Protecting Native American Sacred Sites · Global Voices
Styliani Giannitsi

An original post published on January 29, 2014, on the US Department of Agriculture blog was republished in several websites about Native Americans. It refers to analysis and protection of historical findings at holy grounds of the Lacota tribe and the efforts of Department of Agriculture to cooperate with local leaders and learn from them, in order these very important findings to be listed and preserved effectively.
Our curiosity was palpable in our expressions, we visitors to this South Dakota field, as we pondered the patterns produced by the tops of rocks pressed into grass and soil, patterns tantalizingly organized and purposeful: shapes of things that have been. What stories were held in this small corner of the Black Hills National Forest?
Forest Service staff were guided and educated by Arvol Looking Horse and Tim Mentz, among others:
Many years ago, when he was only 12, Looking Horse had been given the enormous responsibility of being the 19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe. He is a spiritual leader for the Lakota Dakota Na-kota Oyate, the great Sioux Nation. Mentz is a cultural resource expert with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He was their first Tribal historic preservation officer and continues to be an amazing source of information about cultural sites for his Tribe.