In recent weeks, protests against the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline across North Dakota have escalated. Native American elders, families and children have set up tipis and tents on a campsite near the pipelineâ??s path in the hope of stopping the pipelineâ??s construction.
Dave Archambault Jr., the leader of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe that is leading the efforts to stop the pipeline, summed up what is at the heart of the issue. In a brief two-minute statement before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, he said, â??Oil companies are causing deliberate destruction of our sacred places.â?
As a Native American scholar of environmental history and religious studies, I am often asked what Native American leaders mean when they say that certain landscapes are â??sacred placesâ? or â??sacred sites.â?
What makes a mountain, hill or prairie a â??sacredâ? place?
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