About 2,000 acres of quality real estate land in the Black Hills of South Dakota is for sale. And this news has gravely distressed a Native American tribe who believe the land to be sacred. It is near famed Mount Rushmore and Deadwood.
Pe’Sla, as the land is known, is the birth place of the Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, and other Tribal Nations that consider the Black Hills holy. Every year they perform certain ceremonies at Pe’Sla to sustain their way of life.
Though the land is privately owned by Leonard and Margaret Reynolds, these tribes have always had access to the land.
“Once sold, it is highly likely that Pe’ Sla will be opened up for development, with the State of South Dakota building a road directly through it,” the group said in a statement.
The Pennington County plans to pave the existing road that passes through Reynolds Prairie and also commercially develop the adjoining land.
Thus, in a bid to save their ceremonial land and prevent authorities from building a road through this sacred site, the Sioux Tribe in association with the Last Real Indians is fighting for the purchase of the Pe’Sla by raising funds. They plan to buy as much land as possible at the August 25 auction. Just three days left and they have raised $131,600 to buy the sacred land. However, the land may fetch anywhere between $6 million and $10 million.
In 1868, the Black Hills was given to the tribal leaders. However, within 11 years Congress passed a law and seized the land as gold was discovered in South Dakota. About 22 years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to compensate for the loss by awarding more than $100 million to the Sioux tribes for the Black Hills. But the tribes have steadfastly refused to accept the money, holding that the holy land has never been for sale.
"To lose this would be a big deal," Oglala Lakota medicine man Rick Two Dogs told USA Today. "We follow a spiritual calendar; we still do to this day. People still gather at the sacred sites to make offerings, to make prayers. It's very important to us."
"A lot of our people who practice our way of life go there to pray and there are a lot of us that go up there," Rodney Bordeaux, president of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, which is leading the effort told the Associated Press. "Basically, it's an opportunity for the tribes to become involved and save Pe' Sla from development, commercial development, up there and try to save it and keep it in its current state, so people can always go up there to pray."
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