Today in class, we watched part of a documentary that dealt with the national monument, Devil’s Tower that is in Crook County, Wyoming. The conflict surrounding the mountain is that Native Americans feel that the rock is too sacred for others to climb it year-round using it for recreational purposes and feel that it shouldn’t be climbed for the month of June because that is the month of numerous religious ceremonies. While the Indians have made this proposal countless times, self-proclaimed “nature lovers” and rock climbers have such a problem with this. They can’t comprehend the fact that Native American religion involves nature and these people constantly try to invalidate this fact. One man in the documentary called their religion “recreation” due to the fact that they practice it outside and not in a church, which he called “tradition”.
I feel that the rock climbers and other people trying to disprove the Indians point are only doing this in order to have a rebuttal because if you listen to their arguments, they never actually have any depth or make actual sense. It made me laugh when the old white people from Wyoming were trying to prove that they were there before the Indians. One guy said that his family had been living there for “seven generations” and he claimed that the Natives were not there, which is false. The Natives have always been in Wyoming, they were just legally banned from practicing their religion in nature.
Amanda July 16, 2018
I found this film that we watched extremely interesting as well. I was infuriated at certain things the white people were commenting about the Indians. Things like they’re coming here and steeling our land, we were here before the Indians, it is all a land grab, they’re leaving their dirty laundry outside. All of these statements that those people made while in the dinner made me sick to my stomach. It surprises me how close minded people can be. I think those people need to be a little more educated about where they live and the history that has happened in that location and in the country in general. I truly feel bad for those people.
zpete55 July 17, 2018
I like what you are saying it reminds me of Seans responses to the movie he talked about being more open minded about how people practice their religion and so much more. When I read what you said about the one man that said “called their religion “recreation” due to the fact that they practice it outside and not in a church, which he called “tradition”.” When I read this it made me think there are actually lots of different religions that don’t practice inside a church so why is it any different that Native Americans don’t practice in a church. If people were more open minded and could accept that people are different i think the world would be a much better place.