A thesis submitted to the Department of American Studies

and The Graduate School of the University of Wyoming

in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

In

AMERICAN STUDIES

Laramie, Wyoming

May, 2000

Saltanaviciute, Jurgita. Native American Sacred Sites: Battle for Protection. M.A., Department of American Studies, May, 2000.

In my thesis I wish to synthesize my interests in and research on Native American sacred sites. My purpose is to investigate the management of Native American sacred sites with attention to the cultural values they embody, and federal policies and procedures under which they are recognized and regulated.

In the nineteenth century, as a result of assimilation policies, tribal religions were outlawed, and the tribes were denied access to those sacred sites which happened to be located on public lands. Thus the sites have been targeted by economic development issues and the dominant society's insensitivity to tribal modes of worship.

In the second half of the twentieth century, historic preservation and environmental laws provided legal support in Native Americans' struggle to exercise their traditional religions. However, the sacred sites on federally owned lands are subject to many interests, and their management is decided in complex negotiation processes. I will discuss the development of the major and most recent cases in Wyoming, the Bighorn Medicine Wheel and the Devil's Tower, also using significant moments in the development of management issues from the whole Plains region.

My work is based on ethnographic, historical, anthropological, and archeological studies, federal documents, and information obtained from state and federal officials, attorneys, and tribal elders.

Landscapes, places, sites… All over the world people revere certain places because of their special character, their built or naturally powerful environments. Mecca, Mount Sinai, Stonehenge, the Hill of Crosses, the Medicine Wheel, Mount Graham, the Devils Tower--all these places are known as having been or still functioning as centers of religious beliefs. Having been highly respected by the ancients, they are also revered by the contemporaries, who nowadays are trying to protect those places from environmental destruction and also attempt to accommodate their uses by different groups of people, including religious practitioners, tourists, and land developers.

My fascination and studies of Native American cultures originated in my childhood years and my further curiosity in these cultures shaped my academic interests. Lithuanian interest in Native Americans, as well as in other foreign cultures, has become more open after the restoration of independence in 1990. Several reasons could be responsible for the interest in this aspect of American culture. First, parallels between the history of the Baltic and Native American nations can be discovered--the glorious period of prosperity and sovereignty, annexation by more powerful nations, struggle for sovereignty and survival--that make Lithuanians sympathize with the Native American situation. Second, frustration at the Christian religion, which since the middle ages has been associated with the intrusion of Western European culture into the Baltic sphere of domination, and the quest for our ancient spirituality makes the people admire Native American spiritual traditions. Although growing interest in spiritual matters can be partly explained by unsatisfactory social and economic situations of the transition period, neo-pagan movements are also stimulated by the developments and recent publicity of parapsychology, and efforts to unify European economy and culture. Native American Studies and related programs have already been established and courses in Native Americans are taught in a number of European countries, such as Germany, Finland, Poland, and Russia.

Native Americans, as all American nations and religious groups, have a right to free exercise of their traditional religions, which involves the unobstructed use of their sacred sites, an equivalent of temples, on the federal lands. The management of sacred sites on public lands involves many interests, and therefore their protection is more complicated than that of the sites on tribal lands. There, the sovereign status of Native tribes allows them to control federal undertakings through a Tribal State Historic Preservation Officer or participation as a consulting party in the consultation process.

In my paper I consider the strengths and weaknesses of the mechanisms which provide protection of Native sacred sites on public lands. Nationally, sacred site protection strategies have mostly relied on religious freedom legislation, such as the First Amendment and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978), while the state of Wyoming has successfully applied historic preservation and environmental policies and mechanisms. First, I present the concept of a sacred site in a cultural context, which is followed by an overview of federal policies and analysis of the major legislative acts and regulations which attempt to protect Native Americans' use of their sites. Then, I will discuss two cases of sacred site protection in the state of Wyoming, the Bighorn Medicine Wheel and the Devils Tower, and will show how the laws work to protect unique cultural resources. The case studies are organized into two parts: first, I explain the significance of each site to Native Americans, using ethnographic material: oral traditions, anthropological works, archaeological studies, and interviews. The second part contains the administrative history of the site, concentrating on the most important and recent events, and analyses how the laws are applied in each case. To introduce the topic, I will locate my research in an academic context and explain my methodology and problematic issues of research.

Among the main contemporary objectives of the research on Native American religions is to present them in an understandable way for non-Native audience and employ that understanding to negotiate the issues of economic development and administration between tribes and the federal government. Ethnographic and ethnohistorical research goes beyond theoretical discussion; interpretation of Native religious beliefs is employed in contemporary negotiations for the use of American Indian sacred sites between Native American religious leaders and federal agencies.

In the second part of the twentieth century Native Americans and their concerns became more visible in American society. Once having been an exotic subject of travelers' and missionaries' attention, which nevertheless developed into systematic anthropological research, contemporary Native Americans have emerged into the public sphere and assert their right to speak for themselves. They are entering the academy in increasing numbers and in recent decades participate regularly in shaping the interpretations of their experiences in scholarship.

For several centuries the Euro-American public and scholarship viewed America as a homogeneous society and defined it by pastoral ideals. The interpretations of American experience historically excluded Native Americans and other ethnic cultures; the boundaries of the society were defined by these "outsider" cultures. Scholarship concentrated on the "essential" American identity, and viewed the nation as white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, exclusively males, created by their exceptional mission, expressed in the metaphor of conquering the empty landscape and bringing civilization into the wilderness and excluded the experiences of other American nations, such as American Indians, Mexican Americans, or African Americans.

However, American Studies scholars of the 1950's and 60's, although looking for a unified American culture, developed a rich methodology which enabled to see a more complex structure of American society. Henry Nash Smith, Leo Marx, and Alan Trachtenberg praised the holistic methods of American Studies, which, in opposition to the social sciences, enabled researchers and students to view a culture as a whole, which was later applied to the study of ethnic cultures. According to Smith, synthesis of sociological, historical and anthropological data and methods help to reveal the core of the American culture and evoke its spiritual values, thus he suggests to

conceive of American Studies as a collaboration among men working from within existing academic disciplines but attempting to widen the boundaries imposed by conventional methods of inquiry. This implies a sustained effort of the student of literature to take account of sociological, historical and anthropological data and methods, and of the sociologist or historian to take account of the data and methods of scholarship in the fields of the arts. I am optimistic enough to believe that inquiries which have their starting-points in various academic departments can converge as they are brought to bear upon a single topic, namely, American culture past and present.

In the late 1960’s and 1970’s the focus of American Studies shifted to an interest in class, gender, ethnicity, and race. The Vietnam War, civil rights movements, and the pluralistic body of students and faculty at universities showed that the nation could no longer be presented as homogeneous. These changes challenged the "melting pot" theory and brought up the problem of the division of the nation and culture. Thus representations of American culture split into "high" culture, that continued to portray homogeneous WASPs, and popular culture, which brought to public attention a number of minority cultures with their own traditions, customs, and languages or dialects.

American Indian Studies Programs were born in 1969. They appeared as a part of a rising interest in ethnic issues and in order to meet the needs of Native American students in colleges and universities. These programs were, like American Studies, interdisciplinary, including faculty from various fields. The primary concern of Native American Studies was to relate scholarly research to the reality of Indian communities and make positive changes in people's lives:

Sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists have written volumes about the Indian drinking problem in modern America, but little has been done to alleviate the poverty, racism, and social breakdown in Indian communities that have contributed to that problem. …. A basic commitment of those [Native American Studies] programs remains to attempt, through education and research, to effect some social change in the lives of Native American people.

The transformation of the academy occurred at the same time when in big cities, and often on college or university campuses, ethnic movements attracted the attention of the legislators and general public. Ethnic activism aimed to demonstrate the invalidity of the "melting pot" theory and force both legislators and the academey to seek new decisions and policies in dealing with ethnic minorities. The people called media attention to their suffering and oppression by the dominant culture. The occupation of Alcatraz Island by Native American activists in 1969, that lasted 19 months, aimed at attracting society’s attention to their struggle for the civil rights, requirements for self-determination and redress for the failure to fulfill treaty obligations. It was followed by the 71-day occupation of the Wounded Knee village on the Pine Ridge reservation, South Dakota, in 1973. Lakota activists chose Wounded Knee as a symbolic place where several hundred of Chief Big Foot’s band of Lakotas were killed by the soldiers in 1890. Although many Native people were killed or imprisoned for involvement or supposed involvement in the movement, and the majority of cases were never investigated, Indian activism influenced federal policies toward American indigenous people and started Native American Renaissance--a rebirth of culture and traditions which fostered pride in their identity.

In the 1960's, federal Indian policies turned from assimilationist termination programs to self-determination. While termination aimed at discontinuation of federal supervision of the tribes and abrogation of their special status, followed by relocation of tribal people to urban areas, a new self-determination policy of the 1970's granted the tribes relative autonomy and promoted tribal self-government. The Indian Education Act (1972), the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975), the Indian Mineral Development Act (1982), the Indian Gaming Act (1988) and other legislation strengthened the position of tribal governments and promoted economic development. It is also important that Native American religions also received a special legislators’ attention, and the right of Native people to freely exercise their religions was formally recognized by the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978.

Contemporary American society attempts to accommodate cultural identities, however, it thrives on new stereotypes and generalizations. Ethnic populations, in their turn, have to deal with generalizations of their cultural experiences proposed, however, by the dominant society. Not long ago, to the general American public, some Great Plains tribe, such as the Lakotas or the Cheyennes, used to represent all the indigenous cultures of the US: beaded moccasins and feather headdresses, struggle for the land, harmony with nature, and mystic religious ceremonies--the image created by the movie-makers. Contemporary Native Americans, aware of those generalizations, are trying to explain to the public that Native American culture is not homogeneous and that their experiences are not uniform: there are several hundred (federally recognized) tribes in the US and each of them has its own history, traditions and customs, myths and stories, songs and dances, religious ceremonies and sacred objects. They also insist on the interpretation of Native American cultural issues not in comparison with other cultures, or implied comparison with the dominant culture, but in the light of their own traditional teachings, values and struggles.

American Studies and courses in Native American Studies exposed me to historical developments in the studies of American culture and the views of Americans toward the structure of their society. I had a chance to exercise a variety of methods that are successfully used in research on Native American cultures. The interdisciplinary character of American Studies enables a researcher to work effectively as it establishes connections between different fields, and initiates discussions among professionals of different specializations, which invites various approaches to a problem. The newest scholarship on Native American cultures combines an interdisciplinary approach and a variety of perspectives, where Native American voices are playing one of the most important roles.

In the 1950's the American Society of ethnohistory was established and the scholars argued for the necessity and effectiveness of combination of historical and anthropological methodology for American Indian history studies. Ethnohistorians insisted on new ways of approach and interpretation of Native American history based on plurality of perspectives and efforts to avoid cultural biases through deconstruction and reconstruction of the text. Ethnohistorical analysis was defined by two steps: "The ethnohistorian (whether anthropologist or historian) would first try to determine whether the act did, in fact, occur. Then he would attempt to decide what the significance of the act was in the cultural setting in which it was performed." It required an exhaustive analysis of details from both Indian and white sides and combination of chronological information with the functioning of social organization and other cultural details, including a deep perception of both white American and Native cultures of the time. Researchers used all kinds of data available: eyewitness accounts, oral histories, paintings, journals, archaeological artifacts and ecological factors.

Studies in Native religious subjects require a very cautious treatment and evaluation. First, Native Americans are sometimes asked for too confidential information they are unwilling to disclose, and therefore give false accounts or simply mislead anthropologists by making jokes at them. Tribal people are careful about revealing their spirituality to non-natives, who, according to Joseph Bruchac, are "as hungry for the wisdom and spiritual traditions of Native people as they were in the past for Native land." Therefore, the quality of information often depends on the personality of the researcher and Native Americans' willingness to collaborate. Finally, the study of religion requires special sensitivity to the information, so that a researcher could synthesize it and wouldn’t turn the research into an enumeration of events and objects.

Recent discussions among historians also brought up the problem of the validity of sources used for Native American research. Until recently, tribal knowledge, interpretations and oral tradition were rejected as mythology or as inaccurate accounts that need to be verified against the data of the dominant culture. Even contemporary scholarship relies on the sources that are written in English, i. e. by whites or by to some extent acculturated Native Americans. According to researcher John Reid-Hresko, "no one would even consider attempting to study ancient Greek society based solely on translations. One would learn Greek. How, then, has it become the academic norm to study Native North American life without according Native Americans the courtesy of learning their languages?" While working in English, I nevertheless included information from Native Americans themselves wherever possible. In addition, I used tribal oral traditions, numerous ethnographies, articles presenting archaeological perspectives, texts of legal acts and regulations, legal studies, reports, news articles, interviews with Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office employees, federal officials, and lawyers. In my research I did not intend to survey tribal or public attitudes on sacred sites management issues, but investigated the professional process involving people (including tribal elders, who are nevertheless representatives of their tribes) and organizations, whose primary duty is the supervision of the use, management, and protection of sacred sites.

Research on religious matters might be called one of the most problematic. Non-Indian researchers have been influenced by their own cultural concepts and worldview. The stereotypes of a "primitive" and "exotic" Indian versus "advanced" and structuralized economical thinking and Christian religion still exist. This was another problem I experienced with my research especially at the beginning of the two years of studies in the US: understanding that the stereotypes of the Native as "inferior" in many cases still dominate the thinking of the American public and until recent times were taught at schools, where Native American topics were historically excluded from class discussions. Native Americans were surprised to hear that, in contrast, my education in Europe taught me to view Native nations as victims of the conquest of European immigrants who attempted to physically and culturally destroy the Native people of the Americas. Also, in my approaches there has been a hidden comparison of the experiences of Native tribes with those of my nation, who, being the last pagans in Europe, successfully resisted Western European onslaught during the Crusades, and later were subjugated by Russians. I believe that in many cases my cultural background helped me not only to better understand the problems of Native American cultural protection issues, but also, in the course of my ethnographic research, it was easier to establish friendly relationships with the most knowledgeable traditional tribal members who provided me with information and deeper insights into religious issues than I might otherwise have had.

Recently, in the state of Wyoming, Native American tribes have entered the consultation process with federal agencies on the use of federally owned lands which the Indians claim to have used for ceremonial purposes. Despite the requirement to support the ethnographic information obtained from tribal elders by anthropological sources, Native interpretations locate the problem in specific cultural context and define the cultural meanings of the place/object in consideration. My discussion of the struggle for the protection of Native American sacred sites in Wyoming will provide examples how numerous cultural interpretations have been produced and various needs expressed, thus requiring the federal officials to balance the accommodation of different uses and interests.

The state of Wyoming has worked out unique strategies in Native American sacred site protection. While Native nations in other states were mostly relying on the First Amendment and American Indian Religious Freedom Act protection, Wyoming employed the National Historic Preservation Act and Section 106 process to preserve and protect Native American sacred sites. Thus in the late 1980's to 1995 Wyoming led the US in sacred site protection strategies. The cases of the Bighorn Medicine Wheel and the Devils Tower are illustrations of the strengths of historic and environmental preservation mechanisms. These mechanisms, however, are far from perfect--they depend on the scope of activities at the site, land managers' attitudes, the organizations involved and their willingness to cooperate.

My ethnographic work with Native Americans was of paramount importance in the formation of approach and interpretation of their culture. Contacts with the members of the Medicine Wheel Coalition gave me access to Native perspectives regarding American Indian advocacy issues. Participation in the Medicine Wheel Coalition meetings provided me with first-hand experience in the preservation of Native cultures and religions. There I also met elders from various Plains tribes who kindly shared with me information on spiritual matters, thus crystallizing my previous theoretical knowledge.

For a study of religion, it is crucial to know and understand its historical, environmental and legal context. In addition, however, it is important to understand that Native American religions, in contrast with Christian churches in the United States, are not separated from the ruling structures or everyday life. Native American metaphysics is an all-encompassing phenomenon, which most clearly reveals in the biographical accounts by Native American religious practitioners that appear as a complete story of life, encompassing religious, social, and political elements.

The data on sacred sites, especially in the ethnographies of the early twentieth century, are extremely scarce. Several reasons can be distinguished for this phenomenon. First of all, the most sacred information was kept in secret and strictly guarded from the outsiders' curiosity (a tendency that continues to this day). Besides, just as the Ten Commandments of the Christians teach not to mention God's name in vain, sacred matters are not the subject of daily conversation--traditionally, stories regarding sacred tribal identity constituted a formal ceremony for the people responsible for keeping that information and their audience. Ethnographer Peter J. Powell has recorded a Cheyenne tradition of teaching the sacred heritage:

Until fairly recent times, only the priests could recite these holy narratives. They told the old tales only at night, when all was quiet within and outside of the tipi. Both young and old persons sat in the half-light cast by the fire, respectfully listening as the priest spoke of Sweet Medicine. He used only the best Cheyenne in recounting the Prophet's life. In this way the children learned the richest expressions of their language, expressions that were not used in everyday conversation.

Second, ethnographic methods, participant observation and interview, whose success depends substantially on the researcher's personality, might significantly limit the scope of an ethnographic study and sometimes even present distorted information, as the anthropologist, with no previous knowledge of a given culture, uses his/her own cultural guidelines to design the interviews, and thus it is the researcher, not the informant, who chooses the subject of the interview and the aspects that should be investigated. Therefore, the early ethnographies are full of detailed descriptions of objects and elements, and lack substantial investigations into the meaning of the objects and traditions in tribal cultural and religious context. Not all the details of life would be exposed to an anthropologist, especially if he visits the tribe for a shorter time period and does not speak the Native language. Anthropologist Frank Linderman, who worked with the Crows in the early twentieth century, noted that "usually Indians, men or women, who possess as little knowledge of English as does Pretty-Shield, will avoid even an answer to a question asked in that language." Therefore, the early research, biased by the needs of the dominant culture could not have fully revealed the aspects of tribal life, especially the most secret and sacred details.

Possession of knowledge about the sacred sites is the responsibility of certain people in the tribe, who are elders and medicine men. Information on sacred sites is part of their sensitive cultural knowledge, not to be shared with outsiders. However, recently native elders have faced a dilemma: on the one hand, for protection of sacred sites according to federal guidelines, ethnographic and ethnohistorical research has to be conducted in order to provide required proof of the use of the site by Native Americans, which means that the elders, in order to protect their sites, have to make the sacred information accessible to the individuals outside of the tribe; on the other hand, the Native people fear profanation as they are aware that publicity of the information will attract tourists, adventurers and collectors who, having incomplete understanding of the cultural significance and meaning of the site to the original inhabitants of the land, would approach it with lack of respect or inappropriate attitudes and engage in improper activities which can cause damage to the site. As a Blackfeet tribal member pointed out to me, sometimes more protection can be offered to the site by keeping the information on the sacred location secret and thus avoid public attention and prevent it from becoming another point of attraction for tourists and the tribe fears that releasing of such knowledge to the public will attract many outside visitors and encourage disrespectful behavior at the site.

In the course of my research I have been often puzzled to hear about the Native people's unwillingness to work with researchers until, having spent a considerable amount of time listening to their explanations and stories, I concluded that one of the primary reasons holding them from sharing their cultural information with members of the Western society was bitter experience and fear of further misunderstanding, misinterpretation, misrepresentation, and curiosity, resulting in inappropriate actions. However, I never had the feeling that any Native person would ban an individual from another culture from a sincere and proper understanding of indigenous religious traditions; the anecdote Northern Cheyenne elder William Tall Bull related might even seem naïve to Christian believers:

One time I have a friend at home who is a Lutheran minister and I asked him how come I never see you at our church, I go to yours, I go to all churches in town. He didn't answer. I just wish he had gone up to see the power of the mountain.

During the process of writing I found out how difficult was to talk about sacred cultural beliefs and attempt to remain respectful and sensitive to these issues. I am very grateful to numerous Native America elders and educators, who generously shared with me the information and encouraged me in my work. Thus in my writing, as dealing with any cultural information, I have been trying to balance the information I found in written scholarly sources with the knowledge I acquired from Native people.

Discussing Native American religions, we have to consider differences in Western and American Indian conceptions of religion, which may raise problems in applying a Western term for supposedly analogous aspects of human life. First of all, no words approximating the term "religion" existed in American Indian languages, and the concept of deity is very broad and vague. Moreover, while a Western perspective defines religion as a system of beliefs and related activities, Native American conceptions of religion do not fit into any systematic, logical, or rational frames. Tribal religions are so much integrated in life, that they cannot be singled out as a separate category. According to Vine Deloria, Jr., religion for Native Americans is "an experience and they have no reason to reduce it to systematic thought and the elaboration of concepts."

Deloria asserts that from a Native perspective religion is not portable or transferable from place to place or nation to nation the way Christianity might be considered to be, but it is closely connected to land and community. The application of religious messages is limited to individuals who share common cultural background, lead the same way of life, and reside in a certain territory. These factors make religious beliefs directly related to the real world and grant validity under specific circumstances existing in a certain community, because they provide instruments--explanation of events and ceremonies--to deal with daily situations. For example, the nineteenth-century Lakotas shared a nomadic Plains culture and totally depended on buffalo for survival, because domestic items were made and food came from buffalo. The sacred pipe was brought by the Buffalo Woman, who changed herself into a white calf after she taught the sacred rituals to the people. Thus the religious message became applicable only to particular people, who received it, lived in the same territory and shared the same--buffalo--culture.

When several generations are born and raised in the same area, for the younger generation, the landscape becomes marked with the ancestors' deeds and daily experiences, feelings, thoughts, and memories:

When asked where his lands were Crazy Horse replied that his lands were where his dead lay buried.he was not hinking of the general contribution of flesh made by generations of Sioux to the Great Plains, but of the immediate past deeds of his generation. These had imprinted on the land new stories and experiences that gave the Sioux a moral title to the lands.

Through the land the people become connected with their ancestors, where the latter are still physically present in grave sites and spiritually present in memories and religious practices. Therefore, in Deloria's words, the land becomes personalized, and, in addition to building tribal identity through stories and memories, the land also emerges as the basis for the continuity of the community. The loss of the land means that the stories might lose their relevance to practical daily life and pass out of the people's memories and result in the loss of community as well.

Land plays an important role in tribal religions because it contains the sacred center, as the place of original location and revelation, which provides awareness of people's identity and continuity of life by unifying past with present. For example, the Hopi origin stories locate the place of their emergence into this world in the Grand Canyon. It is also interesting that the tribes, when pushed west by white settlers, quickly adjusted to their new surroundings and centered their religious traditions around the most remarkable places in the new landscape. For example, the Cheyenne and Sioux tribes, who as late as the seventeenth century inhabited Great Lakes region, moved west to the northern Plains region, and by the early eighteenth century they had incorporated the Black Hills into their religious traditions so that the place became the center of their religious beliefs and ceremonial life: the Cheyenne prophet, Sweet Medicine, received the Sacred Arrows, the symbol of the tribe's power, from the spirits living in a cave of the Bear Butte. Walker notes that Native Americans "seek the intrinsic sacredness of nature and do not force their notions of sacredness onto the land in the manner of the pyramid builders and temple builders," therefore, they are fast to find powerful places and adjust to them. There are also tribes such as the Pueblo peoples in the Southwest, who claim to inhabit their territories for as long as the tribal memory can reach and thus they have developed an especially intimate relationship with the land. Actually, landscape shapes the people's life--the way of being, seeing, believing, and experiencing, no matter how long the place is inhabited; it creates a matrix through which common human principles are expressed.

Myths and legends, creation and emergence stories, and revelations tell the people about places where they can return and communicate with the higher powers again--pray, receive help and guidance. Thus, the people become attached to the landscape through its sacred roles and through a responsibility to retain its powers and sacredness. Also, tribal stories establish the connection between land and community through relating communal experiences (or historic events) which occurred in a certain place. Such experiences and places become common only to a particular society, and thus a place becomes part of a cultural identity, even when the tribe migrates or is forced to relocate far from their original homeland. For instance, the Five Civilized tribes of Oklahoma still revere some places in the Southeast, and the Black Hills are still in the memories of contemporary Kiowa people, who migrated from the mountains in the northwest and moved onto southern Plains almost three centuries ago:

Although my grandmother lived out her long life in the shadow of Rainy Mountain, the immense landscape of the continental interior lay like memory in her blood. She could tell of the Crows, whom she had never seen, and of the Black Hills, where she had never been. I wanted to see in reality what she had seen more perfectly with her mind's eye, and traveled fifteen hundred miles to begin my pilgrimage.

The type of sacred sites with which we are most concerned in this work could be defined as places which possess extraordinary physical and/or spiritual properties and where ceremonial activities are conducted. For the Plains tribes, these sites are places of worship under the open sky, like churches for the Western civilization, or, in a Crow elder's words, a sacred site is a "chapel in the wilderness." They are chosen because of their intrinsically fine natural balance and a pronounced presence of spiritual power. In the essay "Sacred Lands and Religious Freedom" (1991), Deloria distinguishes four types of sacred sites: 1. places where historic events took place (Wounded Knee, SD); 2. places hallowed by the appearance of the sacred powers in the lives of human beings (Buffalo Gap, Black Hills); 3. places of revelation, of "overwhelming Holiness where Higher Powers, on their own initiative, have revealed themselves to human beings"; 4. new places made sacred by new revelations. Anthropologist Deward E. Walker, Jr. suggests a more detailed categorization of sacred sites: vision quest sites; monumental geological features that have sacred (usually mythic) meaning--mountains, waterfalls, or unusual geological formations; rock art sites, such as pictographs and petroglyphs; burial areas and cemeteries; sites of ceremonial structures, such as medicine wheels or sun dance arbors; sweat bath sites; gathering areas where sacred plants, stones, and other materials are available; sites of historical significance, such as battlefields; the points where the group is described to have originated, or routes they hallowed in myth.

Sacred sites are comparable to anthropologist Arnold Van Gennep's concept of "threshold" in rites of passage; and the ceremony conducted at such a site becomes a form of transitional experience. For Native Americans, sacred sites are places of the presence of spiritual entities marking the points where links between the human and spiritual worlds can be established. In Walker's words, they are "portals where people enter the sacred." Walker also points out that rituals and ceremonies conducted at the sites, such as vision quests, are "access techniques used to enter the sacred through these portals." Thus, on the individual dimension, sacred sites accommodate a person's quest to recreate an immediate experience of the sacred, and on the communal dimension, the sites center the community's sacred knowledge and remind and individual of the importance of the relationship with other members of the community as well as of partnership with non-human beings.

Joseph Brown distinguishes three principles of Native American spiritual experience: 1) purification of body, soul and spirit; 2) spiritual expansion, by which an individual realizes his or her totality and relationship to all that is, and thus integration with, and realization of, the realm of the virtues; 3) identity, or final realization of unity, a state of oneness with the ultimate Principle of all that is. Thus the ceremonies, based on these principles, are conducted in isolated and spiritually powerful places.

A sweat lodge is a ritual of purification that is often performed in conjunction with other ceremonies, such as the vision quest, in order to "rid [one's] body of evil and clear his mind so he would be ready to seek a vision and gain knowledge about himself." The lodge is built of willow saplings in the shape of a dome, covered with blankets and tarps. Large stones are heated and placed into the hole in the middle of the lodge. The leader begins prayers and throws water onto the heated stones. The doorway is opened four times and each time the prayer and pouring water ceremony is repeated. The participants are usually naked, "huddling in the dark, close to the earth and to the spirit." Lame Deer compares the sweat lodge ceremony with one's rebirth, as the participants emerge from a low, dark lodge, which resembles a mother's womb.

Religious retreats, or vision quests, are performed individually, although under the supervision of a sacred person. Sweat lodges are conducted before and after the quest. Usually a person goes to an isolated place and fasts for at most four days and prays to receive a vision. Great psychological concentration is necessary, therefore, a site must provide a peaceful and undisturbing environment. Also, sites famous for supernatural power are preferred: "The Lakotas interpret the dreams as interventions by the spiritual world, making it imperative that the ritual is conducted at the preordained site." The primary purpose of the vision quest is to receive power, spiritual help and health, for the vision-seeker or his/her relatives; above all, Black Elk explains,

it helps us to realize our oneness with all things, to know that all things are our relatives; and then in behalf of all things we pray to Wakan-Tanka that He may give to us knowledge of Him who is the source of all things, yet greater than all things.

Many other ceremonies and religious activities may occur at sacred sites. Individual tribal members gather plants for ceremonial purposes in certain areas; they might address the spirits placing prayer offerings, consisting of tobacco bundles or pieces of cloth. It is obvious that the protection of sacred sites is crucial to tribal cultural survival which includes maintaining the practice of their ideas about the world.

Although each sacred site possesses individual qualities, sometimes known only to a particular tribe, explained in their traditions and thus establishing tribal identity, there are also sites significant to a number of tribes, such as the Bighorn Medicine Wheel and the Devils Tower in Wyoming. Therefore, it is easier to voice the preservation concerns for several tribes who use the site than for an individual tribe. Coalitions and organizations involving several tribes offer more possibilities to protect their sites and that their voices will be heard in the management and litigation process.

Chapter II:

Federal Policies, Legislation and Protection of Native American Sacred Sites

In the United States religions of the indigenous peoples were outlawed by nineteenth century assimilation policies, and the tribes were denied access to their sacred sites, many of which happened to be located on public lands. The United States government supported Christian missionaries who worked to convert the "pagans." Before the Indian Citizenship Act was passed in 1924, citizenship was granted only to those Indians who abandoned their tribal ways. Only by the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act did the United States government recognize the Indian right to practice their traditional religions on the reservations. Yet, the law did not eliminate all obstacles to Native American free worship, including access to their sacred sites on the federal lands, where Native Americans were not allowed to travel or experienced harassment by local white communities. Thus these sites, for almost the rest of the twentieth century, continued to be victimized by economic development issues, including transportation improvement, natural resources exploration, and tourism development. Therefore, the solemn atmosphere, and, in many cases, the physical existence of the sites, were threatened by direct and indirect damage to the site or to its surroundings resulting from the dominant society’s insensitivity to the tribal modes of worship and its attempt to educate the Natives in practicing Christian ways.

In American society, Native American tribes have a special--sovereign--status. The tribes are self-governing and a "government-to-government" relationship has recently marked the direction of federal policies. However, in reality the special status has not helped the Indians to protect their sacred sites located on federal lands; rather, the struggle for those sites is seen as a continuation of centuries' struggle for land, where Native nations have been fighting a losing battle, only on the legal plane. Excluded from legal benefits by citizenship until 1924 and by the legacy of discrimination into the 1960's, Native Americans were denied their constitutional right to free exercise of religion, including ceremonial use of sacred sites.

Since the 1960's, ethnic activism, the era of environmentalism and increasing public attention to the preservation of cultural resources provided some legal tools for Native Americans to support their land preservation claims. For Native American sacred sites policies and legislation in two major fields--management of cultural resources, including historic preservation and environmental protection, and rights to religious freedom--have been of major significance. Cultural resources management programs and regulations are more instrumental, procedural, and regulatory than the statutes confirming Native American rights to free religious practice, which are only abstract and declamatory resolutions, subjecting the issue in question to various views and interpretations, with no substantial rules or remedies. The National Historic Preservation Act (1966), the National Environmental Policy Act (1969), the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978), the Archeological Resources Protection Act (1979), the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1989), and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993), together enable the tribes to challenge culturally insensitive decisions in courts. They do not, however, guarantee protection to free exercise of religion and Native American use of sacred sites; in reality, the decision-making is in the hands of courts, who have the power to interpret these laws. To establish the legal context for the protection of Native American sacred sites, I will first discuss the laws and policies regarding American Indian religious freedom and their effectiveness, and then explain historic preservation policies and the powers of the acts which have been mostly applied in Wyoming cases, the NHPA and the NEPA.

American Indian Religious Freedom: Policies, Legislation, Interpretations

The First Amendment to the US Constitution established the right to free exercise of religion and prohibited the government's entanglement with religions: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…" These two clauses, the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, separate religion from the state's business and make religion a private, but not a restrained, matter. The distribution of power in American society in the early years set the standards for the interpretations of these clauses in courts. Religion at that time was identified as any branch of Christianity, therefore, Native Americans, viewed as "heathens" and having no legitimate religion, could not even apply for protection under the Free Exercise Clause until late in the twentieth century, when changes in historical interpretation included them in the list of "legal" religions. Even then, the nature of Native traditional beliefs, different from the Western concept of religion, caused confusion in courts resulting in most inconsistent interpretations and applications of the First Amendment and other laws to their cases. In litigation regarding the use of sacred sites, two Free Exercise Clause principles, the inhibition of religion and the government's compelling interest, have been most difficult to define. First, there has been no constant standard applied to identify infringement upon religious practices: the law forbids direct burdens by government activities on religious practices, however, in the Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association case, the court established that federal activities are allowed unless they prohibit religious practices. To evaluate the weightiness of religious and government interest, the Sherbert/Yoder, or "compelling interest", test has been used. The test requires to balance the state's interest against the First Amendment claims and if there is an infringement upon religion the government has to justify it by demonstrating a "compelling" interest, and to show that the goal cannot be achieved by less intrusive means. However, the application of this balancing test failed in Badoni v. Higginson (1980), where the court found that the government's interest in maintaining the water level in Lake Powell, which flooded the Rainbow Bridge National Monument, a sacred site to the Navajo, disrupting their religious ceremonies conducted at the site, outweighed Navajo religious claims. Also, Native American plaintiffs have been required to prove that their claims are religious, which is another part of the legacy of religious persecution, and demands translation of their religions, which pervade all aspects of life, into the cultural language of the dominant society. The courts, acting on their ignorance and prejudices against Native Americans, have also required the plaintiffs to show the centrality, as in Sequoyah v. Tennessee Valley Authority (1980), and indispensability, as in Wilson v. Block(1983), of their religious beliefs.

Another test to determine a law's compliance with the Establishment Clause was defined in Lemon v. Kurtzman: it prohibits laws either advancing or inhibiting religions and does not allow the government to interfere with religious institutions. In Fools Crow v. Gullet (1982) and Badoni the court ruled that accommodation of Indian religious needs would prevent public from "normal" use of respectively the Bear Butte and the Rainbow Bridge, thus violating the Establishment Clause. The Establishment Clause has also been the subject of legal claims in Wyoming in cases, such as Wyoming Sawmills, Inc. v. United States Forest Service.

The American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA), passed in 1978, actually a joint resolution rather than a statute, established a policy to protect the rights of the American Natives to free exercise of their religions:

… It shall be the policy of the United States to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise the traditional religions of the American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiians, including but not limited to access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites.

The Act also directed federal agencies to evaluate the effects of their actions and consult with Native American "traditional religious leaders" in order to protect their religious practices.

As regards the use of sacred sites, the AIRFA appears only as a policy statement, directing federal agencies to consider Native American religious needs and recognizing the protection of Native American cultures and religions as a trust obligation of the federal government. At first federal agencies viewed the provisions of the Act as no more than bureaucratic procedures, and in the 1980's consultations with Native Americans, as in the case of Mount Graham in Arizona, sacred site to San Carlos Apache, consisted of "one form letter, sent [by the University of Arizona] by the regular first class mail to the Apache." Federal agencies sometimes also experienced difficulties in contacting traditional tribal members because of their isolation and lack of general experience with the bureaucratic world. Thus the AIRFA has been criticized for its bureaucratic nature, because its requirements for consultations with Native Americans did not eliminate the cultural bias of the dominant society, nor did it provide actual legal redress for tribes if land managers failed to consider Native American views. The Lyng case, which was considering the road construction by the US Forest Service in the Blue Creek area in California, which had been used by Yurok, Karok, and Tolowa tribes for ceremonial purposes, revealed that the law had "no teeth" as the United States Supreme Court ruled that no protection was available unless there was an intention of governmental activity to infringe upon religion or prohibit religious practices. The AIRFA did not protect Native Americans losing cases on the basis of lack of property interest (Badoni v. Higginson, Fools Crow v. Gullet), lack of title to the land (Sequoyah v. Tennessee Valley Authority), while the courts held that the requirements of the AIRFA were met as the federal agencies consulted Native tribes in the process of decision- making and acquainted themselves with their religious practices (Fools Crow v. Gullet). The AIRFA does not prohibit federal actions in favor of religious use, and the courts in the majority of cases supported the federal agencies' claims on the basis that the proposed developments do not prohibit Native American use of the site, even if the activities accommodated by these developments violate privacy and disrupt religious ceremonies.

It is obvious that the judicial system's ignorance of and insensitivity to Native American cultural traditions and religious beliefs, or, in other words, the dominant society's biases, resulted in inconsistent interpretations and applications of the AIRFA and the First Amendment to Indian sacred land use cases. The courts apply Euro-American society's cultural rules in the use of the sacred land cases while Native American ways of thinking and reasoning are rejected and non-dominant values underestimated or ignored.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 reestablished the use of the "compelling interest" test in all cases where religious practices were substantially burdened and thus overturned the Smith decision, which undermined the applicability of the test with the ruling that neutral laws do not have to be supported by a compelling government interest to apply to religious practices. The Native American Free Exercise of Religion Act of 1993 and Executive Order No. 13007 provide only for improvement of the already existing sacred sites management procedures, and does not guarantee any protection from federal actions.

Although the laws were designed to protect Native American religious freedom guaranteed under the First Amendment, their interpretations by the courts usually manipulate them for the state's interests. Therefore, the statutory laws only establish bureaucratic procedures for the management of federal lands and provide for Native Americans' participation in the role of consultants, whose opinion should be known but not always taken into consideration. The vagueness of legislative language allows many interpretations of the laws and enables their modification according to the needs of the interested side. Yet, the legislative mechanism, along with the good will of federal officials, while flawed, is so far the best combined protection available for Native American sacred sites on public lands.

In the state of Wyoming, constructive collaboration of Native American advocacy organizations, such as the Medicine Wheel Coalition for Sacred Sites of North America and the Medicine Wheel Alliance, with the State Historic Preservation Office resulted in effective sacred site protection strategies. Here, historic preservation policies and legislation have been used to regulate the management of such sites. Under these regulations, sacred sites, if their historic and cultural value matches the standards of eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places, are nominated as National Historic Landmarks and receive protection from environmentally and culturally destructive federal undertakings under the NHPA regulations. Therefore, historic preservation laws and procedures, along with the NEPA, have been of immense significance for the protection of the Bighorn Medicine Wheel, the Devils Tower, and other sites in Wyoming.

Historic AND ENVIRONMENTAL preservation

Historic preservation in the United States started in the nineteenth century as a concern for buildings where prominent people lived or events significant to American history took place, including, for example, Mount Vernon, George Washington's home. In 1906 Congress passed the Antiquities Act, which empowered the President to designate structures and objects as National Monuments if they were located on land administered by federal agencies. The Historic Sites Act of 1935 established a national policy "to preserve for public use historic sites, buildings and objects of national significance for the inspiration and benefit of people of the United States" and the Secretary of the Interior was authorized to develop various preservation programs and activities. The Secretary's responsibility became the designation of National Historic Landmarks, the survey of archaeological sites, buildings, and objects and the acquisition of such sites and properties, in cooperation with local governments or agencies, scientific institutions, and private organizations or individuals. During the following years, local and state governments showed initiative in designing and implementing local historic preservation programs. These actions reinforced the preservation process at the national level and led to the enactment of the NHPA in 1966. Thus the 1935 Act, even if it emphasized the national significance of a cultural property which often obscured (and after 1964--enhanced) the standards for the eligibility for protection, it established the foundations for the National Register of Historic Places and set the stage for the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) passed three decades later.

The era of environmentalism and increasing public attention to the issues of environmental preservation contributed a number of laws supporting historic preservation and Native American preservation claims. The NHPA (1966) has made the most significant contribution to the preservation of Native American sacred sites. It delineates a national policy that attempts to prevent damage to the environment, including historic and cultural resources, by requiring federal agencies to consider impacts of their undertakings. The Act, amended in 1980, 1986, and 1992, established a special status of historically significant properties, provided for procedures for the consideration of effects of public undertakings on these properties, and created institutions responsible for preservation programs. First of all, it created a National Register of Historic Places, which is maintained by the National Park Service and is an inventory of buildings and structures, sites and districts, and other objects and properties associated with history, prehistory, architectural or engineering history, archeology or culture and which are significant at the national, state and local levels; and the Act also defined the procedures for establishment of National Historic Landmarks. Second, it created federal and state historic preservation institutions: an Advisory Council on Historic Preservation to advise the President and Congress on the preservation issues and State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPO) to administer state historic preservation programs. Moreover, the Act promotes state historic preservation programs and prescribes SHPO's responsibilities in the process of evaluation and mitigation of the effects of federal projects on sites included in or eligible for the National Register. Finally, the NHPA, through the Historic Preservation Fund, provides grants to states and individuals for historic preservation projects.

Section 106 of the NHPA establishes the procedures for federal agencies so that the effects of their undertakings on "any district, site, building, structure, or object that is included in or eligible for inclusion in the National Register" will be considered early in the planning process. Regulations of the Advisory Council on Section 106 process provide for Native American participation in the role of an interested party:

When an undertaking may affect properties of historic value to an Indian tribe on non-Indian lands, the consulting parties shall afford such a tribe the opportunity to participate as interested persons. Traditional cultural leaders and other Native Americans are considered to be interested persons with respect to undertakings that may affect historic properties of significance to such persons.

While the Section 106 process seems to provide protection through the Advisory Council and SHPO review of federal undertakings, it actually establishes only procedures and provides little legal recourse if the agencies fail to consider those effects. First, the applicability of the process is limited: only federal agencies or the ones receiving federal assistance in the form of funding, approving, permitting, or licensing are subject to it, and Section 106 does not apply to private organizations or individuals. Second, the time when the agency must comply with Section 106 is ambiguous: the requirement to consider the effects "prior to the approval of the expenditure of any Federal funds on the undertaking or prior to the issuance of any license" might be interpreted as an implication that the failure of such considerations at later stages of the project is not a subject to challenge (most of the courts have held that it applies to all unexecuted parts of the project). Also, the National Register nominations or determination of eligibility of a place involves complicated formal procedures, and the process often depends on the discovery and interpretations of features of potential eligibility. Thus, the ambiguity of the Act allows different interpretations which may, like legislation regarding religious freedom, result in its manipulation by more powerful business interests and federal agencies who support those interests.

The National Environmental Policy Act declared a national policy to protect the environment, established mechanisms for its implementation, and created the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Section 101(b) of the Act details the scope of the policy in terms of cultural surroundings, national heritage and natural resources:

It is the continuing responsibility of the Federal Government to … (2) assure for all Americans safe, healthful, productive, and esthetically and culturally pleasing surroundings; … (4) preserve important historic, cultural, and natural aspects of our national heritage, and maintain, wherever possible, an environment which supports diversity and variety of individual choice; (5) achieve a balance between population and resource use which will permit high standards of living and a wide sharing of life's amenities…

Section 102 sets procedural requirements for undertakings of federal agencies to insure environmental quality. According to Section 102(C), if a project "significantly affects the environment, the federal agency should prepare a statement on the environmental impact and receive comments of other federal agencies involved. Thus, the federal agency is directed to consider the effects of a project on the environment and its possible alternatives before taking action. These procedures are delineated in the CEQ NEPA regulations. If an action proposed by the agency is one that normally requires the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), the agency prepares an environmental assessment. If the agency does not identify any significant impact on the environment it must prepare a statement of Finding of No Significant Impact, and is allowed to proceed with the project. If such an impact is found, the agency prepares the EIS, where it describes alternatives to the action, and its expected environmental consequences.

In contrast to the NHPA, the NEPA is more widely applicable as regards resources because it does not specify which resources should be protected from the encroachment of federal actions while the NHPA's requirements apply only to the historically significant resources that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register. Yet, a problematic issue is to which projects the NEPA applies, as the text of the Act mentions only "major federal actions" (Section 102 (C)), which the CEQ has defined as "actions with effects that may be major." Also, it is difficult to determine the degree of federal involvement in the project, as it might be separated into federal and non-federal portions. The Act is also ambiguous the definition of the significance of the effects on the human environment (Section 102(C)), which, according to the CEQ regulations, should be determined on the basis of "intensity" of the effects. Thus, many complex issues and categories have been defined by case law and the CEQ.

In sum, despite their ambiguities and limitations, both the NHPA and the NEPA establish procedures for protection of historic, cultural, and natural resources, which includes Native American sacred sites, through the requirement to consider and evaluate the effects of a federal undertaking on those sites, and through identification and mitigation of adverse effects. Through delineation of procedures historic preservation and environmental institutions are granted a certain power to control the process of decision-making. However, the weaknesses of both acts are, first, their application only to federal actions and, second, they do not provide for prohibition of such an action if it threatens preservation of the environment or a cultural resource.

The place is highly revered by the Northern and Southern Arapaho, Northern and Southern Cheyenne, Plains Cree, Salish-Kootenai, Shoshone, Bannock, Crow, Blackfeet, and Sioux people, who have traveled there to pray, conduct religious ceremonies, and gather materials for ceremonial purposes. They regard the circle as a piece of religious architecture and an astronomical structure. Exceptional spiritual power of the site and the integrity of the landscape is also recognized by non-Indian visitors, who describe the Medicine Wheel as " an awe inspiring site," "a spiritual and peaceful place," or an area of "spiritual calm and unmistakable serenity," and locals:

Like the Native Americans who come to places of great power to pray, local residents, too, have lain awake at night watching the twinkling stars and walked the mighty ridges, feeling the majesty of the mountain.

On the Medicine Mountain there have been identified numerous sweat lodge and vision quest sites, places where offerings are made, prehistoric encampment and tipi ring sites, medicinal and ceremonial plant gathering areas. The place was a neutral territory, open for all tribes: even traditional enemies, such as the Crows, Sioux, and Cheyennes, stayed in peace praying.

The origins of the Bighorn Medicine Wheel are not known. Who built the structure, for which purposes, remains historically obscure. The Crow Indians, the oldest known inhabitants of the area, say that that the Wheel is centuries old and had been built before they came to that area. There is a hypothesis that the structure was erected by an ancient Aztec-Tanoan civilization several thousand years ago; it is also reminiscent of the stone circles in the British Isles. However, it seems that lack of data allows many speculations on the origins of the Wheel, some of which might be for the purpose to "intrigue the thinking public," attract more visitors and provide to them some intellectual entertainment. Most contemporary research states that the present form of the Wheel must be a result of the continuous use of the site by various groups of people over the centuries, parts of which may have been rebuilt periodically according to the annual ceremonial cycle.

References to the Medicine Mountain and the Wheel in anthropological works of the early twentieth century are extremely scarce. Therefore, an opinion has formed among the Euro-American public that the site has been actively used by Native Americans for religious purposes only in the recent decades. However, this is not surprising because sacred sites--spiritually powerful places--and issues related to their use have always been the matters kept in great secret and respect and about which traditional Native people would not talk publicly; it requires a ceremonial preparation of one's spirit:

As a traditional community, we do not like to see the Medicine Wheel drawn into an area of debate. It’s a religious issue. In fact, every time we talk about the Medicine Wheel or any areas of this nature we say a prayer. A very solemn discussion is had.

Still, Native Americans affirm that there was a continuation in visitation of the Medicine Mountain in the twentieth century while tribes were officially confined to reservations and their traditional religions outlawed:

Since I was a kid I went up to the Wheel. .… [My dad went up there every year]. I was about six years old [when I first went]. In 1934, I was about six. And every since then. [My Dad went] way before that, even.

Those visits, though, seem to be more secret until the 1970's, when the AIRFA, providing Native Americans free access to their sacred sites, was passed in 1978. However, those visits must have been rather limited, as shown by the construction of medicine wheels during the first part of the twentieth century according to the model of the Bighorn Medicine Wheel on reservations by a number of tribes, including Northern Arapaho, Crow, and Northern Cheyenne, with the intention to fulfill the people's spiritual needs.

Native American References

The Bighorn Medicine Wheel is a significant figure in tribal stories. Crow stories interpret the Wheel as a structure made by the Sun or a culture hero and serving to revere the Sun, and they also show it as a place of communion with the spirits of the ancestors. A Crow story tells about their Chief Red Plume, who traveled to the Medicine Mountain to seek a vision and received instructions and power from the little people who lived inside the Mountain, and whose spirit, after his death, stayed at the Wheel:

Upon his death bed, after many years of successful warfare and leadership, he instructed his people that his spirit would occupy the shrine at the Medicine Wheel which is connected with the rim, except by an extended spoke, and that they might at all times communicate with him there.

Crow tradition also speaks about the healing powers of the site. The story of Burnt Face, recorded by Rodney Frey, tells us how a young man travels to the Bighorn Mountains, fasts there, makes an offering and the burnt side of his face is healed:

Burnt Face goes alone into the hills to the south. …. Higher he goes until he is in the Bighorns. There … Burnt Face begins his fast. During the day he spends his time moving large stones to form a great circle, a "medicine wheel." …. He gives of himself so that he might receive something. ….

One of the Eagles goes to the liner of the lodge and pulls out a mirror. Holding it up, Burnt Face looks into it. What he sees is a new face and tears come to his eyes. He's like a newborn child.

John Hill, Crow elder, told me a story about the Nez Perce Chief Joseph, who, when visiting the Crow tribe, went to fast and pray at the Medicine Wheel and thus recovered from tuberculosis.

In the biographical story of the Shoshone Chief Washakie, told by Washakie's descendant Ralph H. Tillman and his wife Mary, the Bighorn Medicine Wheel appears as a place where a sacred brotherhood's teachings are kept by an ancient patriarchs and there is one chief in each Plains tribe who is chosen for membership and has to travel to the sacred mountain to receive his message:

In the morning Washakie said farewell to Pah-da-he-wa-kun-da and his people, and started on his way to the Medicine Wheel. It was located far in the North, in the country of the Crow Indians, at the upper end of the Big Horn Mountain Range. Medicine was wrought there upon a mountain top; truth was taught there by ancient men, pure and wise. Washakie could only hope that the Great Father of All would favor his desire to become a member in the Sacred Brotherhood of Man. Once there at the Wheel, he would have to display his talisman to the Ancient Ones and give them a certain Word, which the old Chief had entrusted to him.

The oral tradition also relates how, returning from a hunt in the Wind River country, the Crows used to stop and camp at the Medicine Mountain, perform thanksgiving ceremonies and present offerings. Thus, although the mythology of the Medicine Wheel is not as rich as that of the Devils Tower, it is obvious that the site has been used by Native tribes throughout centuries and the existing stories fully justify the sacred nature of the place.

Interpretations of meaning

The figure of the wheel has a special place in Plains Indian philosophy. The old way of life on the Plains seems to have been shaped according to the form of the circle; it expresses the balance and harmony of life and nature:

With us the circle stands for the togetherness of people who sit with one another around the campfire, relatives and friends united in peace while the pipe passes from hand to hand. The camp in which every tipi had its place was also a ring. The tipi was a ring in which people sat in a circle and all the families in the village were in turn circles within a larger circle, part of the larger hoop which was seven campfires of the Sioux, representing one nation. The nation was only a part of the universe, in itself circular and made of the earth, which is round, of the sun, which is round, of the stars, which are round. The moon, the horizon, the rainbow--circles within circles, with no beginning and no end.

Northern Arapahoes use a sacred wheel in their Sun Dance ceremony. It is about eighteen inches in diameter and is made of wood, held together by buckskin thongs, and four sets of eagle tail feathers are attached to it. In this ceremonial object, the disk of the wheel is associated with the sun and its life-bringing, creative powers, and the band of wood represents a tiny water-snake, and means the body of water surrounding the earth. In the Crow Sun Dance, Frey notes, the dancers constitute a wheel's rim, and each dancer represents a spoke, while the spokes of the wheel stand for separate paths to the Creator. The Sun Dance Lodge in the Crow tradition corresponds to the cosmos, and its center, the pole, can be compared to the central cairn of the wheel, and it is a link to cosmic powers:

The rays of the morning Sun are captured between its two forks, which tower open to the sky, to Akbaatatdia [the Maker], while its roots are anchored in the Earth. Thus the center pole allows the dialogue needed for a vision, for a cure, or for an answer to a prayer. It is a channel to Akbaatatdia, through which baaxpee [power] flows.

A buffalo skull or head is also used for the altar: Lakotas would place a skull on the bed of sage to the east of sacred altar, and the Crows place it on the center pole, as a representation of their homes and food, which corresponds to and explains the use of the buffalo skull at the Bighorn Medicine Wheel, which was found there by S. C. Simms in 1903.

Twenty-eight, the number of spokes in the wheel, is also a significant number in the Plains Indians cosmology. William K Powers points out that the Oglala classification of natural phenomena is based on numbers four and seven, products of four, and four and seven. Black Elk explains its meaning as

… If you add four sevens you get twenty-eight. Also the moon lives twenty-eight days, and this is our month; each of these days of the month represents something sacred to us: two of the days represent the Great Spirit; two are for Mother Earth; four are for the four winds; one is for the Spotted Eagle; one for the sun; and one for the moon; one is for the Morning Star; and four for the four ages; seven are for our seven great rites; one is for the buffalo, one for the fire; one for the water; one for the rock; and finally one is for the two-legged people. If you add all these days up you will see that they come to twenty-eight. You should also know that the buffalo has twenty-eight ribs, and that in our war bonnets we usually use twenty-eight feathers.

The number twenty-eight coincides with the days in one lunar month, the menstrual cycle of a woman when the power to create life is reborn, and the number of poles to support the Sun Dance Lodge, used by some tribes.

To the Shoshonean Sheepeater people, the wheel was a diagram of their tribal composition and the number of spokes represented their original twenty-eight tribes, who would gather at the Bighorn Medicine Wheel semi-annually for a sun-worshipping ceremony.

Contemporary Native Americans also interpret the Wheel as a center of learning, where the ways and truths of life are encoded in the complex structure. Writer Hyemeyohsts Storm notes that the structure of a wheel embodies a philosophy of life and individual elements of the world and describes its use in the teaching-learning process:

Among the People [Cheyennes], the Teachers usually construct it [a Medicine Wheel] from small stones or pebbles, which they would place like this before them upon the ground.

Each of the stones within the Medicine Wheel represents one of the many things of the Universe. One of them represents you, and another represents me. Others hold within them our mothers, sisters, brothers, and our friends. Still others symbolize hawks, buffalo, elks and wolves. There are also stones which represent religions, governments, philosophies, and even entire nations. All things are contained within the Medicine Wheel, and all things are equal within it. The Medicine Wheel is the Total Universe.

Kainah tribal member Betty Bastien explains the Wheel as an instrument of ancient tribal technology of communication with "sky beings," a link to other cosmic worlds. In scholarly works the Wheel's astronomical peculiarities have been pointed out and its meaning as a summer solstice marker for calendar and ritual purposes has been proposed. Anthropologist Robert L. Hall associates medicine wheels with "world center" shrines which served as channels of power and information:

World center shrines were constructed in a pattern which would aid magically in channeling the blessings of nature to the villages or bands they served. This might logically include a design to gather to the world center the powers of the sun or stars at times of risings, when those powers were believed to be most potent.

Therefore, it is only logical that such places have been preferred for quests for spiritual guidance and protection, or vision quests.

Administrative History

Acknowledgement of the Bighorn Medicine Mountain as a historically and culturally significant landscape faced many difficulties. Efforts to preserve and protect the Wheel started in 1915, when Wyoming people through their representative in Congress recommended the site, containing the ancient structure, to the Department of the Interior as a potential national monument under the 1906 Antiquities Act. The Smithsonian Institution, the US Geological Survey, the National Park Service, and local residents favored the Medicine Mountain's nomination a National Historic Landmark. However, the Forest Service, which administered the Medicine Mountain, did not take any formal action. Only, in 1925, they built a stone wall around the Wheel to protect it from cattle, which, with increasing tourist visitation, was changed into a post and barbed-wire fence in 1939 and in 1999 removed, leaving a rope-topped barrier. In 1957, in response to the newspaper rumor that the Wheel might be physically moved to a more accessible site by another agency, the Forest Service issued an order to withdraw eighty acres around the Medicine Wheel from "all forms of appropriation under the public land laws." Finally, in 1970 the Medicine Wheel site was designated a National Historic Landmark, which provided for consideration of effects of federal actions in that area through the Section 106 consultation process and the mitigation of those effects prior to the project's location in the Wheel's vicinity.

As the number of visitors has considerably increased (from 2,100 in 1967 to 70,000 in 1993), in 1988 the Big Horn National Forest came up with the project to improve access and accommodate tourism at the site. The Forest Service proposed to build a viewing platform, to pave the road leading to the Wheel, and to construct a parking lot and a visitor’s center about 100 meters from the Wheel. The project contained no provisions for traditional Native American religious use nor for protection of the site.

The Forest Service project was strongly opposed by Native American communities, the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office (WYSHPO), the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and the Medicine Wheel Alliance (MWA), a group of Native American activists and environmentalists. In 1990 traditional tribal spiritual leaders joined into the Medicine Wheel Coalition for the Sacred Sites of North America (MWC) and requested legal assistance from the Association on American Indian Affairs (AAIA) to block the proposal. Thus Native American tribes for the first time entered the formal consultation process in Wyoming.

In 1989 the United States Forest Service held a series of public meetings and discussions on the management of the Landmark with the interested sides. Native Americans insisted on vehicular access restrictions, limitations upon the development of tourism, and provisions for ceremonial use of the Medicine Wheel at certain times of the year. According to the NEPA’s regulations, in 1991 the Forest Service prepared a Draft Environmental Impact Statement which no longer contained plans for the construction of a visitor’s center and a viewing platform, but still was not approved by the MWC, the MWA, the WYSHPO and the Advisory Council. Yet, the opposition was attacked by the logging industry, conservative advocacy organizations, Wyoming congressmen, and local citizens.

In 1991 the Big Horn Forest Service initiated the NHPA Section 106 process with the eventual participation of the Bighorn National Forest, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the Bighorn County Commissioners, the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office, the Medicine Wheel Coalition, and the Medicine Wheel Alliance. In 1993 the parties signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) which prohibited traffic 1.5 miles from the Wheel except for handicapped access, provided for Native American interpreters working during the tourist season, set aside twelve days a year for Native American ceremonial use, and funded an ethnographic research. In 1994 the parties to the MOA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which operates a radar in the vicinity of the Wheel, negotiated a Programmatic Agreement which established the procedures for designing a long-term Medicine Wheel Historic Preservation Plan (HPP).

The HPP was completed and approved in 1996. It established a 23,000 acre "area of consultation," allowed traditional cultural use (accommodation of ceremonies and gathering of plants for religious activities) at certain times of the year, prohibited vehicular traffic and approved of pedestrian access to the Medicine Wheel, restricted livestock grazing and timber harvesting in the vicinity of the Wheel, provided for monitoring adverse effects as well as projects for the extension of the NHL boundaries. In 1995 the WYSHPO was removed from Section 106 consultations with the termination of its Native American Affairs Program and retained only an observer status in subsequent meetings, which weakened its impact on the consultation process. The consulting parties continue to work constructively on the implementation of the HPP and regulation of undertakings in the vicinity of the Bighorn Medicine Wheel.

On February 16, 1999 Wyoming Sawmills, Inc., a company that advocates timber harvesting in the Medicine Wheel area, filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service challenging the HPP on the basis of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, stating that "the Programmatic Agreement and the HPP unconstitutionally require the Forest Service to establish and promote Native American religious practices" and the closing of Horse Creek timber sales "was undertaken for the sole purpose of furthering Native American religions." Also, the company questioned the procedures of the HPP's preparation, adoption and amendment under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the National Environment Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act, the Administrative Procedures Act. Medicine Wheel District Ranger Dave Myers pointed out that Wyoming Sawmills has initially objected the HPP signing and filed a lawsuit to challenge the plan.

However, many claims are challengeable. In the consultation process, Native Americans opposed only the way the company wanted to transport the timber--trucks would cause too much environmental damage to the site and this was the reason why they insisted the company would find other ways of transportation, which delayed the process of timber sale negotiations. Also, the lawsuit addresses the First Amendment, therefore, it can have an impact on state and national level. Attorney Jack Trope emphasized that the HPP provides protection to the site which facilitates free exercise of religion and the Plan's purpose is not to promote Native American religions, but to balance the activities at the Medicine Mountain. Myers also noted that interpretive programs at the Medicine Wheel are not attempting to further Native religions, but the interpreters are "only telling visitors about the history of the Medicine Wheel and that it is considered a sacred site to Native Americans."

The Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark boundary revision project intends to expand the NHL boundaries from 120 acres to 15,230 acres. The project intends to incorporate a number of archaeologically and culturally significant sites, such as tipi rings, sweat sites, camp sites, and plant gathering areas, related to the Medicine Wheel and ceremonies. Traditional cultural practices along with archaeological evidence form the basis of the nomination document, therefore, its approval could be of great significance to tribal communities as well as American Indian scholarship, as it would acknowledge the national significance of Native American cultural experiences.

The local community has not been supportive of the NHL boundary expansion. The town of Lovell has been the generator of negative reaction toward the nomination. Local people express their concern that the new nomination would substantially limit their use of the area and that the study does not address the "traditional" use of the Wheel by Big Horn County residents. These comments only demonstrate the conservatism and fear of small, rural "Wild West" communities, reflected in their egocentrism and suspicion of outsiders.

The management of the Bighorn Medicine Wheel is a good example of how historic preservation laws work to enhance the protection of Native American religious rights. The unity of Native American tribes, state and federal agencies’ willingness to protect historical sites, availability of alternatives satisfying the economic interests of the non-Indian community, cooperativeness of Native American elders in collecting and interpreting data that supports the sanctity of the site, and focus on realistic goals resulted in a favorable management of the Medicine Wheel to Native religious practitioners.

Although direct references to the Bighorn Medicine Wheel in ethnographic works and available documentations of oral tradition are not abundant, it is obvious from the existing data, especially as considered in the context of the oral evidence obtained from tribal elders, that the sanctity of the site has been deeply rooted in traditional stories and practices. In the process of consultations, Native American evidence has been respected by the representatives of federal agencies and it has not been scrutinized as in earlier Cherokee or Hopi and Navajo cases. The local community, as a competitive party to Native tribes, has been showing hostility to the protection of the Wheel's cultural resources and enhancement of respect to Native American practices. They seem to feel that the expansion of the NHL boundary would severely limit their own use of the area, while it actually means that a larger area will become a subject to multiple-use consultation process. Thus most of the opposition comes from the local community because the Medicine Mountain does not have tourism as well developed as the Devils Tower, although it hosts animal grazing, and hiking and camping activities. The large area covered by culturally significant sites, however, does not help the place to avoid the interference of logging interests unwilling to consider the adverse effects of their activities on the site, as timber harvesting has been a legal activity in the National Forest, and the Medicine Wheel vicinities have not been excluded from it.

Native American tribal representatives, including Eastern Shoshones, Northern Arapahoes, Northern Cheyennes, Southern Cheyennes and Arapahoes, and Sioux tribes, although working for different organizations, have been unanimous in the matters regarding the protection of the Bighorn Medicine Wheel, which demonstrates the continuity of sacred use of the place and its immense significance. It is also important that the two Native organizations, who participate in the consultation process in Wyoming, the Medicine Wheel Coalition and the Medicine Wheel Alliance, include the most knowledgeable tribal religious leaders, whose competence on sacred site matters is not questioned by tribes and is acknowledged by federal officials.

Credit must also be given to the competence and good will of federal and state officials, who work to balance multiple-use activities at the Medicine Wheel and attempt to ensure unobstructed religious exercise for Native Americans. Although the Forest Service has been criticized by Alan L. Stanfill of the Advisory Council as slow to comply with the NHPA requirements, the efforts to protect the site finally resulted in the management document, the HPP, which delineates the management procedures and priorities.

Native elders have been cooperative in the process of ethnographic data collection about the Bighorn Medicine Wheel. The agencies have complied with the Executive Order No. 13007 requirement to maintain the confidentiality of the sites by not disclosing the location of the archaeological sites or the names of Native informants, in order to protect them from harassment, at public meetings regarding the nomination, too.

The Devils Tower is a huge monolith in the Black Hills of northeastern Wyoming. Several theories are proposed to explain its origins. One theory states that during the geological processes fifty-sixty million years ago formed the Devils Tower when flowing molten magma split the surface rock layers and reached upwards through the cracks. Later erosion exposed its phonolite porphyry, dense crystalline rock. Another theory suggests that the tower is a neck of an extinct volcano. Now, the tower rises 1,282 feet above the Belle Fourche River and 865 feet from the base. Of columnar structure, the rock is split by vertical cracks which run its entire height. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the Devils Tower the first National Monument under the Antiquities Act.

The site has also been considered sacred and ceremonially used by at least six tribes: Eastern Shoshone, Crow, Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux. With the exception of Eastern Shoshone, the Devils Tower, or the proper translation of the name as it appears in those Native languages, the Bears' Lodge, is deeply rooted in tribal oral traditions. The monolith, as a natural wonder, is also greatly admired by the local community and tourists. The Devils Tower has also been a popular destination for the climbers.

Native American REFERENCES

Native American narratives about the Bears' Lodge were documented by Dick Stone in the early twentieth century. Contemporary writer N. Scott Momaday widely uses the symbolism of the Devils Tower in his creative work. In general, most of these stories relate the mystery of the tower to the power of a bear. They speak about bears, or humans turned into bears, and their relationships with people, and also offer explanations for the origins of the tower: it either a plays the role of saving the people from aggressive bears, or is simply referred to as a place where bears live.

The Kiowa tribe, who are now living in Oklahoma, inhabited the Black Hills region in the 1700's, and still carry memories about that area. Momaday inherited the understanding of the spiritual character of the Rock Tree, as the Devils Tower is called in the Kiowa tradition, along with the story from his Kiowa grandmother and was also given the name of "rock-tree boy," Tsoai talee:

Eight children were there at play, seven sisters and their brother. Suddenly the boy was struck dumb; he trembled and began to run upon his hands and feet. His fingers became claws, and his body was covered with fur. Directly there was a bear where the boy had been. The sisters were terrified; they ran, and the bear after them. They came to the stump of a great tree, and the tree spoke to them. It bade them climb upon it, and as they did so it began to rise in the air. The bear came to kill them, but they were just beyond his reach. It reared against the tree and scored the bark all around with its claws. The seven sisters were borne into the sky, and became the stars of the Big Dipper.

This story is closest to Crow narratives, which also tell about little girls being chased by a bear and climbing a rock, which starts growing into the sky and thus saves the girls, who are safely delivered home later, or stay on the rock forever.

An Arapaho legend tells about a girl who is turned into a bear, and from a high rock announces to her family the appearance of seven stars in the sky, the first of them called "Broken Chest Star," as she fell on her sister while attempting to climb the rock and broke her sister's chest. In another Kiowa legend, a maiden is bewitched by a bear and turns herself into one and pursues her brothers and sisters wishing to bewitch them, too. As in one of the Crow legends, the people, hopeless and tired of running, start praying and are saved by the Great Spirit who provides a rock which carries them high into the sky thus saving the people and leaving the bear scratching the rock's sides, leaving permanent marks on it.

Three Cheyenne legends on the Devils Tower subject recorded by Dick Stone tell us about women seduced or kidnapped by bears. Those bears either live at the base of the huge rock, which is the reason why the tribe calls it Bears' Lodge, or make the rock its home, and the people fight the bear from the top of the rock.

Two Sioux legends present quite different stories. One of them tells how a big bear helped the Sioux fight the Crows at the Devils Tower, the other one talks about worshipping practices at the tower:

One day this warrior took his buffalo skull and went alone into the wilderness to worship. Standing at the base of "Mato Tipila", after he had worshipped for two days, he suddenly found himself on top of this high rock. He was very much frightened as he did not know how he would get down. After appealing to the Great Spirit, he went to sleep. When he awoke he was very glad to find that he was again at the base of this high rock.

Thus in tribal oral traditions this place is considered very powerful and sacred. The presence of the bear, who is the most powerful animal in Native narratives, also hallows the place. The rock is also mysteriously powerful because of its ability to rise into the sky and thus save the people pursued by an angry bear.

Dick Stone has also recorded information regarding the use of the site by Native people. According to his Sioux informants, One Bull and White Bull, Sioux bands used to camp at the Bears' Lodge during the winter. Chief White Bull mentioned that the site was a burial place for some ancient Sioux chiefs. Also, the Sioux went to pray and vision quest there:

We did not worship this butte, but worshipped our God. …. "Bears Tipi" is well known to all Sioux Indians and it was an important place to them. Only the honor men of our band went there to pray to our God. They would go there for three or four days at a time. During this time, they slept on beds made of sagebrush and fasted, taking neither food nor water. Four days and nights was the longest anybody stayed there for prayer.

The rock was also used to foretell the future:

In some places, there were sign rocks that told what was going to happen. If some of your people were going to be killed by enemies, in a few days, the rock would show a sign that your people would be shot by an arrow and the very same thing would happen in a few days. And if you were to have plenty of meat the rock would show some poles with enough meat on them to break the poles and in a few days the buffalo would come and everybody would kill enough to have plenty of meat. After this sign had been seen, it would be polished off. I do not know how the signs appeared or who polished the sign off smooth. This rock had a sign for every important thing that was going to happen to our people.

Famous Sioux chiefs, including Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, Gall, and Spotted Tail, went to worship to the Bears' Lodge. One Bull recounts that these five men went to pray there at important political moments.

As in the Bighorn Medicine Wheel's case, it seems that Native American visits to the Bears' Lodge were severely limited or went into secrecy during the first part of the twentieth century:

For generations Indians have handed down legends regarding Devils Tower and it is not uncommon to find Indians who have never seen Devils Tower, but who know all about the legendary history of the "Big Rock". Just recently, some aged Indians, on their way to Rapid City, South Dakota, to attend a tribal council, spoke of the Tower, "Mato Tepee" and expressed their disappointment in not being able to visit the place.

Contemporary Native religious practitioners continue the tradition of conducting their ceremonies and praying at the tower. In the novel The Ancient Child, N. Scott Momaday vividly describes how his protagonist Set goes to the tower to seek a vision, which is the way he can experience the tribal myth and thus becomes incorporated in traditional tribal ways. In the report on the ethnographic research on the Devils Tower conducted in 1992 for the National Park Service, anthropologist Jeffery R. Hanson notes that today the site is primarily used for prayer offerings and vision quests. The survey team located twenty one offering sites, the offerings being pieces of cloth or strings of tobacco packets. Regarding vision quests, a Shoshone informant explained: "It’s a place where the Shoshones go up and obtain songs from this mountain. When they go fasting over there, they obtain songs, the songs given to them at this place for Sun Dance, Peyote, or whatever they are seeking." Also, sweat lodge rites and the Sun Dance take place at the tower, in recent times the latter having been held by the Lakotas since 1984.

MANAGEMENT OF MULTIPLE-USE ACTIVITIES

In the ethnographic study of 1992, the researchers documented Native American concerns about the management and the use of the monument, mainly climbing on the tower, violation of the privacy of the ritual space, handling of offerings, the display of possible sacred objects at the visitor’s center, the performance of the Sun Dance, and the inappropriateness of the name "Devils Tower. The researchers also witnessed how most visible offerings were stolen by unscrupulous tourists. However, according to the NPS, the data provided by Applied Ethnography on ritual use of the Devils Tower are vague and imprecise, and, in order to support Native tribes' claims, deeper ethnohistorical research and a more comprehensive study of oral tradition need to be conducted.

The first white American's ascent of the Devils Tower occurred on Independence Day in 1893. An area rancher William Rogers with assistance of Willard Ripley, became the first to ascend the tower and plant the American flag on the summit. He used a ladder constructed of wooden stakes hammered into a crevice of the tower. His wife Linnie Rogers was the first white woman to ascend the tower two years later. In the first part of the twentieth century the Devils Tower did not attract many climbers (about ten parties of climbers between 1938 and 1950), but modern climbing techniques made this activity more popular in the middle of the century and the total annual number of climbers increased from about 400 in 1973 to 6,500 in 1992.

Research conducted by Jeffery Hanson's team in 1992 showed that the climbers do not feel that their activities affect the resources of the monument. To them, climbing on the Devils Tower is "normal and legally legitimate" activity. In 1994, seven authorized commercial climbing guide companies operated at the Devils Tower.

The increased numbers of climbers threatened the traditional ritual use of the monument and in 1994-1995 the Park Service designed the Climbing Management Plan in order to regulate the activity at the tower. The Plan provided for voluntary closure of climbing of the Tower in June in order to respect Native American ceremonies, Sun Dances in particular, conducted at the site, prohibited the placement of new bolts or fixed pitons on the Tower, limited new climbing route development, encouraged "clean climbing" techniques. It also provided for conducting research and gathering information necessary to nominate the Devils Tower for the National Register of Historic Places.

Meetings with Native American religious practitioners were held and most of the climbers agreed to voluntarily refrain from climbing in June, when the Sun Dance is conducted at the site. Yet, a group of four climbers filed a lawsuit arguing that the Plan’s implementation restricts the normal use of the site and violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. At the beginning of the year 1999, the District Court of Wyoming ruled that the government does not violate the Establishment Clause, which made the climbers to challenge the decision at the Court of Appeals. However, the appeal was denied.

Another problematic issue at the Devils Tower is an airport construction project 7.5 miles away from the monument. The project was initiated by the town of Hulett, which in 1994-1995 applied to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the funding and expansion of the existing airport. The FAA prepared an Environmental Assessment under the NEPA insisting on a "no effect" determination because the monument is outside the two-mile Area of Potential Effect. The EA also provides for operational and educational programs in order to direct the flights away from the Devil’s Tower. The National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA), the ACHP, and WYSHPO expressed concern for the FAA’s reluctance to consider the impacts of the project. The NPCA’s report to the FAA states that the EA underestimates impacts beyond a two-mile radius of the proposed airport, and fails to consider the effects of the expanding aircraft operations on the Devils Tower Monument in the future, which will obviously result in substantial damage to natural and cultural values. However, the FAA approved the project, and on March 17, 1999, the Town of Hulett, the Hulett Airport Advisory Board, and the Devil's Tower National Monument signed the Memorandum of Agreement providing for mitigation of the airport's impacts on the environment, including the establishment of a "voluntary, minimum 2-mile no-fly advisory zone," development of a "reasonable" noise and activity monitoring program. These provisions, however, obviously miscalculate the real effects of the airport operations, while the language of the agreement shows that protection of the environment is based entirely on good will and does not provide for any measures to make the pilots follow the advised actions.

The situation at the Devils Tower presents a more complex sacred-site protection situation than the Bighorn Medicine Wheel. The laws are of little aid when powerful economic interests are involved and the protection of the site requires banning of a proposed development. Recreational activities are much better developed at the Devils Tower than at the Bighorn Medicine Wheel. Climbing has had a long tradition and attempts to restrict it were confronted by climbing guides. However, it is obvious that the majority of climbers are not only conscious of their own rights to use the place, but they are also respectful to Native American's religious needs and rights. The Hullet airport, when expanded, is also expected to contribute to the economic development of the area by providing better transportation and thus inviting more tourists and hunters. Of major concern is the environmental impact on the Devils Tower, including noise and increasing visitation.

In contrast to the Medicine Wheel, not all government agencies are in agreement concerning the nature of potential impacts to the site. The FAA, despite pressure from several agencies, was reluctant to admit the impacts of the airport construction. Also, the Devils' Tower consultation process is restricted to Native Americans and consultation partners under Section 106 regulations, while the management of the Medicine Wheel involves more agencies and is better regulated by the HPP, and the Devils Tower does not have a programmatic agreement to regulate its management.

Also, the National Park Service is more sophisticated in their manipulation of laws. County commissioners, representatives of local municipalities and the general public were not invited to the NPS consultations with Native Americans and climbers, therefore local interests were not addressed until quite late in the process. Still, the involvement of Native American consulting parties aided by professional lawyers in the earliest stages of such projects can considerably reduce the potential damage to a sacred site.

Both places are subject to the NHPA Section 106 consultation process. They are managed, however, by two different agencies, the National Forest Service and the National Park Service. While both places have been sacred sites to Native Americans and have been used by them for religious purposes, management of the sites must also take into consideration other multiple-use activities, including recreational activities and timber harvesting. While the NHPA, under the management of competent and qualified officials, has significantly contributed to the preservation of the Bighorn Medicine Wheel, the NEPA's procedures in the Devils Tower case were followed only formally by the FAA.

Despite legislative acts which have been passed to provide protection to the Native Americans' First Amendment right, in reality, the power of those acts is very limited. The major piece of legislation, the NHPA, has a drawback characteristic to US environmental policy as well: it does not provide any real protection to the environment and historically significant places. While the Act encourages the consulting parties to find ways to protect historic properties, it does not actually prohibit damage to important historic and prehistoric sites. It defines the procedures for the environmental effects to be taken into consideration, but it leaves the final decision in the hands into the agencies and provides no real legal protection in case they refuse to comply with the Act's requirements. This legislation, however, does not offer any tools to eliminate the projects having adverse effects, but only to mitigate their consequences, thus providing support for economic development and making historic preservation of second importance. Also, the criteria for evaluating the significance of cultural resources as established in the NHPA do not adequately address Native American perspectives on site significance. While archeologists base their considerations for eligibility of a place on research values, Native Americans regard non-corporeal sacred attributes as important in the considerations of the significance of the site, which conflicts with Western worldviews and does not receive adequate attention from federal agencies.

Yet, in Wyoming, since the early 1990's, Native American representatives have been involved in the consultation process. It is important that tribal religious leaders of the interested Plains Indian tribes organized themselves into the Medicine Wheel Coalition, because collective efforts not only add legitimacy to their concerns and arguments, but the Coalition also relies on the help of a professional attorney and proactively cooperates with the State Historic Preservation officials and researchers.

Research on Native Americans plays a significant part in the protection process, thus crossing the boundaries of the academy and becoming directly applicable to the needs of communities. The new nomination of the Medicine Mountain as a National Historic Landmark, encompassing 15,000 acres, is based on Native American ethnographic material. However, the problem is the protection of the ethnographic material, which contains the location of sites that Native Americans are unwilling to disclose to the public and also of the names of cooperating informants, as publicity might result not only in an intensive curiosity from the outsiders, but also in physical threats from sides representing opposite interests.

Oral testimony has been of immense significance in the research projects related to the Bighorn Medicine Wheel and the Devils Tower. Tribal legends provide their own explanations of the origins and traditional use of these places by Native Americans. Most of the data on the twentieth century use can be obtained only by oral interviews with elders. Although it is required to balance oral accounts against hard scientific data, Native American sources are granted more validity and acquire more significance in the research process.

Earlier involvement of Native Americans in the planning process would have resulted in a more favorable management and might have eliminated the possibility of lawsuits. Nevertheless, the main achievement of successful collaboration of different organizations was the Historic Preservation Plan for the management of the Bighorn Medicine Wheel, which so far has been successfully implemented, and in the Devils Tower case the conflict between Native tribes and climbers was won by the National Park Service and Native Americans, while other climbers understood and respected the wishes of tribal people.

The management of the Devils Tower seems more complicated because of the well-developed recreational interests at the site. Climbing at the Devils Tower has a history of more than a century and well established recreational use of the area is calling for more attention by attempting to expand the Hullet airport. Yet Native Americans are interested in balancing the activities at the Tower, which would accommodate their centuries' old ceremonial use of the Tower, as well as in the preservation of its environment. The National Park Service is also in a different position trying to balance and accommodate different interests.

Thus a combination of historic preservation and environmental laws provides a complex, yet promising mechanism for protection of Native American sacred sites on federal lands, which has been successfully applied in Wyoming. The designation of a site as a National Historic Landmark and its management under Section 106 process is so far the best protection available for these sites. However, this mechanism is not universal and other organizations and entities working with the preservation of sacred sites, before applying these procedures should consider the peculiarities of a local situation and especially the possibilities of involvement of Native tribes, taking into account each tribe's distinct customs and traditions, on which largely depends the integrity of the preservation efforts.