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A legend of Devil's Tower
A Brule Sioux Legend
Out of the plains of Wyoming rises Devil's Tower. It is really a rock, visible for hundreds of miles around, an immense cone of basalt which seems to touch the clouds. It sticks out of the flat prairie as if someone had pushed it up from underground.
Of course, Devil's Tower is a white man's name. We have no devil in our beliefs and got along well all these many centuries without him. You people invented the devil and, as far as I'm concerned, you can keep him. But everybody these days knows that towering rock by this name, so Devil's Tower it is.
No use telling you its Indian name. Most tribes call it bear rock. There is a reason for that - if you see it, you will notice on its sheer sides many, many streaks and gashes running straight up and down, like scratches made by giant claws.
Well, long, long ago, two young Indian boys found themselves lost in the prairie. You know how it is. They had played shinny ball and whacked it a few hundred yards out of the village. And then they had shot their toy bows still farther out into the sagebrush. And then they had heard a small animal make a noise and had gone to investigate.
They had come to a stream with many colorful pebbles and followed that for a while. They had come to a hill and wanted to see what was on the other side. On the other side they saw a herd of antelope and, of course, had to track them for a while.
When they got hungry and thought it was time to go home, the two boys found that they didn't know where they were. They started off in the direction where they thought their village was, but only got farther and farther away from it. At last they curled up beneath a tree and went to sleep.
They got up the next morning and walked some more, still headed the wrong way. They ate some wild berries and dug up wild turnips, found some choke-cherries, and drank water from streams. For three days they walked toward the west. They were footsore, but they survived.
Oh, how they wished that their parents, or aunts or uncles, or elder brothers and sisters would find them. But nobody did.
On the fourth day the boys suddenly had a feeling that they were being followed. They looked around and in the distance saw Mato, the bear. This was no ordinary bear, but a giant grizzly so huge that the two boys would only make a small mouthful for him, but he had smelled the boys and wanted that mouthful. He kept coming close, and the earth trembled as he gathered speed.
The boys started running, looking for a place to hide, but there was no such place and the grizzly was much, much faster than they.
They stumbled, and the bear was almost upon them. They could see his red, wide-open jaws full of enormous, wicked teeth. They could smell his hot, evil breath. The boys were old enough to have learned to pray, and they called upon Wakan Tanka, the Creator: "Tunkashila, Grandfather, have pity, save us."
All at once the earth shook and began to rise. The boys rose with it. Out of the earth came a cone of rock going up, up until it was more than a thousand feet high. And the boys were on top of it. Mato the bear was disappointed to see his meal disappearing into the clouds.
Have I said he was a giant bear? This grizzly was so huge that he could almost reach to the top of the rock, trying to get up, trying to get those boys. As he did so, he made big scratches in the sides of the towering rock. But the stone was too slippery; Mato could not get up. He tried every spot, every side. He scratched up the rock all around, but it was no use. The boys watched him wearing himself out, getting tired, giving up. They finally saw him going away, a huge, growling, grunting mountain of fur disappearing over the horizon.
The boys were saved. Or were they? How were they to get down? They were humans, not birds who could fly.
Some ten years ago, mountain climbers tried to conquer Devil's Tower. They had ropes, and iron hooks called pitons to nail themselves to the rockface, and they managed to get up. But they couldn't get down. They were marooned on that giant basalt cone, and they had to be taken off in a helicopter. In the long-ago days the Indians had no helicopters.
So how did the two boys get down? The legend does not tell us, but we can be sure that the Great Spirit didn't save those boys only to let them perish of hunger and thirst on the top of the rock.
Well, Wanblee, the eagle, has always been a friend to our people. So it must have been the eagle that let the boys grab hold of him and carried them safely back to their village.
Or do you know another way?
- Told by Lame Deer in Winner, Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation, South Dakota, 1969.
American Indians use the Tower as a place of
worship. Most of the ceremonies that take place are
small groups or individuals, who have gathered for
prayer, pipe ceremonies, the tying of prayer cloths, or
vision quests. Group rituals also continue here,
including sweat lodge and sun dance ceremonies.
Devils Tower National Monument issues special use
permits for these observances. The ceremonies that
take place here require quiet and solitude
American Indians use the Tower as a place of
worship. Most of the ceremonies that take place are
small groups or individuals, who have gathered for
prayer, pipe ceremonies, the tying of prayer cloths, or
vision quests. Group rituals also continue here,
including sweat lodge and sun dance ceremonies.
Devils Tower National Monument issues special use
permits for these observances. The ceremonies that
take place here require quiet and solitude
Devils Tower National Monument, a geologic wonder steeped in Indian legend, is a modern day national park, climbers' challenge, and is remembered as the movie location for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." The Tower is a solitary stump-shaped granite formation that looms 1,267 above the Belle Fourche River valley, like a skyscraper in the country. The 865-foot sheer rock faces of the Tower are the preiminent challenge in the Black Hills for mountain climbers.
Some interesting history For more info and a pleasure to visit
Bear Lodge Butte, known more commonly as Devil's Tower, is the core of an extinct ancient volcano, and is sacred to the many indigenous tribes of the surrounding region, who have revered it as a sacred site for millennia. The butte stands 867 feet (264 meters) tall, and rises 1,267 feet (386 meters) atop a stone outcrop above the adjacent Belle Fourche River. The butte became a National Monument in 1906, owing to its significance as a natural geologic formation, but unfortunately, this did not include the similar, though less eroded, Missouri Buttes to the northwest.
The butte is a dramatic rock formation that rises out of the surrounding landscape and is visible from miles away. Surrounded by a bluff made of sedimentary rock, the butte towers over the grassy lowlands along the Belle Fourche River, today home to wildlife, including a colony of prairie dogs. The butte stands out among the surrounding lowlands, being visible from roadways miles away, enticing tourists to stop at pull-outs to take photos and marvel at the majesty of the butte.
The butte is known to the local indigenous tribes as the "Bear's House" or "Bear Lodge," but was given the name "Devil's Tower" by a European-American visitor to the area, who misinterpreted the indigenous names of the butte. There have been ongoing efforts since the early 21st Century to change the name back to "Bear Lodge," but these have been opposed by government officials due to fears of decreased tourism.
Devils Tower was the first declared United States National Monument, established on September 24, 1906, by President Theodore Roosevelt.
Devils tower of Wyoming.
They call them the Black Hills of South Dakota, but it’s something of a secret that the Black Hills extend into Wyoming, too. Although 90 percent of the Black Hills are in South Dakota, the timbered mountains of the Black Hills National Forest do continue 10 to 40 miles beyond the South Dakota border, west into Wyoming.
The brightly colored pieces of cloth that you find
hanging in some of the trees along the Tower Trail
and elsewhere in the Monument are referred to as
prayer cloths, prayer bundles, prayer ribbons, prayer
ties, and prayer flags. They are physical, symbolic
representations of prayers and are here by American
Indian people as part of their religious ceremonies.
Please do not touch, take, or disturb these prayer
cloths in any way. It is considered culturally
insensitive to photograph these items and we request
that you do not do so.