The City of Sturgis, South Dakota, with support from a group of private investors, plans to build a sports-complex and shooting range only four miles north of Bear Butte, a landmark sacred to many Native American tribes. Over $250,000 of Housing and Urban Development money has already been spent on the project. Yet Defenders of the Black Hills, a volunteer organization working to raise awareness of these plans, says that no tribes have been consulted about the project. Four tribes and the Defenders of the Black Hills have filed a lawsuit against the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, as well as four other organizations, including the City of Sturgis and the Sturgis Industrial Expansion Corporation, concerning the construction of the shooting range.
Bear Butte is located in western South Dakota in the Black Hills. It has been visited as a place of spiritual renewal for centuries by the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, Hidatsa, Crow, and Tsistsistas people, and others from as far away as Iowa and Oklahoma. The Lakota call it Mato Paha, or “Bear Mountain”, and thousands of American Indians visit this ceremonial area each summer. Many tribes see the mountain as a place where the creator chose to communicate with them through visions and prayers. Visitors to the national park at Bear Butte often see colorful prayer cloths and offerings of tobacco hanging from trees on the mountain.
The Native American community is concerned that the shooting range will diminish and degrade the land, and its spiritual qualities. It is estimated that 10,000 rounds will be fired every day from rifles and handguns, affecting the quiet and serenity of the members of 60 different tribes that come to pray at Bear Butte, as well as non-tribal people who enjoy the park. Every seven seconds for 12 hours a day, gunshot sounds equivalent to a rubber band hitting a deck of cards would be heard on the mountain if the shooting range is built.
Defenders of the Black Hills are concerned that the 10,000 rounds a day will also increase air pollution in the area. Increased traffic to the shooting range, clubhouse, motel and restaurant that will be built will affect the birds and wildlife in the area, especially the eagle, which is important in Native American spirituality and ceremonies. The ‘negative energy’ associated with guns is also a concern for many Native people. The sound of distant gunfire may also affect patients at the nearby Fort Meade Veterans Administration Hospital.
Native advocates say that Bear Butte is one of the most sacred places on Turtle Island, and condemn the fact that no Native American spiritual or tribal leaders were contacted about the plans to build the shooting range. Defenders of the Black Hills points out that the Great Sioux Nation still legally owns the land, according to the Peace Treaties of 1851 and 1868 made between the Nation and the United States, and upheld by the Constitution. Because hundreds of thousands of dollars of federal money have already been spent on the project, it seems that an injunction stopping the project could be placed based on several federal laws that have been broken. These laws would include: the National Environmental Policy Act, Native American Graves and Repatriation Act, National Historic Preservation Act, and possibly the Archeological Resources Protection Act, quite apart from the ongoing violation of the Constitution.
For more information on the petition against the construction of the shooting range near Bear Butte, please go to: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/1851Site/.
