The Truth about Bison
when what's presented collides with the whole story
To start today’s musings, a brief excerpt from Collisions of Earth and Sky:
My family drove for seven hours straight west on I-90 every year, usually in summer, during my childhood. It didn’t feel right if we didn’t visit the Black Hills at least once a year. A drive around the wildlife loop in Custer State Park, heading to Crazy Horse Monument to check the carving progress, time spent on the shores of Sylvan Lake. (We always avoided Mount Rushmore and its blatant glorification of colonization.) And always, the journey to the top of Black Elk Peak. Back then, it was called Harney Peak, but the name was changed on August 11, 2016, a welcome shift for many. However, there are also those who wanted the name to revert to the original: Hinŋhánŋ Kágˆa (meaning “owl-maker” in Lakota). These sacred hills in South Dakota were taken from their original inhabitants, and we settlers often want to pat ourselves on the back for changing names of things to reflect our inclusiveness and commitment to diversity. How often do we get it right? Lakota folks should be able to name (and control) their own lands.
In June this year, my folks, daughter, my niece, and I took a road trip to visit one of my brothers and his family in Colorado. We left from eastern South Dakota, where my parents live, and headed west on 1-90 toward the Black Hills. Instead of driving straight on to the Rockies, we stayed a few nights in a friend’s cabin near Hill City. As the tradition has been since I was a little kid, we spent an afternoon driving around the wildlife loop, an 18 mile road that winds through habitat that supports pronghorn, deer, prairie dogs, fox, and a ~1400 member herd of American Bison. That trip didn’t afford much in the way of close up bison viewing, but we did see the herd in the middle distance at one point, moving west across an open plain into the trees. (There are ample signs saying “bison are dangerous, do not approach”....though it seems there’s always somebody who has to test the limit. “....just…a little…closer…for the selfie….” These people should not be allowed to drive the loop, in my opinion. Not sure how to screen for them, but …..) Anyway, we drove the loop and at the recommendation of some family friends, stopped in at the brand new Bison Center that had opened earlier in the spring to rave reviews.
The center, a beautifully designed and built wooden barn-like structure near the bison corral area, is full of interactive displays about the American bison, the history of bison in the area, and information about the annual Custer State Park roundup. (Which is a spectacle that draws thousands of people each year and is the park’s maintenance plan to ensure a healthy balance between the number of bison and the available range.) We poked around the displays, listened to the different calls made by bison as the age, and watched footage of the past years’ roundups. Overall, I suppose it’s a very nicely laid out and easy to digest offering.
However, I found it to be….lacking. (You could see that coming, right?) In all of the displays and information, I saw the words Native American and Lakota used once each. The explanation why the numbers of bison got so low in the 1800s was “due to westward expansion” and apparently one of the early settlers involved in the roundup married a Lakota woman (who is unnamed in the display). Given the spiritual significance the Black Hills area has to Lakota people, and the importance of the buffalo to Native American life, I had expected to see more about the true history of what happened to them as colonization moved across the plains and the herds were nearly wiped out by settler hunting initiatives as a way to control (i.e. erase) the Indigenous population. Nowhere was the photo of bison skulls piled up in a display of power, or the dead carcasses of settler-slain bison left to rot in the sun. Nowhere was it mentioned that the Lakota see the bison as a relative, and honor[ed] every animal killed by using every part of its body and continually giving thanks. What was shared in the displays was technically true. Bison eat a certain type of food, behave in ways that have been studied, and the roundup is quite a sight to see and hear. But it left out most of the story.
In reflection, I’m not sure why I was surprised with what was on display1— with what was emphasized (the mostly settler white folk, governor endorsed, roundup) and what was downplayed (western “expansion”? Give me a break). Colonization is ongoing, and I think the fact that settlers control one of the world’s largest publicly owned herds–controlling them on Lakota land, in the shadow of a sacred mountain that was defaced – is a blatant example of this.
I’ve never liked my home state’s motto of “great faces, great places” over an image of Mount Rushmore. The mountain was originally known as Tunkasila Sakpe Paha in Lakota—Six Grandfathers Mountain. Roosevelt once said, “I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every 10 are.” Abe Lincoln ordered the execution of 38 Dakota men, the largest mass execution in US history. Washington and Jefferson both owned enslaved people during their lifetimes. What do the six grandfathers think of the faces that are celebrated as great? We need to return that land to the people who cherish that land, not celebrate the ideals that have destroyed the lives of so many groups of people.
(Has America afforded many freedoms to many who may not otherwise have had access? Yes, of course. But this is not that post, and “freedom” has costs. For more on this complicated subject, consider reading Caste by Isabel Wilkerson.)
Many people really love visiting Mount Rushmore, the feeling of freedom it represents (or something?), but I just can’t go there. (Not to mention the guy who carved the thing had ties to the KKK.) All I see is a sacred mountain that’s been destroyed by a representation of a system that was only possible because those same men enslaved people, stole, broke treaties, and dehumanized on the regular to gain power.
There will be no buffalo roundups in my future, (this year’s roundup happens this coming weekend) at least not until they are happening on land that’s been returned to its original stewards, and led by them, too.
#landback
For more: https://landback.org/
Especially in a state where schools are banning important, truth-telling books – I learned some of my most important lessons in high school BECAUSE we read books that made me, a white person, feel uncomfortable. Thanks, Mr. Walder.
Miigwech, Heidi.