to Indian religious beliefs.