The Black Hills and the surrounding area hold spiritual and emotional significance for numerous Native nations as places of historical and continuing importance. Buffalo Gap, carved by the hooves of bison, serves as both a physical and spiritual entry into the Black Hills. To the Lakota, Oniya Ohloka, or Wind Cave, is the place where their people first came into the world, and as the site of emergence it is considered the birthplace of both the bison and Lakota culture. Inyan Kaga, meaning "where rock is gathered" in Lakota, is significant as a source of stones for ceremony and for quartzite used for knapping points and tools. Pe Sla, or Bald Spot, is a rocky peak overlooking a large meadow and is one stop on the ceremonial journey through the Hills, where no killing of animals was allowed. The Cheyenne regard Nóávóse, or Bear Butte, as the site where the prophet Motsé'eóeve, or Sweet Medicine, received the Sacred Arrows and experienced a vision foretelling the coming of white settlers. Black Elk Peak is associated with Hehaka Sapa, an Oglala Lakota spiritual leader who, as a child, experienced a vision of being taken to its summit and greeted by six grandfathers, spirits believed to be physically embodied by the stone peaks onto which Mount Rushmore was later carved. Bear Lodge, also known as Devil's Tower, is a site of spiritual significance to many Northern Plains nations, with shared origin stories involving a bear clawing at the side of a hill. Nóvohéstéméó'o, or Kiinyanka Ocanku, known as Racing Road in Cheyenne and Lakota, refers to the Great Race story in which the animals raced around the Black Hills and is commonly known as the Red Valley, an iron-rich layer of shale, sandstone, and limestone bordering the hills.

Photo: Mark Parker

Keystone, South Dakota · USA