Summary: Interview with Deborah White Plume, co-founder of the Intertribal Coalition to defend Bear Butte. Deb talks about the encampment and Summit of Nations starting July 4th and the building of a collective organized resistance to protect all indigenous sacred places and the indigenous human right to practice our traditional spirituality.

Audio: Interview in English (49 min 22 sec) translation into Spanish (link at the end of the article, 11 min 48 sec) at:

 http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2006/06/10303.php



Deborah White Plume, co-founder of the Intertribal Coalition to defend Bear Butte, talks to TWB’s Wanbli Watakpe from the banks of the Wounded Knee Creek. She describes the plans for a summer encampment and gathering of Nations starting July 4th, 2006. There is over 30 Nations that have a spiritual relation with Bear Butte, among them, the Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Northern and Southern Cheyenne Nations, Northern and Southern Arapaho, the Ponca Nation, Osage, and Kiowa. An allied group called the Bear Butte International Alliance has also been formed by tribal people living around the Sturgis area in Meade County, they act as a watchdog organization that keeps track of building permits in Meade County. The Intertribal Coalition has also obtained support from a lot of the IRA (Indian Reorganization Act) tribal governments like the Oglala Sioux Tribe, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Northern Cheyenne tribe, and the Black Hills Sioux Nations Treaty Council (a Treaty Council comprised of all of the Sioux Tribes) which endorses the Intertribal Coalition and gathering of Nations and will host a summit of nations, all of the Sioux tribes, Arapaho and Cheyenne are involved. The South Dakota Peace and Justice, the Christian Peacemakers team, and the organized churches of South Dakota also support the protection of Bear Butte and the summer encampment.



The developments that will desecrate Bear Butte at the moment are two. North of Bear Butte, businessman Jay Allen will develop 600 acres to build what he calls the Sturgis County line campground, which includes 155,000 sq ft asphalt parking lot, and a 20,000 sq ft bar w/ amphitheater that will seat 30,000 +. He paid 500,000 dollars for the liquor license, which was approved by the Meade Co commission without discussion in spite of a large rally against it where many indigenous Nations spoke in opposition. A few miles south of Bear Butte the Glencoe campground is being enlarged to fit 40,000 people. Tribes are appealing but it is a difficult battle because South Dakota has no zoning laws. Recently the Cheyenne Nation purchased about 120 acres of land near Bear Butte and hung their flag, in response the developers hung very large US flags from their equipment, but they haven’t been able to do much work because of the bad weather Mother Earth brings on them.



Deb explains, “We are the Ocete Sakowin, The 7 Council Fires, during the war with the US, with the 7th cavalry we fought them to a stand still and closed the Bozeman trail. This brought the1851 Fort Laramie Treaty and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty where the boundaries for our territory include 5 states and the Black Hills of South Dakota that have several sacred places. Bear Butte has been sacred for thousands of years to us and other tribes. We use these sacred places to live our way, for medicine, teaching, spiritual healing and praying. They’re our school, our church, our hospital, those places are protected in American society, we want the same respect. This is why we are having this summer encampment to protect the integrity of our sacred places and create an organized resistance to the desecration, going on all over the US: the snowball activity in the San Francisco Peaks in the Southwest, the petroglyph issue around Albuquerque, and many others. We want to form an intertribal collective to protect our sacred places. We are in contact with the Six Nations people defending their land, we are all fighting to defend our land, fighting separate battles that is why we want to bring all Nations together to coordinate a collective organized resistance.”



“Our way of life is strongly matriarchal. Men hold the leadership positions but it is the women that guide them, we are doing the administrative/paper work and are meeting to talk about the different direct actions we can take because we know we are not gonna win this in the courts, city hall, or state capitol. There is a lot of money involved in the sale of alcohol and these developments. We are in touch with some women’s biker groups that are working with us to defend Bear Butte and will not ride to Sturgis, this will have an impact on the bars out there. The Treaty Council and warriors’ societies, and all segments of our population are participating.



Lakota Nation infrastructure is traditionally built on the Tiospaye (relatives living together/extended family). Each Tiospaye has their Itancan and Nacas (leader and advisors), healers, matriarchs, men’s and women’s societies. Our Tiospaye helped found our coalition and pulled all the Tiospaye leaders together to make a collective stand with the leaders of the Treaty Council comprising the nine Sioux bands and the other nations with a unanimous participation to form the Summit of Indigenous Nations.



We are organizing around the defense of human rights, (in part through the UN in NY and Geneva) our human right to pray, and this includes indigenous people around the world. For education and outreach, we are making (through the Lakota Media Project) two documentaries one on the indigenous peoples’ human right to pray and one on Bear Butte. We invite all our allies from the South to be at our summit to create this collective resistance. We are in touch with indigenous people from the South and we hope to enter into a treaty of peace and friendship with them during our Summit of Nations. Owe Aku (Bring Back the Way) will work to register these treaties at the UN. Our traditional way of life pre-dates Columbus. We were able to live and thrive on our way of life. The UN is set up for the colonizers of the world and serves to protect their interests, it does not accommodate our traditional structure, but we are slowly changing it, and can still use it to link up with other indigenous peoples. In our Summit of Nations we will talk about the kinds of direct action we will be taken, what will this organized resistance look like, what it will be, its goals, and its methods. If we don’t do this we will just continue as small isolated pockets of resistance and will not be effective.



We have talked about the possible military response from the US to our organizing our Summit. During the Sturgis bike rally they have 10 million people come to this region. The crime rate goes up. There aren’t enough port-a-potties and they literally have urine running in the ditches. They rather have that than Indians praying at Bear Butte. Our elders tell us that our strongest weapon is the love for your way of life and our prayers. When we have our Summit of Nations the Oglala Lakota will be lead by the pipe of Chief Red Cloud that his family has had since the Wounded Knee massacre, the people are coming with their spiritual power. We pray for guidance and direction. This is our last defense. If they wipe out our sacred places, they wipe out our way of life. We will not be Lakota anymore. I talked to our youth in gangs and asked them to put down their gang colors and be Lakota for one day and they did, they marched with us for Bear Butte and put that gang identity aside. We were real comforted by that gesture, that our young people could put that away and stand up as Lakotas because without these places we lose our identity. The churches were sent in to christianize our ancestors away from their identity so it is good that they now organize in support of our traditional ways.



We’re inviting people of all colors and walks of life. Some environmental groups and religious groups will form a buffer zone around us as allies, and they are respectful of our ceremonies that are for indigenous people only. We are expecting many people and we need resources to accommodate them. The tribes are donating whatever they can, one tribe is giving us 10 buffalo, another one 20 elk. Please bring everything you will need and something to share. If you are able to make a donation you can do it through our websites, where you can also find directions to the campgrounds and contact information.

 http://www.bringbacktheway.com

 http://www.defendbearbutte.org
 http://www.matopaha.org


en espagnol:  http://clajadep.lahaine.org/articulo.php?p=7072&more=1&c=1



Defending Bear Butte

I wish it were possible for us Indian people to tell the world how much sacred places mean to us. To explain that no man-made cathedral or mansion can inspire within us the feeling of sacredness inspired by those places generations of our grandparents worshipped. At no place is the culture gulf that separates the European and the Indigenous people greater than in our native regard for this lands' sacred places and the European-Christian inability to understand that certain places are sacred and should be protected from human interference. What we gaze upon with reverence they look at with greedy calculation and lust.


 http://www.defendbearbutte.org
 http://www.manataka.org/page278.html
 http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/north_america/bear_butte.html