The past year we have been working on a Historic Resource Study for Pipestone National Monument. This site in southwest Minnesota features an ancient quarry from which Native Americans obtained a soft reddish mudstone used to carve pipe bowls. The substance was traded far and wide and the place was (and is) sacred and surrounded in myth. The thin layer of pipestone is geologically associated with a thicker layer of Sioux quartzite, which rises out of the prairie in a dramatic escarpment a short distance from the quarry pits. When you see the quartzite cliffs, especially at sunset when they turn blood red, it is easy to appreciate the place's mythic quality. About a hundred people continue to work the pits with hand tools a few weeks of the year, and the trees about the place are hung with their prayer flags. Native Americans also gather there in August for a traditional sun dance ceremony.
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| Quartzite cliffs at Pipestone N.M. |
Our project is to write a history of Native American occupation and use of the site from prehistory to the present day. We have been there twice so far, once in winter and once in late spring. A highlight of our second visit was to sit in on discussions that the National Park Service was having with tribal elders and traditional leaders of more than a dozen culturally affiliated tribes. It was fascinating to hear the participants speak passionately about the sacred pipestone and the sacred power of that place. Although in general the Native American tribes are supportive of Park Service ownership and management of the site, many voiced strong objections to the continued sale of pipestone trinkets in the visitor center, which they perceive as a sacrilege sucking the very life out of their people.
