Native American tribes from around the region have asked that the national monument -- a sacred place for them -- be given a more appropriate name. "Bear Lodge" would more honor their beliefs. Get on with it.
By Rodger McDaniel
Wyoming historian Phil Roberts discovered a single memorial to a Confederate hero in the Cowboy State, a grave marker noting the final resting place of John C. Hunton at Cheyenne’s Lakeview Cemetery.
After serving in Virginia’s 7th Infantry at the Battle of Gettysburg, Hunton
Hunton’s tombstone likely won’t generate a debate over removing Confederate war memorials in Wyoming. But there are “memorials” to the genocide and cultural destruction wrought by the U.S. government during and after the Indian Wars in the American West. One example is Devils Tower, the name the victors of that war attached to this sacred Native American site. There should be a discussion about giving back the names the Native Americans gave to this and other sites.
Long before white people invaded the land, the Black Hills was home to the Crow and Kiowa peoples among First World Nations. They were the first to name the extraordinary rock formation in northeast Wyoming.
According to Mary Alice Gunderson’s book “Devils Tower: Stories in Stone,” the people of the Crow nation called it “Dabicha Asow,” meaning “Bear’s Lair.” Through interviews and Native American legends collected by Dick Stone of Gillette, Gunderson recounts tribal beliefs about this rock.
Kills-Coming-to-the-Birds first saw the rock in 1833. Ninety-nine years later, she said it was placed there “by the Great Spirit for a special reason.” The rock had religious significance to native peoples. Gunderson’s book and Stone’s collection include Native American legends about what the conquering white people took it upon themselves to call Devils Tower.
One tells of seven Crow girls and their brother playing. Suddenly the boy transformed into a bear. The bear chased the girls, who found a tree stump. It invited them to climb aboard. The stump reached into the sky as the bear climbed after them, leaving claw marks yet visible on the sides of the impressive rock. The Great Spirit kept the girls beyond the reach of the bear: “The seven sisters were born into the sky, and they became the stars of the Big Dipper.”
To the victors go the spoils. The white settlers tried to erase the stories. According to Native American writer Leslie Silko’s book “Ceremony,” the first novel published by a female native writer, this is the kind of Indian legend the white conquerors deemed “nonsense.” After white people stole the land and the stories, they deprived sacred sites of names by which the Indians knew them.
A National Park Service website admits Devils Tower was referred to as “Bear’s Lair” and “Bear’s Lodge” throughout much of the 1800s. “Devils Tower” was most likely the result of a bad translation. Lt. Col. Richard Dodge’s 1875 journal noted, “The Indians call this shaft ‘The Bad God’s Tower.’” The Park Service acknowledges that “Bear Lodge” may have been mistakenly interpreted as “Bad Gods.” Congress adopted a paraphrased bad translation when it created Devils Tower National Monument in 1906.
In 2014, those who first owned the naming rights asked that the name Devils Tower National Monument be changed. The Park Service acknowledged, “In each instance, the request is to change ‘Devils Tower’ to ‘Bear Lodge.’ More than 20 tribes with close association to the Tower hold it sacred, and find the application of the name ‘Devils’ to be offensive.”
The name change stalled when Wyoming’s congressional delegation objected. As a Lakota survivor of Custer’s Last Stand said, “Washington was where all the problems began.”
Insisting on retaining the name given this rock by the conquerors furthers the regrettable strategy of destroying native peoples’ culture. Despite concerns of tourism interests that changing the name would be bad for business, righting a wrong might prove to be as good for business as it would be for the heart.
A name change honoring those who first saw it and honored it, who first came to understand it as sacred and from whom the land was stolen would become a part of the legend, making “Bear Lodge” a more popular tourist destination.
Rodger McDaniel is the pastor at Highlands Presbyterian Church in Cheyenne. He lives in Laramie.
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